As Canadian parliamentarians consider updating the Official Languages Act, The Press has been telling us for some time that pitfalls arise repeatedly during this work. We think this is an appropriate time to recall the role of the Canadian government in promoting French in science.
Between 1995 and 2019, the percentage of scholarly articles published in English increased from 64% to over 90% globally. French, meanwhile, fell from just under 10% to 1%.
The trend is the same in Canada. Thus, the percentage of articles in English in the medical and natural sciences is now close to 100%. In the social sciences and humanities, this percentage drops slightly, fluctuating between 95% and 90%. In Quebec, the situation is also worrying: 70% of recent articles in the social sciences were in English, compared to 30% in the arts and humanities. The decline in the social sciences is impressive, as articles in English accounted for less than 50% in 1980.
Several consequences flow from this decline of French and its symbolic capital.
A first is the inequality in access to knowledge for Canadian Francophone communities. The supply of scholarly materials in French for researchers, students, practitioners and members of the public is much less than that in English.
A second is the unequal access to scholarly publication for French-speaking researchers and the penalty associated with publishing in French, exacerbated by the systemic concealment of this literature by Anglo-Canadian authors, whether because of their low literacy in French or their internalization of the postulate of the lesser relevance of this literature.
A third concerns the inferiorization of research objects associated with French and dissemination in French. To see their articles accepted in English-language journals, French-speakers, particularly in the social sciences and humanities, often have to work on objects seen as more “international”, rather than on others concerning the communities in which they evolve.
More generally, the language of publication of articles influences the ranks of universities in international rankings, which are largely based on publications made in English-language international journals.
Eminently open to criticism, these rankings, which nevertheless offer universities an international showcase, crystallize a perception of their relative importance. Thus, a fourth consequence is that of a devaluation of French-speaking universities, since a smaller part of their scholarly production is taken into account in establishing their rank.
Finally, the Canadian scientific community is in a special position compared to other multilingual communities. If the switch to English in the scientific community can be observed in other multilingual countries such as Belgium or Switzerland, English is not one of the official languages there, so that this switch is less likely change the country’s linguistic balance. On the other hand, in Canada, English is not a “neutral” language: its growth in science contributes to a more global dynamic of the decline of French in an Anglonormative national ecosystem. The fifth consequence therefore relates to the fundamental asymmetry of the balance of power between the two official languages of Canada, which is in a way naturalized and depoliticized thanks to an international scientific context serving as an adjunct.
The parliamentarians who are currently considering ways to update the Official Languages Act should aim for the Government of Canada and the federal granting agencies to really assume responsibility, in a country that wants to be officially bilingual, to counter this deleterious dynamic. The federal government can thus work to reduce the linguistic biases currently associated with research in French by giving more importance to the projects presented in grant competitions rather than to the experience of the applicants, by ensuring that applications in French can be assessed in that language, by treating visa applications from French-speaking students fairly, by investing in the translation of scientific content and by promoting the discoverability of scientific content in French.
Above all, the Canadian government must act in concert with the Government of Quebec, as well as with all the public and private players concerned, to counter the decline of a great national and international language: concrete equality between English and French in Canada. The University of Montreal will enthusiastically support initiatives aimed at uniting energies in this direction.