Canadian Bilingualism Essay

Multiculturalism" is the existence of a culturally diversified society where people from different backgrounds and races come and live together. However an insight of this integrated society reveals that everyone seems to have a different opinion on the issue of how this diverse community should operate. One of the countries of North America called "the mosaic" is Canada. It has earned this distinct name because of the mix of races, cultures and ethnicities residing in it. Canada's geographical features and its harsh climate became a disadvantage to its population growth many years ago. Compared to its size, the population of Canada was not sufficient a few decades ago. However, when immigrants wandered about searching for a better

Movements for bilingual education rose in 1974 with the Equal Education Opportunity Act and Bingual Education Act, which ordered federally funded schools to meet special educational needs for students not proficient in English. Unfortunately, dropout rates and lack of English-language proficiency alarmed the states that these bilingual programs were not efficent. Because of this, arguments between English-only advocates and supporters of bilingual educations emerged. Articles such as the New York Times have proclaimed the failures of bilingual education. One cause could be the resistance of immigrants from English language acquisition, who hold tight onto their first language and culture. Despite this, studies show that generations

I am the youngest of five sisters and two brothers. My family is Mexican- American, both of my older brothers were born in Mexico and were brought by my parents at a very young age. My parents were also born in Mexico and like every immigrant migrated from their home countries to pursue what is called the American dream. I very much enjoy being from Mexican roots, because my traditions, foods, dances, culture and kindness makes me who I am today. I have three nieces and one nephew from the ages six on down. We are all Mexican American ancestry.

Canada’s identity comes in many shapes and forms. Multiculturalism has been adopted and is at the forefront of Canadian identity. Following the Second World War, Canada’s multiculturalism policies became more acceptable and even successful in, not only accepting, but inviting multiple ethnic cultures in. In contrast to other countries, multiculturalism adaptation works for the Canadian culture. Canadian policies on multiculturalism have shifted over the past few decades; policies are now implemented for integration, not discrimination.

“Section 27 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires that the Charter “be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.” The Official Languages Act has significantly made an effective contribution on Canada’s immigration success. It has allowed Pierre Elliott Trudeau to further expand his ideas on allowing individuals of all ethnicities and races to live their lives freely. English and French languages can be used in all government institutions of Canada, communicating freely within the public area and in the home. Both the English and French languages can be used in debates, courts, schools and any public institution. The importance of the Official Languages Act is to guarantee equality rights such as privileges and status between the French and English Canadians. Nevertheless, Pierre Elliot Trudeau was productive in ensuring the equal opportunities and rights of citizens. In modern day society, Pierre Trudeau’s accomplishments in enacting human rights has significantly improved. Overtime, it has diversified the cultures in schools and other public institutions. More individuals are becoming acceptant of race, ethnicity, homosexuality and religious beliefs. Due to the result of the diversity of cultures in schools, it has brought humans closer to one another and accepting of ones’

Countries are no exception, their course of history and culture created a unique identity for them selves. Their cultures involves; language, values, belief, religions, and norms that identify who we are. This has cause division and struggles between groups or people, which influence our daily lives. Nevertheless, at the same time makes every person or country a unique culture

A few years ago in Smalltown, CA a burning cross was placed in the lawn of a visible minority family. Although the media seemed shocked at this explicit racial attack and portrayed the attackers as a group of abnormal, twisted deviants, I was not surprised. As an Asian student who is writing her Sociology honours thesis on visible minorities in Canada, I know on a personal and academic level that racism in Canada does exist. Although explicit racial incidents are not a common occurrence, they do happen. Here at school, a visible minority student left the school when a car sped past her, while the young men inside shouted racial slurs. Two weeks ago The school paper published an article about a group of

What forms a nation is something that is quantified differently depending on the argument, some having do with natural land boundaries, some having to do with an ethnic background, some with a religious background and others still having do with blood. A nation is a group of people who collectively have something that unites them. For Pearson, a nation is an organized whole in a constant struggle with others through efforts to make the nation intelligent and homogeneous. This means that a nation can only have one type of member forming its populations, the highly intelligent superior race fulfilling every role in society. A nation has to struggle within as a nation against all other nations to prove to themselves that they were the best and

In addition to reflecting the linguistic duality in Canada, bilingualism must be implemented to provide equal treatment of Anglophones and Francophones. As previously mentioned, section 16 of the second part of the Official Languages Act exempts the Supreme Court from being required to understand both official languages. Moreover, the Supreme Court Act (SCA), does not include provisions regarding the official languages of Canada. Therefore, the Supreme Court Act upholds the exemption of the Supreme Court from understanding the proceedings without the aid of an interpreter. As a result, the "Rules of the Supreme Court of Canada" stipulate that parties may choose to use either official language and "simultaneous interpretation services must be

I believe that bilingualism is central to Canada’s identity, as well as other languages. Pierre Elliott Trudeau has said that, “Bilingualism unites people; dualism divides them. Bilingualism means you can speak to the other; duality means you live in one language and the rest of Canada will live in another language”.

The first immigrants to the territory now constituting Canada were from Western Europe. The first great influx began early in the 19th century when large numbers of Europeans left their homelands to escape the economic distress resulting from the transformation of industry by the factory system and the concurrent shift from small-scale to large-scale farming. At the same time, wars, political oppression, and religious persecution caused a great many Europeans to seek freedom and security in Canada.

What is Canada? What is a Canadian? Canada, to employ Voltaire's analogy, is nothing but “a few acres of snow.”. Of course, the philosopher spoke of New France, when he made that analogy. More recently, a former Prime Minister, Joe Clark, said that the country was nothing but a “community of communities”. Both these images have helped us, in one way or another, try to interpret what could define this country. On the other hand, a Canadian could be a beer, a hockey-playing beaver or even a canoe floating in a summer day's sunset. A Canadian could also be a “sovereigntyphobe”, refusing to see the liquefaction, albeit political, of the second largest country in the world.

As Canada is a multicultural nation, many of its residents speak more than one language. There is much research that addresses bilingualism. Yet, not many consider the relationship between bilinguals and emotions. The purpose of this study is to observe the correlation between Korean-English bilinguals and their emotional attachment in the first (L1) and second language (L2). As the literature states that the two main variables which affect one’s emotion and their choice of language are age of second language acquisition and socio-cultural norms. A correlation study was carried out towards 119 Korean-English bilinguals aged from 18 to 29 years old who reside in Canada. The data were collected through self-report online questionnaire with convenience

Here in Quebec language is an extremely interesting and at times a controversial topic depending on who you speak with. The way that people who live in Quebec communicate is unique to our part of the world since we are a bilingual province. I believe that Quebecois people are a perfect example of the definition of language. I realised that while performing this field work I do not know many people who have gone to French schools because in my town the main language spoken for the most part is English. However, my cousin did go to a French school and I found her to be a particularly intriguing participant because she has been in both the English and the French system throughout her academic career. Instead of asking my participant about the specifics of language I asked her about her life

A nation is a group of people who share common history, culture, language and ethnic origin often possessing or seeking its own government. National identity refers to the distinguish features of group and to the individual’ sense of belonging to it. In some case even a little difference in pronunciation is enough to categorize a person as a member of different nation but in some cases two people may be separated by language, culture, geographical location etc categorized in