A Storm in a Teacup? The Académie française, Language Policy and Normativity

Abstract

When the Académie française’s position on spelling was misconstrued in early 2016, a public debate arose about spelling and language. This paper explains the Académie’s views on spelling, which are in fact descriptive, before detailing the Académie’s other roles, notably the creation of its own normative dictionary and its involvement in the development of French technical vocabulary. This paper thus contrasts the different roles the Académie plays and describes the different attitudes the Académie is thus able to adopt.

Keywords

• spelling
• French language
• terminology
• language policy
• normativity