Est-il préférable d’apprendre les langues minoritaires à l’âge adulte ?L’exemple du breton

Abstract

Educational policy is one of the preferred tools for policies to revitalize minority languages. It is considered firstly by the development of learning for children. Adult training is often put in the background, whether in terms of demands by organized civil society or in terms of educational policies. Going against the grain, the Welsh linguist Jon es asserted that “in the restoration of the language, the determining factor is and must be the adult-learning movement” (1993). We propose to question this assertion by carrying out a comparative study between education for children and that for adults in Brittany. After having presented Jone’s arguments, we will consider them in the sociolinguistic situation of the breton language. What are the differences between adult and adolescent learning ? What desire drives each age group ? How do adults and teenagers view their language socialization once learning is complete ?

Keywords

• Breton language
• professional training
• school learning
• biographical construction