Transmettre le français à des requérants d’asile ou le patois à des enfants d’Évolène : l’engagement en glottopolitique, entre redistribution et reconnaissance

Abstract

This article deals with interviews conducted with two volunteers, one teaching asylum seekers in French and another teaching children in a francoprovencal dialect. I aim to identify how ideals of recognition and redistribution (Fraser, 1993) articulate ambivalently around glottopolitical commitment in social volunteering. In particular, the aim is to understand what meaning people give to their commitment to language transmission in radically different situations and how this affects their practices in doing so. After explaining what I will describe, in terms of voluntary action, as mainly mutual aid, I will present how each situation refers to the idea of integration in a broad sense. I will then analyze how the social representations of the two volunteers interviewed encapsulate the dominant themes of recognition and redistribution to find a balance around a shared commitment: the transmission of a language.

Keywords

• volunteering
• integration
• francoprovencal
• asylum
• glottopolitics