Blog 2

Belgium is a small nation in the European Union that has three official languages: French, Flemish, and German. Most citizens are required to take at least one language course in another language. An interesting phenomenon I have discussed with my aunt Karine, a retired professor and veteran of the Belgian education system, is that many citizens opt to take English as their foreign language. There stark political divides that have strong linguistic and geographic ties. The Walloon (Francophone) are more likely to take English instead of Flemish and the Flemants (Flemish speakers) are also more likely to take English than French. However official documents are always in Flemish, French, or have both listed and only sometimes in English and German. This raises the question, what language should Belgian Libraries have their information in? Should they include all three official languages in their documents, collections, and websites so as not to marginalize a linguistic group or should they have it in English in order to provide a neutral language. What kind of linguistic chaos would it create to have four languages offered?

Access to computers and the internet are problematic for similar reasons. What language should the computers be in? On the subject of usability I witnessed a French speaker, who also knows quite a bit of English, try to access the internet account with great difficulty. The user had memorized the navigation of the website and learned the new internet jargon in French as the site had been offered in either French or Flemish. However, without providing a tutorial or any assistance in navigation the website had changed everything to English. Therefore the user was completely lost on how to access bill based on have to translate the word facteur to bill and to find the bill link on the revamped website. The site wasn’t consistent at all as to which language it utilized, but instead a hodgepodge of English making it near impossible for even me, an English speaker who knows French and is familiar with websites to navigate.

For this paper I have plans to visit two of Mons’ public libraries and request an interview with one of their librarians to see what kind of factors they consider when making linguistic policy decisions. The following is demographic data the UNESCO article Towards Knowledge Societies includes about Belgium:

3-5,000 internet users per 10,000 people (32)

10-30 personal computers per 10,000 people (34)

50-70% of households have a radio (35)

75+% of households with a television (36)

UNESCO. (2005). Towards Knowledge Societies. Available from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001418/141843e.pdf

Blog 1: la froideur de Marie Chapdelaine

Personnellement, je trouve que Maria Chapdelaine écrit par Louis Hémon m’ennui á cause de trop de détails qui cachent l’histoire. Je pense qu’il n’a pas nécessaire d’écrire les différents genres d’arbre et neige. Pendant que les détails donne l’histoire une peinture spécifique, c’est suffit de dire que les arbres et la neige est une important parti de la vie de Canadiens. Je suggère que l’histoire sera bien s’il y avait moins de détails. Pendant que Maria Chapdelaine ne me fais pas beaucoup de plaisir je trouve qu’il y a éléments intéressants sur l’histoire. Par exemple, on peut faire un rapport par les temps et les sentiments de Maria Chapdelaine. Au début d’histoire il fait froid comme « la froideur » de Maria. Sur page 7 Hémon dit que « La neige gisait épaisse sur le chemin aussi, et sur les champs, car le soleil d’avril n’envoyait entre les nuages gris que quelque rayons sans chaleur… » La neige est comme Marie dans le sens ou les membres jeunes remarques de comment forte elle sur page 12 ou « des jeunes gens fit á Marie Chapdelaine l’hommage de son admiration paysanne : ‘une belle grosse fille ! dit-il… ». Le soleil d’avril est comme le cœur de Maire que ne batte pas sans chaleur au début d’histoire. Elle est une « belle fille presque inaccessible » sans l’amour (13). Mais quand son « printemps » arrive i.e. François Paradis elle pense que « le printemps arrivait, peut-être... ou bien encore l’approche d’une autre raison de joie qui venait vers elle sans laisser deviner son nom… » (16). Donc « la neige gisait épaisse » commence de trouver les rayons avec chaleur et «la froideur » de Maria Chapdelaine commence de faire fondre.