Standardisation and Language Change in France, Belgium and Switzerland

Abstract

In the following chapter we give an account of the social changes that have occurred in western European countries from the 1960s, an epoch generally accepted as a key turning-point. The changes, whether substantive like the rise in the numbers of people entering post-compulsory education, the decline in those working in industry and agriculture; or attitudinal like the decline of deference and the corresponding increase of informality, describable as the zeitgeist, appear to have affected western countries in analogous ways in many areas of social practice. It is however undeniable that these changes have occurred in societies possessing very different linguistic traditions.