Sketching the Contexts: Italy and France

Abstract

The main aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of language change and language management in Italy and France in order to situate the competing factors and actors which are responsible for the linguistic construction of the respective public spaces. In the course of the discussion we shall highlight aspects ranging from political-ideological discourses to socio-economic developments and their interconnections. Language policy will be analysed in its broadest possible framework (Spolsky, 2004) to give an indication of the complexity and rootedness of language ideologies, and of how they impact on language practices. We are aware that we merely touch upon a number of fundamental issues and debates revolving around the linguistic histories of the two countries, but the intention is to bring to the fore similarities and differences between the two contexts in order to provide a setting for subsequent chapters.