本文是历史专业Essay范例，题目是“What It Means To Be Canadian（成为加拿大人意味着什么）”，毫无疑问，作为一个加拿大人对不同的人意味着不同的东西，对许多加拿大人来说，拥有多重身份甚至多重忠诚是很平常的事。可以预见的是，人们并不总是清楚这些多重身份是如何融入加拿大社会的，不同身份的人之间难免会出现断层。接下来的几页将着眼于其中最古老的断层线——至少在欧洲血统的加拿大人中是这样——即英语加拿大人和法语加拿大人之间的断层线。这篇文章引起了笔者的共鸣，因为坦率地说，我们的宪政和政治史上有太多的内容都是试图解决法裔加拿大人的不满和不安全感。对于那些在这条断层线之内或之外的人来说，加拿大的身份是复杂的，因为那些不在这条断层线之内的人——那些来自亚洲或加勒比地区或世界其他地方的人——被巧妙地提醒，通过官方的双语制度，通过关于魁北克是否属于一个独立社会的宪法争论，通过也许他们不像其他一些群体那样是“真实的”或“真正的”加拿大人。此外，对于法裔加拿大人来说，斗争一直是在承认自己是加拿大人，还是承认自己是应该与其他加拿大人区别开来的法裔加拿大人之间进行的。
To no one’s surprise, being a Canadian means different things to different people and it is quite commonplace for many Canadians to have multiple identities and even multiple allegiances. Predictably, it is not always clear how these multiple identities can fit into Canadian society and fault lines inevitably arise between those with different identities. The next several pages will look at the oldest fault-line of them all – at least among Canadians of European extraction – which is the fault line between English-speaking Canadians and French-speaking Canadians. It resonates with this writer because, frankly, so much of our constitutional and political history has been wrapped up with trying to resolve the grievances and insecurities of French Canadians. For those within and without this fault line, Canadian identity is complicated because those who fall outside it – people who have arrived from Asia or the Caribbean or from various other parts of the world – are subtly reminded, through official bilingualism and through the constant constitutional wrangling over whether or not Quebec is a distinct society, that perhaps they are not “true” or “authentic” Canadians in the way some other groups are. Further, for French Canadians, the battle has always been between identifying themselves as Canadians or identifying themselves as French-Canadians who deserve to stand apart from other Canadians.
This paper will look at the French-English divide in Canada by providing a brief historical overview of the tensions that have long existed between the two sides; as should be plain, the divide has been with us since before Confederation and will surely be with us for some time still to come. The paper will then turn to look at the introduction of Bill 101 in 1977 and how that ushered in a new era of strained English-French relations. With that out of the way, the paper will subsequently observe how the fault line in general has complicated how people who associate with this group identity interact within Canadian society? In short, how have French Canadians (the minority group and the group most likely to be inflamed by linguistic considerations) interacted within Canada in light of the powerful divide that separates them and that exacerbates their hostilities towards one another? With special reference to French Canadians, what does it mean to them (or what has it meant to them recently) to be “Canadian” within the context of Canada? Last of all, the essay will explore what the future of the Canadian national identity might well be should tensions in this fault line increase or tensions in other fault lines increase. We can all imagine that simmering tensions will weaken the connective tissue that binds Canadians together and will create the prospect for the fragmentation of Canadian society unless common ground is found. The only saving grace for Canada with regards to this particular English-French divide is that demographic factors may end up resolving it by changing the composition of Quebec and of Canada so dramatically that the country no longer much cares about English-French hostilities.
Historical context of the English-French divide英法分裂的历史背景
The simple reality is that tensions between English and French have always been a part of the Canadian landscape. In the eighteenth century, the British and French bitterly wrestled for control of North America and, at the end of that century and in the early decades of the next one, there was a significant divide between the French Canadians of Lower Canada and the English elites of that province who deigned to pass measures from on high. Suffice it to say, the educated professional elite that dominated the legislative assembly of Lower Canada from the turn of the nineteenth century onwards reacted most negatively to the disproportionate power held by (and general unresponsiveness exhibited by) the English-dominated colonial executive (executive council) and by the British-appointed governor (Greer, 1993). The end result was the ill-fated and violent 1837 Rebellion in Lower Canada when French-Canadian nationalists finally exploded in armed outrage at the refusal of the British government to seriously contemplate the democratization of the Legislative Council (Breakenridge Read, 2008).
简单的事实是，英语和法语之间的紧张关系一直是加拿大风景的一部分。在十八世纪,英国和法国的强烈控制北美和摔跤,在最后的世纪,早期的几十年的下一个,有一个法国加拿大人之间的重大分歧,省下加拿大和英国精英赏脸通过措施从高天。我只想说，受过教育的专业精英主导下加拿大的立法议会从十九世纪初开始反应最消极持有的不成比例的权力(和一般的反应迟钝,)是否愿意屈从英格兰主导殖民地执行(执行委员会)和British-appointed州长(格里尔,1993)。1837年，由于英国政府拒绝认真考虑立法委员会的民主化，法裔加拿大民族主义者最终爆发了武装愤怒，导致加拿大下加拿大发生了不幸的暴力叛乱(Breakenridge Read, 2008)。
As most students of Canadian history are aware, the aforementioned rebellion led to the Durham Report of 1839 wherein John Lambton, the Earl of Durham, advocated the cultural assimilation of French Canadian Lower Canada into a larger union with Lower Canada that would be dominated by the English. In effect, the best way to resolve the sense of grievance percolating in the hearts of French Canadians was to simply assimilate them (Van Male, 1997). For Lord Durham, what was tearing at the entrails of Lower Canada was a profound ethnic and linguistic conflict that fundamentally involved “two nations warring in the bosom of a single state” (quoted in Greer, 1993, p.153). Ultimately, though tensions did lessen somewhat from their high water mark in the late 1830s, the old animosity never completely went away: at least one observer has written about “this tragic element in our history….this is a country of ingrown prejudices….unthinking, irrational and mean” (Lower Quoted in Cameron, 1997, p.372). During the subsequent generations, the animus between French Canadians and English Canadians always lurked just beneath the surface and could burst into flame at any moment.
In general, many of the most significant moments in Canadian history have either revolved around French-English rapprochement – the original constitutional deliberations of the 1860s – or have revolved around French-Canadian animosities spilling into the open: the Conscription Crises of Two World Wars; the Richard riots of the 1950s; the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and the federal government’s attempts to head off Quebec nationalism; and the hotly-contested separatist referenda of 1980 and 1995. If one wants to understand the constitutional morass of the 1970s and 1980s (or 1990s) or if one wants to understand the original inspiration for Canadian multiculturalism (for more on how official multiculturalism under Trudeau was chiefly a response to Quebec nationalism, please see Tierney, 2007), then one must understand the fault line between English and French in Canada. Naturally, one of the greatest sources of tension of all was the battle on the part of French Canadians to protect their linguistic inheritance from the encroachment of the English majority.
总的来说，加拿大历史上许多最重要的时刻要么围绕法英和解——19世纪60年代最初的宪法审议——要么围绕法加之间公开化的敌意:两次世界大战的征兵危机;20世纪50年代的理查德骚乱;20世纪60年代的安静革命和联邦政府试图阻止魁北克民族主义;以及1980年和1995年激烈的分离主义公投。如果想要理解宪法泥沼的1970年代和1980年代(1990年代)或者如果想要理解最初的灵感来源于加拿大多元文化主义(更多关于官方多元文化下特鲁多主要是应对魁北克民族主义,请参阅Tierney, 2007),那么你就必须明白在加拿大英语和法语之间的断层线。自然，紧张局势的最大来源之一是法裔加拿大人为保护他们的语言遗产不受占多数的英国人侵犯而进行的斗争。
Discussion and analysis: how has the divide between English and French, and the formulation of Bill 101, impacted the interactions between the two groups within Canada?
The 1977 Quebec language law was probably an inevitable consequence of the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s; protecting French culture from Les Anglais, after all, necessarily meant protecting the language from desecration and from conquest at the hands of English. Specifically, French-Canadian academics at the start of the 1970s wrote that the history of French Canada within the Canadian Confederation was very often a history of fighting to maintain the integrity of the French language. The passage of the Trudeau government’s Official Language Law in 1970 saw French recognized as an official language in all federal affairs and constituted a victory of sorts, but the corresponding (and rather surprising) efforts of the Quebec government to pass Bill 63 – a bill that would have granted the English language official status in Quebec – was perceived as a direct threat to the primacy of the French language and viewed as setting the groundwork for the “anglification” of the population of Quebec (Angers, 1970). Obviously, this raised the temperature in the room when it came to the ongoing debate about what measures should be taken to protect the French language in Quebec and expedited the arrival of Bill 101.
1977年的魁北克语言法可能是20世纪60年代“安静革命”(Quiet Revolution)的必然结果;毕竟，保护法国文化不受《英语》的影响，必然意味着保护语言不受亵渎，不被英语征服。具体来说，法裔加拿大学者在20世纪70年代初写道，法裔加拿大在加拿大联邦中的历史经常是为维护法语的完整性而斗争的历史。1970年，特鲁多政府通过了《官方语言法》，法语被承认为所有联邦事务中的官方语言，这也算是一次胜利，但相应的(而令人惊讶)魁北克政府通过法案的努力63 -一项法案,授予英语在魁北克官方地位——被认为是一个直接威胁到法语的主导地位和视为设置为“anglification”人口的魁北克(激怒,1970)。很明显，当涉及到应该采取什么措施来保护魁北克法语的争论时，这在室内提高了温度，并加速了101法案的到来。
The fault line between French Canada and English Canada has impacted or complicated how both groups (but particularly French Canadians) interact with Canada and with their “Canadian” identity in the sense that it has created a hyphenated group of Canadians who can be reliably expected to break down on the issues according to their linguistic background. The great conscription crises and the animus unleashed in the two referendum campaigns nearly a generation apart attest to how people on both sides (but especially French Canadians) have elected to define themselves by the language they speak than by the country of which they are a part. Bill 101, maybe more than any other single piece of legislation, reminded all Canadians of how the fault line between English and French was predicated upon concerns over language and, specifically, whose language would survive over time.
Examining the act itself, Bill 101 was an act that mandated a number of things that could only have heightened the mistrust and paranoia of the English-speaking minority in Quebec at the same time as it surely disenchanted new arrivals from elsewhere in the world. Notably, Bill 101 decreed that French-only public signs were to be a feature of the province; French became the language of work in public institutions; and the autonomy of English schools in Quebec was sharply reduced (Levine, 1990). And, as most students are aware, and as our course notes remind us, Bill 101 also mandated that all students receive their schooling in French. The bill was a shot across the bow of English Quebec and divided Canadians dramatically along ethic and linguistic affiliation.
从法案本身来看，第101号法案规定了许多事情，这些事情只会加剧魁北克讲英语的少数民族的不信任和偏执，同时肯定会让世界其他地方的新移民失望。值得注意的是，第101号法案规定，只有法语的公共标志是该省的一个特色;法语成为公共机构的工作语言;魁北克省的英语学校的自主权也大幅减少(Levine, 1990)。而且，正如大多数学生都知道的那样，正如我们的课程笔记提醒我们的那样，101法案还规定所有学生都要用法语上学。该法案是对说英语的魁北克的一个警告，并使加拿大人在种族和语言归属上产生了戏剧性的分歧。
To get to the heart of the matter, for French Canadians, Bill 101 was simply a re-conquest that merely asserted that French was the dominate language of la Belle Province; for English-speaking Quebeckers, however, the passage of Bill 101 was a clear repudiation of the English language as it stripped away the Charter status of the English language and also limited the rights and privileges of a linguistic group that, historically, had wielded most of the power in Quebec (Levine, 1990, p.119). Now, and maybe forever after, the centrality of language to one’s conception of his or herself and his or her place in Canada could no longer be swept under the rug – and the pretence that we were/are “all loyal Canadians first” was shattered.
In general, Bill 101 has allowed the French language to retain somewhat of its lustre amongst visible minorities arriving in Quebec: recent data compiled by the Canadian Human Rights Commission indicates that, by a 2 to 1 margin, French is the first official language of visible minorities in the province (Canadian Human Rights Commission, 2007).
总的来说,101年法案允许法国语言有所保留的光泽在可见少数民族到达魁北克:加拿大人权委员会编制的最新数据表明,以2比1的优势,法国的第一官方语言可见少数民族省(加拿大人权委员会,2007)。
Information such as that above indicates that any hopes of complete English conquest of Quebec will have to wait for a little while longer. In fact, a closer look at the data reveals that the number of Quebeckers who identify English as their Mother Tongue appears to be declining and has been for several years (Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, 2007).
We can safely conclude that language laws have contributed, even if indirectly, to the exodus of English speakers out of Quebec and to the polarization of sentiments between English and French within Quebec. However, such language laws do not guarantee the future of the French language in the province given the mass influx of new Canadians who speak neither English nor French or who are disinterested in learning French. For many French Canadians, being “Canadian” may still mean being French Canadian first above all else; however, as the demographic shape of Canada changes due to high immigration, they may find themselves even more isolated than ever before – but this time isolated within a huge polyglot nation where the competing languages are not just English but dozens, or even hundreds, of others.
我们可以有把握地得出这样的结论:语言法律促成了，即使是间接地促成了说英语的人离开魁北克，也促成了魁北克内部英语和法语情绪的两极分化。然而，这些语言法律并不能保证法语在该省的未来，因为大量新加拿大人既不会说英语也不会说法语，或者对学习法语不感兴趣。对许多法裔加拿大人来说，成为“加拿大人”可能仍然意味着成为法裔加拿大人高于一切;然而，随着移民数量的增加，加拿大的人口结构发生变化，他们可能会发现自己比以往任何时候都更加孤立——但这一次是在一个多语言的国家里，竞争语言不仅仅是英语，而是几十种，甚至数百种其他语言。
At the end of it all, any increased tensions between French and English in Canada will tear at the Canadian national identity in the sense that it undermines the legitimacy of the confederation to have the two founding languages fighting with one another. On the other hand, even if simmering tensions will only intensify the self-identification of French Canadians with their French heritage, the reality is that all the chauvinism in the world may not matter – chiefly because French Canada and English Canada are becoming relatively smaller pieces of the Canadian mosaic as the nation welcomes in people from Asia, from Africa, from South America and from Eastern Europe who do not have either language as their first language. Ultimately, if other divides in Canada fall the French-English model and grow more acrimonious, then the country’s future could be at risk; however, the French-English divide will probably become less important over time.
Conclusion结论
The past several pages have looked at the English-French divide in Canada, the ancient fault-line, and have argued that language laws instituted in Quebec surely did not help in bringing the two sides together; if anything, ancient animosities were revived. However, Canada is a changing nation and that means that no one can safely assume that Canada will tear apart if the gulf between English and French widens. The future is uncertain, but it is unlikely that the French and English divide will remain the dominant one in Canadian life simply because Canada is a country that is moving beyond its French/English past.
过去的几页研究了加拿大的英法分界线，这条古老的断层线，并认为魁北克制定的语言法律肯定无助于把双方团结在一起;如果说有什么不同的话，那就是古老的仇恨又复活了。然而，加拿大是一个不断变化的国家，这意味着如果英语和法语之间的鸿沟扩大，没有人能有把握地认为加拿大会分裂。未来是不确定的，但法语和英语的差异不太可能继续在加拿大生活中占主导地位，因为加拿大是一个正在超越法语/英语的过去的国家。
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