French Mother Tongue Transmission in Mixed Mother Tongue Families

French Mother Tongue Transmission in Mixed Mother Tongue FamiliesAuthor(s): Patricia A. RobinsonSource: The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 14, No. 3(Summer, 1989), pp. 317-334Published by: Canadian Journal of SociologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3340607 .

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French mother tongue transmission in mixed mother tongue families*

Patricia A. Robinson

Abstract. This paper examines intergenerational transmission of a French mother tongue in mixed mother tongue families using multivariate analysis. Both language context and parental characteristics are considered. Language abilities of the parents are significant factors and while bilingualism of the English mother tongue parent increases the likelihood of the children having a French mother tongue, English language ability of the French mother tongue spouse reduces the chances of French mother tongue transmission. Socioeconomic variables such as education do not appear to affect the probability of French mother tongue transmission. Gender of the French mother

tongue parent is also important, at least in Quebec, with results indicating that the children are more likely to have a French mother tongue if the French mother tongue parent is the mother rather than the father.

Resume. Ce travail utilise l'analyse multivaride afin d'examiner la transmission du francais comme langue matemelle dans les familles hdtdrolinguistiques. Le contexte linguistique, de m6me que certaines caractdristiques parentales, sont considders comme etant les facteurs determinants. En particulier, on observe que l'abilitd linguistique des parents est un facteur important. Par example, la probabilitd de transmission du francais comme langue matemelle croit avec la maitrise du francais qu'a le parent anglophone mais decroit avec la maitrise de l'anglais du parent francophone. Les variables socio-dconomiques, telles que l'dducation, ne semblent pas affecter la probabilit6 que le franSais soit adoptd comme langue matemelle. Le sexe du parent francophone constitue aussi une influence importante (du moins au Qudbec): la probabilite de transmission du francais comme langue matemelle est plus elevee si la mere est francophone.

* The author wishes to thank Gary S. Becker, the University of Chicago, for financial support for this project and anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. This study was based on Public Use Sample Data derived from the 1981 Canadian Census of Population supplied by Statistics Canada. The responsibility for the use and interpretation of these data is entirely that of the author. Please address all correspondance and offprint requests to Dr. Patricia Robinson, 30 Conifer Court, London, Ontario, N6K 2X4.

Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers canadiens de sociologie 14(3) 1989 317



Introduction The linguistic balance between English and French in Canada and in the province of Quebec has been upset by the decline in francophone fertility, the tendency for immigrants to assimilate to the English language group and interprovincial migration patterns marked by out-migration of Anglophones from Quebec (see Caldwell and Foumier, 1987). Social changes such as secularization, urbanization and the increasingly pervasive influence of the mass media as well as economic changes such as the decline in rural based economies have also had a profound influence. French communities outside Quebec are experiencing assimilation while the province of Quebec, which accounts for a smaller proportion of Canada's population than in the past, appears to be increasingly French (see Joy, 1972; Cartwright, 1980; Caldwell and Fourier, 1987).

Concern with the future of the French population has influenced both federal government policy as evidenced by the Official Languages Act and actions of successive Quebec provincial governments. The Quebec and federal governments have differing views as to how the future of the French language population can be secured, with Ottawa promoting bilingualism while Quebec favours a unilingual French policy. From a French Canadian perspective, the federal policy may appear totally misguided (see, for example, Guindon, 1988). Many anglophones have viewed the provincial policies as intolerant. The

continuing sensitivity of the language issue is evident from the recent response to the decision of the Supreme Court decision striking down French-only signs in the province of Quebec. Premier Bourassa's attempted compromise with Bill 178 appears to have satisfied neither francophones who want a unilingual province nor anglophones who seek a bilingual province.

It is the requirements of social interaction that largely determine language choice. When the language of work in the corporate sector is English, for

example, there is a strong incentive for those who aspire to high positions in that sector to acquire English. Recognizing this, the language policies of the Quebec government have attempted to affect the linguistic balance between English and French by legislation to extend the domains in which French is used. The education system and the workplace have been targets for language legislation. It is within the family, however, that decisions are made which affect the future of the French language population. Among the dimensions of language - mother tongue (the language first learned and still understood), home language, language of work, and official language ability (the ability to speak English or French) - mother tongue is perhaps the most fundamental. Many people only learn one language, their mother tongue, so that mother tongue transmission shapes the language composition of a society. The first language acquired is essentially an ascribed characteristic. Mother tongue represents a parental endowment and one's mother tongue will affect other dimensions of language as well as broader considerations such as socioeconomic status. The future of the

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French language population depends to a large degree on the extent to which children are endowed with a French mother tongue.

Where parents share the same mother tongue, whether French or English, then the children almost invariably are endowed with that mother tongue (see Castonguay, 1980). The interesting case is what happens when one parent's mother tongue is French and the other is English. While mixed mother tongue marriages represent a small proportion of all marriages involving English or French mother tongue persons (see Robinson, 1989), they may be expected to increase in the future. Age patters of intermarriage, at least outside Quebec, suggest that such marriages are increasing (see Castonguay, 1979) and a greater tolerance towards intermarriage in general (see Lambert and Curtis, 1985) may both reflect and create conditions for increased intermarriage.

This study, based on the 1981 Census of Canada, examines intergenerational French mother tongue transmission in mixed mother tongue marriages, employ- ing a multivariate framework for analysis. Discussion centres on the effects of language context and family variables, such as parental language abilities, on French mother tongue transmission. Two issues arising from previous research are also explored. The first issue is the effect of the gender of the French mother tongue parent in mixed mother tongue families. The concept of mother tongue itself connotes that language is transmitted primarily by the female parent. Despite the quite dramatic increase over the last few decades in women's involvement in the paid labour force, the division of labour in the home is still gender-based with mothers having primary responsibility for childcare, particularly in the case of infants (see for example, Armstrong and Armstrong, 1984). Not only do mothers tend to have more contact than fathers with very young children, but mothers may see their role as that of primary agents in the family responsible for transmitting language and culture to their children (see Lambert, 1972; Grenier, 1984).

Several studies (Castonguay, 1980; Castonguay, 1979; Grenier, 1984; for a different view, see Carisse, 1969; Duchesne, 1978) suggest that French women in linguistic intermarriages are more likely than French men to retain their French language. With respect to mother tongue retention, French women are like women of English mother tongue or a non-official language mother tongue who are in mixed mother tongue marriages. These women too are more likely to retain their mother tongue compared with their husbands, at least in the Montreal area (see Castonguay, 1980: 236-237). The greater language retention of French women compared with French mother tongue men in mixed mother tongue marriages is attributed in part to the lower levels of bilingualism of French mother tongue women compared with French mother tongue men (see Castonguay, 1980). Lieberson (1970, 1981) has indicated that the labour market provides an important context in which language contact occurs and the dominance of the economic system by the English, at least in the past (see for example, Beaujot and McQuillan, 1982) would have created strong pressures

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towards English language ability. Women's lesser involvement in the paid work force protects them to some extent from such pressures.

If the language and cultural transmission aspects of gender are important (i.e., that mothers have the predominant role in such transmission) then whether the French mother tongue parent in linguistic intermarriages is the mother should significantly affect the probability of French mother tongue transmission net of the effects of language ability. In other words, from the cultural transmission argument, it is expected that even if French mother tongue women can speak English, they will transmit French as the mother tongue to their children. On the other hand, if the gender of the French mother tongue parent is relevant to mother tongue transmission only because of the lesser English ability of French mother tongue women, then gender should not emerge as significant when language ability is held constant in a multivariate analysis.

The literature contains some differing views concerning the relation between gender and language. Carisse's (1969) small-scale study of Montreal suggested male domination in the area of language used in the home (see also Duchesne's 1978 study of Quebec) while Castonguay (1981) in bilingual areas such as Montreal finds in mixed mother tongue families evidence of the wife's greater influence on the children's language of use in the home.

The other issue explored here is prompted by previous research revealing the importance of ethnic origin for language use (see Castonguay, 1980). In this paper the effect of ethnic origin, specifically the effect of French ethnic origin of English mother tongue persons on the probability of French mother tongue transmission is examined. Previous research on highly bilingual areas (Castonguay, 1980, 1981) has identified the phenomenon of "retrotransfers," in which a person adopts the language corresponding to his or her ethnic ancestry.' An example of a retrotransfer is a person of English mother tongue but French ethnic origin who adopts French as language of use in the home. For English mother tongue persons, having a French ethnic ancestry may make them particularly sympathetic to French language and culture. It is hypothesized here that if the English mother tongue spouse in a mixed mother tongue (English- French) marriage is of French ethnic origin, then it will be more likely that the children will be endowed with a French mother tongue. The French ethnic origin spouse may regret the ancestral linguistic assimilation which resulted in him or her having an English mother tongue and may therefore want his or her children to be endowed with French. This may be particularly the case in Quebec.

Determinants of French mother tongue transmission The mother tongue of children depends on parental characteristics but not on the characteristics of the children themselves. Parents endow their children with a mother tongue and for many, this may be the only language they ever leam. Two

1. In general, in mixed mothertongue marriages, the English language dominates and more transfers are made from French to English than from English to French. See Castonguay (1980:241; 1982).

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parental characteristics, the gender of the French mother tongue parent and ethnic ancestry, have already been mentioned but others are also relevant. The language abilities of parents, their education levels, and age may affect the language first leamed by their children.

Language ability refers here to the ability of the parents to speak the official language other than their mother tongue (e.g., for a French mother tongue parent, language ability refers to the ability to speak English).2 English language ability of a French mother tongue parent is expected to reduce the probability of French mother tongue transmission while French language ability of an English mother tongue spouse is expected to increase the probability of French mother tongue transmission. In other words, it is expected that there will be a tendency for children to acquire as mother tongue the language their parents share (see Lieberson, 1970, Castonguay, 1981).

There are several reasons why the following analysis includes language ability of the parents rather than home language. Home language of parents will be related to language ability so that home language is not exogenous and it may be changed by the presence of children. The home language is the language used at home at the time of the census and its use in the analysis would require the assumption that the home language at the time of the census was the one used in the home when the children were infants. Parents also may use one language at home with a spouse and another one in interaction with the children. Language ability of parents, at least in terms of ability to conduct a conversation, is likely to be stable over time. Acquisition of a second language represents an investment and as such it will generally occur relatively early in the lifecycle (see Grenier and Vaillancourt, 1983; Ridler and Pons-Ridler, 1984). Official language ability (in the sense defined above) is most likely to have been acquired, if at all, prior to having children.

Changes in Canadian society such as increased urbanization, the pervasive- ness of the mass media and the increased involvement of women in the paid labour market are likely to have increased the contacts people have with different ethnic and language groups. It mightbe anticipated then that younger people may be more likely to assimilate to the English language group (see for example, Castonguay, 1979, 1982 and Lambert and Curtis, 1985 on attitude change). Opposing arguments can be made, however, particularly in the case of Quebec.

2. It is possible for individuals with a French or English mother tongue not to report that they are able to speak that language. See Lamy (1977) for discussion of the validity of census language concepts in 1971 and de Vries (1985) for a more general discussion. In the 1981 census data used in this study, French mother tongue persons in Quebec and English mother tongue persons outside Quebec all report that they can speak the language they report as their mother tongue. Of the French mother tongue persons outside Quebec, 7 percent do not report that they can speak French in answer to the official language ability question. In Quebec, 4 percent of English mother tongue husbands and 6 percent of English mother tongue wives do not indicate that they can speak English.

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Government policies, both federally and in Quebec, have attempted to shift the balance towards French. The previous dominance of English in the economic structure of Quebec which would have created pressures towards anglicisation of the French population appears to have declined.(see for example Grenier, 1987; Robinson, 1987) and the relation between language group and socioeconomic status has weakened (see for example, McRoberts, 1985). If the incentives to shift from French to English have changed, youngerpeople may be more likely to transmit a French mother tongue to their children. Since there is a strong association between the ages of spouses, age of the wife is used in the analysis that follows. English language use in mixed mother tongue families (at least in some areas of the country) has been related to the husband's level of education, income, or socioeconomic status (Carisse, 1969; Castonguay, 1981). Families where the husbands have higher education, income, or socioeconomic status tend to favour English. Such patterns may be due partly to age or language ability differences between these education, income, or status groups. Income levels and occupations of parents may change over time so that the income or occupation reported at the time of the census may not have been the income or occupation at the time that the children in the family were learning their first language. However, parents will generally have completed their education by the time they begin their families and it is education (measured in years) that is examined here.

The usefulness of a particular language and the rewards from ability in that language depend on the linguistic context. Quebec represents a very different context from the rest of Canada. French is the official language in Quebec and to a much greater extent than elsewhere in Canada, French is the primary language in the education system and in the workplace.3 The province of Quebec, then, represents a linguistic context particularly favourable to French mother tongue transmission since many interactions in several domains - school, work, and government - are likely to be in French. Quebec is also the centre of French-Canadian culture and therefore the opportunities to enjoy French culture for those with French language ability will be greatest here.

The linguistic composition of the regions of Canada has changed over time so that compared with nineteenth-century patterns, Quebec has become in-

creasingly French. Except for a bilingual belt extending from Northern Ontario, through the Ottawa Valley, the city of Montreal, and the Eastern Townships of Quebec to northern New Brunswick, the rest of the country has

3. Up until 1977 when Bill 101 was passed in Quebec, anglophones and non-official language minority groups could obtain an English education for their children, mostly in Protestant schools. Almost all children in Protestant schools were taught in English and in the school year 1976-1977, enrolment in English schools accounted for about 17 percent of total school enrolment (Mallca, 1984: 232-233). Bill 101 restricted access to English language schools (see Mallea 1984 for details). The original provisions of the Bill have been and continue to be modified as a result of court challenges.

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become increasingly English (see Joy, 1972). Demographic factors such as migration have shaped these linguistic patters (for Quebec, see for example Caldwell and Foumier, 1987). The language composition of the area will affect the probability of parents endowing their children with a French mother tongue. Where a high proportion of the population in an area is French mother tongue, a greater number of interactions are likely to be in French, thus it is more likely that parents will endow their children with a French mother tongue.

Data and methods This study uses microdata available from the 1981 Canadian census. Such data have several advantages for the study of language in the family. First of all, there is the advantage of sample size. Small-scale studies or studies of specific areas can provide detailed information but a small number of cases makes it difficult to generalize beyond the area of study. The issue of sample size is particularly important when dealing with relatively rare occurrences such as mixed mother tongue families. A large sample size also makes possible multivariate analysis, which is the strategy employed in this paper. Studies based on national census data can supplement smaller scale studies such as those of Carisse (1969), Mougeon (1977) or Castonguay (1981).

Data are available on social, economic, and demographic variables for family members. With respect to language characteristics, mother tongue, home language, and official language ability are reported for spouses and children who were still living at home at the time of the census. It is thus possible to explore the relation between the language characteristics of parents and their children.

Attention in this study is focussed on husband-wife families with children still living at home (the household file from the 1981 census only contains language data on children still living at home) where the husband or wife (or both) were Canadian bor. This restriction is designed to make it most likely that the marriage will have occurred in Canada or that at least the family will have been subject to the Canadian linguistic, economic, and social context for most, if not all, of its duration. Because language use of immigrant families likely reflects their experiences and abilities prior to immigration as well as the influence of factors since arrival, immigrants must be studied separately and therefore not included in the analysis below.

As noted earlier, when parents share either a French or English mothertongue, the children are almost invariably endowed with that shared language as their mother tongue. For this reason, attention here is restricted to families where one parent is French mother tongue and the other English.

Census language data Language data in the census is self-reported in the case of adults and information on children is provided by adults. Errors can arise due to the way in which questions are framed, the way in which individuals report their answers, and the

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way in which the answers are processed. A number of studies have drawn attention to problems with language data (see, for example, Lamy, 1977; de Vries, 1985; Castonguay, 1985; Henripin, 1985). Of particular concern in this study is the validity of the mother tongue and official language ability data.

The mother tongue question in 1981 asks for the language first learned and still understood. Castonguay (1985) has questioned the assumption of one language as mother tongue, citing the practice in mixed mother tongue families in highly bilingual areas (e.g., Montreal) for each parent to use his or her own language with the children. Statistics Canada, however, does not recognize multiple responses to the mother tongue question as valid and assigns single responses using a computer algorithm (see documentation on the 1981 Public Use Sample Tape). This creates serious problems when trying to estimate population parameters, such as the proportion of persons transferring from French to English. In the present study, for the cases assigned by Statistics Canada by computer algorithm, the problem is one of misclassification of a dichotomous variable in the cross-section probit analysis. The seriousness of the problem will depend on the fraction of the sample misclassified. Overall, the extent of multiple responses on the mother tongue question is very small (2.4 percent). Even in Quebec where one might expect it to be more of a problem, 96 percent report a single mother tongue (see Castonguay, 1985).

Official language ability relies on assessments by respondents as to whether they can conduct a conversation in either or both of the official languages. Individuals may under- or over-estimate their abilities in this respect (see Lamy, 1977). While in general this may be a problem, in mixed mother tongue marriages individuals are likely to be much better able to assess their own abilities so that the problem here is possible misreporting rather than mispercep- tion of abilities. Incentives to misreport may also vary with location: English mother tongue persons in Quebec may be more likely to overstate their French language ability.

Ethnic origin data are also subject to error (see de Vries, 1985; Lamy, 1977) and here again the incentives to misreport must be considered. English mother tongue spouses for example, particularly those who marry a French mother tongue spouse and live in Quebec, may be prone to report French ethnic ancestry. Such a possibility needs to be considered when viewing the results in the next section.

Definition of variables and estimation The dependent variable (FRENCHMT KIDS) is a dichotomy indicating whether or not the children of mixed mother tongue parents have a French mother tongue or not. All the families in this analysis contain one French mother tongue parent and one English mother tongue parent. The dependent variable is coded 1 if all the children living at home have a French mother tongue and 0 otherwise. In the great majority of mixed French-English mother tongue families with children present,

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the children all have the same mother tongue. In 7 percent of mixed mother

tongue families the children do not all share the same mother tongue (one child in the family may have a French mother tongue, while another may have an

English mother tongue for example) and these are included in the 0 category. Had these cases been eliminated from the analysis a bias may have been introduced. Their inclusion in the 0 category seemed the preferred treatment since this is

likely to make it more difficult to establish significance for variables. In other words, such a procedure constitutes a more stringent test of the hypotheses since the 0 category will include a few families with children of both French and

English mother tongues thus diluting the differences between the two groups coded 0 and 1 on the dependent variable. The probability of French mother

Figure 1. Definition of variables.

Dependent variable: FRENCHMT KIDS coded 1 if all the children in the family have a French mother tongue, 0 otherwise.

independent variables: WIFE'S AGE: age of wife in years WIFE EDUC: wife's years of education HUSBD EDUC: husband's years of education EMPLY WIFE: coded 1 if wife employed and 0 otherwise

PCTFR: percent French mother tongue in the census metropolitan area (CMA) in which the family lives or if not resident in a CMA, the percent French in the province FRENCH WIFE: coded 1 if the French mother tongue partner in the mixed mother tongue marriage is the wife and 0 if the French partner is the husband ENG WIFE FR ETHN: English mother tongue wife of French ethnic origin coded 1 and 0 otherwise ENG HUSBD FR ETHN: English mother tongue husband of French ethnic origin coded 1 and 0 otherwise FRMT WIFE ENG ABIL: French mother tongue wife able to speak English coded 1, 0 otherwise FRMT HUSBD ENG ABIL: French mother tongue husband able to speak English coded 1, 0 otherwise ENGMT HUSBD FR ABIL: English mother tongue husband able to speak French coded 1, 0 otherwise ENGMT WIFE FR ABIL: English mother tongue wife able to speak French coded 1, 0 otherwise

tongue transmission is estimated by probit (see Hanushek and Jackson, 1977). Figure 1 provides brief definitions of variables used in the analysis.

The analysis is reported separately for Quebec and provinces outside Quebec with in each case, the variable percent French (PcrFR) representing the linguistic context. The percent French refers to the percent French mother tongue in the area of present residence.4 It would be preferable to use the percent French in the area where the family lived when the children were infants but this is not available. It is likely that where migration has occurred, the linguistic context of

places of origin and destination will be similar, although there has been out-

4. An anonymous reviewer suggested that following from Joy's research (1972), it would be

preferable to separate both Quebec and outside Quebec into bilingual belt and unilingual regions. The level of geographic detail on the public use sample tape does not make this possible. Also, since mixed mother tongue families are relatively few, even with a large data set such as the census, there would be too few cases for a multivariate analysis if such a disaggregation were made.

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migration from Quebec, particularly of anglophones (Caldwell and Foumier, 1987).

Findings Of mixed mother tongue families in Quebec, 56 percent transmit a French mother tongue to their children; outside Quebec, 15 percent of families with an English and French parent endow their children with a French mother tongue. French mother tongue spouses are less likely to have English language ability if they live

Table 1. Descriptive statistics.

Quebec Outside Quebec mean standard deviation mean standard deviation

WIFE'S AGE 39.60 10.43 36.55 9.90 WIFE EDUC 10.91 3.16 11.42 2.76 HUSBD EDUC 11.28 3.44 11.39 3.29 EMPLY WIFE .40 .49 .50 .50 PCTFR 72.95 12.65 9.50 11.85 FRENCH WIFE .52 .50 .50 .50 ENG WIFE FR ETHN .16 .37 .09 .29

ENG HUSBD FR ETHN .24 .43 .11 .31

FRMT WIFE ENG ABIL .34 .47 .50 .50

FRMT HUSBD ENG ABIL .41 .49 .50 .50

ENGMT WIFE FR ABIL .40 .49 .11 .31 ENGMT HUSBD FR ABIL .47 .50 .13 .34

FRENCHMT KIDS .56 .50 .15 .36

in Quebec rather than outside that province and English mother tongue spouses are much more likely to know French if they are in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada. Other descriptive statistics appear in Table 1.

The results from the estimation of the probability of French mother tongue transmission in mixed mother tongue families are shown in Table 2. In general, the determinants of French mother tongue transmission appear very similar in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. Language ability and French ethnicity (in the case of English mother tongue spouses) generally emerge as significant factors. If a French mother tongue wife is able to speak English then the children are significantly less likely to be endowed with a French mother tongue and the same pattern emerges in the case when French mother tongue husbands have English language ability, at least in Quebec. The French language ability of the English mother tongue spouse in a mixed mother tongue family is also relevant. Whether in or outside Quebec, if the English mother tongue husband or wife can speak French, the children are more likely to have a French mother tongue. This is particularly interesting since given the assimilationist pressures towards English outside Quebec, it might be expected that even if English mother tongue parents in mixed marriages knew French, this would not increase the likelihood of their

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children being endowed with a French mother tongue. The problem from the point of view of the French mother tongue population outside Quebec is that relatively few English mother tongue husbands or wives are able to speak

Table 2. Estimation of the probability of French mother tongue transmission in mixed mother tongue families.

Quebec Outside Quebec MLE t MLE t

WIFE'S AGE - 0.00003 - 0.004 - 0.0152 - 2.56 WIFE EDUC 0.0176 0.70 - 0.0203 - 0.84 HUSBD EDUC 0.0081 0.38 0.0178 0.88 EMPLY WIFE - 0.0459 - 0.34 - 0.0150 - 0.13 PCTFR 0.0046 0.89 0.0136 3.21 FRENCH WIFE 1.1208 1.85 - 2.3176 - 0.13 ENG WIFE, FR ETHN 0.8760 4.36 0.3014 1.45 ENG IIUSBD, FR ETHN 0.3610 1.81 0.4000 2.39

FRMT WIFE, ENG ABIL - 1.0069 -4.18 - 1.0819 - 1.68 FRMT HUSBD, ENG ABIL - 0.8323 - 2.91 - 4.0261 - 0.22 ENGMT WIFE, FR ABIL 1.6002 4.08 1.4896 7.67

ENGMT HUSBD, FR ABIL 1.1629 3.63 0.7746 4.89

Constant - 1.7542 - 2.39 2.5274 0.14

N=515 N=1009

French. Consequently, the fact that French language ability raises the probability of French mother tongue transmission will do little to increase the French mother tongue population.

Outside Quebec, language context (measured as percent French) significantly affects the probability of French mother tongue transmission with French mother tongue transmission being more likely the greater the representation of French in the area. In Quebec, because the percent French is high, no significant effect of language context is found when other variables are held constant. French ethnic origin of the English mother tongue spouse generally raises the likelihood of French mother tongue transmission. In Quebec, this effect of French ethnic origin is found whether the English mother tongue spouse is the husband or wife in a mixed mother tongue marriage. Outside Quebec, French ethnic origin of English mother tongue wives does not attain significance.

The findings suggest that the gender of the French mother tongue parent is important. At least in Quebec, if the French mother tongue parent is the mother rather than the father, it is more likely that the children will acquire a French mother tongue. Since language ability is controlled, this gender effect is not simply due to the lesser bilingualism of French wives. Outside Quebec, the gender of the French mother tongue parent does not appear to have a significant effect on the probability of French mother tongue transmission. However, outside Quebec it is difficult to disentangle the effects of gender of the French mother tongue parent from the effects of language ability. For example, almost

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all French mother tongue husbands in mixed mother tongue families outside Quebec can speak English. Similarly, almost all French mother tongue wives in mixed marriages outside Quebec can speak English. When English language ability variables are omitted from the equation for outside Quebec, then gender of the French mother tongue parent is significant as it is in Quebec. Other variables remain the same in magnitude and standard errors. When gender is omitted, results for other variables remain the same except that English ability of the French mother tongue husbands becomes significant and negative (results not shown).

With respect to other parental characteristics, employment status of the wife and education levels of spouses have no significant effect on the probability of French mother tongue transmission. Previous studies (see, for example, Carisse, 1969; Castonguay, 1981) reported that English language use was more likely to be favoured in families where husbands have higher levels of education, income or socioeconomic status. The results from this study may differ from these other studies for several reasons. The previous studies and the present one differ in focus: mother tongue transmission is not the same as language of use, although obviously there will be a relation between the two. Nevertheless, if education levels affect language of use, one would also expect them to be relevant to mother tongue transmission. It may be that the differences reported in these earlier studies between education or income groups were due to differences between the groups in language ability. Another difference between this study and those cited earlier is that they did not use a multivariate framework whereas here, for example, the effect of education can be examined net of other factors such as language ability. It is of course possible that high levels of education result in

ability in the other official language but this is not explored here. The anticipated effect of age on the probability of French mother tongue

transmission was somewhat ambiguous. Especially outside Quebec, it was expected that assimilationist pressures on the French would be stronger now than in the past so that older parents would be more likely to have passed French onto their children. On the other hand, changes in the language environment in Canada (such as the introduction of official bilingualism) and nationalist sentiments in Quebec (especially strong in the 1960s and 1970s) may have encouraged younger people to pass French onto their children. In Quebec, age of the wife in mixed mother tongue families has no significant effect but outside Quebec older women appear less likely than younger women to have transmitted French as the mother tongue of their children. Only wife's age was used because the age of spouses is highly correlated. Since the data only pertain to children still living at home, the variation is therefore more limited than if all wives were considered. Some caution is therefore necessary in interpreting this finding. One possible explanation is that assimilationist pressures outside Quebec were stronger in the recent past than today. Certainly the linguistic context has changed: the federal government has recognized the need to promote and protect

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French and significant gains in official bilingualism are evident among the English mother tongue population, particularly among young people, although the level of bilingualism for the English population is still low (Statistics Canada, 1985). These changes may have increased the perceived benefits of acquiring French so that younger parents in mixed mother tongue families may be more inclined to transmit French to their children. However, many other changes in French communities outside Quebec such as urbanization have tended to favour assimilation.

Table 3. Estimated probabilities of French mother tongue transmission by selected characteristics of parents in Quebec and outside Quebec.

A. Families with French mother tongue wife, English mother tongue husband in Quebec.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) ENGMT husband is French ethnic origin no no no yes yes yes FRMT wife can speak English no yes yes no yes yes ENGMT husband can speak French yes no yes yes no yes Probability of FRENCHMT KIDS .86 .14 .53 .93 .23 .67

B. Families with English mother tongue wife, French mother tongue husband in Quebec.

ENGMT wife is French origin no no no yes yes yes FRMT husband speaks English no yes yes no yes yes ENGMT wife speaks French yes no yes yes no yes Probability of FRENCHMT KIDS .65 .02 .33 .90 .12 .67

In theabovecomputations, values ofthe othervariables were as follows: percent French 68; husband's and wife's education 11 years; age of wife 41; wife employed.

C. Families with French mother tongue wife, English mother tongue husband outside Quebec.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) ENGMT husband is French ethnic origin no no no yes yes yes FRMT wife can speak English no yes yes no yes yes ENGMT husband can speak French yes no yes yes no yes Probability of FRENCIIMT KIDS .67 .08 .25 .80 .15 .40

D. Families with English mother tongue wife, French mother tongue husband outside Quebec.

ENGMT wife is French origin no no no yes yes yes FRMT husband speaks English no yes yes no yes yes ENGMT wife speaks French yes no yes yes no yes Probability of FRENCIIMT KIDS 1.00 .02 .28 1.00 .04 .40

In the above computations, values of the other variables were as follows: percent French 8; husband's and wife's education 11 years; age of wife 41; wife employed.

Probit coefficients themselves are not substantively meaningful and since probit is not a linear function, the results shown in Table 2 may best be illustrated by presenting the estimated probabilities of French mother tongue transmission for families with particular sets of characteristics. This is done in Table 3. The estimated probabilities are shown separately for Quebec and outside Quebec.

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As one might expect, the probability of French mother tongue transmission in mixed mother tongue families, given the same parental characteristics, is generally higher in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada. In Quebec the probability of French mother tongue transmission is highest when there is a unilingual French mother tongue wife married to a bilingual English mother tongue husband (the terms unilingual and bilingual are used here with respect to the official languages). If the English mother tongue husband is of French origin in such a case, then there is an estimated .93 probability that the children will have a French mother tongue (see Table 3, column 4, panel A). Outside Quebec, the likelihood of French mother tongue transmission is also highest when a unilingual French spouse has a bilingual English mother tongue partner, although here the probability of the children having a French mother tongue is highest when the unilingual French mother tongue spouse is the husband (see Table 3, columns 1 and 4, panel D). However, while the estimated probabilities for these cases are approximately 1.0, outside Quebec, such mixed mother tongue couples in which one spouse is unilingual French are rare.

The recent controversy over Quebec's Bill 101 and the Supreme Court's decision on the legality of French-only signs, has again focussed attention on the

language issue. The position of the Parti Quebecois under the leadership of

Jacques Parizeau is that bilingualism represents a threat to the survival of the French language population and therefore the party wishes to protect unilingual French. Table 3 provides some information on the impact of bilingualism on French language transmission, at least in the context of mixed mother tongue households. Where both parents can speak the official language other than their mother tongue (see columns 3 and 6) then the probability of French mother tongue transmission is considerably less than the situation when the French mother tongue parent is unilingual (columns 1 and 4). In the case of a unilingual French mother tongue spouse and a bilingual English mother tongue spouse, French is the shared language and there is then a strong tendency for parents to transmit this language to their children. When both parents can speak the other official language, they do not share one language but two, and even in the context of Quebec, there is less than a 70 percent chance that they will pass French on to their children as mother tongue. In some cases, the probability of French mother tongue transmission is particularly low. For example, there is only a one in three chance that children of bilingual parents in Quebec will acquire French as mother tongue if the French mother tongue father is of non-French ethnic origin (column 3, panel B).

French language ability of the English mother tongue spouse in mixed mother tongue marriages is a positive factor in French mother tongue transmission. In fact, the probability of French mother tongue transmission is maximized in the case of a bilingual English mother tongue spouse with a unilingual French partner. However, such combinations are relatively infrequent since French mother tongue persons are more likely to be bilingual than English mother

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tongue persons. When the English mother tongue spouse is unilingual and the French mother tongue spouse is bilingual then the probability of French mother

tongue transmission is very low (see columns 2 and 5). When the unilingual English mother tongue spouse is the wife, the probability of French mother tongue transmission is close to zero (column 2, panels B and D).

The probability of French mother tongue transmission is lowest when the shared language of the parents is English. French is most likely to be the mother tongue of children when the parents have French in common. When both parents in mixed mother tongue families can speak the other official language then the probability of French mother tongue transmission falls in between the estimated likelihood of French transmission in families where French is the shared language of the parents and where English is the language that the parents have in common.

Discussion This paper examined the determinants of mother tongue transmission in families where the parents have different mother tongues. A child's mother tongue is essentially an ascribed characteristic, dependent on the characteristics of the parents. Compared to other measures of language, mother tongue is largely an endowment that the child receives from his or her parents. Learning another language is an investment which may be costly in terms of time and effort and many individuals will only ever know the language they acquired as children. Mother tongue transmission therefore plays an important role in determining the language composition of the population.

Gender of the French mother tongue parent appears to be relevant and at least in Quebec, the probability of French mother tongue transmission is higher if the French mother tongue spouse is the mother rather than the father. There is also some evidence that if English mother tongue spouses are of French origin, then there is a higher probability of French mother tongue transmission.

The language which parents in mixed mother tongue families pass on to their children is influenced by the linguistic context. French mother tongue transmission is more likely to occur in Quebec than outside Quebec, other things being equal. Outside Quebec, the more French the area, the more likely it is that children in mixed mother tongue families may acquire French as their first language.

Language abilities of the parents are important as one might expect, with English language ability of the French mother tongue spouse lowering the probability of French mother tongue transmission and French language ability of the English mother tongue partner increasing the likelihood that the children will have French as their mother tongue. In the French communities outside Quebec, typically the French mother tongue spouse is bilingual and the English mother tongue spouse unilingual, making English the logical choice for the children's mother tongue. As Guindon (1988) has indicated, changes in the

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French communities outside Quebec have necessitated the use of English and in a world in which English dominates, maintenance of the French language suffers because the needs of social interaction no longer call for French fluency.

The results with respect to language ability suggest that while bilingualism of the English mother tongue spouse in mixed mother tongue families increases the probability of French mother tongue transmission, bilingualism of the French mother tongue spouse is a threat to the future of the French mother tongue population, at least in the context of mixed mother tongue marriages. This seems to be the case in Quebec, the heart of French Canada, as well as outside Quebec, where one would expect English assimilationist pressures to be strong. Such findings appear to lend support to the position of those who argue that Quebec should be unilingual French if the future of the French language is to be assured. Policies designed to make Quebec a unilingual French province increase the incentive for anglophones and allophones (whose mother tongue is neither English nor French) wishing to remain in Quebec to become fluent in French. Quebec appears to have been successful in increasing the proportion French mother tongue in the province from about 80 percent in 1971 to approximately 86 percent in 1986, patterns that reflect the effects of migration. An increasingly French population in Quebec may reduce the likelihood of mixed marriages in Quebec and therefore indirectly affect the extent of French mother tongue transmission since couples who share a French mother tongue are almost certain to endow their children with a French mother tongue. To the extent that the language policies of the Quebec government have played a role in determining the linguistic composition of the province, a movement away from the type of policies represented by Bill 101 may reverse the trend towards an increasingly French Quebec. This may affect the future of the French language population since the linguistic context can influence intergenerational French mother tongue transmission although clearly Quebec is much more resistant to assimilation than communities outside Quebec.

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Documents

French Mother Tongue Transmission in Mixed Mother Tongue Families