Linguistic situations and school education in sub-Saharan French speaking countries: theoretical aspects and socio-political implications in the policy program for the introduction of national languages in education (full text in French)

Abstract

This text is intended to be a contribution to the debate on the issue of national languages ​​in French-speaking Sub-Saharan Africa. It provides a wide range of theoretical questioning about the relationships that people in a country can maintain using a "dominant" language, which is a second language that they use in their perspectives of educational, social and professional integration. We hypothesize, in a neo-institutionalist position, that the causes of the inertia of linguistic policies are oriented towards a revalorization of African languages ​​and their use as teaching mediums are to be found in the institutional norms (States and Organization of Francophonie) and social practices (school audiences or their relays) that delegitimize any attempt to question the status of the languages ​​involved. Conscious that the questions raised in this article cannot be answered in the current public debate and the political rhetoric that animate it, we went in search of theoretical arguments in anthropology, sociolinguistics and education sciences likely to guide the production of empirical data in the field of language management in Francophone Africa in general.