Minoration et santé: les formations discursives des communautés et institutions francophones à Toronto

This article focuses on discourse formations in the domain of health among Francophone communities and institutions in Toronto, which are embedded in a process of minorisation within the anglo-dominant society and, at the same time, characterized by processes of identity fragmentation linked to migration, to social and geographic mobility, as well as to identity politics. We are proposing a discourse analysis based on a case study which reveals tensions between two coexisting types of discourse: the modernizing discourse and the globalizing discourse. The modernizing discourse originates in the sixties. Based on the principle of equity, it justifies the existence of parallel and autonomous health institutions operating in French to desserve a Francophone community conceived as homogenous. The globalizing discourse, with its neo-liberal orientation, originates in the nineties. It challenges, on one hand, the symbolic function of such institutions and reduces them to their operational functions, and it attempts, on the other hand, to deal with a diversified population with complex linguistic repertoires as well as with multiple identities.