Pour une frontière sémantique entre les pays d’immigration et les pays avec immigration

• Main Author: Gina Stoiciu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université du Québec à Montréal 2009-01-01
• Series: Communiquer
• Subjects: immigration countries; countries with immigrant population; national community; integration; recognition
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/communiquer/284

This text is in the field of international and intercultural communication. The usage of the term immigration countries that defines the countries of the New World as well as the countries of the Old Continent leads to confusion. We suggest that a semantic distinction should be made between the term immigration countries, which refer to the countries of North America, born from the continental migration, and countries with immigrant population, which refers to countries like France that have been receiving post colonial immigrants. In order to argue about the necessity of setting this semantic boundary between the two terms, we suggest a comparative socio-historical analysis to be made, which will involve a certain number of contextual factors of historical, political, social and symbolic order. The United States, Canada, Quebec and France are the subject of this comparative analysis. Three major arguments are given in support of the thesis: the first refers to the idea of the national community, the second one refers to the understanding of the integration of the immigrants in the accepting country, and the third one is linked to the recognition of the immigrants by the national consciousness.