On March 17th, 2026, Dakota Robinson, a PhD student in UC Berkeley's Department of Linguistics, held a lecture on the complexities of multilingualism, entitled “La francophonie et les langues régionales: Multilingualism and language attitudes among contemporary Breton speakers.” This lecture was moderated by Mairi McLaughlin, Professor in the Department of French. With this lecture, IES’ Center of Excellence in French and Francophone Studies launched a faculty-led series focusing on emerging scholarship in French and Francophone Studies. This talk was also sponsored by the UC Berkeley French Department and the French Embassy in the US. The second installment will take place in Fall 2026.
Dakota Robinson opened her lecture by reflecting on her visit to Brittany, where a local librarian's comments on the Breton language underlined the general view of the language. The librarian was surprised that an American would be interested in the study of the dialect or language, questioning whether it was even a real language, noting that hardly anyone spoke it beyond the older generation. This remark stayed with Robinson, compelling her to outline the concept of language attitudes. Language attitudes were a central theme of the lecture, as was the complex relationship people have with minority languages in the Francophone sphere.
The latter half of the lecture consisted of Robinson discussing her research, utilizing interviews with French and Breton speakers from a database called “Breton on the Ground.” Later, she talked about her own interviews in Brittany, and shared fascinating points from locals that raised concerns about maintaining the language. The key takeaways outlined by Robinson were how language attitudes shape language use, as well as the value of studying multilingualism and minority and marginalized varieties, as seen with Breton.