Editing Canadian English (section)

== Attitudes ==
An attitude study in the late 1970s revealed a positive attitude toward Canadian linguistic features. Features include front vowel merger before/r/, low-back vowel merger, Canadian Raising, and Canadian lexical items. Still, the sample group in British Columbia showed a preference for UK and US English.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Warkentyne |first=H. J. |date=1983 |title=Attitudes and Language Behaviour |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-linguistics-revue-canadienne-de-linguistique/article/abs/attitudes-and-language-behaviour/3E80264D2EE893489DAA8EF3C7CDE853 |journal=Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue canadienne de linguistique |language=en |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=71–76 |doi=10.1017/S0008413100010069 |s2cid=149121191}}</ref>

This attitude sees a change years later. A survey about attitudes towards CE was conducted with a diverse sample group in Vancouver, BC, in 2009. Among 429 Vancouverites, 81.1% believe there is a Canadian way of speaking English, 72.9% can tell CanE speakers from American English speakers, 69.1% consider CanE a part of their Canadian identity, and 74.1% think CanE should be taught in schools. Due to the unavailability of free and easy-to-access CanE dictionaries, many Canadian opt for other non-Canadian English dictionaries today.<ref name="Dillinger" /> Historically, American, British, and Irish texts are used in Canadian schools for the most part; even though Canadian reference work was written and became available in the 1960s, they were never preferred as teaching material.<ref>{{Cite book |author=Viola Elizabeth Parvin |title=Authorization of Textbooks for the Schools of Ontario 1846–1950 |url=https://utorontopress.com/9781487580988/authorization-of-textbooks-for-the-schools-of-ontario-1846-and-x20131950 |access-date=2023-04-11 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |language=en-CA |isbn=9781487580988}}</ref>

A preference change can be seen at the end of higher education in Canada. At the University of Toronto's Graduate English department, "Canadian English" and a "consistent spelling" are officially "the standard for all Ph.D. dissertations," with the ''Canadian Oxford English Dictionary'' as the official guideline. However, there is no mention of which grammar guide was to be followed because there was never a solid standard developed for spelling and grammar.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pratt |first=T. K. |url=https://benjamins.com/catalog/veaw.g11.04pra |title=The hobgoblin of Canadian English spelling |date=1993-11-04 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company |isbn=978-90-272-4869-5 |editor-last=Clarke |editor-first=Sandra |series=Varieties of English Around the World |language=en}}</ref>

In 2011, just under 21.5&nbsp;million Canadians, representing 65% of the population, spoke English most of the time at home, while 58% declared it their mother language.<ref name="pop1">{{cite web
 |author       = Don J. DeVoretz
 |title        = Canada's Secret Province: 2.8 Million Canadians Abroad
 |url          = http://www.asiapacific.ca/research-report/canadas-secret-province-28-million-canadians-abroad
 |publisher    = Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
 |year         = 2011
 |access-date   = 23 September 2013
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20130927083447/http://www.asiapacific.ca/research-report/canadas-secret-province-28-million-canadians-abroad
 |archive-date = 27 September 2013
 |url-status   = dead
}}</ref> English is the major language everywhere in Canada except Quebec, and most Canadians (85%) can speak English.<ref name="Navigator" /> While English is not the preferred language in Quebec, 36.1% of the Québécois can speak English.<ref>{{Cite web
 |url          = http://www.spl.gouv.qc.ca/documentation/rapportssondagesstatistiques/dynamiquedeslangues/tableaux
 |title        = Dynamique des langues en quelques chiffres : Tableaux – Secrétariat à la politique linguistique
 |website      = spl.gouv.qc.ca
 |language     = fr
 |access-date  = 5 February 2017
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20161207100029/http://www.spl.gouv.qc.ca/documentation/rapportssondagesstatistiques/dynamiquedeslangues/tableaux//
 |archive-date = 7 December 2016
 |url-status   = dead
}}</ref> Nationally, Francophones are five times more likely to speak English than Anglophones are to speak French – 44% and 9% respectively.<ref>Marmen, Louise and Corbeil, Jean-Pierre, "New Canadian Perspectives, Languages in Canada 2001 Census," Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication, Statistics Canada Cat. No. Ch3-2/8-2004, (Canadian Heritage, 2004), pg. 60.</ref> Only 3.2% of Canada's English-speaking population resides in Quebec—mostly in Montreal.{{refn|group="nb"|18,858,908 Canadians identify their mother tongue as English. 599,230 Québécois identify their mother tongue as English and of that 309,885 live in Montreal.<ref name="Navigator">{{cite web
 |url          = http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/map-carte/index-eng.cfm
 |title        = Census Data Navigator
 |website      = 12.statcan.ca
 |access-date  = 20 August 2017
 |archive-date = 15 February 2020
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20200215021534/https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/map-carte/index-eng.cfm
 |url-status   = live
}}</ref>}}

A study conducted in 2002 inquired Canadians from Ontario and Alberta about the "pleasantness" and "correctness" of different varieties of Canadian English based on province. Albertans and Ontarians all seem to rate their English and BC English in the top three. However, both hold a low opinion of Quebec English. Unlike the assumption that Toronto or Ontario English would be the most prestigious considering these regions are the most economically robust, BC had the best public opinion regarding pleasantness and correctness among the participants.<ref>{{cite book |last1=McKinnie |first1=Meghan |chapter=A Perceptual Dialectology of Anglophone Canada from the Perspective of Young Albertans and Ontarians |date=2002 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/z.hpd2.20mck |title=Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology |pages=279–296 |access-date=2023-04-11 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company |last2=Dailey-O'Cain |first2=Jennifer|doi=10.1075/z.hpd2.20mck |isbn=978-90-272-2185-8 }}</ref>

Jaan Lilles argues in an essay for ''English Today'' that there is no variety of "Canadian English." According to Lilles, Canadian English is simply not a "useful fiction".<ref name="Lilles" /> He goes on to argue that too often supposedly unique features of Canadian speakers, such as certain lexical terms such as ''muskeg'' are artificially exaggerated to distinguish Canadian speech primarily from that found in the United States.<ref name="Lilles">{{cite journal
| last1   = Lilles
| first1  = Jaan
| title   = The myth of Canadian English
| journal = English Today
| date    = April 2000
| volume  = 16
| issue   = 2
| pages   = 3–9
| doi     = 10.1017/S0266078400011548
| s2cid = 145665089
}}</ref> Lilles was heavily critiqued in the next issue of ''English Today'' by lexicographer Fraser Sutherland and others. According to Stefan Dollinger, Lilles' paper "is not a paper based on any data or other new information but more of a pamphlet – so much so that it should not have been published without a public critique".<ref name=creating>{{Cite book |last=Dollinger |first=Stefan |title=Creating Canadian English: the Professor, the Mountaineer, and a National Variety of English |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2019 |pages=231}}</ref> He continues, "The paper is insightful for different reasons: it is a powerful testimony of personal anecdote and opinion [...]. As an opinion piece, it offers a good debating case." As a linguistic account, however, it "essentializes a prior state, before Canada was an independent political entity."<ref name=creating/>