ABSTRACT
In August 2014, the influential French intellectual Jacques Attali submitted a report to Francois Hollande, president of France, titled La francophonie et la francophilie, moteurs de croissance durable. The report aimed to demonstrate to French government representatives how ‘Francophonie and Francophilia’ could serve to advance the economy and social development. The term ‘Francophonie’ is widely used to denote the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie – an international organization, which now includes 84 states and governments. This chapter uses the phenomenon of ‘Francophonie’ in relation to transregional processes. It explains language as a form of human activity that is embodied in linguistic action. The European powers conquered or acquired geographic spaces in the ‘New World’ and utilized language as a means of control. Colonial expansion led to what Daniel Schreier describes as ‘an explosion of space’, which had a profound impact on the domain of language.
