Linguistic borders and communities of work. A bilingualism at the test of industrial change

L'analyse concerne differents types de limites et frontieres au sein d'une grande entreprise automobile situee pres de la frontiere franco-allemande en Moselle (France). Filiale d'un grand groupe allemand, dirigee par un Allemand, mais employant une majorite de Francais et une minorite d'Allemands, cette entreprise est un lieu original de brouillage des frontieres. Les distinctions liees aux groupes sociaux, a l'organisation du travail et a des cultures d'entreprises, tendent a se superposer de maniere subtile et a moduler les effets de frontieres nationales et linguistiques. Toutefois, les evolutions de la production, du recrutement des salaries et la mise en place de nouveaux partenariats industriels sont susceptibles d'activer ces frontieres apparemment routinisees et fonctionnelles. L'article presente les questionnements theoriques, la methodologie et les premiers enseignements de la pre-enquete.//This paper focuses on a plant in the automotive industry located in the Moselle department (France) close to the French-German border, which is an organisation encompassing several types of limits and borders. As the employees are mainly of French nationality but also, to a lesser extent, of German nationality , and the managing director is German, the company is a place where the national, social and linguistic borders meet and combine to form new structures. The authors aim at identifying the respective roles of these types of borders within the company, especially in terms of the eventual superposition of the limits between high-skilled employees vs. workers, German-speaking vs. French-speaking, as well as German vs. French nationals. The representation of these limits will be put in the territorial perspective of the factory environment through the places from where the employees originate. [web URL: http://www.cairn.info/resume.php?ID_ARTICLE=QDC_029_0351] Reproduced by permission of Bibliothèque de Sciences Po