Language Use, Language Policy, and Language Rights

2018 ◽  
pp. 167-223
Author(s):  
István Horváth ◽  
Tibor Toró
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Rights

scholarly journals Sociolinguistic aspects of the language conflict research in Ukraine

2021 ◽  
pp. 108-120
Author(s):  
Tetiana Fuderer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Social Conflict ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Rights ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Social Tension ◽  
Official Language Minority ◽  
Language Conflict ◽  
Conflict Research

Terminological trends towards a concept of “language conflict” are to some extent underexplored in Ukrainian sociolinguistics and sociology. This article looks into modern approaches to the language conflict research and ways of terminologization of the “language conflict” concept. The data collected from a recent sociological survey show that there are no grounds for the analysis of the phenomenon of social interaction regarding the use of languages in Ukraine, as seen through the prism of “social conflict”. However, by confirming that in the collective consciousness, the language is treated as an annoying issue associated with a certain social tension, the findings show that social practices related to the language use in Ukraine are appropriate to be investigated with respect to the concept of “social tension”, that is, frequent domestic disputes about languages and examples of manipulation of the language issue in mass media. In this paper, language conflict is described as one of the parameters of language situations, out of which the defining features are as: 1) redistribution of functional spheres of languages in a certain territory and in various socio-political formations or spheres of language use; 2) a change in the demographic power of languages accompanied by changes in the legislative support of the language functioning or in the deliberate delay of relevant laws adoption. Yet with a destructive language policy, language conflict can acquire the features of a social conflict. The features of language conflict in Ukraine are deformations of language situations leading to the discrepancy between the real state of Ukrainian and its status as the official language. This prevents balanced interaction between Ukrainian and other languages used in Ukraine needed for ensuring the language rights of all citizens. Keywords: language conflict, language situation, language policy, official language, minority languages, language rights.

scholarly journals Linguistic identity among new speakers of Basque

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (231) ◽  
pp. 85-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ane Ortega ◽  
Jacqueline Urla ◽  
Estibaliz Amorrortu ◽  
Jone Goirigolzarri ◽  
Belen Uranga
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Linguistic Identity ◽  
The Future ◽  
New Speakers ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Family Transmission

Abstract The increase in Basque speakers in the last 30 years has been due in large part to ‘new speakers’ or euskaldunberri, a term that will be used here to refer to those who have learned the language by means other than family transmission. While very significant in numbers, to date this group has not been the object of much study. Little is known about their attitudes and motivations, how they perceive themselves as Basque speakers, or their language use and transmission patterns. Acquiring answers to these questions is of strategic importance for developing an effective evidence-based language policy for the future. This article presents the results of a qualitative study of new speakers. Drawing on data from focus groups and interviews, the central goal of the article is to examine how new speakers of differing profiles perceive and locate themselves with respect to the popularly used labels for “new” and “native” Basque speakers and the ideologies of authenticity and legitimacy that seem to shape these perceptions. The analysis shows that learning the language alone, even to a high degree of competence, does not guarantee a view of themselves as true and genuine speakers of Basque.

scholarly journals Critical Mass and Insecurity in Minority Language Policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-316
Author(s):  
C.F. Huws
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Specific Focus ◽  
Welsh Language ◽  
Minority Language Policy

This article will discuss the extent to which legislation is effective in terms of changing individual and group behaviours. The specific focus of this article will be to argue that legislation pertaining to the use of the Welsh language in Wales, despite having expanded the domains of language use in an important way, has not shifted the cycle of language non-use that may be identified.

Beyond an Anxiety Logic: A Critical Examination of Language Rights Cases before the European Court of Human Rights

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-119
Author(s):  
Dana Schmalz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Language Rights ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Argument Proceeds ◽  
The Right ◽  
Individual Dimension

Abstract Language rights have traditionally been codified and discussed in the context of minority protection. The identification of language rights with questions of national minorities can, however, confound the analysis. This article explores the freedom of using a language and argues that the individual dimension of language rights must not be ignored beside the group dimension. The argument proceeds along a reading of three recent cases from the European Court of Human Rights, which concerned the use of Kurdish in Turkey. The Court’s reasoning illustrates the risk of an ‘anxiety logic’, which sees any language rights in connection with political claims of groups, thereby introducing additional conditions for the right and disregarding the significance a specific language can have for an individual, being more than a medium of conveying and receiving information. Conceptualising language use as an individual freedom is necessary also to account for situations other than national minorities, most importantly for the language rights of immigrants.

Language Policy and New Media

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aoife Lenihan
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Participatory Culture ◽  
Primary Language ◽  
Policy Theory ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Language Policy Theory

New media and the new communication spaces they bring are often heralded as revolutionary contexts of language use. This chapter aims to look beyond this hype to consider the effects of this recent context of use on existing language policy theory. An initial case study is Facebook and its Translations application, which I examine using virtual ethnographic methods. In this context, the commercial entity Facebook and the individuals of the Irish language Translations application are the primary language policy actors, developing the de facto language policy of this domain and affecting the multilingual World Wide Web. It is concluded that commercial entities, technological developments, and individuals are not merely agents or actors in language policy processes. Instead, the author adopts the concepts of media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence to understand how media producers and consumers act in new and unpredictable ways in language policy processes online.

EMI teacher and student identities and linguistic practices

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-141
Author(s):  
Joan Catherine Ploettner
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Teacher Development ◽  
Language Use ◽  
University Professors ◽  
Classroom Language ◽  
English Medium Instruction ◽  
Development Processes ◽  
Content Specialist ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Although the incorporation of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in multilingual higher education institutions is widely accepted, it may be a source of tension for university professors for whom English is an additional language, particularly when both teacher and students share an L1 other than English. A need exists to examine how linguistic attributes of EMI are interpreted and executed by participants. This study focuses on dialogue between a content specialist and a language specialist during an EMI teacher development partnership at a multilingual Catalan university. Membership Category Analysis (MCA) explores the categories made relevant in interaction, category associated features and responsibilities, and their procedural relevance within the interaction. The article focuses on results relating to the emerging identities of EMI classroom participants and related linguistic attributes. The results shed light on tensions relating to language use in EMI, and may inform EMI teacher development processes and classroom language policy.

scholarly journals Language Orientations and the Sustainability of Arbanasi Language in Croatia – A Case of Linguistic Injustice

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Klara Bilić Meštrić ◽  
Lucija Šimičić
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Rights ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Methodological Nationalism ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Status ◽  
Development Of Language

AbstractDespite numerous positive aspects of the global development of language-as-right orientation, we argue that its application is rooted in methodological nationalism, i.e. the idea of society being equal to a nationstate (Chernilo 2006), and the monoglot ideology based on the idea of one proper version of a historically and politically privileged dialect carrying the status of a language. This dominant preconception of social phenomena thus leaves many varieties in a legislative vacuum. As a consequence, language rights, often in the form of more or less mandatory legal instruments, concern only a (politically established) few. When this institutional inadequacy is paired with the existing orders of indexicality, then these varieties face marginalisation processes that render language use even more unsustainable. To address the issue of language sustainability, we analyse the language-as-right, language-as-resource and language-as-problem orientations in Croatia on the case of the Arbanasi, a community of descendants of Catholic albanophones who settled in the periphery of Zadar in the 18th century and whose group identity is marked by significant language loss. We analyse how speakers and community members themselves perceive marginalisation processes, especially concerning linguistic (in)justice that stems from the policies that hinder sustainability of Arbanasi language use in the long run.

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