Language Minorities and Language Maintenance

1997 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 30-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Edwards

The position of minority groups and the maintenance of their languages are very much in the news today. For (largely) indigenous minorities, consider the case of continental Europe: As it moves—sometimes erratically—towards federalism, its minorities and its “stateless” peoples are pressing for increased and improved recognition. In October 1981, the European Parliament adopted the Arfé resolution, providing such recognition. A number of further developments have occurred, important among which was the establishment in 1982 of the Dublin-based Bureau for Lesser Used Languages. Its Secretary-General recently observed that:If our languages have been ignored in the past by European institutions this is no longer the case. The European Community is positive towards the cause of our languages and now includes in its budget a provision of 3.5 million ECU to promote regional and minority languages and cultures (Breathnach 1993:1). (See also Baetens Beardsmore 1993; 1994, Edwards 1994a, Sikma and Gorter 1991.)

Res Publica ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-501
Author(s):  
Dusan Sidjanski

The results of the first European elections reflect the general distribution of the European electorate slightly center-right oriented, even if the abstentionism of almost 40 % caused some distorsions as in the case of United Kingdom. After the comparison of the results, state by state, it appears globally that the socialists ( 113) and liberals (40) regressed, the gaullists and their allies (22) suffered a serious defeat, white the christian democrats ( 107) and the communists (44) progressed and some minor parties (leftists and regionalists) entered the European Parliament.The second part contains a portrait of the new European Parliament which is younger than its predecessor, has more women including its president and has many high personnalities. As in the past, the political groupsplay a central and dynamic role. The question is to know if they will be capable of maintaining their cohesion. The examined cases give no evidence of the existence of the center-right majority in front of the left opposition. In fact, there were changing coalitions and voting constellations according to different problems, ideological options or concrete choices. The recent vote rejecting the proposed budget expresses a will of the European Parliament to impose its style and its democratic control on the European Community.


1982 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 12-15
Author(s):  
Robert Goelhert ◽  
Marian Shaaban

With the first direct election to the European Parliament in the fall of 1979, there has been a renewed interest in the study of the European Community. While very few American universities offer courses on the European Community, more college and universities are including some coverage of the Community through course offerings on European politics or the study of international organizations.There are several reasons why the European Community is today receiving more attention by scholars and researchers. With the addition of three states in 1973, the nine member organization has become a significant economic force in the world. And because of the Community's economic importance, its decisions also have social and political implications.


2001 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yeşim Arat

The development of liberalism with both the courage and the capacity to engage itself with a different world, one in which its principles are neither well understood nor widely held, in which indeed it is, in most places, a minority creed, alien and suspect, is not only possible, it is necessary.-Clifford Geertz. 2000.Available Light.Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, p. 258.Over the past two decades, the debate over multiculturalism challenged the justice of neutral, “difference blind” rules in liberal democracies. Allegedly neutral institutions were shown to be implicitly biased toward the priorities, experiences, or interests of the dominant groups in the society. Criticism of difference-blind rules and claims for justice to minority groups defined the relationship between government and opposition in many contexts. Arguments for special rights to protect minorities, women, or ethnocultural groups gained legitimacy (Young 1990, Jones 1990, Phillips 1991, Taylor 1994, Kymlicka 1995, Kymlicka and Norman 2000).


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bradley

AbstractMost nations in mainland Southeast Asia and elsewhere have one national language as a focus of national identity and unity, supported by a language policy which promotes and develops this language. Indigenous and immigrant minority groups within each nation may be marginalized; their languages may become endangered. Some of the official national language policies and ethnic policies of mainland Southeast Asian nations aim to support both a national language and indigenous minority languages, but usually the real policy is less positive. It is possible to use sociolinguistic and educational strategies to maintain the linguistic heritage and diversity of a nation, develop bilingual skills among minority groups, and integrate minorities successfully into the nations where they live, but this requires commitment and effort from the minorities themselves and from government and other authorities. The main focus of this paper is two case studies: one of language policy and planning in Myanmar, whose language policy and planning has rarely been discussed before. The other is on the Lisu, a minority group in Myanmar and surrounding countries, who have been relatively successful in maintaining their language.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aznar

Over the past decade, the problems arising from social communication have yet again become burning issues on social and political agendas. Information disorder, hate speeches, information manipulation, social networking sites, etc., have obliged the most important European institutions to reflect on how to meet the collective challenges that social communication currently poses in the new millennium. These European Institutions have made a clear commitment to self-regulation. The article reviews some recent European initiatives to deal with information disorder that has given a fundamental role to self-regulation. To then carry out a theoretical review of the normative notion of self-regulation that distinguishes it from the neo-liberal economicist conception. To this end, (1) a distinction is drawn between the (purportedly) self-regulating market and (2) a broader conception of self-regulation inherent not to media companies or corporations, but to the social subsystem of social communication, is proposed. This involves increasing the number of self-regulatory mechanisms that may contribute to improve social communication, and reinforcing the commitment of those who should exercise such self-regulation, including not only media companies but also the professionals working at them and the public at large.


1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-26
Author(s):  
Louise W. Holborn

While the world press has focused over the past year on problems surrounding the creation of still another refugee population in Africa — that of Uganda's Asians — far too little attention has been directed to the remarkable though still fragile process of repatriation and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Southern Sudanese. This population of displaced persons includes both refugees who fled to other countries and large numbers of homeless who hid in the bush during the civil war that wracked the Sudan for seventeen years, from 1955 through the first months of 1972. Responding to the initiatives of President Gaafar al-Nimeiry of the Sudan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (HCR), under an explicit mandate from the Secretary- General of the United Nations, has been raising funds, organizing activities on behalf of the most pressing needs and working closely with all local interests to meet overwhelming problems.


Author(s):  
Shahid Bashir ◽  
Shafiq Ahmad ◽  
Moath Alatefi ◽  
Ali Hamza ◽  
Mohammad Sahreef

The field of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has experienced significant growth in the past 15 years which is mainly devoted to determining the basic and clinical potential of tDCS in humans. The aim of this study is to quantitatively analyze the current worldwide progress on tDCS research as well as to highlight researchers, journals, institutions and countries which are contributing significantly in the past 18 years. We conducted a quantitative analysis of research articles regarding tDCS published from 1998 to 2016 and indexed in the web of science core collection database. Data was downloaded in October, 2016. In the past 18 years, there were 2457 studies on tDCS indexed by web of science database, including all documents type such as article, review, meeting abstract, proceedings paper, letters, and etc. This study is focusing on the main articles and reviews; therefore, the research production was reduced to 2000 publications. The analysis showed that most of the studies in the field were published by North American and European institutions with a reasonable proportion of the publications were also by Japanese institutions from Asia. From the perspective of research progress, we found that the number of published papers on tDCS has increased significantly in the past 10 years, between them a remarkable positive correlation exists.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-257
Author(s):  
Francisco Soto Mas ◽  
Holly E. Jacobson

Health literacy is a priority issue in both medicine and public health, as it refers to the capacity to obtain and understand basic health information and services and to make appropriate health decisions. Health literacy has been associated with a variety of health care and health outcomes such as hospital admissions, use of preventive services, management of chronic conditions, and mortality. There is also evidence of the connection between low health literacy and health disparities. Despite federal and private efforts, improving health literacy has proven to be an enormous challenge. The negative health consequences of low health literacy are being experienced by most minority groups; however, health literacy is particularly relevant to Spanish speakers. Although disparities in health literacy among language minorities have been sufficiently identified and reported, there continue to exist fundamental research gaps. This article discusses health literacy research and practice gaps affecting Spanish speakers and recommends educational opportunities as an effective strategy for improving the health literacy level of Hispanic immigrants.


Author(s):  
Neil Parpworth

The aims of this chapter are threefold. It first briefly considers the events that have led to the creation of the European Community (EC) and the European Union (EU). Secondly, it introduces the reader to the principal institutions of the Union: the European Council; the Council of Ministers; the European Commission; the European Parliament; and the Court of Justice of the EU and General Court. The nature and functions of each of these bodies is considered. Thirdly, the chapter indicates, where appropriate, the nature of the institutional reforms which have occurred following the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by the member states.


AERA Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 233285841988889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Cimpian ◽  
Jennifer D. Timmer

Although numerous survey-based studies have found that students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning (LGBQ) have elevated risk for many negative academic, disciplinary, psychological, and health outcomes, the validity of the types of data on which these results rest have come under increased scrutiny. Over the past several years, a variety of data-validity screening techniques have been used in attempts to scrub data sets of “mischievous responders,” youth who systematically provide extreme and untrue responses to outcome items and who tend to falsely report being LGBQ. We conducted a preregistered replication of Cimpian et al. with the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey to (1) estimate new LGBQ-heterosexual disparities on 20 outcomes; (2) test a broader, mechanistic theory relating mischievousness effects with a feature of items (i.e., item response-option extremity); and (3) compare four techniques used to address mischievous responders. Our results are consistent with Cimpian et al.’s findings that potentially mischievous responders inflate LGBQ-heterosexual disparities, do so more among boys than girls, and affect outcomes differentially. For example, we find that removing students suspected of being mischievous responders can cut male LGBQ-heterosexual disparities in half overall and can completely or mostly eliminate disparities in outcomes including fighting at school, driving drunk, and using cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy. Methodologically, we find that some methods are better than others at addressing the issue of data integrity, with boosted regressions coupled with data removal leading to potentially very large decreases in the estimates of LGBQ-heterosexual disparities, but regression adjustment having almost no effect. While the empirical focus of this article is on LGBQ youth, the issues discussed are relevant to research on other minority groups and youth generally, and speak to survey development, methodology, and the robustness and transparency of research.


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