Language policy and political philosophy

2007 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helder De Schutter
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Interpretive Scheme

This paper provides an overview of the emerging debates over language policy and linguistic diversity within political philosophy. It outlines the larger context of this debate and identifies its protagonists and the main issues at stake in it. In addition, it presents an interpretive scheme for the analysis of the variety of approaches that have so far been developed within this field. This scheme relates these approaches back to two clashes of different language ideologies. The first clash is between instrumentalism and constitutivism. The second clash is between transparency and hybridity. Finally, the paper explains why the sociolinguistic literature on language policy should interest political philosophers, and vice versa: why sociolinguists should engage with political philosophy.

scholarly journals Native-speakerism and English without Borders Program: investigating language ideologies through a language policy

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taisa Pinetti Passoni
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Brazilian Government ◽  
Critical Language Policy ◽  
Linguistic Proficiency

English without Borders (EwB) is a Brazilian government-sponsored Program created to enhance linguistic proficiency of potential candidates for outward mobility. Assuming that language ideologies embody as well as are embodied by language policies, this paper aims at examining the native-speakerism ideology. It draws on texts comprising instances of enactment and interpretations of EwB in addition to evidences posed by decisions arising from its implementation to examine how native-speakerism is positioned through the Program. Building on critical language policy approach, it employs critical discourse analysis resources to investigate how native-speakerism is challenged or reinforced by the agenda implemented by EwB. Evidences point to the overlapping of deconstructing and corroborating perspectives, especially regarding local interpretations posed by the Language Center coordinators whose considerations about the linguistic diversity of English are marked by ambivalent thoughts on the issue. The coexistence of such tensions indicates the pervasive nature of native-speakerism concerning English in Brazil.

scholarly journals Language Ideologies and Transnational Migration: A Study of Cape Verdeans in Galicia

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Nicola Bermingham
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Peripheral Region ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Cape Verdean ◽  
Language Identity ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Symbolic Resource

Changes to the global infrastructure have contributed to the growing (linguistic) diversity of large metropolises. However, there have been calls from scholars to explore “emerging superdiversity” (DePalma and Pérez-Caramés 2018) in peripheral regions in order to fully understand the complexities and nuances of the sociolinguistics of globalisation (Wang et al. 2014; Pietikäinen et al. 2016). This article, therefore, explores language ideologies among a purposive sample of five young adults of Cape Verdean origin living in the peripheral region of Galicia, Spain, and draws on interview data to examine the ways in which multilingual migrants engage with the language varieties in their linguistic repertoire. In studying immigration from a former African colony to a bilingual European context, we can see how language ideologies from the migrant community are reflected in local ones. The sociolinguistic dynamics of Cape Verde and Galicia share many similarities: both contexts are officially bilingual (Galician and Spanish in Galicia, Kriolu and Portuguese in Cape Verde), and questions regarding the hierarchisation of languages remain pertinent in both cases. The ideologies about the value and prestige of (minority) languages that Cape Verdean migrants arrive with are thus accommodated by local linguistic ideologies in Galicia, a region which has a history of linguistic minoritisation. This has important implications for the ways in which language, as a symbolic resource, is mobilised by migrants in contexts of transnational migration. The findings of this study show how migrants are key actors in (re)shaping the linguistic dynamics of their host society and how, through their practices and discourses, they challenge long-standing assumptions about language, identity and linguistic legitimacy, and call into question ethno-linguistic boundaries.

The past is prologue

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Cassels Johnson ◽  
Crissa Stephens ◽  
Stephanie Gugliemo Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
New Latino Diaspora ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The U.S

Abstract This article examines reactions to the changing linguistic ecology in the U.S. state of Iowa, which is experiencing a demographic phenomenon often referred to as the New Latino Diaspora (NLD) (Hamann et al., 2002). We first examine the historical processes and social structures that link current language policy initiatives within Iowa to local and national nativism. We then analyze public policies and texts to reveal how language ideologies circulate across diverse texts and contexts, forming discourses that shape the experiences of Latin@s in Iowa.

Rethinking Language Education policy in the Context of Multilingual/ Multicultural English

2021 ◽  
Vol X (2) ◽  
pp. 49-53
Author(s):  
Aicha Rahal ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Education Policy ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Influential Factors ◽  
World Englishes ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Language Education Policy ◽  
Global English

Globalization has brought about a phenomenal spread of English. This spread has led to the emergence of the newborn varieties which has created serious challenges to language teaching pedagogy and language education policy. Bangbose (2003) has clearly pointed to this issue, stating “as researchers in world Englishes, we cannot consider our job done if we turn a blind eye to the problems of educational failure or unfavorable language policy outcomes” (as cited in the Council of Europe, 2007, p. 31). It seems that there is a mismatch between the advances that happened in the field of applied linguistics and language education policy. This paper focuses on language education policy in the context of global English because it is considered one of the influential factors in the gap between English lingua franca reality and English as a native language. First, it gives a brief overview of the recent situation with regard to English and shows the recent reality of multilingual English and its multifarious aspect (Rahal, 2018 & 2019). It also discusses the conceptual gap in language education policy. It points to the conceptual gap between the sociolinguistic reality of English and the language education policy that is still oriented towards English as a native language. Then, the paper points to the need for a language policy that includes linguistic diversity.

scholarly journals Language Challenges in Global and Regional Integration

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Phillipson
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Research Collaboration ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Student Mobility ◽  
National Language ◽  
University Education ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Linguistic Capital

Summary The article analyses whether the expansion of English is adding to linguistic repertoires, or whether a process of linguistic capital dispossession of national languages is taking place. It explores the role that discourses of ‘global English’ and of English as a ‘lingua franca’ play in processes of global and regional European integration. It considers whether the linguistic capital of all languages can be made productive when in much of Europe there is a marked downgrading of the learning of foreign languages other than English, alongside the continued neglect of many minority languages. Language pedagogy and language policy need to be situated within wider political, social and economic contexts. EU schemes for research collaboration and student mobility are of limited help in maintaining linguistic diversity. The Bologna process furthers European integration but intensifies the hegemony of English. Nordic universities are moving into bilingual education, combining English with a national language. The 2006 Declaration on a Nordic Language Policy aims at ensuring that Nordic languages and English develop in parallel, that all residents can maintain their languages, and that language policy issues should be widely understood. If neoliberalism and linguistic neoimperialism are determining factors, there are challenges in maintaining the vitality of languages, and organizing school and university education so as to educate critical multilingual citizens.

scholarly journals A semiotic approach to language ideologies: Modelling the changing Icelandic languagescape

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (2-4) ◽  
pp. 271-296
Author(s):  
Stephen Pax Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
E Coli ◽  
Semiotic Model ◽  
Semiotic Approach ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Linguistic Purism

Attempts have been made to examine how speakers frame linguistic varieties by employing social semiotic models. Using ethnographic data collected over many years, this article applies such a model to Iceland, once described as the ‘e-coli of linguistics’ – its size, historical isolation and relative linguistic homogeneity create conditions akin to a sociolinguistic laboratory. This semiotic model of language ideologies problematizes the prevailing discourse of linguistic purism at a time of sociolinguistic upheaval. The analysis shows how an essentializing scheme at the heart of Icelandic language policy ensured that linguistic “anomalies” such as “dative disease” and “genitive phobia” indexed essential differences. “Impure” language was indicative of un-Icelandicness. Once monolingual (indeed monodialectal), the Icelandic speech community is increasingly characterized by innovative linguistic transgressions which thus far have not been instrumentalized by language policy makers. It is shown how a semiotic model can help us analyse the function of language ideologies more generally.

What Are We Trying to Preserve? Diversity, Change, and Ideology at the Edge of the Cameroonian Grassfields

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierpaolo Di Carlo ◽  
Jeff Good
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Extreme Case ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Key Aspects

Losses associated with language endangerment need not be restricted to individual language systems but can also involve the disappearance of distinctive language ecologies. This chapter explores the language dynamics of the Lower Fungom region of Northwest Cameroon, which offers an extreme case of linguistic diversity, from an areal and ethnographically informed perspective. Key aspects of local language ideologies are explored in detail, and it is argued that in this area languages symbolize relatively ephemeral political formations and, hence, should not be taken as reflections of deeply rooted historical identities. This conclusion has significance both regarding how research projects in the area should be structured as well as for what it might mean to ‘preserve’ the languages of a region that historically appears to have been characterized by frequent language loss and emergence, conditioned by changes in territorial and political configurations.

Hangovers of globalization

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarja Siiner
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Decisions

Denmark is known for its rather “liberal” and implicit language policy. Many of the decisions concerning the use, acquisition and status of languages are influenced by political decisions made on other topics and by the changing governments’ hidden political agenda. Language policy is therefore not so much non-existent as it is hidden. The aim of the present article is to uncover the covert mechanisms of language policymaking and its relationship to the prevailing linguistic culture. The roots of the laissez-faire language policy in Denmark are planted deeply in the prevailing linguistic culture in the country, according to which sanctioning and controlling the use of language is conceived as discriminatory, as it is in conflict with the right to freedom of speech. However, recent sociolinguistic research carried out in Denmark bears witness to the fact that the laissez-faire or liberal language policy does not necessarily contribute to linguistic diversity, but quite to the contrary speeds up the opposite processes of standardization and dedialectalization.

Language Policy and Ideology

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qing Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Special Administrative Region ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Economic Considerations ◽  
Modern Nation State

This chapter discusses language policies in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR since 1997) and Taiwan. The term “Greater China” refers to these three territories. Contemporary language policies in the region are driven by the need for, and play a vital role in, building a unified modern nation-state. The discussion notes that language policy is informed and shaped by language ideologies and attitudes, as well as by sociohistorical, geopolitical, and economic considerations. All three territories have witnessed drastic socioeconomic and political change since the last two decades of the twentieth century. Such transformations have undoubtedly left their impact on their languages and language policies.

Authority and morality in advocating heteroglossia

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Jaspers
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Value Conflict ◽  
Academic Pressure ◽  
Linguistic Citizenship

Abstract In this article I address the fact that influential strands in socio- and applied linguistics advocate heteroglossic policies in education and other monolingually organised domains without extending this heteroglossia to public debate about language policy. Often this occurs by presenting linguistic diversity to relevant stakeholders as natural and real, or as the only option on account of its proven effectiveness. I argue that this strategy removes options from the debate by framing it as a scientific rather than political one, that it confronts stakeholders with academic pressure and blame, and that this may diminish scholars’ impact on policy making. Using examples from research on translanguaging, repertoires, and linguistic citizenship, I will suggest that scholars may be more effective in contexts of value conflict when their knowledge serves to expand rather than reduce the range of alternatives for stakeholders. Focusing on education I will then explore how we may reclaim language policy from an evidence-based discourse and address matters of value besides matters of fact.

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