The communicative value of local languages: An underestimated interest in theories of linguistic justice

Ethnicities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-199
Author(s):  
Elvira Riera-Gil
Keyword(s):  
Information Transfer ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Liberal Neutrality ◽  
Linguistic Justice ◽  
Empirical Context ◽  
Local Languages ◽  
Normative Perspective

Contemporary theories of linguistic justice still tend to deal with a simple dichotomy between majority languages, assumed to be the best communicative or instrumental tools (thus the best tools in terms of socio-economic justice and political participation), and minority languages, assumed to be basically markers of identity (relevant only in terms of ethno-cultural interests when competing with the former). Two problems, intrinsic to the concepts used, shape such a duality. Firstly, it requires an empirical contextualisation of what is meant by majority and minority language. Secondly, it presupposes a sharp detachment between communication and identity in which communication tends to be understood as a simple information transfer. In this paper, I argue that, when both empirical context and an enriched notion of communication focused on effectiveness are considered, local languages, even if categorised as minority languages, do have an instrumental value which has received little attention up to now. Such an approach has normative and policy consequences. From a normative perspective, it strengthens the rationale for supporting linguistic pluralism, highlights the fact that linguistic preferences of multilinguals matter on instrumental grounds (even if languages learnt are local languages) and suggests that assuming the communicative superiority of most widely spread or majority languages entails a deviation from liberal neutrality, regarding the kinds of good life an individual can pursue. For language policies, it points to fostering a broad individual and institutional multilingualism aimed at sustaining plurality and based on a double enabling of people, in terms of both their linguistic skills and their fair opportunities to use local and wider languages.

Minority Languages in Dictatorships: A New Measure of Group Recognition

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 639-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy H. Liu ◽  
Jennifer Gandhi ◽  
Curtis Bell
Keyword(s):  
Minority Language ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Language Recognition ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Minority Party ◽  
Original Group

What explains minority language recognition in dictatorships? In this paper, we argue that minority language groups in authoritarian regimes are morelikelyto have their languages recognized when their interests are represented by a party in the legislature. Moreover, thelevelof recognition is greater. We test this argument using original group-level and time-variant measures of minority party in legislatureandminority language policies for all Asian dictatorships from 1980 to 2000. The results are robust even when we shift the analysis to the country level globally and account for possible spurious correlations.

scholarly journals Minority Languages as a Resource for Tourism Promotion on the Web: The Case of Some Minority Communities in Italy

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Francesco Costantini ◽  
Diego Sidraschi ◽  
Francesco Zuin
Keyword(s):  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Local Variety ◽  
Tourism Promotion ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Tourism Websites ◽  
Local Languages ◽  
The Web

Minority languages have been the subject of a rich literature in the field of the sociolinguistics of tourism and a number of works have underlined that they have been increasingly used in tourism promotion in the last few decades as they convey overtones evoking authenticity. Travel websites do not only provide a first glance at a destination for potential guests, but they are also part of the tourist experience because they introduce visitors to relevant contents related to specific places. In view of this, in websites of a destination where a minority language is spoken the use of the local variety could be particularly relevant in order to promote a specific place as offering an immersion into a unique cultural experience. The present article addresses the question how ten minority communities in Italy mobilize their local languages for self-representation purposes within their tourism websites.

scholarly journals The monolingual habitus of German society challenging the interests of an autochthonous minority language

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-106
Author(s):  
Heiko Marten ◽  
Maris Saagpakk
Keyword(s):  
German Society ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Regional Administration ◽  
Majority Population ◽  
The Common ◽  
The City ◽  
Societal Role

This paper analyzes the LL in the city of Bautzen / Budyšin in Germany, a town which is frequently considered the “capital” of the Slavonic minority of the Sorbs. It focuses on the societal role of Sorbian in relation to practices and ideologies of mainstream German society. The vast majority of signs in Bautzen / Budyšin are in German only. Sorbian is essentially restricted to explicitly Sorbian institutions and to local and regional administration. Interviews conducted in shops and on the streets reveal that paternalistic attitudes common to perceptions of language policies and minority languages in Germany dominate; practices maintain the common monolingual habitus in German society. Members of the majority population show little awareness of Sorbian issues, and Sorbian signage is seen as a generous gesture but considered essentially unnecessary. Only in most recent times, a reaction by the Sorbian community has challenged these practices and attitudes.

English as Eastern: Zhuang, Mongolian, Mandarin, and English in the linguistic orders of globalized China

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (271) ◽  
pp. 35-64
Author(s):  
Alexandra Grey ◽  
Gegentuul Baioud
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
Academic Discourses ◽  
East West

Abstract Socially constructed and globally propagated East-West binaries have influenced language ideologies about English in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), but they are not hegemonic. This essay explores how East-West language ideologies are reformed in mergers with Mandarin-minority language ideologies. It discusses two separate but similar recent studies of minority language speakers and language ideologies in the PRC, respectively by Grey and Baioud. Each study reveals aspects of how Mandarin and English are being socially constructed as on the same side of a dichotomous and hierarchic linguistic and social order, in contradistinction to minority languages. The essay thus problematizes the construction of English as a Western language and Mandarin as an Eastern language; both in academic discourses and in wider social and political discourses. The essay uses Asif Agha’s theory of “enregisterment” to unify the points drawn from each study. It concludes that the language ideologies and practices/discourses under examination reproduce the displacement of a subaltern status; we describe this process as dynamic, internal Orientalism and “recursive” Orientalism, drawing on foundational theory of language ideologies. This essay paves the way for further studies of recursive Orientalism.

Facts and transformations in European minority language media systems amid digitalization and economic crisis

2018 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iñaki Zabaleta ◽  
Arantza Gutierrez ◽  
Carme Ferré-Pavia ◽  
Itxaso Fernandez ◽  
Nikolas Xamardo
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Relative Weight ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Media Type ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Systems ◽  
Comparative Nature

This article investigates the reality and variations of the European minority language media systems between 2009 and 2016, a period of serious economic crisis and accelerated digitalization process. To that aim, several parameters were measured: structure of the media systems and changes during that period along the variables of media type, ownership and reach; presence and relevance of major media in each of the communities; number and variation of full-time journalists; and the density or relative weight of the media systems with regard to the speaking population. The 10 minority languages under analysis (Basque, Catalan, Galician, Corsican, Breton, Frisian, Irish, Welsh, Scottish-Gaelic and Sámi) represent a wide range of communities. The relevance of the study lies in its direct comparative nature and in the fact that it thoroughly updates previous scholarly literature, measuring the changes which occurred within the 10 media systems.

Multilingual Education in South Siberia: National Schools in the Republics of Altai and Tyva

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-155
Author(s):  
Joan F. Chevalier
Keyword(s):  
Language Education ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Regional Study ◽  
Indigenous Youth ◽  
Language Programs ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Multilingual Education ◽  
South Siberia ◽  
Local Languages

Subtractive bilingualism is widespread throughout Siberia, with indigenous youth often more proficient in Russian than in their non-Russian local languages. Siberia’s national schools, which are secondary schools offering instruction in local languages of Russia, provide critical institutional support for minority languages. The goal of this interdisciplinary regional study is to present an overview of national schools’ development in two neighboring southern Siberian republics, Altai and Tyva, up to the present, and to evaluate the role of national schools’ local language programs in promoting language vitality. The study examines a shift in priorities and challenges in local language education since 1991, the factors contributing to the shift, particularly federally-enacted educational reforms, and what has been done in these regions to meet these challenges.

English in the Philippines: A Case of Rootedness and Routedness

2020 ◽  
pp. 133-153
Author(s):  
Bejay Villaflores Bolivar
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
National Language ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Hybrid Form ◽  
Online Communities Of Practice ◽  
Local Languages

The researcher focuses on a hybrid form of English and Cebuano-Bisaya, one of the dominant local languages in the Philippines. Drawing from the Extra and Intra-territorial Model of Buschfeld and Kautzsch, the article argues that the emergence of Bislish is propelled by extra- and intra-territorial forces: first, language policies and a regional resistance against Tagalog as the national language; second, the surge of globalization and the Cebuano speakers’ endeavor for upward and outward mobility. The researcher surmounts that the prominence of Bislish in various domains, particularly in online communities of practice, is tied to the speakers’ attitudes of rootedness and routedness. The study affirms the viability of the EIF Model in explicating cases of language hybridity in postcolonial contexts.

scholarly journals Doing Content and Language Integrated Learning With a Minority Language: A Teacher Development Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Marcella Menegale ◽  
Ada Bier
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Development ◽  
New Teacher ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Teacher Autonomy ◽  
Development Model ◽  
Teaching Skills ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Educational Goal ◽  
Functional Literacy

Recent research suggests that minority languages cannot be lastingly revitalised unless related functional literacy skills become an explicit educational goal. Focussing on the Friulian minority language in Italy, this paper discusses the importance of developing literacy skills in the minority language. In line with this, a new teacher development model in CLIL has been conceived and piloted with a small group of teachers of Friulian. The findings of the study suggest that the model was effective in relation to both the development of teaching skills in CLIL and in literacy related issues and, more in general, to the promotion of teacher autonomy.

Economy and funding of European minority language media: Reality and impact of digitalization and economic crisis

Journalism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146488492095403
Author(s):  
Iñaki Zabaleta ◽  
Nikolas Xamardo
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Public Funding ◽  
Qualitative Evaluation ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Scottish Gaelic ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Aid ◽  
Media Types ◽  
Media Systems

This article investigates the economy of monolingual media systems in nine European minority language communities during 2009–2015, a period of strong economic crisis and accelerated digitalization. The main areas of study are three: The economic volume or weight of those media systems and its variation between 2009 and 2015; the current funding structure of the four media types (press, radio, TV and cybermedia); and the qualitative evaluation of media editors and managers on the effect of those two crises as well as the significance of the public aid. The nine European minority languages are Basque, Welsh, Galician, Irish, Breton, Frisian, Sámi, Corsican and Scottish-Gaelic. As for the findings, it can be highlighted that the economic volume or revenue of European minority language media is close to five hundred million euros per year, of which over ninety per cent is public funding, mostly devoted to broadcasting media. The conclusion set forth is that public funding should not be framed as aid but as a social, cultural and economic investment.

Interpreting and minority language planning and policy

2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Neal Baxter
Keyword(s):  
Language Planning ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Planning And Policy ◽  
Linguistic Rights ◽  
Oral Interpretation ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Similarities And Differences

With potential applications for other minority languages, this paper discusses the implications of interpreting to and from Galician, starting with an overview of the current sociolinguistic situation, and the interpreting and translation market in Galicia in the light of political changes. After highlighting the similarities and differences between written translation and oral interpretation, the article examines the role played specifically by interpretation as a prestige-raising activity within the framework of language planning. Finally, the paper also discusses interpreting using minority languages as a tool enabling citizens to exercise their linguistic rights to the full.

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