Transcript One Language, One Nation?

One Language, One Nation?
Language Policies in Multilingual
Settings
One Language, One Nation?
•
Language planning and policy is the management of multilingualism
•
Language Planning: [Cooper (1989:45)]
–
•
‘deliberate efforts to influence the behaviour of others with respect to the
acquisition, structure and functional allocations of their language codes.’
Language policy of a speech community (Spolsky 2004:5)
– language practices (which languages people select to use, and where
– Language ideologies –(!) beliefs about language and language use
– Efforts to influence practices and beliefs through intervention, planning or
management
•
•
•
India – 1000+ languages
Papua New Guinea – 420 + languages
UK – English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish:
+ 300 languages in London schools alone
2
•
•
So … language planning and policy does not occur in monolingual states?
No … for several reasons:
•
•
1
2
•
•
•
Iceland – Mainly Icelandic …
but some Danish. Sign Languages?
Also English … societies exist in globalising networks with other societies
•
And even without Danish or English, who would decide on ‘standard’
Icelandic
•
Possibly North Korea … highly isolated, but some contact with e.g. China,
international community. And ‘standard’ Korean – different from nonstandard dialects
There is ‘no such thing as no language policy’ (Schiffman, 1996)
There aren’t any really properly monolingual societies
3
North Korea
1 + dialects
relatively monolingual
Iceland
~3
Taiwan
>18
PNG
>429
India
>1000
abundantly monolingual
4
So … if monolingual nation states rarely – if ever –
exist, why do we believe in the myth of one
language, one nation?
• Before the nation state = feudalism
• Peasantry lived along a dialect continuum
• Portuguese and Italians wouldn’t understand
each other (but then, there was no Portugal or
Italy)
• But walking from Portugal to Italy, each village
would probably understand each other
• Nation-State: No longer feudal. 16C – 18C
• Wisdom of Kings and ‘divine rule’ challenged
• Political power/legitimacy rested with the people
5
The State Nation / Nation State
• State-Nations: Conquering territory: claiming
people within it a nation, seeking
homogenisation (e.g. linguistic) through
centralisation, education (though also possible
that people are pre-disposed to act as groups)
• Nation-State: homogenous population with
common language and culture, seeking to
acquire territory.
• Both privilege linguistic homogeneity –
monolingualism as national identity
6
One nation, one language?
•
•
•
•
•
National identity: unity of the nation
Common culture, institutions, language
For communication and economy
To distinguish from other nations
And to keep the outsider or the invader visible (nonnationals seen as threat = bilinguals seen as having
‘questionable loyalty’)
• Were early state-nations or nation-states monolingual
though? No … see modern borders between France and
Germany – borders drawn for e.g. religious unity or
ethnic purity, not language
7
Language Ideologies
• Monolingualism: a language ideology
• Not single ideology just to ‘hide’ the truth (Althusser)
• But ONE ideology produced by a set of complex discourses (unity of
the nation, defence from the outsider, for economics and
communication)
• Other ideologies (common history, national flag) also produced by
those discourses
• Discourses shift depending on power relations
• The production of knowledge (e.g. a common history, a standard
common language) = an operation of power = power/knowledge as
inter-linked.
• Ideologies do not necessarily have to be false, only play a part in the
creation or maintenance of (multiple) relations of domination
• E.g. It can be ‘proved’ that Black Englishes are phonologically
different from standard Englishes: it does not mean it is true that
they are inherently inferior – though they may be perceived that way.
8
So … in our enlightened times, have we got rid of
monolingualism as the national ‘default’?
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/national_language.jpg
9
Early approaches to understanding
multilingualism: diglossia
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ferguson’s model of diglossia:
H/L
High language: standard variety
Low language: regional dialects
Useful, in that it saw multilingualism as possibly being two varieties of the
same language (or related languages) used in different contexts
E.g. Function (church, home, news, cartoon)
Prestige (e.g. denying a language exists and claim to be speaking
something else)
Saw diglossia as ‘stable’ (that is, that long held beliefs about language
persist)
Saw linguistic features (phonology, standardisation acquisition etc.) as
being fundamentally related to socio-cultural situations.
But: failed to account for why prestige and stability was achieved and
maintained
Failed to propose any notion of conflict between languages: they all sat
happily in their functions (home etc.) without bothering each other
10
Language Planning and Policy
•
Language Planning: [Cooper (1989:45)]
–
•
‘deliberate efforts to influence the behaviour of others with respect to the
acquisition, structure and functional allocations of their language codes.’
Language policy of a speech community (Spolsky 2004:5)
– language practices (which languages people select to use, and where
– Language ideologies –(!) beliefs about language and language use
– Efforts to influence practices and beliefs through intervention, planning or
management
11
Status / Corpus / Acquisition
Planning
• Status: the relative prestige a language has due
to its place in society (i.e. which languages to be
used, and where)
• Corpus: the ‘body’ of these languages: which
alphabets to use, correct usage, modern
terminologies, etc.
• Acquisition: how to get the population to learn
(acquire) these languages
• But … these are not just linguistic concerns:
politically, socially and economically
(ideologically) motivated …
12
‘Language Planning
and Policy Goals:
An Integrative
Framework’
(Hornberger,
2006:29)
13
North Korea
1 + dialects
Iceland
~3
Taiwan
>18
PNG
>429
relatively monolingual
India
>1000
abundantly monolingual
Where does the UK go on this scale?
What languages do we count in a multilingual society?
• Indigenous languages?
• Immigrant languages?
• Foreign Languages?
= Various explanation: ideologically motivated about who you think you
are, and how you see the society in which you live
For sociolinguists: probably all languages in order to understand how,
where and why they are used in society, and by whom?
14
Language and decolonisation
• But sociolinguistics not free of ideology.
• Reaction to decolonisation – countries across
Africa (and elsewhere) were suddenly drawn up,
with multilingual populations
• Well meaning language planners tended to opt
for a lingua franca in the area
• Though this reinforced ideologies of
monolingualism being the national default
• And of multilingualism being a ‘problem’
15
• All languages are potentially equal – but
for social reasons, not always so (Hymes
1992: 2 -10; in Hornberger 2006:27)
• But … that does not necessarily mean that
we can give equal resources to every
language
• Though we should strive to identify
inequality in opportunity, and attempt to
rectify it.
16
Critical Language Policy Research
•
•
•
•
Aims to analyse policies in terms of:
What areas of language can policy affect?
What are the goals of language policy?
How can language policies alleviate
inequality – or cause it?
17