Abstract Over the past few decades in the United States, a powerful consensus has emerged around the value of bi-/multilingualism as human capital, including as an advantage for individuals on the labor market. In this article, I consider how the advantage that Spanish-English bilingualism affords some Latinxs on the labor market might be contested, especially by whites who feel disadvantaged by employers’ preferences for bilingual workers. I explore data from an online petition opposing the use of bilingualism in hiring decisions. Drawing on insights from critical discourse analysis, linguistic anthropology, and the sociology of race, I analyze the discursive strategies that petition signers use to contest the economic advantages afforded by Spanish-English bilingualism. I show that signatories draw on a set of strategies that includes reproducing a naturalized one nation, one language ideology; constructing English as equal opportunity language; decommodifying Spanish; and racializing Spanish and its speakers. My analysis suggests that the apparent economic advantages afforded by Spanish-English bilingualism are a salient target for white racial resentment. Thus, I argue that discussions centering around bi-/multilingualism as human capital should consider how neoliberalism and aggrieved whiteness both, in different ways, undermine the labor market advantages bilingualism offers some Latinxs.
{"title":"Decommodifying Spanish-English bilingualism: aggrieved whiteness and the discursive contestation of language as human capital","authors":"Nicholas Subtirelu","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0074","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0074","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Over the past few decades in the United States, a powerful consensus has emerged around the value of bi-/multilingualism as human capital, including as an advantage for individuals on the labor market. In this article, I consider how the advantage that Spanish-English bilingualism affords some Latinxs on the labor market might be contested, especially by whites who feel disadvantaged by employers’ preferences for bilingual workers. I explore data from an online petition opposing the use of bilingualism in hiring decisions. Drawing on insights from critical discourse analysis, linguistic anthropology, and the sociology of race, I analyze the discursive strategies that petition signers use to contest the economic advantages afforded by Spanish-English bilingualism. I show that signatories draw on a set of strategies that includes reproducing a naturalized one nation, one language ideology; constructing English as equal opportunity language; decommodifying Spanish; and racializing Spanish and its speakers. My analysis suggests that the apparent economic advantages afforded by Spanish-English bilingualism are a salient target for white racial resentment. Thus, I argue that discussions centering around bi-/multilingualism as human capital should consider how neoliberalism and aggrieved whiteness both, in different ways, undermine the labor market advantages bilingualism offers some Latinxs.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47902444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Resumen Este artículo explora la tensión entre las ideologías lingüísticas neoliberales que señalan el valor económico del lenguaje en la economía globalizada y los procesos raciolingüísticos que co-naturalizan la raza y la lengua. Enfocándonos en el mercado laboral estadounidense, analizamos las experiencias de jóvenes profesionales de origen latino que, inspirados por la ideología de la ventaja bilingüe, esperan sacar provecho de sus habilidades lingüísticas en el trabajo. Partiendo de la economía política y basándonos en entrevistas semiestructuradas y encuestas realizadas con 23 jóvenes, analizamos dos prácticas laborales concretas para ilustrar la tensión entre (1) la conceptualización del conocimiento del idioma como un componente del “paquete de habilidades” que se espera que posean los trabajadores neoliberales (y que se supone los empleadores deben compensar), y (2) la esencialización de las habilidades lingüísticas de las personas racializadas y de clase trabajadora que se dan por sentadas y se disocian del mérito personal o académico (haciendo que no merezcan compensación económica). Además, exploramos la relación entre la dimensión afectiva de las prácticas lingüísticas y la asimilación entre trabajo y placer que propone el régimen neoliberal. El primer momento que analizamos es la corroboración del conocimiento de español en las entrevistas de trabajo, donde las habilidades lingüísticas no se ven como competencias profesionales que requieren verificación sino como atributos identitarios que se evalúan mediante el perfil racial de los candidatos. La segunda situación que estudiamos es la práctica recurrente de asignar trabajo lingüístico extra a las personas latinas, una práctica que se ha naturalizado y que no halla oposición o cuestionamiento por parte de los y las trabajadoras bilingües. Concluimos que mientras que el neoliberalismo destaca el valor económico de las lenguas, las personas racializadas no se benefician de ese valor puesto que la autoridad lingüística y las jerarquías raciales tradicionales continúan sin ser cuestionadas.
{"title":"¿Habilidad o identidad?: tensiones entre las ideologías neoliberales y las raciolingüísticas en el trabajo de los y las jóvenes bilingües de origen latino en EEUU","authors":"Laura Villa Galán, Lara Alonso","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0069","url":null,"abstract":"Resumen Este artículo explora la tensión entre las ideologías lingüísticas neoliberales que señalan el valor económico del lenguaje en la economía globalizada y los procesos raciolingüísticos que co-naturalizan la raza y la lengua. Enfocándonos en el mercado laboral estadounidense, analizamos las experiencias de jóvenes profesionales de origen latino que, inspirados por la ideología de la ventaja bilingüe, esperan sacar provecho de sus habilidades lingüísticas en el trabajo. Partiendo de la economía política y basándonos en entrevistas semiestructuradas y encuestas realizadas con 23 jóvenes, analizamos dos prácticas laborales concretas para ilustrar la tensión entre (1) la conceptualización del conocimiento del idioma como un componente del “paquete de habilidades” que se espera que posean los trabajadores neoliberales (y que se supone los empleadores deben compensar), y (2) la esencialización de las habilidades lingüísticas de las personas racializadas y de clase trabajadora que se dan por sentadas y se disocian del mérito personal o académico (haciendo que no merezcan compensación económica). Además, exploramos la relación entre la dimensión afectiva de las prácticas lingüísticas y la asimilación entre trabajo y placer que propone el régimen neoliberal. El primer momento que analizamos es la corroboración del conocimiento de español en las entrevistas de trabajo, donde las habilidades lingüísticas no se ven como competencias profesionales que requieren verificación sino como atributos identitarios que se evalúan mediante el perfil racial de los candidatos. La segunda situación que estudiamos es la práctica recurrente de asignar trabajo lingüístico extra a las personas latinas, una práctica que se ha naturalizado y que no halla oposición o cuestionamiento por parte de los y las trabajadoras bilingües. Concluimos que mientras que el neoliberalismo destaca el valor económico de las lenguas, las personas racializadas no se benefician de ese valor puesto que la autoridad lingüística y las jerarquías raciales tradicionales continúan sin ser cuestionadas.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47978890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This essay is interested in exploring the interconnections between language, race, work and power, particularly as it concerns the Caribbean region. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered in the Puerto Rican island-municipality of Vieques, and borrowing theoretical insight from the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin, among others, we try to make sense of the linguistic strategies employed by racially marginalized subjects to resist and contest racism, colonialism and labor exploitation in their daily lives, within the context of a tourism economy. We argue that Bakhtin’s approach to language use in conflict-ridden and ideologically-saturated contexts, particularly his treatment of linguistic phenomena like double-voicing, multilingualism and heteroglossia, proves useful in shedding light on the strategic uses of language of, or to the ways in which racially-marginalized subjects create and employ locally-specific linguistic registers as a form of claiming agency and as a mechanism of resistance. In the context of Vieques, we argue, language has become the main vehicle through which Viequense workers resist and accommodate to work in the tourism sector while retaining and preserving a unique ethnic identity.
{"title":"Language, race and work in the Caribbean: a Bakhtinian approach","authors":"Luis Galanes Valldejuli","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0073","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay is interested in exploring the interconnections between language, race, work and power, particularly as it concerns the Caribbean region. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered in the Puerto Rican island-municipality of Vieques, and borrowing theoretical insight from the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin, among others, we try to make sense of the linguistic strategies employed by racially marginalized subjects to resist and contest racism, colonialism and labor exploitation in their daily lives, within the context of a tourism economy. We argue that Bakhtin’s approach to language use in conflict-ridden and ideologically-saturated contexts, particularly his treatment of linguistic phenomena like double-voicing, multilingualism and heteroglossia, proves useful in shedding light on the strategic uses of language of, or to the ways in which racially-marginalized subjects create and employ locally-specific linguistic registers as a form of claiming agency and as a mechanism of resistance. In the context of Vieques, we argue, language has become the main vehicle through which Viequense workers resist and accommodate to work in the tourism sector while retaining and preserving a unique ethnic identity.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49297713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1515/ijsl-2023-frontmatter282
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2023-frontmatter282","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2023-frontmatter282","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135507366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article investigates racial/ethnic categorizations designating the majority in a minority language and their uses and meanings in everyday interactions to grasp the dynamics of racialization from the perspective of minoritized people. The investigation focuses on the varieties of the language called Businenge(e) Tongo locally or Eastern Maroon Creoles spoken by Maroon populations living in French Guiana and Suriname. We first examine the different terms used to refer to whiteness, such as bakaa, wetiman and poyte, from a historical perspective using historical documents before examining their uses in contemporary conversations. The analysis in the final part focuses on interactions at the hospital of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni. The paper combines two approaches: the sociology of social relations and social approaches to language rooted in ethnography. The distinction between the three terms allows considering race as indexing power relations. Naming whiteness is thus a way of providing a critical perspective on the social order.
{"title":"Indexing whiteness: practices of categorization and racialization of social relations among Maroons in French Guiana","authors":"I. Léglise, Clémence Léobal, Bettina Migge","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0066","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article investigates racial/ethnic categorizations designating the majority in a minority language and their uses and meanings in everyday interactions to grasp the dynamics of racialization from the perspective of minoritized people. The investigation focuses on the varieties of the language called Businenge(e) Tongo locally or Eastern Maroon Creoles spoken by Maroon populations living in French Guiana and Suriname. We first examine the different terms used to refer to whiteness, such as bakaa, wetiman and poyte, from a historical perspective using historical documents before examining their uses in contemporary conversations. The analysis in the final part focuses on interactions at the hospital of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni. The paper combines two approaches: the sociology of social relations and social approaches to language rooted in ethnography. The distinction between the three terms allows considering race as indexing power relations. Naming whiteness is thus a way of providing a critical perspective on the social order.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46588084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-01DOI: 10.1515/ijsl-2023-frontmatter281
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2023-frontmatter281","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2023-frontmatter281","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136273476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Language revitalisation gives voice to those who participate in it. But it is not always clear whose voice the participants make heard. It is also not straightforward who hears and wants to listen to the voices that are raised during language revitalisation. In this article, we present a language educational programme which aims to give voice to the participants of the Moldavian Hungarian (also called Csángó) language revitalisation in North-East Romania. Applying the Goffmanian participation framework, we demonstrate that the participants of the programme collaborate in giving voice to a Csángó-speaking figure while covertly performing different roles. Drawing on our linguistic ethnographic research, we point out how this institutionalised participation framework promotes the achievement of one of the objectives of language revitalisation: the restoration of past language practices. Nevertheless, it also creates an obstacle to another: to the way that the speakers of this language can have a voice worth hearing. The analysis highlights the tensions of institutionalising a participatory framework in language revitalisation, which aims to produce the belief in a Csángó figure representing the essential link between language and (national) community.
{"title":"Giving voice to the Csángó figure: participation roles and the production of belief in language revitalisation","authors":"Csanád Bodó, Noémi Fazakas","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0082","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Language revitalisation gives voice to those who participate in it. But it is not always clear whose voice the participants make heard. It is also not straightforward who hears and wants to listen to the voices that are raised during language revitalisation. In this article, we present a language educational programme which aims to give voice to the participants of the Moldavian Hungarian (also called Csángó) language revitalisation in North-East Romania. Applying the Goffmanian participation framework, we demonstrate that the participants of the programme collaborate in giving voice to a Csángó-speaking figure while covertly performing different roles. Drawing on our linguistic ethnographic research, we point out how this institutionalised participation framework promotes the achievement of one of the objectives of language revitalisation: the restoration of past language practices. Nevertheless, it also creates an obstacle to another: to the way that the speakers of this language can have a voice worth hearing. The analysis highlights the tensions of institutionalising a participatory framework in language revitalisation, which aims to produce the belief in a Csángó figure representing the essential link between language and (national) community.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49636384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The paper explored the shift away from Chaouia, a variety of Tamazight, to the use of Algerian Arabic in Batna (northeast Algeria). The Chaouia-speaking community had recently witnessed a large rural exodus and significant social changes and mobility due to economic opportunities, education and ethnic contact. The paper focused on gender differences in language use and considered how socialisation and cultural ideologies regarding men’s and women’s relationship to language shape linguistic decisions and choices. Building upon representations of masculinity and femininity, we investigated the ways in which these gendered practices constrain or restrict Chaouia use among working-class Chaouias. We used a qualitative approach with an embedded quantitative element to analyse interviews and surveys across the domestic setting as well as schools and social networks in Batna to examine the interplay between gender identities and language socialisation at home, language choices at school and among friends. The increase in cross-ethnic contact with the larger Arabic-speaking community had introduced significant re-considerations of social and linguistic priorities in the community. The findings showed a clear impact of parents on the acquisition of a gendered pattern of language choice, with boys being socialised in Chaouia and girls in Algerian Arabic. This pattern was further reinforced at school and among peers through teachers and social networks. Females’ networks were ethnolinguistically heterogeneous whereas males’ networks were Amazigh-oriented. Hence, the traditional link of Tamazight to femininity was re-negotiated to generate a discourse of blame for the ongoing language shift and identity loss.
{"title":"Language shift: gender differences in Chaouia use in Algeria","authors":"Siham Rouabah","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper explored the shift away from Chaouia, a variety of Tamazight, to the use of Algerian Arabic in Batna (northeast Algeria). The Chaouia-speaking community had recently witnessed a large rural exodus and significant social changes and mobility due to economic opportunities, education and ethnic contact. The paper focused on gender differences in language use and considered how socialisation and cultural ideologies regarding men’s and women’s relationship to language shape linguistic decisions and choices. Building upon representations of masculinity and femininity, we investigated the ways in which these gendered practices constrain or restrict Chaouia use among working-class Chaouias. We used a qualitative approach with an embedded quantitative element to analyse interviews and surveys across the domestic setting as well as schools and social networks in Batna to examine the interplay between gender identities and language socialisation at home, language choices at school and among friends. The increase in cross-ethnic contact with the larger Arabic-speaking community had introduced significant re-considerations of social and linguistic priorities in the community. The findings showed a clear impact of parents on the acquisition of a gendered pattern of language choice, with boys being socialised in Chaouia and girls in Algerian Arabic. This pattern was further reinforced at school and among peers through teachers and social networks. Females’ networks were ethnolinguistically heterogeneous whereas males’ networks were Amazigh-oriented. Hence, the traditional link of Tamazight to femininity was re-negotiated to generate a discourse of blame for the ongoing language shift and identity loss.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45570555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This comparative case study illuminates communicative strategies arising in contact between two migrant clients, ‘Maria’ and ‘Suda’, and their caseworker at the Norwegian welfare office. Suda and Maria mobilize bureaucratic, digital, and linguistic abilities as part of their health literacies to manage in-person contact, institutional websites, letters, and digital bureaucracy. Additionally, they collaborate with their Norwegian spouses to navigate the complex communicative situation at the welfare office and actively bring up this brokering strategy to increase their social and linguistic authority vis-à-vis their caseworkers. Combining Bourdieusian symbolic power with epistemic stance, and drawing on observations and interviews, I investigate how power and responsibility are negotiated between the women and their caseworkers. In their interactions, brokering strategies function as social capital in several ways, enabling the women to access institutional services, and reassuring their caseworkers that the women have sufficient literacy resources to gain access. I discuss the dual nature of brokering strategies as capital, but also as a factor that may reproduce structural vulnerability, and argue for better understanding of brokering as a health literacy strategy.
{"title":"(e)Health literacy brokering: bridging sociolinguistic gaps at the welfare office?","authors":"Ingvild B. Valen-Sendstad","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2021-0125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2021-0125","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This comparative case study illuminates communicative strategies arising in contact between two migrant clients, ‘Maria’ and ‘Suda’, and their caseworker at the Norwegian welfare office. Suda and Maria mobilize bureaucratic, digital, and linguistic abilities as part of their health literacies to manage in-person contact, institutional websites, letters, and digital bureaucracy. Additionally, they collaborate with their Norwegian spouses to navigate the complex communicative situation at the welfare office and actively bring up this brokering strategy to increase their social and linguistic authority vis-à-vis their caseworkers. Combining Bourdieusian symbolic power with epistemic stance, and drawing on observations and interviews, I investigate how power and responsibility are negotiated between the women and their caseworkers. In their interactions, brokering strategies function as social capital in several ways, enabling the women to access institutional services, and reassuring their caseworkers that the women have sufficient literacy resources to gain access. I discuss the dual nature of brokering strategies as capital, but also as a factor that may reproduce structural vulnerability, and argue for better understanding of brokering as a health literacy strategy.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47033555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Societal multilingualism and multilectalism have been among the leading justifications for language policies, especially in the Global South, where many of these have failed. I associate the failures with poor choices of official languages and media of education, which are not consistent with the linguistic behaviors of the majority of the citizenry and the socioeconomic structures of the relevant polities. I review some cases of adequate and inadequate policies around the world and explain ecologically some reasons for either their successes or their failures. In a subset of the cases, I assess the results as mixed. My recommendation is of course not to follow the policy of a particular polity simply because it has succeeded there but to also check whether the ecology of its success is similar to that of the new polity. The relevant ecology includes the socioeconomic structure/system and the linguistic practices of the citizenry for whom the policy is intended. Among the issues to address is, for instance, whether the language adopted as the official language and medium of education is easy for the majority of the citizenry to learn successfully. Another is whether the language policy will make the economic development of the nation more inclusive and empower the majority economically and politically.
{"title":"Sound language policies must be consistent with natural language evolution","authors":"S. Mufwene","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0084","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Societal multilingualism and multilectalism have been among the leading justifications for language policies, especially in the Global South, where many of these have failed. I associate the failures with poor choices of official languages and media of education, which are not consistent with the linguistic behaviors of the majority of the citizenry and the socioeconomic structures of the relevant polities. I review some cases of adequate and inadequate policies around the world and explain ecologically some reasons for either their successes or their failures. In a subset of the cases, I assess the results as mixed. My recommendation is of course not to follow the policy of a particular polity simply because it has succeeded there but to also check whether the ecology of its success is similar to that of the new polity. The relevant ecology includes the socioeconomic structure/system and the linguistic practices of the citizenry for whom the policy is intended. Among the issues to address is, for instance, whether the language adopted as the official language and medium of education is easy for the majority of the citizenry to learn successfully. Another is whether the language policy will make the economic development of the nation more inclusive and empower the majority economically and politically.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49190684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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