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The second edition addresses new theoretical and empirical developments since its initial publication, including the burgeoning influence of globalization and the relentless rise of English as the current world language. May’s broad position, however, remains largely unchanged. He argues that the causes of many of the language-based conflicts in the world today still lie with the nation-state and its preoccupation with establishing a 'common' language and culture via mass education. The solution, he suggests, is to rethink nation-states in more culturally and linguistically plural ways while avoiding, at the same time, essentializing the language-identity link. This edition, like the first, adopts a wide interdisciplinary framework, drawing on sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, sociology, political theory, education and law. It also includes new discussions of cosmopolitanism, globalization, the role of English, and language and mobility, highlighting the ongoing difficulties faced by minority language speakers in the world today.
This book presents a detailed sociolinguistic study of the traditionally Catalan-speaking areas of Southern France, and sheds new light on language attitudes, phonetic variation, language ideologies and minority language rights. The region’s complex dual identity, both Catalan and French, both peripheral and strategic, is shown to be reflected in the book’s attitudinal findings which in turn act as reliable predictors of phonetic variation. The author’s careful discursive analysis paints a clear picture of the linguistic ideological landscape: in which French dominates as the language of status and prestige. This innovative work, employing cutting-edge mixed methods, provides an in-depth account of an under-examined language situation, and draws on this research to propose a number of policy recommendations to protect minority rights for speakers of Catalan in the region. Combining language attitudes, sociophonetics, discourse studies, and language policy, this will provide an invaluable reference for scholars of French and Catalan studies and minority languages around the world.
One of the most vexing issues in many of the world's so-called ethnic or minority conflicts is the question of language use by the State and its citizens. While international and national law has traditionally viewed language preference to be within a State's prerogative - at least when involving governmental activities and machinery - this position has proved to be a continuous source of acrimony and conflict, and wrong in some respects. Language, Minorities, and Human Rights is the most complete book ever written on the topic, providing for the first time an analysis of every aspect of language and the law. In addition to presenting a theoretical model for language's particular position and relevance in human rights, it constitutes an invaluable reference document by including the provisions of close to 100 international, multilateral and bilateral instruments involving language rights, as well as the constitutional provisions of 140 countries dealing with language. By addressing little explored areas such as the language rights of indigenous peoples, non-citizens and even the use of script, in addition to more traditional topics such as nationalism and language, freedom of expression and non-discrimination, Language, Minorities and Human Rights proposes a complete descriptive picture of language and human rights as well as proposing a number of suggestions on how to address and balance the many problems currently caused by the linguistic demands of various individuals and the interests of states in nation building.
The Second Edition of this award-winning volume in the field of language rights and language policy is a timely and useful revision of its core arguments and examples, addressing new theoretical and empirical developments since its initial publication.
In this provocative and ground-breaking book, Stephen May argues for a non-essentialist understanding of language rights, while at the same time outlining why language rights, particularly for minority groups, are defensible and important, both academically and politically. May argues that the causes of many of the language-based conflicts in the world today lie with the nation-state and its preoccupation with establishing a 'common' language and culture via mass education. The solution, he suggests, is to rethink nation-states in more culturally and linguistically plural ways while avoiding, at the same time, essentialising the language-identity link.Language and Minority Rights - a benchmark volume in the field of language rights and language policy - is an outstanding interdisciplinary analysis which draws together debates on language from widely different academic fields, including the sociology of language, ethnicity and nationalism, sociolinguistics, social and political theory, education, history and law, illustrating these debates via a wealth of different national contexts and examples. It is essential reading for students, teachers and researchers in the sociology of language, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, language policy and planning, sociology, politics, and education.
China has had constitutional minority language rights for decades, but what do they mean today? Answering with nuance and empirical detail, this book examines the rights through a sociolinguistic study of Zhuang, the language of China’s largest minority group. The analysis traces language policy from the Constitution to local government practices, investigating how Zhuang language rights are experienced as opening or restricting socioeconomic opportunity. The study finds that language rights do not challenge ascendant marketised and mobility-focused language ideologies which ascribe low value to Zhuang. However, people still value a Zhuang identity validated by government policy and practice. Rooted in a Bourdieusian approach to language, power and legal discourse, this is the first major publication to integrate contemporary debates in linguistics about mobility, capitalism and globalization into a study of China’s language policy. The book refines Grey’s award-winning doctoral dissertation, which received the Joshua A. Fishman Award in 2018. The judges said the study “decenter[s] all types of sociolinguistic assumptions." It is a thought-provoking work on minority rights and language politics, relevant beyond China.
Focusing on minority rights and recognition, this interdisciplinary collection addresses the position of minorities in democratic societies. Featured topics include the constructed nature of ethnicity, class and the "new racism," different forms of nationalism, self-determination and indigenous politics, the politics of recognition versus the politics of redistribution, and the re-emergence of cosmopolitanism.
In the wake of the black civil rights movement, other disadvantaged groups of Americans began to make headway. In the first book to take a broad perspective on this wide-ranging and far-reaching phenomenon, Skrentny exposes the connections between the diverse actions and circumstances that contributed to this revolution.
The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781138125124, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. This volume addresses a crucial, yet largely unaddressed dimension of minority language standardization, namely how social actors engage with, support, negotiate, resist and even reject such processes. The focus is on social actors rather than language as a means for analysing the complexity and tensions inherent in contemporary standardization processes. By considering the perspectives and actions of people who participate in or are affected by minority language politics, the contributors aim to provide a comparative and nuanced analysis of the complexity and tensions inherent in minority language standardisation processes. Echoing Fasold (1984), this involves a shift in focus from a sociolinguistics of language to a sociolinguistics of people. The book addresses tensions that are born of the renewed or continued need to standardize ‘language’ in the early 21st century across the world. It proposes to go beyond the traditional macro/micro dichotomy by foregrounding the role of actors as they position themselves as users of standard forms of language, oral or written, across sociolinguistic scales. Language policy processes can be seen as practices and ideologies in action and this volume therefore investigates how social actors in a wide range of geographical settings embrace, contribute to, resist and also reject (aspects of) minority language standardization.
The central concern in this book is the relationship between language and group identity, a relationship that is thrown into greatest relief in ‘minority’ settings. Since much of the current interest in minority languages revolves around issues of identity politics, language rights and the plight of ‘endangered’ languages, one aim of the book is to summarise and analyse these and other pivotal themes. Furthermore, since the uniqueness of every language-contact situation does not rest upon unique elements or features – but, rather, upon the particular weightings and combinations of features that recur across settings – the second aim here is to provide a general descriptive framework within which a wide range of contact settings may be more easily understood. The book thus begins with a discussion of such matters as language decline, maintenance and revival, the dynamics of minority languages, and the ecology of language. It then offers a typological framework that draws and expands upon previous categorising efforts. Finally, the book presents four case studies that are both intrinsically interesting and – more importantly – provide specific illustrations of the generalities discussed earlier.