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Ricento T (2014) Thinking about language: what political theorists need to know about language in the real world. Language Policy 13(4): 351–369.
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Abstract
Political theorists, generally non-experts in the language sciences, whose principal aim is often to advance normative theories on desirable states of affairs within liberal democratic states, tend to deal with language as a stable nominal category, as something that one ‘has’ or ‘doesn’t have’, that can be labeled as one thing (e.g., English) or another thing (e.g., French), that may be learned for defined purposes, that has instrumental and symbolic value, that is used principally as a modality for interpersonal communication, with ‘speakers’, possibly with associated geographic territories, and with cultural affiliations and traditions ‘attached’ to named languages and varieties. The fact that situated language practices and behaviors are far more complex and messier than this description suggests is often not taken into account by political philosophers engaged in normative theory construction that involves language(s). I argue in this paper that the complexities of language acquisition, use, and ascribed values need to be seriously taken into account by political philosophers in their theorizing about languages, which will impact how they think about and evaluate extant, or prospective, language policy approaches and frameworks. .
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Imported: 01 August 2024 6:08 pm
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the topic of language itself, which often gets short shrift when it receives any attention at all by contemporary political philosophers, and also to some degree on the topic of culture and the complex relations between the two.
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re-thinking of some basic assumptions about linguistic rights, and whether, and to what degree, the state and its various instrumentalities should play a role in developing policies that might mitigate some types of inequalities to promote greater inclusion and participation of marginalized people in liberal democracies
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The negative effects of discrimination connected to sociodemographic-indexed features of a person’s speech variety are difficult to measure. Yet, there is little doubt that such types of discrimination can have a very significant impact
Page: 8 Note: How and to what extent this can be measured seems critical to make the case for “language rights”
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Rist (1970) found that a teacher developed expectations of the academic potential and abilities of each student in her class based on her subjective evaluation of that student’s oral language. Although all of the students in Rist’s study were African American, as was the teacher, students judged by the teacher to be ‘fast learners’ were quite verbal and displayed a greater use of Standard American English in the classroom; and even though IQ test scores showed no statistically significant differences among children who used a higher proportion of standard English vs. those who more often used African American Vernacular English (AAVE), the former were viewed by the teacher as more capable and more likely to succeed in school and life (Ricento 2008: 43).
Page: 9 Note: IQ tests seem a rather poor measure to classify children’s learning abilities
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The autonomous theory of language also comported well with notions of rights as ‘properties’ of individuals, a cornerstone of modern liberalism, and in conflict with group-based rights. Also, as market society has co-evolved with theories of modern liberalism, named Languages are also commodified as ‘goods’ with relative degrees of instrumental value (Ricento 2005; Heller 2011).
Page: 12 Note: Reminds me of this project: https://impact.ed.ac.uk/our-shared-world/what-are-our-words-worth-in-the-digital-age/
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(1) the presence and widespread use of a common language (e.g., English) does not entail that all speakers have equal voice or equal access to the ‘public square’, even assuming they have equal access to acquiring that language in the first place, which of course they often don’t; and (2) the kinds of ‘English’ they speak and write, their proficiency levels, and how their English indexes them as members of different ethnic, racial, or geographically situated groups, often correlating with their social status, means that only a relatively small subset of Outer and Expanding Circle English users can compete equally with English as a native language (ENL) users from the Inner Circle Countries.
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The negative effects and consequences of such ‘non normative’ linguistic and cultural identities on an individual’s access to social goods and civic participation are often not contemplated in normative political theories which tend to view language as a discrete nominal category, and culture as strongly linked to a Language.
Page: 15 Note: To political but also moral philosophers, having empirical evidence of harm based on this idea of linguistic discrimination would be critical to support Ricento’s argument.
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Without the mapping of ‘a’ Language with ‘a’ culture, what would conceptualizations of language rights look like?13
Page: 16 Note: But is this mapping obsolete or incomplete? Should it be discarded wholesale? or is it rather that the map is now understood to be more complex and dynamic? This mapping between culture and language might not be linear, but that doesn’t mean that correlations do not exist and that these feedback into culture themselves. Put in a different way, what would Ricento’s ideal of a linguistically egalitarian world look like?
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If we are concerned about the welfare, and thereby democratic inclusion, of all citizens, then all scholars need to think more carefully about the status and needs of non-franchised, non-property owning, non-dominant language speaking members of liberal democratic societies in their theorizing.
Page: 16 Note: Liberal democracies were not created to be all inclusive, as with other political systems they can also be defined by their conditions of exclusion, e.g. excluding gerontocracy but tolerating oligarchy.