2nd Edition

Language and Minority Rights Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language

By Stephen May Copyright 2012
    448 Pages
    by Routledge

    448 Pages
    by Routledge

    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.

     

    CONTENTS

    Preface to the 2nd Edition

    Preface to the 1st edition

    INTRODUCTION

    Language ecology

    The politics of language

    The nation-state model

    Linguistic human rights

    Critical sociolinguistics

    Overview

    Prospects for change

    Chapter 1: THE DENUNCIATION OF ETHNICITY

    Academic denunciations of ethnicity

    Resituating ethnicity in the era of globalization

    Ethnicity and modernity

    Ethnicity as primordial

    Ethnicity as constructed

    Ethnicity as intentional

    Hybridity: the postmodernist politics of identity

    Limits to the social construction of ethnicity

    Finding common ground – ethnicity, habitus, and field

    Ethnies

    Chapter 2: NATIONALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS

    Linguistic nationalism

    The will to nationhood

    The modern (nation-)state

    The modernists

    Limits of the modernist account

    Ethno-symbolic accounts of nationalism

    Dominant ethnies

    The construction of sociological minorities

    Chapter 3: LIBERALISM AND MULTICULTURALISM

    The pluralist dilemma

    Defending liberal democracy

    Critiquing liberal democracy

    The cosmopolitan alternative

    Rethinking liberal democracy

    Chapter 4: LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, RIGHTS, AND REPRESENTATION

    Language and identity

    Identity in language

    Language and culture

    Language, culture and politics

    Language decline: the death of Irish?

    ‘Resigned language realism’: is language revival just flogging a dead horse?

    Re-evaluating language shift

    Linguistic markets and symbolic violence

    Vive la France: the construction of la langue légitime

    Legitimating and institutionalizing minority languages

    Chapter 5: LANGUAGE, EDUCATION AND MINORITY RIGHTS

    Educating for the majority

    Educating for the minority

    Minority group responses to language education policies

    Bridging the gap between policy and practice

    Minority language and education rights in international law

    Chapter 6: MONOLINGUALISM, MOBILITY AND THE PRE-EMINENCE OF ENGLISH

    English as global lingua franca

    The normative power of monolingualism

    The problem with history

    The problem with instrumentalism

    The problem with bilingual education

    ‘Doesn’t anyone speak English around here?’ The US ‘English Only’ movement

    Chapter 7: THE RISE OF REGIONALISM: RE-INSTANTIATING MINORITY LANGUAGES

    Québec: safeguarding French in a sea of English

    Catalonia: the quest for political and linguistic autonomy

    Wales: the development of a bilingual state in a ‘forgotten’ nation

    Chapter 8: INDIGENOUS RIGHTS: SELF-DETERMINATION, LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION

    Indigenous peoples, self-determination, and international law

    Indigenous peoples and national law

    Indigenous language and education rights

    Aotearoa/New Zealand: a tale of two ethnicities

    Chapter 9: RE-IMAGINING THE NATION-STATE

    Addressing constructivism

    Tolerability and the crux of majority opinion

    Polyethnic language and education rights: Pasifika in Aotearoa/New Zealand

    The challenge of multiculturalism

    Towards a more pluralist conception of language rights

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    Notes

    Biography

    Stephen May is Professor of Education in the School of Critical Studies in Education, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, New Zealand

    "This is a very important book and should be required reading for students, scholars, policy makers and others interested in linguistic pluralism." – CHOICE