In defense of language rights: Rethinking the rights orientation from a political economy perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article addresses language rights as a legitimate political tool for language policy scholarship and activism. The article begins by engaging several critiques of language rights. It analyzes Ruiz’s language-as-right orientation to language policy, and then reviews recent scholarship challenging language rights from poststructural and postcolonial positions. The first part of the article argues that, despite considerable differences in theoretical orientation, these critiques of language rights come to a similar conclusion: that a rights-based approach to language policy deepens divisions based on language, rather than overcoming them. The second part of the article outlines a political economy approach to framing language rights. The article closes with a specific case of language education policy in Canada. This case provides an example of a political-economic approach to language rights both an analytical method and a political strategy for language policy activism