Language Regimes Research Articles

Theoretical Approaches to Language Regimes

Theoretical Approaches to Language Regimes

Codification in the shadow of standards: ideologies in early nineteenth-century metalinguistic texts on Luxembourgish

ABSTRACT Inspired by the ideological and multilingual turn in ‘third wave’ language standardisation studies (McLelland 2020, Walsh 2021), this paper demonstrates the value of these perspectives for historical analysis by exploring the implications of language ideologies for the early codification of Luxembourgish. As a ‘late’ standardised language (Vogl 2012), Luxembourgish provides a valuable case study for evaluating how existing powerful standard language regimes (Gal 2006) ideologically influence the discursive construction of a ‘late’ standard language, especially in multilingual borderlands. Ideologies of linguistic differentiation (Irvine & Gal 2000; Gal & Irvine 2019) are inherent in the standardisation process of Luxembourgish which sits between the Romance and Germanic language spheres of influence. The analysis focuses on metadiscourses of three early texts on Luxembourgish (Meyer 1829, Meyer & Gloden 1845, De la Fontaine 1855) in their discussions and proposals for codification. The diverse labelling of Luxembourgish in the texts forms part of a metadiscourse of differentiation and hierarchical contrast. Other core emergent discourses foreground affinities with Standard French and Standard German respectively but in differing ways that evoke the ideological notion of erasure. The final part of the analysis identifies further discourses that, in contrast, frame Luxembourgish as unique and different from other languages.

Linguistic landscaping from above in China: scale-making and language ideologies

Abstract The sociolinguistics of mobility is one of Jan Blommaert’s significant theoretical legacies vis-à-vis language interactions in the age of globalization. This paper investigates the mobilization of English as a semiotic resource in the public space of Chinese cities to reveal how the process of linguistic landscaping rescales English in China’s layered language regime. In the three investigated cities in eastern China, the English language has been conceptualized as a symbol of internationalization, and the affective potentials of English signs turn the cities into spaces of friendliness. I argue that the visual bilingualism for internationalization purposes is loaded with state ideologies, and English semiotization in the urban space demonstrates the state’s keenness for international recognition and integration into the global world. Inherent in this linguistic landscaping process are Englishization as internationalization ideology, standard language ideology, and linguistic purism ideology. While the translocal status of English in the world language system serves to upscale the cities to a higher scale level, the valorization of English in the official domain also reinforces the hegemonic power of English in the indexicality order, marginalizing social groups with limited English literacy. Thus, a critical, dialectical lens is needed to analyze the role of English in top-down linguistic landscaping.

Language Dynamics and their Influence in Zambia’s Political Discourse

Abstract Purpose – A world with an increasing number of questions needs people willing to contribute solutions. The fulcrum of this study is centred on assessing the language dynamics and impact of the English language hegemony over local languages in the social, political, and economic life of the Zambian population. The study gleans on the implications of English hegemony and its concomitant colonial undertones and effects particularly on marginalised groups. Notably, the study provides a critical and reflexive development study analysis that eschews the norm: this approach – leaning towards the developmental interests of indigenous and local constellations – enables a rethink of who really benefits from language policies and politics, allowing for a repositioning of who in fact the language development paradigm is for. Method of Enquiry/Design – Data were collected through an analysis of both latent and extant literature derived from a variety of scholarly sources on language dynamics and imperial notions associated with domineering languages. This approach of navigating through a juxtaposed pool of scholarly works provided a confluence of propositions that informed the study’s inferences, particularly by highlighting the subtleties embedded in the English language hegemony. Most significantly, the themes are also informed by this author’s own personal field anthropological observations; having been born and grown up in Zambia under this same hegemonic English language environment. Findings – The study finds that language regimes that put English above local languages (as is the case in Zambia) have enormous ramifications on the education and emancipatory objectives of locals, especially the marginalised groups. For instance, women are burdened in the sense that they must – in addition to the confronts associated with the imposition of the English language – also struggle to navigate the already challenging patriarchy terrains that are rooted in the Zambian cultural and political settings. Imposing additional inequalities makes the attainment of societal development goals a tall order to achieve. The study concludes that to redress this situation, the local educational curriculum needs to be re-designed and aligned to respond to the aspirations and context of local constellational demands. Also, Black consciousness as an ideology framed in liberation philosophy needs to be re-energised as a pathway towards a society free from systematic foreign oppression; this is the only way that sustainable development could be attained in Zambia. Originality/Value – The study exposes the prevalent fallacy – especially by Western institutions – that Zambians willingly seek out to learn the English language: To the contrary, the choice and acquisition of the English language is often a result of coercive circumstances. In contemporary Zambia, the English language is – to a greater extent – a means to an end; a means for survival in the modern environments that prioritise English language over any local language or local skill. In Zambia, the criteria for skill or intelligence are only seen through the prism of English language competency. Local initiatives and skills suffer stigma as they are perceived to be primitive, backwards, and redundant. English and ‘whiteness’ are seen as the ‘standard measure of goodness’. In fact, many white-collar job workers are ashamed of speaking their local languages in public spaces. In this context then, English in Zambia is not a luxury but a convenient necessity that allows local people to navigate other critical avenues of contemporary life. The study also lays bare the fact that the English language hegemony has brought about elements of distortion of ethnic identity particularly on how people can access their cultural rights. Furthermore, far from being a neutral language – English, in fact aids the entrenchment of neo-imperialist tendencies such as discrimination, exclusion, and subtle promotion of economic inequalities, and educational elitism.

“Eat Me! Eat Me! tounsi”: English in Tunisian linguistic landscapes beyond the official policy legislations

Aims and objectives: This paper investigates the diffusion of English into the linguistic ecologies of Tunisia, an Expanding Outer Circle society in North Africa. It analyzes the language practices of Tunisian business operators in five commercial localities in metropolitan Tunis. The paper focuses, in particular, on the uses of English and its interaction with Tunisia’s dominant languages, the ways the resources of English are locally understood and deployed and the intersection of the emerging “language regime” (Kroskrity, 2000) with the official linguistic landscapes policies and the wider sociohistorical, political, and economic conditions of the country. Methodology and data: Detailed discourse-ethnographic analysis of 363 linguistic landscape signs collected from 5 commercial districts in metropolitan Tunis. Findings and conclusions: The findings indicated the emergence of a bottom-up English-led public signage communicating a global corporate ideology circumventing the official language policies mandating the use and visibility of Modern Standard Arabic in public signage. However, this English-led public posting is intertwined in complex ways with Tunisia’s dominant languages, resulting in translanguaging, linguistic puns, the commodification of vernacular forms of communication as well as (supra)national and aesthetic identity markers. Originality: Tunisia, a traditionally constructed Francophone country moving toward English, is very little explored in the major Global English(es) paradigms. The paper focuses on the possible ideological, economic, and cultural changes engendered by English and connects these changes to the global socioeconomic, political, and cultural transformations undergone by the country over the last decades.

Redefining Patent Translation: The Influence of ChatGPT and the Urgency to Align Patent Language Regimes in Europe with Progress in Translation Technology

Abstract This article investigates the impact of ChatGPT on the current language regimes in Europe for patent translation. With the growing number of patent applications being filed annually, there is a high demand for cost-effective and high-quality patent translation services. Despite advancements in translation technology, including ChatGPT, there remains a scarcity of research on the use of these technologies in patent translation, particularly with regard to the legal validity of machine-generated translations. The article takes an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating a review of regulatory documents, a preliminary evaluation of ChatGPT’s performance using the LISA QA matrix and a review of relevant doctrinal literature. The regulatory examination in this study centers on the provisions of the European Patent Convention and related legal documents that specify the language criteria for acquiring a patent within Europe. The preliminary evaluation uses a sample of 20 patents translated from English into Portuguese to assess accuracy, fluency and acceptability. The examination of available legal literature strives to attain a thorough comprehension of how laws and principles of the legal system are being put into practice in association with the progression of translation technologies. This article endeavors to examine the potential effects of utilizing ChatGPT in patent translation on existing language regulations in Europe and if new regulations will be necessary. It highlights the need for further research in this field to better understand the advantages and implications of using advanced language models in patent translation.

Языковая политика Швейцарии в условиях федерализма

Modern plural societies characterized by ethno-cultural diversity are forming demand for effective balance of inter-group relations. The institutionalization of language policy is becoming the way of inter-ethnic relations regulation. The problem of language policy implementation is the relevance in modern European federations, the boundaries of which are overlap on the boundaries of the linguistic communities’ residence. In such cases the language policy of the federal center includes the impact on the federal and regional authorities’ relations. Switzerland is the research interest as one of the most decentralized federations in Europe. The compact residence of four linguistic communities’ impact on the institutional foundations of the federal structure. The existing interaction of models between central authorities and cantons requires consideration as a tool for normalizing and influencing relations in plural societies. In this article the authors consider the influence of federalism and federal principles on development of language policy. The article reveals the regulatory framework of Swiss federalism, its institutional foundations, which impact on regulation of the language regime, both at the federal and regional levels. Based on the statistical data, an assessment is made of the language situations in the monolingual and bilingual cantons. The authors capture the main principles of the Swiss language regime. The principles of equality of languages, free language choice for the regions and the formal consolidation of languages’ territoriality as the basis for the stability of the Swiss model of federalism. It is concluded that federalism observed the harmonization of the language situation due to division of federal and regional powers.

Rights, language regimes, and language policy: An international perspective

In this introduction to the special issue on Rights, Language Regimes, and Language Policy: An International Perspective, the guest editors explore how language rights, language regimes, and language policy interact. Noting the increased interest in language rights in recent decades, they start by exploring the different manifestations of language rights at the international, regional, and national levels, before considering the more complex interactions between language rights, language regimes, and language policies within States. The guest editors then discuss how the articles in this special issue explore these complex interactions within particular national (and, in one case, international) contexts. They demonstrate how these articles shed light on the potential—and the limitations—of particular language rights, regimes and policies for managing linguistic diversity and multilingualism, and reveal the difficult balance that must be struck in order to manage linguistic diversity fairly and effectively.

Homogenization through inclusion: exploring language regimes at four multilingual schools in the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT Linguistic diversity at Czech schools has increased in the last decade, and it has become a new everyday reality. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of studies investigating lived experiences with managing multilingualism at schools. Our study examines schools as multilingual social spaces in which the visible language choice on signs reveals the language regime based on ideologies and policies. We contextualize our study according to top-down language policy, and the essential theoretical concepts such as social space or language regime are explained. The linguistic landscapes at schools (so-called schoolscapes) are analysed and interpreted to capture schools as multilingual social spaces. The focus lies on (1) displayed languages; (2) authorship of the object: (3) location of the object. The data from schoolscaping are complemented by interviews with school principals, who are responsible for language choice decisions. The investigation took place in four schools, where multilingualism plays an essential role. The results indicate that despite the multilingual reality and the promotion of multilingualism by anchoring it in the agenda of inclusive education, language homogenization is operative in schools. Our results are relevant for exploring the linguistic environments and language regimes at schools and reveal possible explanations for linguistic homogenization.

Immigrant’s language identity in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah

The article analyzes theoretical works which discuss the features of language identity in the era of global mobility. The current intensive movement of the human masses has led to a departure from the conceptualization of language as rooted in a specific locus, to its deterritorialization, to a shift from the language itself to its usage by an individual. The practical part of the article focuses on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel “Americana” (2013). The scientific reflection refers to the analysis of the personality of the immigrants, who are the main characters of the novel, and the changes they experience when moving to a new country. The aim of the article is to study the ways of self-formation of foreigners in the context of their language self-identification. The language regime is present in the work on several important levels: preservation of the Igbo and resistance to the total dominance of the English language, linguistic assimilation of immigrants, assertion of the foreigner’s linguistic identity, language as a component of structural racism.Linguistic assimilation of immigrants causes them to abandon their native language, especially when it comes to migrants who speak the language of the country of settlement and, accordingly, speak to their children only in the language of a receiving country. At the same time, the novel “Americana” conveys the protagonist’s return to her own way of speaking, that is, Nigerian English. This shift signals her resistance to the complete negation of her identity in favor of the expectations and norms of the dominant group. In general, language is important for the formation of immigrant identity. The sensitivity of residents to pronunciation as well as to the level of command of the community’s language often causes alienation of the foreigner and a prejudiced attitude towards him/her. Therefore, immigrants try to get rid of labeling through language. They imitate the accents and pronunciation of the specific locus of their settlement. However, the main character of the novel “Americana” declares a new understanding of linguistic identity, which is closely related to the modern positioning of immigrants as those who are not ashamed of their difference, but on the contrary, respect their difference and insist on it.

Gilaki: From Language Regimes into Minoritizing

The effects of language contact depend on many different factors, such as language prestige, government and community support, people’s preference, linguistic proximity of the languages, among other things. As such, while there are some broad potentially predictable outcomes in situations of language contact, it is important to analyze each language contact situation in its own context. The aim of this study is to examine the maintenance and social function of Gilaki in the city of Lahijan located in the province Gilan, Iran. This study also poses the question whether Gilaki is at risk of becoming an endangered language. The participants (N=395), students at a language center and their families, completed a questionnaire with 36 questions. The participants were grouped according to gender, age, educational background, occupation, and spouse’s mother tongue based on a self-reported data collection style. The questionnaire, inspired by Parasher’s model (1980), examined the participants’ language use and preference in six social domains of family, friendship, neighborhood, transaction, education, and administration. The findings show statistically significant differences in the participants’ preference toward Persian in all six social domains. This study contributes to the body of work in language contact of lesser analyzed languages and sheds light on the trajectory of minoritized languages.

Social value of Spanish among transnational Latin American families in Italy

The aim of this paper is to explore the value of Spanish through the study of the ideologies and subjectivities represented in the discursive practices of some transnational Latin American families that underwent processes of diaspora to Italy. In particular, the goal is to focus on their family language policies by exploring the relationship between linguistic uses, identities, and ideologies. In the current context of neoliberalism, many scholars have highlighted how language has become a commodity (Holborow, 2007; Block, Gray, and Holborow, 2012; Heller and Duchêne, 2012) or, in terms of Bourdieu (1991), a symbolic capital, i.e., a system of values that social actors associate with a particular linguistic use in a specific economic and political context, determined by certain power relations. In global contemporary diasporas, in line with the colonial era (Mignolo, 1992; Heller and McElhinny, 2017), the perceptual and evaluation schemes of linguistic practices continue to be strongly determined by the centre-periphery relationship. This same language regime is reflected in the social value of Spanish that emerges in the discursive practices of Hispanic families in Italy. The data, in effect, demonstrate a clear perceptual inequality between the Spanish of the diaspora, marginalised by its condition of minority language and delegitimised for representing a deviation from the monoglossic norm (Silverstein, 1996), and the central languages (‘standard’ varieties of Spanish and Italian), understood as convertible resources in the global linguistic market and more desirable in terms of social mobility.

Transnational families’ social spaces ‘in between’: Expectations, decision-making and belonging in light of educational choices in Norway

Connections between linguistic heterogeneity, educational choices and (family) biographies are complex and ever shifting. With this paper, my aim is to explore the question how social spaces are constructed by multilingual families in migration societies and how they situate social spaces ‘in between’, thereby challenging both binary and national logics and creating third spaces. Especially in view of national educational institutions, family decisions on language transmission and use are reflected upon and at times re-evaluated.Analysis of family interviews with German migrants in Norway shows how both continuity and change are relevant for the parents as they try to produce an uninterrupted family biography but at the same time need to be open to adaptations to new situations. Expectations, language ideologies and perspectives that transcend one’s own family spaces gain relevance while (national) institutions may call for changes in language regimes and practices.

SYSTEM OF VALUES IN THE LANGUAGE OF MODERN UKRAINIAN TEENAGER

Introduction. Comparison of the results of mass surveys in 2006 and 2017 shows the dynamics of the language situation in Ukraine due to the change of views on the function and usage of language itself. These changes give grounds for the conclusion about the “lag” of language policy measures from the attitudes of society, especially in the introduction of language regime in schools, the mandatory use of the Ukrainian language as official one in extracurricular activities, the possession of it by all teachers and heads of Ukrainian educational establishments.Purpose. To reveal the means of the realization of values in the language of modern Ukrainian teenager.Methods. The research is based on the analysis of adolescents' comments to the open questions of the sociolinguistic questionnaire, which they filled in personally during the targeted survey: the questionnaire surveys were conducted in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Bila Tserkva, Poltava,Cherkasy in the spring of 2014; 500 questionnaires were collected.Results. Analysis of the responses of adolescents shows that their attitude to the language is determined by common stereotypes in the public consciousness and that this attitude almost does not affect their speech behavior, which is determined, at the formal level, by school rules, and at informal – by generally accepted in the adolescent behavioral models. In the linguistic world-image of modern Ukrainian teenagers, native language concept is divided mainly into three components, namely: 1) the official language (the language of the state teenager lives in); 2) the language of the nation, historical and cultural heritage; 3) the language of family communication. Compared to adult speakers, teenagers do not correlate the concept of their native language with the functional first language.In the linguistic consciousness of adolescents, “native language” concept is often layered on the concept of “state language”. At the same time, teenagers express arguments that certify a tolerant attitude to linguistic diversity and understanding of the need to distinguish between the spheres of public and private communication. The attitude to language as one of the most important characteristics of the individual is common.The understanding of “native language” and “state language” concepts became clear when high school students answered the question about their linguistic rights in school.Conclusion. Language in the minds of young people refers to the undeniable values of individual and collective nature. In their own language behavior, students clearly distinguish official and unofficial styles of using their vocabulary.

Flags, crucifix, and language regimes

Flags, crucifix, and language regimes

Horizontal and vertical terminology work in the context of EU translations

The aim of this paper is to analyse the decisions the translator has to take while translating terminology in EU texts. Starting with the theoretical aspects, the interrelation of terminology and translation will be explored – leading to the reinterpretation of some key terms in both disciplines: the notion of term in a translation-oriented perspective, and the notion of translation in a terminology-oriented perspective. Second, turning to the EU context, a short overview will be given of the peculiarities of the EU’s language regime and its impact on the role of translators as terminologists. Third, it will be revealed how the interconnection of conceptual systems and languages at EU level makes terminology work a multi-layered activity, with a number of decisions to be taken by the translator. Two terms, horizontal and vertical terminology work, will be introduced to label these activities. Special attention will be paid to the notion of EU term. It will be argued that the emergence of a special EU-language and terminology and the limits of corpus planning at national level make the involvement of Member States especially relevant in this context.

Identities and Language Use across Contexts in a Multilingual University in Hong Kong: A Filipina International Student’s Narrativized Account

ABSTRACT This paper explores the intricate relationship between identity and language use in a multilingual university context by analyzing a Filipina international student’s narrativized accounts of her experiences in a Hong Kong university. The findings suggest that the international student’s identity negotiation and language practices vary markedly across contexts and appear to be shaped by different language regimes operating in different in-class and out-of-class spaces within the university. The study also reveals that various language ideologies mediate the international student’s situated identity negotiation and language use, including ideologies pertaining to the relationship between language and ethnicity, the relationship between English proficiency levels and the local/non-local student categorization, and the hierarchization of different varieties of English. Overall, the study argues for the need to attend to the complex and dynamic interplay between identity negotiation, language use and language ideology in understanding the international student’s experiences in a multilingual university context.

Linguistic territoriality in Switzerland

AbstractThis article argues that the linguistic territoriality principle cannot be considered as a general guideline for the design of language policy but rather as a tool to find the right balance between linguistic freedom and linguistic peace under given circumstances. The article traces the origin and evolution of language policy principles during the drafting process of the new constitutional article in its three official language versions. The Swiss language regime is embedded in an institutional system of executive federalism in which mostly monolingual cantons and municipalities are in charge of implementing nearly all public policy. This significantly reduces the relevance of the inconsistency between a formally personalistic multilingual federal language regime and linguistic territoriality deriving from cantonal language regimes. The point of the new federal regulation is to provide room for manoeuvre for cantonal policymakers to adopt legislation based on linguistic territoriality. The relevant constitutional article recognises that territorial language policies can be implemented to ensure linguistic peace. At the same time, the personality principle may be adopted to protect autochthonous linguistic minorities.

Linguistic territoriality under stress

AbstractThis article revisits a well-known dichotomy (the ‘territorial’ and ‘personal’ principles) and develops a four-element classification of state approaches (from the most generous to the most menacing, from the perspective of speakers of minority languages). The article examines the implications for language policy of geographically dispersed or spatially concentrated patterns of distribution of speakers of particular languages. We begin by exploring the general literature on language policy, focusing in particular on the territorial and personal principles, the use of ‘threshold rules’ at municipal and other subnational levels, and the hybrid language regimes that are often a consequence of sociolinguistic complexity. We consider the extent to which responses to linguistic diversity across Europe may be understood by reference to these principles and categories. We explain why we have selected particular case studies (the Baltic republics, Transylvania, Switzerland, Belgium and Ireland) for further exploration. We conclude that, notwithstanding the value of the typologies we consider, real-life cases are almost invariably more complex, with states implementing policies that defy categorisation, that may change over time, and that may treat different language minorities by reference to different principles.

The status of English in the European Union after Brexit. Is there a way to fit English in the EU context?

ABSTRACT Almost five years have passed since the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union was considered to be definite. Now, in 2021, we finally see the Brexiting process start and some more practical problems arise. Although the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement as of 1 January 2021 clarifies what is due to happen in certain areas of policy, the language issue still remains unsolved. All these years English has not only been an official and a working language, but also the most commonly used for institutional communication and the one that the majority of the European citizens speak as a second language. Moreover, it is tied to the language regime of the Union, its citizens’ rights and its language policy, and has a special status worldwide. The fact that the United Kingdom left the European Union, but English remains an official language up to this day without the unanimous decision of the Member States is the purpose of this contribution. Furthermore, the position of English in the European Union and the citizens’ rights are analysed, and its future in this context is investigated through the presentation of some scenarios and their results.