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- Volume 39, Issue, 2015
Language Problems and Language Planning - Volume 39, Issue 3, 2015
Volume 39, Issue 3, 2015
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The search for linguistic equality
Author(s): Humphrey Tonkinpp.: 221–226 (6)More LessFive papers from the symposium on language and equality, held in New York in 2014 and organized by the Working Group on Language and the United Nations, make up this special issue of Language Problems and Language Planning. The symposium highlighted the difficulty of defining the nature of language equality, the many instances in which it is abandoned in favor of some apparently more practical goal (for example, the expansion of English in higher education, or the assimilation of immigrants into the United States), efforts in the past to achieve such equality (notably the Esperanto experiment), and the apparent sidelining of language as a variable in the planning of United Nations activities and goals.
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Forty years after Lau: The continuing assault on educational human rights in the United States and its implications for linguistic minorities
Author(s): M. Beatriz Arias and Terrence G. Wileypp.: 227–244 (18)More LessThis article addresses the right to an education (including the right of access), and the right to an education in one’s native language, within the broader context of educational human rights, and language minority educational policy in the United States. Included in this discussion is an overview of educational and linguistic human rights as recognized in the US, followed by a review of the legal and historical background prior to the passage of the Lau v Nichols decision in 1974. The implications of demographic changes coupled with federal policy for language minority students forty years after Lau are discussed.
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The rise of global English: Challenges for English-medium instruction and language rights
Author(s): Rosemary Salomonepp.: 245–268 (24)More LessThis essay examines the spread of English as the dominant lingua franca worldwide, its educational impact on language rights, and the underlying tension between globalization and national identity. Focused on Western Europe, but with broader implications, it draws on overlapping controversies in May 2013 in France and Italy over the use of English as the medium of university instruction. It uses the public debates surrounding these events to critically explore the legal, cultural and pedagogical issues endemic to English medium instruction, but also to address deeper tensions between globalization and linguistic diversity within Europe. In doing so, it further considers the implications of global English for the rights of linguistic minority children and for European policies promoting multilingualism or “mother tongue plus two” in the interests of European integration and job mobility. Though recognizing the utility of English as a common vehicle for global communication, the paper concludes that the “rise of global English” is not a zero-sum game, but rather demands measured strategies that reasonably balance the competing interests at stake and maintain a sense of proportionality.
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Zamenhof and the liberal-communitarian debate
Author(s): Esther Schorpp.: 269–281 (13)More LessThis paper proposes to analyze the early thinking of Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof (1859–1917) in light of the so-called liberal/communitarian debate. In the early 1980s, the debate was launched: On the liberal side were proponents of a liberal self bearing rights, irrespective of identity (John Rawls) and on the communitarian side, champions of communities with prerogatives and purposes (Michael Sandel). But this debate has become in recent years a dialogue, each side challenging the other to assimilate its claims, be they ontological, political, or ethical. This paper argues that, a century earlier, Zamenhof was involved in a similar dialogue between liberalism and communitarianism, inventing a movement that could potentially balance human rights with notions of the good espoused by different communities. The political potential of Esperanto, however, was undermined (though not collapsed) by the Declaration of Boulogne, which eschewed deliberative debate and abjected religious and ethical ideals.
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Parity in the plural: Language and complex equality
Author(s): Yael Peledpp.: 282–297 (16)More LessThe politics of language raises a number of concerns pertaining to the question of equality, particularly in the context of language policy formulation, analysis and evaluation. At the same time, however, both ‘equality’ and ‘language’ are relatively vague notions, which may be interpreted in different ways, and which therefore yield very different understandings when combined together in different circumstances and in service of different purposes. This conceptual vagueness, I argue, requires normative reflections that are public policy-oriented to engage in a more nuanced conceptual analysis in the process of formulating moral arguments on the basis of moral intuitions. I therefore map a number of possible conceptions of both ‘equality’ and ‘language’, and discuss in detail the notion of ‘complex linguistic equality’ as one example of their possible permutation. I conclude by arguing for the importance of more engaged work between political theory and sociolinguistics for the sake of advancing both theory-building and practical application.
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Language in the United Nations post-2015 development agenda: Challenges to language policy and planning
Author(s): Mark Fettespp.: 298–311 (14)More LessThe United Nations system has been engaged for some years in setting new development priorities to replace the Millennium Development Goals following their expiry in 2015. While language issues are almost wholly absent from documents intended to guide this policy process, there are thought-provoking implications for language planners in some of the key ideas advanced by agencies within the UN system. These include the need to address structural inequalities, greater emphasis on cities as loci of social planning and management, growing interest in social protection floors as a policy mechanism, and the implications of sustainable development as an alternative planning paradigm.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 48 (2024)
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Volume 47 (2023)
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Volume 46 (2022)
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Volume 45 (2021)
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Volume 44 (2020)
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Volume 43 (2019)
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Volume 42 (2018)
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Volume 41 (2017)
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Volume 40 (2016)
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Volume 39 (2015)
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Volume 38 (2014)
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Volume 37 (2013)
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Volume 36 (2012)
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Volume 35 (2011)
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Volume 34 (2010)
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Volume 33 (2009)
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Volume 32 (2008)
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Volume 31 (2007)
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Volume 30 (2006)
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Volume 29 (2005)
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Volume 28 (2004)
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Volume 27 (2003)
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Volume 26 (2002)
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Volume 25 (2001)
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Volume 24 (2000)
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Volume 23 (1999)
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Volume 22 (1998)
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Volume 21 (1997)
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Volume 20 (1996)
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Volume 19 (1995)
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Volume 18 (1994)
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Volume 17 (1993)
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Volume 16 (1992)
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Volume 15 (1991)
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Volume 14 (1990)
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Volume 13 (1989)
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Volume 12 (1988)
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Volume 11 (1987)
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Volume 10 (1986)
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Volume 9 (1985)
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Volume 8 (1984)
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Volume 7 (1983)
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Volume 6 (1982)
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Volume 5 (1981)
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Volume 4 (1980)
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Volume 3 (1979)
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Volume 2 (1978)
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Volume 1 (1977)
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