Language Problems and Language Planning - Volume 44, Issue 2, 2020

Abstract

Drawing on the positioning theory and the conditions for language use, this article examines Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ language choice in interactions with their same-ethnicity and majority peers, focusing particularly on their communication motives underlying this choice. Findings suggest that in regulating their language alternation practices across peer groups in different contexts, the students shifted their participation status – from aligning (being alike) to disaligning (being distinct) – to (re)position themselves in relation to their peers. As their desires for alignment or disalignment were either supported or disrupted by their peers, peer attitudes played a critical role in providing opportunities and encouraging minority students’ willingness to use their L1 in school and ethnic community spaces. Implications are suggested for engaging peer support as a resource for maintaining or widening L1 use among young minority people in both of the domains.

Abstract

In this article, I aim to analyse language rights in relation to groups of immigrant origin. Liberal democracies are reluctant to consider immigrant groups as subjects entitled to the same set of language and cultural rights enjoyed by national minorities. However, the trend towards increasing levels of immigration is configuring new cultural and language correlations within territorial boundaries that provoke responses that problematise a fixed conception of language rights. Drawing on theories of liberal multiculturalism, I examine the case of claims for language recognition in the Spanish autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla and its normative implications. In these territories, factors such as size, concentration, and the historical ties of Arabic- and Berber-speaking communities challenge conventional approaches to minority groups’ rights based on a national versus immigrant minority distinction. I argue that these approaches are not satisfactory for language claims in these two cities and that a contextual approach is better suited to conceptualising the recognition of language rights.

Abstract

Vojvodina, an autonomous province in northern Serbia, is a historically multilingual and multicultural area where multilingual education forms a cornerstone of linguistic, educational and social policy and practice: in addition to the majority language, five minority languages are also in official use and speakers of these languages may receive education in their L1. However, such a situation does not warrant positive attitudes toward the majority language. In fact, attitudes toward the majority population have been shown to be less positive among minority group members who receive their education in their L1 (Veres 2013). In addition to this, the effect of environment (compact vs. diffuse) has been shown to interact with attitudes. The paper examines the language attitudes of 423 Hungarian L1 grammar school pupils towards (1) their (minority) mother tongue (Hungarian), (2) Serbian as the majority language and (3) English as a foreign language, based on their value judgements and taking into account numerous variables which might prove to interact with their attitudes. The results of the research are expected to add to the study of language attitudes in a multilingual context, to help us understand better language situations in areas where bilingualism is promoted and to aid the implementation of coherent language policies.

Abstract

Increased migration, global trade and the introduction of digital labour platforms call for a better understanding of the mechanisms that can enhance economic and labour market outcomes in the face of increasing disparities in culture, language and identity. The article contributes to the literature on labour market returns on language skills, which is very heterogeneous and context-specific, by carrying out a systematic review of that literature. The meta-regression analysis estimates the returns on language skills that come from socio-economic, institutional and ethnolinguistic factors along with controls for the study design. The meta-regression results for the labour market returns that stem from knowledge of the local state language, a significant local minority language or the business language provide evidence that knowing the more influential language is associated with higher labour market rewards. Linguistic diversity has a negative effect on the returns to skills in the business language but increases the returns to the local state language. Urbanisation has a negative, though quantitatively modest, effect on returns to language skills in the business language, whilst the GDP level increases the returns to minority language skills and unemployment increases returns to skills in the business language and the local state language.

This article reviews Language policy and planning in universities: Teaching, research and administration

This article reviews Becoming a citizen: Linguistic trials and negotiations in the UK

This article reviews The legal recognition of sign languages: Advocacy and outcomes around the world