Linguistic justice for Europe and for the world / Philippe van Parijs.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Parijs, Philippe van, 1951-

Series:

Oxford political theory

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Lingua francas.

English language--Foreign countries.

English language.

Language policy.

Physical Description:

xi, 299 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2011.

Summary:

In Europe and throughout the world, competence in English is spreading at a speed never achieved by any language in human history. This growing dominance of English is frequently perceived and denounced as blatantly unjust.

Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World starts off arguing that the dissemination of competence in a common lingua franca is a process to be welcomed and accelerated, most fundamentally because it provides the struggle for greater justice with an essential weapon: a cheap medium of cross-border communication and mobilization.

However, the resulting linguistic situation is arguably unjust in three distinct senses. Firstly, the adoption of one natural language as the lingua franca implies that its native speakers are getting a free ride by beneficing cordlessly from the learning effort of others. Secondly, Anglophones gain greater opportunities as a result of competence in their native language becoming a more valuable asset. Thirdly, the privilege given to one language fails to show equal respect for the various languages with which different portions of the population concerned identify.

The book spells out the corresponding interpretations of linguistic justice as cooperative justice, distributive justice, and parity of esteem. It discusses a wide range of policies chat might help achieve greater linguistic justice in these three senses, from a linguistic tax on Anglophone countries to the banning of dubbing to the linguistic territoriality principle. It also atgues that linguistic diversity, chough not valuable in itself, will nonetheless need to be protected as a by-product of the pursuit of linguistic justice as parity of esteem. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Lingua Franca 6

1.1 Europe's lingua franca 6

1.2 A global lingua franca? 9

1.3 Probability-driven language learning 11

1.4 Maxi-min language use 13

1.5 The maxi-min dynamics 15

1.6 Deviation from maxi-min: didactic and symbolic 17

1.7 Maxi-min dynamics and power relationships 19

1.8 Power and the rise of English 21

1.9 Lingua franca and justificatory community 24

1.10 Lingua franca and trans-national demos 27

1.11 A vector of ideological domination? 31

1.12 Go English? 36

Appendix: three alternatives to lingua franca convergence 3 8

1 Babel Fish 38

2 Esperanto 39

(a) Neutrality 40

(b) Simplicity 42

3 Lingua franca pluralism 46

(a) Disjunctive plural regime 46

(b) Conjunctive plural regime 47

2 Linguistic Justice As Fair Cooperation 50

2.1 Anglophones as free riders 50

2.2 Indefinite learning versus one-off conversion 53

2.3 A stylized picture 56

2.4 Efficient cost sharing: Church and King 59

2.5 Equal cost sharing: Pool 60

2.6 Equal benefit sharing: Gauthier 62

2.7 Equal ratio of cost to benefit: Romans 64

2.8 Why the small may subsidize the big 67

2.9 Estimating the cost of language learning 69

2.10 Real-life approximations 73

2.11 A linguistic tax? 75

2.12 Compensatory poaching? 78

Appendix 83

1 Formal expression of the four criteria of fair cooperation in the case of two linguistic communities 83

2 Equal cost-benefit ratios with many linguistic communities 85

3 linguistic Justice As Equal Opportunity 87

3.1 Liberal-egalitarian justice 87

3.2 Language, religion, and rights 88

3.3 Language-based inequality of opportunities 91

3.4 Tinkering with the language regime 95

3.5 Transfers to the linguistically handicapped 97

3.6 Dissemination through immersion schooling 102

3.7 An inexpensive instrument of dissemination 106

3.8 A ban on dubbing? 109

3.9 Disadvantage reversed? 113

4 Lingustic Justice As Party Of Esteem 117

4.1 Equal respect 117

4.2 All languages on the same symbolic footing 120

4.3 Piggy-backing on the instrumental function 123

4.4 Who should pay for costly symbols ? 125

4.5 Downsized plurilingualism 128

4.6 Rhetoric and exhortation 130

5 Linguistic Territoriality 33

5.1 A territorially differentiated coercive regime 133

5.2 Non-starters: right of the soil and national sovereignty 137

5.3 First argument: colonial attitude 139

5.4 Second argument: kindness-driven agony 142

5.5 Third argument: every tongue a queen 146

5.6 Territorial reciprocity 149

5.7 Pacification through territoriality? 151

5.8 Territoriality versus heterogeneity 154

5.9 The cost of universal proficiency 155

5.10 The ground floor of the world 159

5.11 Diaspora buffers and regime relaxation 161

5.12 Deep heterogeneity 164

5.13 Democratic settlement 169

5.14 Fair resignation 171

6 Linguistic Diversity 175

6.1 "What is diversity? 175

6.2 What is linguistic diversity? 178

6.3 Multilingualism against linguistic diversity? 181

6.4 Local diversity versus inter-local diversity 185

6.5 Curse or treasure? 188

6.6 Economic solidarity, identification, and communication 193

6.7 Local diversity and solidarity 194

6.8 Inter-local diversity and solidarity:an unexpected alliance? 198

6.9 Inter-local diversity and solidarity:an undeniable tension 201

6.10 Real freedom for all versus parity of esteem 203.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [270]-286) and index.

ISBN:

9780199208876

0199208875

OCLC:

713182520