MULTILINGUALISM AND THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE QUESTION

We do have nations being described as multilingual, if more than two languages are the official languages, as in Switzerland. In the Ex-colonies, the problem of multilingualism is a little different because of the diverse ethnolinguistic backgrounds of the people. The imposed languages serving as unifying forces are not the languages of any one group in the nation. Sequentially, two problems are created in the National Language question. The first is the importation of English into the country, as in Nigeria, as far back as the 15th century; and Lord Lugard’s amalgamation of the Southern and Northern protectorates in 1914. Along with this foreign language came its foreign culture. The English Language does not at all qualify as the Nigerian National Language. Secondly, the government incapacitated itself by giving official recognition to only three out of 521 languages (Oyetayo, 2006) and using the derogatory term “MAJORâ€, meaning that all the other, over 518 languages are “MINOR†languages. A titanic criticism on the government is that totalitarian posture, posing instability to the corporate unity of the nation. There is no categorical statement for an indigenous language, taking over from English. Any proposal that does not take into cognizance the multilingual nature of the country is not likely to succeed. To solve this, we propose that the language spoken by the smallest (micro) population in the country be selected. This should be allowed to develop from within, then expand to some other languages in the form of borrowing, as borrowing is a normal consequence of the natural contact of language in multilingual societies

The Role of English Language in Nigerian Development

:The language policy in Nigeria granted the English language the status of being the sole official language, and the language of instruction in the country. This approach influenced the educated people's competence, and subsequently, attitudes towards others within their locality and global arena. The study aims to investigate the role of the English Language in Nigerian Development. This paper argues that English as the Nigerian official language is well accepted due to the multi-lingual state of Nigeria. The study observes that English language is a political and social element in the process of building, unification, and maintaining the Nigerian state and as an essential element of national development. This study contributes to the understanding of multi-lingual nations and supports the research literature which shows that English language plays a significant role in unifying multi-lingual Nigeria

NATIONAL LANGUAGE & MINORITY LANGUAGE RIGHTS

This brief paper highlights the perspectives of those proposing and opposing the idea of Minority Language Right (MLR). Then, the paper relates this discussion to the context of bi/multilingualism in Indonesia by referring to cases of bi/multilingualism in different contexts. In particular, it is also discussed whether MLR is relevant to Indonesian, a national language of Indonesia, seen through historical, political, social, and economic perspectives of bi/multilingualism in Indonesia. In the end, the author’s stance of MLR is asserted

Non-Standard and Minority Varieties as Community Languages in the UK: Towards a New Strategy for Language Maintenance

Supplementary schools (also referred to as complementary or Saturday schools) play a key role in teaching community heritage languages. In this way they contribute to strengthening awareness of cultural identity and confidence among pupils of migrant and minority backgrounds. The diaspora setting poses a number of challenges: parents and pupils expect supplementary schools to provide instruction in formal aspects of the heritage languages (reading and writing, and ‘correct’ grammar), but also to help develop competence in using the language in everyday settings, not least in order to enable intergenerational communication. Where the formal language differs from non-standard speech varieties (such as regional dialects), gaps may emerge between expectations and delivery. Most schools do not equip teachers to address such issues because the traditional curricula (including textbooks and teacher training packages that are often imported from the origin countries) fail to take them into consideration. The paper draws on recent research by specialist sociolinguists working in various UK settings and on a discussion among researchers and practitioners that was hosted by the University of Westminster in April 2019, co-organised by the Multilingual Manchester research unit at the University of Manchester as part of the Multilingual Communities strand of the AHRC Open World Research Initiative consortium ‘Cross- Language Dynamics: Re-shaping Communities.’ Research has shown that teachers, parents and pupils attribute importance to the teaching of standard languages, not least as a way of gaining additional formal qualifications and increasing prospects of university admission and employment. However, pupils also show an interest in everyday speech varieties and often challenge the prevailing language ideologies that fail to recognise their importance in informal communication. Teachers tend to be aware of this tension but lack the training and resources to address it in the classroom. The workshop findings suggest that failure to take non-standard speech varieties into consideration can discourage pupils from attending supplementary schools and so it also risks having an adverse effect on the transmission of standard heritage languages. Pupils’ motivation can be boosted if they are offered more tools and opportunities to communicate in everyday speech varieties. To that end, non-standard varieties must be valorised and teachers should be equipped with the skills to address language variation and pupils’ multilingual repertoires and to promote them as valuable communicative resources. The paper recommends that supplementary schools should explore ways to take into account pupils’ multilingualism and use of non-standard varieties. Curricula should be adjusted to recognise non- standard varieties as valuable resources while continuing to teach the formal (standard) varieties. Teacher training modules should be designed that take pupils’ multilingual repertoires into account and equip teachers to understand and address sociolinguistic issues such as structural variation, multilingualism and language ideologies. The paper also recommends public engagement to address the inequality that underpins the use of the terms ‘community’ versus ‘modern languages’, and calls for collaboration between mainstream (statutory) schools and supplementary schools when it comes to celebrating diversity in their pupils’ backgrounds. Academics should play a greater role in providing advice, support and training to practitioners. They should work with practitioners and stakeholders to raise public awareness of the contribution that supplementary schools make and to develop policies and pedagogical approaches to support them

Fear of a Multilingual America? Language and National Identity in the United States

In the contemporary debate on language and national identity in the US, those who are in favor of a constitutional amendment declaring English the offi cial language of the country believe that speaking the same tongue is crucial for the political and cultural unity of the nation. Those who are against the amendment claim that dictating by law the linguistic Americanization of immigrants is incompatible with American multiculturalism. Both sides ground their ideas in the language ideology and politics of the Founders and interpret in opposing ways the absence of a statement on language in the Constitution. What Americans believed about the importance of a national language for the new nation at the turn of the eighteenth century still infl uences what Americans think now and can explain why, for example, the language divide does not simply run along party lines. Yet the Founders\u2019 attitudes towards language were contradictory, as they combined descriptivism and prescriptivism . This article investigates writings by intellectuals and politicians who were instrumental in the nation-making process of the early American Republic, such as Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush and Noah Webster. These writings show the complexity of the ideas coalescing in the mythology of American English which formed after the American Revolution and spread in nineteenth-century United States

In search of the African voice in higher education: the language question

This article seeks to understand what South African universities are doing by making use of language as a tool or as an enabling voice towards Africanisation and transformation with particular reference to Rhodes University, which serves as a case study. Although many universities now have language policies in place and are part of an enabling policy environment, when it comes to using language as part of transformation and asserting an African voice, there are still policy implementation challenges. It is argued in this article that implementation of policy, including university language policies, is now a key indicator for two levels of transformation; namely the more superficially visible or visual representation transformation, as well as deeper curriculum transformation through appropriate language usage. It is the latter form of transformation that largely eludes the contemporary South African university, whether these are historically black universities (HBUs) or historically white universities (HWUs). With the exception of a few best practices that are highlighted in this article, it is argued that transformation of the curriculum remains a long-term process, in the same way that language policy implementation is an ongoing process and requires commitment at all levels of university managerial and academic culture. The African voice in higher education remains an elusive one; though it is gaining ground, as evidenced by the recent removal of the Cecil John Rhodes Statue at the University of Cape Town. Furthermore, there is evidence of selected ongoing curriculum and pedagogic transformation, as presented in this article

The Language Question and the Diaspora

Since the eighteenth century, well before independence, Greek intellectuals, school teachers, and priests have fought over which variety of the Greek language should be the official one. Which register of Greek a Greek spoke -- and, even more importantly, wrote -- was central to what it meant to be Greek. Here I propose to shift the focus from the national to a diasporic perspective on the Language Question. I begin by rehearsing the familiar story of language reform in the service of nation building, but my primary concern will be to show that the same texts that illustrate this story also illustrate another. Many of the works written by the major figures in this debate reveal, on closer examination, that issues of nation are caught up with the question of what it means to be a Diaspora Greek. In fact, the fight for a single national language seems to be as much about diasporic multilingualism as it is about enforcing monolingualism. In my reading of texts by some of the foremost writers on the language question, Adamantios Korais, Dionysios Solomos, Psycharis (Jean Psichari), and Penelope Delta, in particular, I aim to show how much the nation’s language question has been indebted to the transnational and diasporic dimension of modern Greek culture. To read the work of these writers solely through the lens of the nation involves forgetting the multilingual and diasporic journeys that make their texts possible

Deconstructing the instrumental/identity divide in language policy debates

Debates about language and literacy policies are increasingly constructed at national levels in relation to their potential contribution to the ‘knowledge economy’, and to the ability of nation-states to compete economically in an increasingly globalised world. Invariably, this instrumental approach to language privileges the role of English as the current world language. Thus, in contexts where English is not spoken as a first language, English is increasingly viewed as the most important and/or useful additional language. In English-dominant contexts, monolingualism in English is seen as being a sufficient, even an ideal language model, while literacy in English comes to stand for literacy (and related social mobility) per se. Where other languages are countenanced at all in these latter contexts, the instrumentalist approach continues to dominate, with so-called international and/or trading languages being constructed as the languages other than English most worth learning, or perhaps even as the only other languages worth learning. The growing dominance of economistic, instrumental approaches to language policy, and the valorisation of English that is associated with them, clearly militate against ongoing individual and societal multilingualism. The languages most at risk here are so-called minority languages, particularly indigenous languages. In the new globalised world dominated by English, and where the perceived ‘usefulness’ of language is elided with language value, such languages are increasingly constructed as having neither. This paper deconstructs and critiques this positioning of indigenous and other minority languages, along with the wider instrumentality of much language and literacy policy of which it forms a part. In light of this, it also explores how such languages can be actively, justifiably and effectively maintained and promoted, particularly in English-dominant contexts

Predicting Native Language from Gaze

A fundamental question in language learning concerns the role of a speaker's first language in second language acquisition. We present a novel methodology for studying this question: analysis of eye-movement patterns in second language reading of free-form text. Using this methodology, we demonstrate for the first time that the native language of English learners can be predicted from their gaze fixations when reading English. We provide analysis of classifier uncertainty and learned features, which indicates that differences in English reading are likely to be rooted in linguistic divergences across native languages. The presented framework complements production studies and offers new ground for advancing research on multilingualism.Comment: ACL 201