Language and Minority Rights: Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language / Edition 2

by Stephen May

Overview

The second edition addresses new theoretical and empirical developments since its initial publication, including the burgeoning influence of globalization and the relentless rise of English as the current world language. May’s broad position, however, remains largely unchanged. He argues that the causes of many of the language-based conflicts in the world today still lie with the nation-state and its preoccupation with establishing a 'common' language and culture via mass education. The solution, he suggests, is to rethink nation-states in more culturally and linguistically plural ways while avoiding, at the same time, essentializing the language-identity link. This edition, like the first, adopts a wide interdisciplinary framework, drawing on sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, sociology, political theory, education and law. It also includes new discussions of cosmopolitanism, globalization, the role of English, and language and mobility, highlighting the ongoing difficulties faced by minority language speakers in the world today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780805863079
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/16/2011
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Stephen May is Professor of Education in the School of Critical Studies in Education, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Preface to the 2^nd Edition

Preface to the 1^st edition

INTRODUCTION

Language ecology

The politics of language

The nation-state model

Linguistic human rights

Critical sociolinguistics

Overview

Prospects for change

Chapter 1: THE DENUNCIATION OF ETHNICITY

Academic denunciations of ethnicity

Resituating ethnicity in the era of globalization

Ethnicity and modernity

Ethnicity as primordial

Ethnicity as constructed

Ethnicity as intentional

Hybridity: the postmodernist politics of identity

Limits to the social construction of ethnicity

Finding common ground – ethnicity, habitus, and field

Ethnies

Chapter 2: NATIONALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS

Linguistic nationalism

The will to nationhood

The modern (nation-)state

The modernists

Limits of the modernist account

Ethno-symbolic accounts of nationalism

Dominant ethnies

The construction of sociological minorities

Chapter 3: LIBERALISM AND MULTICULTURALISM

The pluralist dilemma

Defending liberal democracy

Critiquing liberal democracy

The cosmopolitan alternative

Rethinking liberal democracy

Chapter 4: LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, RIGHTS, AND REPRESENTATION

Language and identity

Identity in language

Language and culture

Language, culture and politics

Language decline: the death of Irish?

‘Resigned language realism’: is language revival just flogging a dead horse?

Re-evaluating language shift

Linguistic markets and symbolic violence

Vive la France: the construction of la langue légitime

Legitimating and institutionalizing minority languages

Chapter 5: LANGUAGE, EDUCATION AND MINORITY RIGHTS

Educating for the majority

Educating for the minority

Minority group responses to language education policies

Bridging the gap between policy and practice

Minority language and education rights in international law

Chapter 6: MONOLINGUALISM, MOBILITY AND THE PRE-EMINENCE OF ENGLISH

English as global lingua franca

The normative power of monolingualism

The problem with history

The problem with instrumentalism

The problem with bilingual education

‘Doesn’t anyone speak English around here?’ The US ‘English Only’ movement

Chapter 7: THE RISE OF REGIONALISM: RE-INSTANTIATING MINORITY LANGUAGES

Québec: safeguarding French in a sea of English

Catalonia: the quest for political and linguistic autonomy

Wales: the development of a bilingual state in a ‘forgotten’ nation

Chapter 8: INDIGENOUS RIGHTS: SELF-DETERMINATION, LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION

Indigenous peoples, self-determination, and international law

Indigenous peoples and national law

Indigenous language and education rights

Aotearoa/New Zealand: a tale of two ethnicities

Chapter 9: RE-IMAGINING THE NATION-STATE

Addressing constructivism

Tolerability and the crux of majority opinion

Polyethnic language and education rights: Pasifika in Aotearoa/New Zealand

The challenge of multiculturalism

Towards a more pluralist conception of language rights

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Notes

Editorial Reviews

"This is a very important book and should be required reading for students, scholars, policy makers and others interested in linguistic pluralism." – CHOICE

From the Publisher