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Post by Natalia Marrugat on Feb 17, 2011 4:29:16 GMT -5
We remind you that the third EUNoM Symposium "Managing multilingual and multiethnic societies and institutions" will be held at the University of Primorska, Koper (Slovenia) on the 20 - 21 June 2011
The convenor in Koper has already proposed the first of themes:
FIRST THEME: Multilingual policies in language contact areas: gaps and issues in national and international language policies at the local level; demands in global scale and responses, the local dimension of language use.[/size]
We wish to create a debate on nine specific issues before the Koper symposium, each lasting 12-14 days.[/b]
How can you contribute?
1.- To start with, we invite all visitors to this discussion forum, including full and associated partners, to suggest or propose links to relevant websites, research and/or policy documents [/b] on this theme, by clicking on "reply" below.
We encourage you to register and participate. All registered forum members will receive a weekly newsletter with project updates.
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glyn
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Post by glyn on Feb 21, 2011 8:49:32 GMT -5
It hardly needs stating that we need to move away from the orthodox LP perspective which is perhaps best encapsulated in reversing language shift. Would it be an idea to begin with our understanding of terms? It seems to me that there is difference between ‘policy’ and ‘management’. Policy seems to be static whereas management is dynamic. Policy implies a central decision, whereas management refers to ‘policing’ the action of ‘others’. If we are referring to ‘other’, who is the source referrent? Both terms can refer either to governance or government. Perhaps we can resolve some such issues by referring to neo-liberalism as the predominant political discourse in Europe. It involves devolving responsibility and accountability from the state to the individual and the community. On the other hand the principles of democracy maintain that whoever has responsibility and accountability must have a direct voice in policy formation. The tendency tends to be to apply the last principle through public consultation, which is hardly a direct voice! However, it does achieve the goal of bringing decision-making closer to those influenced by such decisions. It also divests the state of responsibility. It opens up new forms of governance that involves NGOs. It might even involve an alternative to representative democracy. This implies the needs for a heightened degree of coordination. There is the further issue of how globalisation is breaking down the cosy relationship between the state, language and territory that was evident in th first modernity and industrial society. The undermining of the sovereignty of the nation state derives from how the global economy is increasingly controlled by multinational corporations (MNCs). The disarticulation between the economy, culture and society means that how the social institutions that used to condition identity through what Foucault would call discipline. The actor is no longer constituted in relation to the nation state and its society but to culture and ethics. How cultural communities construct values becomes ever more relevant. The liberation of the individual from the constraints of ‘tradition’, i.e. how identity was constituted in relation to the primary institutions of society – the state, the family etc. means that the individual is now free to choose her alignment with any issue.
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Post by mstrubell on Mar 9, 2011 3:50:45 GMT -5
Naturally, the main instrument at the European level is the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/148.htm (Strasbourg, 5.XI.1992). The monitoring process can be viewed here: www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/minlang/Default_en.asp However, some important multilingual states, including Russia, Italy and France, have not yet ratified it. Moreover, the world has greatly changed in the 19 years since the Charter was adopted. Globalisation and European intergation have posed new threats - but also, in some cases, has provided new opportunities - to linguistic minorities. It can be argued that some of their characteristics are now being shared by smaller state languages.
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Post by mstrubell on Mar 9, 2011 3:55:07 GMT -5
The background to the third EUNoM Symposium "Managing multilingual and multiethnic societies and institutions" which will be held at the University of Primorska, Koper (Slovenia) on the 20-21 June 2011 was stated in our project proposal as follows:
"Globalisation promotes some devolution of governance to regions and makes international cooperation for resolving crises imperative. Sovereignty is undermined and new ways of managing diversity are needed as new spaces for language and identity open up. Individuals is freed from the institutional integration that structured their identity and her relationship to language and culture. Individual freedom makes integration with collectivities a voluntaristic phenomenon. New contexts for the revitalisation of regional languages emerge, and there is a demand for global lingue franche, and state non-lingue franche become diglossified. So technological development for business and the information society and new educational perspectives on multilingualism and interculturalism need to be considered.
"As relations between the state, society and culture change, the interface between regional education systems, regional and international business and administrative contexts requires new management procedures. A European strategy for multilingualism must be rethought and presented for debate. We address such issues and invite business and administration to consider how best to restructure the role of language in institutional practice."
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Post by Rene Jorna on Apr 6, 2011 7:54:33 GMT -5
In discussing managing multilangualism and multiethnic society, I would like to address two themes 1. Dealing with and institutionalizing multilingualism it is exteremly relevant to discuss the basic assumptions of the dominant economic model we are using, whole heartedly or sceptically. This model, called neoliberalism, favors competition and distrust and thinks that streams of whatever kind strive for the lowest point, like water does. The model argues that the same holds for other assets, like labor, prices and social and human capital. In this model multilingualism is an anomaly. In the end we all speak English, Spanish or Chinese. The question is whether this model is correct and if not what alternative is possible? 2. Favouring multilingualism implies accepting different views on the world. Because a language is at least partly related to our conceptualizations of empirical reality (the Sapir-Whorff hypothesis), this means that we have to accept different views on the world, including views on governing societies, on institutionalization and on organizational forms. The idea that democracy is a bridging bottom line is then difficult to accept? Isn't it?
Working title for conference contribution: why the idea/ideology of a global economy is disastrous for multi-lingualism
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Post by Saskia on Apr 15, 2011 6:00:30 GMT -5
Language legislation on international and national level should be aiming at two goals: (a) to guarantee a safety net for the individual citizen, a guarantee that the authorities will serve the citizen in the language of his preference (as far as appropriate and reasonable); (b) to stimulate the authorities to develop in close co-opeation with civil society language plans and programmes for the mutual understanding of various language groups, to provide services for language use in all relevant domains, as well as learning & teaching possibilities (aiming at he improvement of language skills at all levels of education). With regard to the implementation of language legislation, authorities should define the common responsibilities of authorities at all levels (international, national, regional and local) and share their responsibilities with the respective actors of civil society. Sharing of responsibility can be mananged by means of covenants and contracts, guidelines and language schemes at the practical level of organisations and enterprises. Sharing of responsibilities is a pre-requisite for mutual support of all actors involved in the language planning process.
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Post by mstrubell on May 23, 2011 3:33:10 GMT -5
The official position of the European Commission is that "English is not enough" (to get young people to learn at least one foreign language as well as English). The UK authorities also preach the same message (to get young people to learn at least one foreign language). My double question is: Do you have first-hand evidence that this statement is true? Do you know of people that have got (good) jobs because they knew at least one foreign language as well as English?As a reference, why not read the LETPP paper by our colleague Lucija Cok, "With English and not just English"( www.letpp.eu/images/stories/docs/conference/student_voice/lucija_cok.pdf)?
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glyn
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Post by glyn on Jun 6, 2011 4:23:25 GMT -5
Perhaps a more relevant question is 'Do you know of people that have NOT got (good) jobs because they do not know English?
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glyn
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Post by glyn on Jun 6, 2011 4:48:29 GMT -5
The preceding comment on neoliberalism is interesting. Much of the recent work on discourse analysis c.f. Fairclough inter alia has involve an analysis of the neoliberal discourse and then its negation through claims that it has negative effects. The problem with such work is that it persists with the tendency to treat discourse as ideology, as an ideology that can be 'cracked' through the use of discourse analysis. Neoliberalism becomes a huge conspiracy on the part of government and MNCs. However, ideology is not constituted before the act but operates in and through the materiality of discourse i.e. social practice. Liberal governance seeks to make individuals responsible for their own practices by inculcating them with the ethical judgements and moral norms that allows decision making to involve individual autonomy. It focuses on a shift from welfarism to liberalism. Thus neoliberalism recodes the place of the state in political discourse - it tries to persist in defending the 'nation' within a global world, it tries to provide a legal framework for social and economic life but always with the notion of the autonomous individual in place. A rhetoric that encompasses the 'traditional greatness of the nation and its language', the centrality of the family etc. weave together with right wing tendencies while opening the space for governmental programmes - including LP initiatives. The notion of the autonomous individual, responsible for her own destiny and free from state interference appears to be positive while the inability of the citizen to move away from the state dependence, and hence the inability to exercise that autonomy, is problematic. It is true that neoliberalism has its own 'language', that it involves a relationship between politics and language without any form of reflection in that they are simultaneously constituted. However, this should be placed in terms of Foucault's notion of 'political rationalities' and how the discplining of the self plays a central role in their implementation. It would be nice to see someone look at LP in this respect. It is far too easy to dismiss neoliberalism simply on the basis of its central principles rather than considering how it is operationalised as a feature of liberal governance.
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glyn
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Post by glyn on Jun 6, 2011 5:00:03 GMT -5
By reference to the theme raised by the conference convenors I have always been wary of the notion of 'contact' - languages are never in contact, only the subjects who carry and practice them. The question revolves around how the spatial component inherent in 'areas' is changing, and what are the implications for the constitution of the subject as a language speaker, as well as how language objects are constructed and constituted. Globalisation, European integration, the new technology etc. are all having profound influences on the time-space nexus. New objects are being constructed at the spaces that strive to be constructed as distinct - nations, states, regions etc. We still think of these objects as 'languages' but they are much more than this in that they have such profound impacts upon the constitution of the self and, within the context of individual autonomy, the ability of the self to be reflexive - self on self. This is what seems to be going on vis a vis the relevance of English, there is a reflexive process that places English within a spatial context that is simultaneously local and global. However, the agenda for policy formation is incapable of being instigated, monitored and implemented at a single spatial level which means that the language object is contextualised in a range of spaces which have quite different political meanings. It becomes possible to think of the single language as many languages.
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Post by kyolive11 on May 9, 2012 3:06:05 GMT -5
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Post by qaz333 on May 15, 2012 21:48:31 GMT -5
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Post by qaz333 on May 15, 2012 21:49:10 GMT -5
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