<div>One of the reasons I sent out the original message about "official" English is that there is no clear definition anywhere that defines what "official" language means, or implies. Some countries have "national" languages that are perhaps more symbolic, but my whole approach to language policy is that officialization often doesn't matter,
i.e. language policy usually consists of "official/written/overt</div>
<div>/de jure/top-down/explicit" policy as well as "unofficial/unwritten/</div>
<div>covert/de facto/grass-roots/implicit" aspects. As Dennis Baron notes, we seem to have achieved dominance in English without ever officializing it. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>I used to try to make an example of how implicit expectations about the use of English in the U.S., especially in education, were almost never spelled out, by walking into a classroom and holding forth in French for a while, until someone objected. Then I'd ask what the official language of the university was, to which they had no answer, except that the
<em>expectation</em> was that lectures would be in English.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>So I'm really not afraid about officialization of English, because if I know our American legislators, they'll pass legislation that has absolutely no provisions for implementation, funding, enforcement, evaluation, or any other necessary factors to make it actually
<strong>work</strong>. Officializaton of English in the US would be largely <strong>symbolic</strong>; in fact, interest in officialization is found mostly in small rural towns where everybody already speaks English. Calls for officialization are symbolic ways to express ones patriotism, ones value system, and perhaps also subtly express racism, i;e. it's a
<strong>proxy </strong>for xenophobia. And it's cheap, too--doesn't cost much for a small town to officialization English, and it may get somebody some votes in the next election.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Hal Schiffman<br><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 6/25/07, <b class="gmail_sendername"><a href="mailto:rbhatt@uiuc.edu">rbhatt@uiuc.edu</a></b> <<a href="mailto:rbhatt@uiuc.edu">rbhatt@uiuc.edu</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">There is a nice piece on this matter, on Official English for the US, written by my colleague, Dennis Baron, that should be of interest to this list. The URL is:
<br><br><a href="http://webtools.uiuc.edu/blog/view?blogId=25&topicId=589&count=1&ACTION=VIEW_TOPIC_DIALOGS&skinId=286">http://webtools.uiuc.edu/blog/view?blogId=25&topicId=589&count=1&ACTION=VIEW_TOPIC_DIALOGS&skinId=286
</a><br><br>Or you can access it from:<br><br><a href="http://webtools.uiuc.edu/blog/view?blogId=25">http://webtools.uiuc.edu/blog/view?blogId=25</a><br><br>All best,<br>Rakesh<br><br>---- Original message ----<br>>Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 06:49:56 +0100
<br>>From: "Anthea Fraser Gupta" <<a href="mailto:A.F.Gupta@leeds.ac.uk">A.F.Gupta@leeds.ac.uk</a>><br>>Subject: RE : What the heck is an "official" language?<br>>To: <<a href="mailto:lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu">
lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu</a>>, <<a href="mailto:lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu">lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu</a>><br>><br>>Absolutely. We had some discussion about this a couple of months ago. In actuality, the US, like the UK already has an official language. But even if English were to be made de jure the official language, I fail to understand why this designation would entail the proscription of other languages or a ban on any funding of other languages.
<br>><br>>Anthea<br>><br>>* * * * *<br>>Anthea Fraser Gupta (Dr)<br>>School of English, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT <<a href="http://www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg">www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg
</a>><br>>NB: Reply to <a href="mailto:a.f.gupta@leeds.ac.uk">a.f.gupta@leeds.ac.uk</a><br>>* * * * *<br>><br>>________________________________<br>><br>**********************************************
<br>Associate Professor, Linguistics and SLATE<br>Department of Linguistics<br>University of Illinois<br>4088 FLB, 707 S. Mathews<br>Urbana, IL 61801<br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:rbhatt@uiuc.edu">rbhatt@uiuc.edu</a><br>Ph: 217-265-6308
<br> 217-333-3563 (leave message)<br>Fax: 217-244-8430<br><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=<br><br>Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br>Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
<br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email:
<a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br> <a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------