34.2435, Review: Language Acquisition, Sociolinguistics: Skutnabb-Kangas, Phillipson (eds.) (2022)

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Subject: 34.2435, Review: Language Acquisition, Sociolinguistics: Skutnabb-Kangas, Phillipson (eds.) (2022)

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Date: 03-Jul-2023
From: Marijana Javornik Čubrić [mjavorni at pravo.hr]
Subject: Language Acquisition, Sociolinguistics: Skutnabb-Kangas, Phillipson (eds.) (2022)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/34.12

EDITOR: Tove Skutnabb-Kangas
EDITOR: Robert Phillipson
TITLE: The Handbook of Linguistic Human Rights
SERIES TITLE: Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics
PUBLISHER: Wiley
YEAR: 2022

REVIEWER: Marijana Javornik Čubrić

SUMMARY
The handbook comprises 712 pages and it is divided into an
introduction and five parts. The volume contains 52 articles written
by 62 authors. Notes on contributors are provided before the
introductory part.  In the introduction, written by the editors Tove
Skutnabb-Kangas and Robert Phjillipson, a concise overview of the
handbook is offered. The editors emphasise that there is a very
extensive literature on language rights, but this Handbook is the
first one on language rights as human rights, labeled as linguistic
human rights (LHRs). The importance of LHRs for achieving social and
linguistic justice is in the interest of both majorities and
minorities. With this in mind, the editors hope that the Handbook will
contribute to combating the linguistic marginalisation, injustice and
linguistic and cultural genocide that are widespread in contemporary
world (3). In the introductory part the editors firstly define some of
the basic concepts when discussing LHRs, such as mother tongues MTs),
indigenous, tribal, minority and minoritised people (ITMs) and their
languages (ITM Languages). They briefly discuss linguicism and
linguistic genocide and the issue which language rights should be
included in LHRs.
Part I, entitled Approaches to Linguistic Human Rights draws on
various disciplines, such as international law, sociolinguistics,
political theory, economic policy and historical linguistics. In the
first article Robert Dunbar argues that although there is an
identifiable body of rights in international law that can be described
as linguistic human rights, there are also some significant gaps in
this body of rights. He explains that the major international human
rights treaties contain such rights, but do not confer rights to
activities such as education or transportation through the medium of a
non-official language. It also addresses the role of English as the
global language for linguistic human rights. In his article entitled
Language Policy Implications of 'Global' English for Linguistic Human
Rights Robert Phillipson connects English to economic and political
factors that are marginalising other languages and threatening their
linguistic human rights, claiming that LHRs for all languages other
than English need urgent support.
International Standards for Linguistic Human Rights are presented in
Part II which mostly deals with the international standards for LHRs
as defined by the United Nations Organisation, but also provides a
European perspective and describes linguistic human rights in the work
of the World Federation of the Deaf. The first article, however, sheds
light on some shortcomings of linguistic rights such as the weak
support for maintaining diversity in the face of disappearing
languages, the frequent inability of minority and indigenous persons
to communicate with authorities in their own languages and the
one-sided promotion of major languages for economic and geopolitical
reasons. Regarding linguistic human rights in the work of the UN, in
his article Fernand de Varennes states that linguistic human rights at
the United Nations can best be described as a 'work in progress' due
to a lack of a comprehensive picture of understanding linguistic human
rights.
Part III offers case studies about violations of linguistic human
rights in different parts of the world. The first case study deals
with resistance to the violations of linguistic human rights by the
speakers of the Inuit languages (Inuktut) in Nanavut, Canada. The
second article by Andrea Bear Nichols analyses linguicide and
historicide through a narrative from one of the Canadian First Nation
peoples, the Maliseets. Jon Reyhner describes linguistic human rights
for indigenous people in the USA following the adoption of the three
Native American Languages Acts (1990, 1992 and 2006), as well as
current efforts to support the revitalization of indigenous languages
in the USA. Minglang Zhou analyses linguistic human rights of
minorities in China, noting that LHRs in China have seen improvement
in some areas and regressions in other ones in the last few decades.
Gerald Roche's article focuses on LHRs in Tibet and his own advocacy
work in relation to the languages of Tibet. Jaffer Sheyholislami
discusses to which extent language policies and practices provide
support for Kurdish as a minoritized language in four states where
Kurds live: Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Csernicskó and Kontra
explain the plight of native speakers of Hungarians in Ukraine, while
Ahmed Kabel explains linguistic human rights and politics of dignity
in North Africa. The chapter written by Yirga G. Woldeyes examines the
factors influencing English linguistic imperialism in Ethiopia,
claiming that “English hangs like a sword of Damocles over LHRs in
Ethiopia. It represents symbolic, structural and ideological power
that disempowers communities from the improving of, in and through
their local languages.” (401) Two articles are devoted to LHRs in
India; the first one, written by E. Annamalai focuses on judicial
interpretations of the law to safeguard linguistic minorities in
India, while the second one, written by Shivani Nag deals with the
relationship between LHRs and higher education in India from her own
experience as a person whose mother tongue is Kangri. the article
which concludes Part II analyses Romani emancipation and LHRs,
providing some remarks on Romani people, the Romani language, the
Romani movement, usage of Romani in education and the position of the
Romani language on Europe's ethnolinguistic scale.
Part IV, entitled Case Studies: Implementing Linguistic Human Rights
opens with an article by Markku Suksi about a linguistic human rights
success story, which is the constitutionally established bilingualism
of Finnish and Swedish in Finland. Another article devoted to Finland
deals with the linguistic human rights of indigenous Sámi in the
Finnish education system. In his article Jarmo Lainio deals with the
practical implementation of LHRs in Sweden for its national minority
languages, concluding that recently there has been willingness to
compensate for the centuries of discrimination of the national
minority languages in Sweden. The following articles analyse the
implementation of linguistic human rights in Canada, Latin America,
Southwest USA, Russia, Nepal, India and New Zealand.
The last part of the Handbook entitled Cross-cutting Issues in
Linguistic Human Rights addresses issues such as the role of
interpreting and translation in promoting linguistic human rights, the
relationship between language testing/assessment and LHRs, promoting
LHRs through language documentation, the rise of multilingual
Internet, linguicism as deprivation of the victim’s LHRs, struggles to
achieve at least some basic LHRs and linguistic justice. The
concluding article, written by the editors and entitled Afterword:
Pursuing Linguistic Human Rights, reminds us that we indeed live in
troubled times, that few governments are committed to actively support
marginalised languages, that the UN has admirable goals and documents,
but it is powerless to affect what member states actually do. The last
article ends with a powerful message: “Many recipes for saving the
planet are encoded in the small ITM languages and the cosmovisions of
their speakers.” (686)

EVALUATION
Linguistic rights are an increasingly important category of human
rights. Many linguistic rights are contained in a number of
international agreements, treaties and conventions. The commitment to
non-discrimination on the basis of language has become a standard of
linguistic legislation on national and international levels. Due to
that, many linguistic rights are formulated in a negative way as
non-discrimination prescriptions (Galdia, 398).  Any discrimination
based on language or linguistic factors came to be known as
linguicism. As a concept, linguicism arose in parallel to other –isms,
such as racism, sexism or ageism. Although the word linguicism is not
as frequently used as, for example, the forementioned –isms,  it would
probably not be unfamiliar to most people who would be able to
identify it as some form of discrimination based on the use of
language. In this volume, the editors define linguicism as
“ideologies, structures and practices which are used to legitimate,
effectuate, regulate and reproduce an unequal division of power and
resources (both material and immaterial) between groups which are
defined on the basis of language” (10).  Some authors suggest that
linguicism is a powerful theoretical construct, which can be used as
an umbrella concept to capture the full range of linguistic
discrimination issues and stress that social factors associated with
linguistic discrimination are important to shed light on otherwise
potentially unheard voices in linguistic discrimination scholarship
(Nguyen & Hajek, 187). This volume is a significant contribution to
linguistic discrimination scholarship and it significantly raises
awareness about problems related to linguicism, lack of linguistic
justice and numerous violations of linguistic human rights around the
world.
The handbook is exceptionally valuable for understanding and
appreciating the concept of linguistic human rights and their
significance for social and linguistic justice. It is well organised,
illuminating and highly interesting in its entirety. It can therefore
be warmly recommended not only to lawyers and students of law, but to
all those interested in the protection of linguistic rights of all
people and some form of linguistic justice.

REFERENCES
Galdia, Marcus. Lectures on Legal Linguistics, Peter Lang Edition,
2017.
Mattila, Heiki E. S.  Comparative Legal Linguistics. Language of Law,
Latin and Modern Lingua Francas, 2nd Edition. Routledge, 2013.
Nguyen, Trang Thi Thuy and Hajek, John. ''Making the case for
linguicism: revisiting theoretical concepts and terminologies in
linguistic discrimination research'' International Journal of the
Sociology of Language, vol. 2022, no. 275, 2022, pp. 187-220.
https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2021-0028

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Marijana Javornik Čubrić is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law,
University of Zagreb. She holds a PhD in legal linguistics. She has
authored several LSP textbooks and is interested in legal linguistics,
LSP, terminology and curriculum development.



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