Requirement of knowledge of English for US candidates for citizenship

[Harold Schiffman]

I want to pick up on an issue that I think didn't get enough attention
during
the recent discussion on immigration requirements in theUS, especially the
requirement that legal and illegal immigrants should be required to learn
English.  I think that means that they should be required to pass a
proficiency test, or to pass a test that includes questions about US
history, the US constitution, and related issues, in English.

I tried to point out that such a requirement is already part of the
citizenship requirement, and has been for some time.  It is somewhat
unusual in that it did not become a requirement through  the enactment of a
federal law, but rather by precedent in the administration of
naturalization of foreign-born candidates for citizenship.

In an article entitled LANGUAGE AND MIND: A WHORFIAN FOLK THEORY
IN UNITED STATES LANGUAGE LAW, published as  Sociolinguistics Working Paper
NUMBER 93, July, 1982, by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory,
and authored by Elizabeth Mertz, she details how "[a]n analysis of
metapragmatic statements in U.S. case law materials reveals a crudely
"Whorfian" premise from which a common folk theory of language builds. This
theory, evident in judges' decisions and dissents,
predicates the ability to understand U.S. political concepts on fluency in
English."

To state this more simply, the courts ruled that knowledge of the US
constitution in a language other than English was not equivalent to knowing
it in English, and therefore knowledge of English (through testing of some
sort) became part of the requirements for citizenship.  This requirement
built slowly, starting in the late 19th century but increasing in the early
20th century, so that it emerged from a number of precedents and became
what Mertz refers to as "case law" rather than legislation by Congress or
other bodies.

Mertz's article on this subject is not widely available, given that it was
published in a "working papers" volume but I found it noteworthy,
especially given my prediliction for a theory of language policy based in
what I call "linguistic culture" (which includes folk theories about
language) so I digitized her article and keep it on the website of my
language policy course. It can be found at
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540/theory/mertz1.html

I urge users of this list to give this article a close read, since it seems
obvious to me that in the current discussion of "immigration reform" in the
US many people do not realize that there is already a requirement of
knowledge of English for attainment of US citizenship. I should note that
there are exceptions for people over a certain age, and for people below
a certain age as well.  My own son, born in India, who came to the US as an
Indian citizen, became a US citizen on July 4th, 1984, when he was just 2
years old.  As an adopted member of our family, he was not required to pass
any tests, language or others, at that age.

Hal Schiffman


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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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