Caught in the grips of linguistic paranoia
Anthea Fraser Gupta
A.F.Gupta at leeds.ac.uk
Wed Aug 13 11:01:58 UTC 2008
Yes, what a title! and I agree we should start quoting this elegantly
written paper.
The best place to read it for some people might be International J of
Applied Linguistics 1:1 1991.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119993754/PDFSTART
Fishman says (more thoroughly and with more sums) much what Stan and I
said,that "linguistic heterogeneity is not an independent predictor of
GNP or strife". He was attacking a (then? still?) entrenched view that
linguistic heterogeneity was associated with more civil strife and a
lower GNP. Fishman's criteria (a huge 238) seem more thought through
than the Economist's -- I still don't understand the climate one! But
the converse would be equally true -- neither is linguistic
heterogeneity associated with less civil strive and a higher GNP.
Fishman concludes by calling for the examination of those linguistic
policies (based on cultural pluralism) that do lead to positive
outcomes. I don't know how he would regard the rather special promotion
of English-Irish bilingualism in Ireland, which isn't based on cultural
pluralism so much as on expression of national identity.
Reading this paper one realises how the world has changed since 1991.
Fishman comments that "There has been less politicized ethnolinguistic
factionalism in the half century since the Second World War,
notwithstanding the large number of Third World polities that have come
into existence since then, than in the half century preceding it. ...
The weak relationship between these criteria [linguistic heterogeneity
and GNP/civil strife] are both resultants of past circumstances as well
as indications that those circumstances do not now commonly obtain in
the world at large, all the more so once the problems of perestroika in
the former communist countries have been overcome or attenuated." Less
than 20 years later, it seems clear to me that past circumstances don't
disappear and that one cannot assume continuing peace. I'm not saying
that linguistic heterogeneity is a cause, of course. I agree with
Fishman that any association is weak. And if people want to they will
create ethnolinguistic groups whether there are significant linguistic
differences between them or not. And not all conflict is linguistically
linked either. But ethnolinguistic nationalism is as important in the
world today as it ever was.
Fishman looked at linguistic heterogeneity and the original article to
which we are all responding referred to countries that supported
linguistic heterogeneity in their policies. We could (if we had decent
statistics, which we don't) get some figures on linguistic
heterogeneity.
We would presumably want data on native language patterns [note that we
would need data on ALL languages spoken in early childhood. Where there
is widespread familial bilingualism there can be commonality of native
language as well as diversity. For example, if A is a native speaker of
Malay and English, and B is a native speaker of Mandarin and English, A
and B have 3 native languages between them, and one in common, whereas
if B is a native speaker only of Mandarin, they have 3 languages between
them and none in common.]
Then we would have to look at governmental support for linguistic
heterogeneity. Typically (even in South Africa) only some varieties of
some languages are promoted. We can't divide the world into the bad guy
ling.het.denying countries and the good guy ling.het.promoting countries
-- it's more complicated than that. Look at Switzerland -- how do ethnic
minorities outside the officially sanctioned ones work?
(BTW -- did you mean me when you said 'Andrea', Christine? 8-). However,
I also note that I haven't mastered negative maths -- the Economist
thinks UK has a worse climate than Ireland. Not that I understand that
either. )
Anthea
* * * * *
Anthea Fraser Gupta (Dr)
School of English, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
<www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg>
NB: Reply to a.f.gupta at leeds.ac.uk
* * * * *
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
> [mailto:owner-lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu] On Behalf Of
> Christina Paulston
> Sent: 12 August 2008 21:44
> To: lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
> Subject: Re: Caught in the grips of linguistic paranoia
>
> I suggest Stan and Andrea (and anyone else interested) take
> a look at Fishman's " Empirical explorations of two popular
> assumptions: Inter- polity perspective on the relationships
> between linguistic heterogeneity, civil strife, and per
> capita gross national product" , easiest found in Dick's and
> my sociolinguistic reader (Paulston&Tucker, SOCIOLINGUISTICS:
> THE ESSENTIAL READINGS, Oxford:
> Blackwell's.. In spite of the impossible title, it is one of
> Fishmans most interesting articles but rarely cited. It'll
> answer your
> questions. It is statistically complicated so you need to read it.)
> Christina
> On Aug 12, 2008, at 12:06 PM, Anthea Fraser Gupta wrote:
>
> > Yes -- I agree with Stan -- it would be hard to make any
> correlation.
> >
> > I'm a bit baffled by one of the measures on this list, which is
> > 'climate and geography', and which is based on 'latitude to
> > distinguish between warmer and colder climes'.
> >
> > Now climate seems to me very much a matter of personal
> preference --
> > is warmer better or is colder? Humid or dry? Do you like a 'real
> > winter'
> > or not? People don't seem to agree on this. On this measure
> US (.177)
> > does a lot better than UK (-.064) and UK, bizarrely, does
> better than
> > Ireland (-.049). Does US do better because there is a lot of choice
> > about climate (you could be a Florida kind of person or an
> Alaska kind
> > of person)? Or just becaus it goes a long way south? And
> why should
> > UK do better than Ireland (no noticeable difference in climate or
> > latitude). And why should the Irish climate (cool in
> summer, warm in
> > winter, plenty of rain) get such a low score -- seems like
> a very nice
> > climate to me.
> >
> > 'Community life' is another one I don't understand: "Dummy variable
> > taking value 1 if country has either high rate of church
> attendance or
> > trade-union membership; zero otherwise." Hm.
> >
> > All rather dodgy, methinks.
> >
> > Anthea
> > * * * * *
> > Anthea Fraser Gupta (Dr)
> > School of English, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
> > <www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg>
> > NB: Reply to a.f.gupta at leeds.ac.uk
> > * * * * *
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: owner-lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
> >> [mailto:owner-lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu] On Behalf Of
> >> Stan-sandy Anonby
> >> Sent: 12 August 2008 15:18
> >> To: lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu; Harold Schiffman
> >> Subject: Re: Caught in the grips of linguistic paranoia
> >>
> >> Interesting article. I have a question, though. It says
> The Quality
> >> of Life Index, published by The Economist in 2005, showed that the
> >> five countries with the highest standard of living were Ireland,
> >> Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, and Sweden. Aside from having a
> >> European address, all of these countries have one key
> thing in common
> >> - they promote multilingualism.
> >>
> >> That's a really cool list. I looked at it, and noticed
> that most of
> >> the countries with the lowest standard of living were also pretty
> >> mulitlingual.
> >>
> >> I'm all in favour of quality of life, and I'm all in favour of
> >> multilinguilism. I'm just not sure what the Quality of
> Life Index can
> >> tell us about the correlation between the two.
> >>
> >> Stan Anonby
> >>
> >> On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:05:52 -0600
> >> "Harold Schiffman" <hfsclpp at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> Caught in the grips of linguistic paranoia
> >>>
> >>> By Nataly Kelly
> >>> August 11, 2008
> >>>
> >>> WHAT MAKES the largest military power on earth tremble in
> its boots?
> >>> What causes an entire nation of people - the majority of whom
> >>> descended from non-English speakers - to shudder in fear? What
> >>> provokes outrage at debates and town hall meetings in the current
> >>> presidential campaign? Language, that's what.
> >>>
> >>> Not every language is seen as Uncle Sam's nemesis - just
> the 6,911
> >>> languages that are not English. Americans often view other
> >> languages
> >>> as a threat their identity - both as individuals, and as a nation.
> >>> It's for this reason that a Pennsylvanian recently stood up
> >> and told
> >>> John McCain how angry it makes her to see the word entrada at the
> >>> entrance to her local Lowe's home improvement store. Barack Obama
> >>> dared to suggest last month that American children should learn a
> >>> language currently spoken by more people in the world
> than English:
> >>> Spanish. Hillary Clinton even stated, albeit jokingly, that
> >> it's time
> >>> for the United States to have a multilingual president.
> >>>
> >>> Linguistic paranoia seems to have reached unprecedented levels in
> >>> recent years, a phenomenon that would probably shock our Founding
> >>> Fathers. After all, they intentionally decided not to declare an
> >>> official language for America, knowing full well that linguistic
> >>> dominance in the world is often in flux, and that doing so could
> >>> restrict the country's ability to both compete
> internationally and
> >>> respond to domestic needs.
> >>>
> >>> The White House has a time-honored tradition of
> >> multilingualism. Our
> >>> second president, John Adams, spoke several languages
> fluently. He
> >>> believed in learning other languages and made sure that his
> >> son, John
> >>> Quincy Adams, studied four of them.
> >>>
> >>> The third president, Thomas Jefferson, spoke between five
> and seven
> >>> languages. Herbert Hoover and his wife were fluent in
> Mandarin, and
> >>> they translated a book from Latin into English. Jackie
> Kennedy made
> >>> campaign speeches in Spanish, Italian, and French to appeal to
> >>> multilingual voters.
> >>>
> >>> Is Obama wrong to point out the obvious, that when future
> >> generations'
> >>> knowledge of other languages is restricted, so is the prospective
> >>> well-being of our nation? The Quality of Life Index,
> >> published by The
> >>> Economist in 2005, showed that the five countries with
> the highest
> >>> standard of living were Ireland, Switzerland, Norway,
> >> Luxembourg, and
> >>> Sweden. Aside from having a European address, all of these
> >> countries
> >>> have one key thing in common - they promote
> >> multilingualism. In spite
> >>> of being the largest economic power in the world, the
> United States
> >>> came in 13th, just behind Spain, Singapore, and Finland.
> >>>
> >>> We have the means to be a linguistic superpower. The United
> >> States is
> >>> one of the richest countries in the world when it comes
> to natural
> >>> language resources, with an estimated 311 languages spoken
> >> within our
> >>> borders - 162 of these are indigenous languages, and 149
> come from
> >>> other countries. Our internal linguistic diversity has
> >> proved to be an
> >>> asset time and time again - Navajo was used for strategic
> military
> >>> purposes as a code language in World War II, and current
> operations
> >>> abroad would be impossible were it not for the help of
> the many US
> >>> linguists who risk life and limb each day.
> >>>
> >>> McCain responded to the crowd in Pennsylvania with a plea for
> >>> appreciating our nation's diversity. Obama went on to say that
> >>> American children should learn not just Spanish, but other
> >> languages
> >>> as well. Across party lines, our presidential candidates are
> >>> acknowledging the important role of multilingualism both
> within the
> >>> United States and abroad. Their campaign managers also know the
> >>> importance of the multilingual voting demographic - our
> last census
> >>> tells us that 20 percent of US residents speak a language
> >> other than
> >>> English at home.
> >>>
> >>> So why do the bald eagle's feathers get ruffled every time our
> >>> presidential candidates mention language issues? Fear of
> >> the unknown.
> >>> What we are not familiar with makes us uncomfortable.
> >> Accepting that
> >>> we are a multilingual nation is a challenge, because it requires
> >>> looking beyond our borders and outside our comfort zone. The only
> >>> solution? Know thy enemy.
> >>>
> >>> Nataly Kelly is a senior analyst with Common Sense
> >> Advisory, a market
> >>>
> >>>
> >> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/
> >> 2008
> >>> /08/11/caught_in_the_grips_of_linguistic_paranoia/?s_campaign=8315
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
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> >>> *******************************************
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>
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