New
Perspectives for Learning - Briefing Paper 49
The role of language in
the mobilisation of ethnic and migrant minorities
This is the Final Briefing Paper
of the project that started in September 2001
Context of the Research
Language is often at the centre of
the political mobilization of minorities within a majority group. It is a
political issue and a cultural resort for minorities - playing a decisive
role in the social integration of ethnic fringe groups and immigrants.
However, these languages are hardly protected in any way.
This project has examined language
policies through comparative studies of ethnic minorities in Germany,
France, Italy, Great Britain and Spain.
The minorities involved are: the Frisians and the Turks in
Germany, the Corsicans and the Tunisians in France, the Welsh and the Urdu
speaking in the United Kingdom, the Sud-Tyroleans and the Chinese in Italy,
the Catalans and the Moroccans in Spain.
Language policies are embedded in
the social and political environment. Therefore, the project has dealt with
the institutional framework conditions of language policies and the
political discussions within the groups concerned. The main emphasis is on
future minority language policies in the European Union with the aim of
seeing what intervention is needed outside the sphere of just language
preservation, training and development.
Key Conclusions
- In spite of the European Union minority language
policy, the situation of minority languages remains extremely
diversified across Member States.
- The vitality or minority languages or their risk
of disappearance varies according to each national context. There is no
common European model for a minority language, but its existence may
depend on a number of specific forms of legal recognition like:
-
Being recognised as co-official language.
-
Whether permission is allowed to teach the minority
language.
-
The optional or compulsory nature of teaching the
minority language.
-
The diffusion of media programmes for the protection
and the maintenance of minority languages.
In each national context, many factors play a role in
the situation of minority languages like the: -
- Historical-political and cultural
conception of the nation, which has imposed itself in the
nation-building process.
- History of minorities’ formation during
the nation-building process.
- Demographic evolution of majorities and
minorities.
- Geographical position of the minorities.
- Status of the language relating to whether
it is: -
Ø
An official nation-state language
Ø
A minority language
Ø
A less used language
Ø
A written or oral language
Ø
A language having a “koiné” or not
- The historical-political and cultural conception
of the nation, which has imposed itself in the nation-building process,
is an extremely important factor: Nation-states tend generally to link
the language issue to the question of the national identity, whose
expression is the constitution.
- The debate that has taken place in the different
countries at the moment of signing the European Charter on minority
languages has shown great differences in the way of conceiving the
relationship between the national language and the minority languages.
- Inside the European Union, the nation-state is
still the main place where policies towards minorities and minority
languages are defined and where the recognition and promotion of such
languages may be guaranteed. The relationship between national identity
and national language is still a main feature of the European
nation-states, generally inscribed in the Constitutional order.
- Differently from what happened for Regional
minorities, the right for immigrants to maintain their language has not
been recognized in any of the countries considered. Some measures have
been taken, but they have never been systematic or continuative.
Measures for the protection of immigrant minorities’ languages have
often been taken through bi-lateral agreements with the countries of
origin - that is through relationships among States. That means that
immigrant minorities’ languages have not been considered as cultural and
linguistic heritage of the receiving country. More recently, the
protection of these languages has been considered as part of a general
approach promoting intercultural education in schools.
- Until recently, migratory policies have been
characterized by assimilation or denial of the migratory fact. The
abandonment of the assimilation’s paradigm has not really opened to the
recognition of cultural and linguistic pluralism. As far as the new
migrations are concerned, the focus is on cultural difference. In spite
of the will of the European Union, to develop a common migratory policy,
there is no common definition of the position of the immigrants in the
different European societies. Immigrants and their descendents are
“ethnic minorities” in Great Britain, whilst they are immigrant
minorities or French of foreign origin in France. Germany is slowly
coming out from the “Gastarbeiter System” (temporary migration model),
while Italy and Spain have become new immigration countries.
- The lack of a
European definition of minorities and of the lack of implementation of a
general policy at European level has let the nation-states to implement
specific policies for their own minority languages. These policies have
selected some minorities, neglecting others; moreover, these policies
have generally been reactive to the emerging of claims processes and/or
to the international context (this is particularly the case of Italy for
the German-speaking minority).
- The linguistic elaboration is often the result of
the minorities’ mobilization around languages. This mobilization has
allowed the development of new interesting theories about "diglossia",
about polynomic languages and as well of didactic theories, about
bilingualism and full immersion.
- It must be stressed the close link between
linguistic theoretical development and political engagement.
- Language has been a main issue in the struggle of
different regional minorities for people like the Catalans, the
Corsicans and the South-Tyrolean. However, the claim for the language
has almost been combined with other type of demands, concerning
autonomy, control of their own resorts, or even independence. This
specificity for regional minorities explains the main differences with
the immigrant minorities, whose demand is mainly non-discrimination and
integration. This is a reason why the learning of the language of the
receiving country is generally more important than the preservation of
the language of origin - at least for the first generation.
- Another concern is the type of demands concerning
the language. Are the demands presented by the regional movements shared
by the all population or just by a small elite of militants? There are
extremely different cases. The normalization of the minority language,
its co-official, its compulsory introduction in school, the bilingual
education or the immersion practice, are, in any case, quite
controversial issues that have raised protests even in Catalonia. One
thing is the demand for preserving the language as an element of
identity, another one the structural change of the toponomastic, the
school system and the media system.
- However, a minority language is co-official only
in the Catalan case, where Catalan is the language of the Autonomous
Province. In the other contexts, forms of co-official languages are
complex. For example, in South-Tyrol, German is the co-official
language, but only the German-speaking minority has a German school,
while the Italians go to an Italian school. At the same time, Germans
learn Italian and Italians learn German.
- It is as well extremely important to understand
the public-private relationship in the implementation of the measures
protecting the minority languages. The demand of having the minority
language in the public school, co-officially, during some hours, is very
different from the demand of having support for private teaching in
associations or community schools. There is a difference, for example,
between the option of the Corsicans, who want Corsican in the public
schools and the one of the other regional minorities in France, who
opted, in the 1970s and 1980s, for private bilingual schools known as
‘Diwan ’ (Brittany), ‘Calendretas’’ (Occitania), ‘Ikastolas’ (Basque
region), and ‘Bressoles’ (Catalonia).
- A very controversial aspect concerns bilingualism
and methods for teaching the two languages, from total linguistic
immersion to bilingual education: the debate among the educationalists
is complicated by the political positions.
- An important issue that has emerged is the
relationship between regional minorities and immigrant minorities. Minorities may feel threatened
by the immigrants. This is the case in Corsica, where there appears to
be growing racism. Minorities do not always accept multiculturalism,
being preoccupied by the maintenance of their own identity.
- In order to overcome this conflict, the linguistic
struggle may acquire a new meaning, as it is expressed in Catalonia, but
also in Wales, South-Tyrol and even Corsica. The minority language is
considered not a language of an ethnic group, but as a public language,
a language of a common space, thus guaranteeing pluralism.
- The linguistic struggle doesn’t necessarily mean
that language is used by the minority as exclusive, to re-affirm the
ethnicity: language and ethnicity can be divided, as it is the case now
in Catalonia. The local language is an instrument to differentiate
themselves from the nation-state, to defend a culture, but it is as well
offered to the newcomers - the immigrants - as a proposal for a
“sentimental integration”. Newcomers are invited to participate to the
construction of a more just and solidarity society.
- It has however appeared that immigrant minorities
may as well be mobilized to develop multilingual competences both in the
national language and in the minority language (maintaining as well
their language of origin), when this multilingualism is perceived as a
better chance for their integration and promotion.
Key Recommendations
- There is a need to
renew European minority language policy based on the principles of
international human rights and on the idea of cultural and linguistic
pluralism.
- Such a policy needs
to be capable of progressively including immigrant languages in a
general frame of protection and recognition, encouraging educational
experiences and promoting multilingualism through new pedagogical
instruments.
- Each European citizen
should be able to speak three languages.
Further Information
The full title of the project is:
“The role of language mobilisation processes of ethnic and immigrant
minorities”. The Final Report was completed in December 2004.
The project’s
web site is at: -
http://www.emz-berlin.de/projekte_E/pj27_1E.htm
Key
Publications
Research Institutions
University of Florence, Italy
Berliner Institut fuer Vergleichende Sozialforschung, Berlin, Germany
IUFM, Institut Universitaire de formation des maitres, Toulouse, France
University of London, Institute of Education, United Kingdom
Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
Contact Persons
Giovanna Campani
University of Florence
Departement of Education
Via del Parione 11B
50125 Florence,
Italy
Tel: +39 055280562
Fax: +39 0552382098
Email:
campani@unifi.it
PDF Version
For more information about other
Briefing Papers on “New Perspectives for Learning” go to
http://www.pjb.co.uk/npl/index.htm
Return to Completed
Projects Main Menu
Published by
pjb Associates
Last updated
28 June 2007