Full Description
Understanding and addressing linguistic disadvantage must be a central facet of the social justice agenda of our time. This book explores the ways in which linguistic diversity mediates social justice in liberal democracies undergoing rapid change due to high levels of migration and economic globalization. Focusing on the linguistic dimensions of economic inequality, cultural domination and imparity of political participation, Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice employs a case-study approach to real-world instances of linguistic injustice. Linguistic diversity is a universal characteristic of human language but linguistic diversity is rarely neutral; rather it is accompanied by linguistic stratification and linguistic subordination. Domains critical to social justice include employment, education, and community participation. The book offers a detailed examination of the connection between linguistic diversity and inequality in these specific contexts within nation states that are organized as liberal democracies. Inequalities exist not only between individuals and groups within a state but also between states. Therefore, the book also explores the role of linguistic diversity in global injustice with a particular focus on the spread of English as a global language. While much of the analysis in this book focuses on language as a means of exclusion, discrimination and disadvantage, the concluding chapter asks what the content of linguistic justice might be.
Contents
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
Linguistic diversity
Social justice
Overview
Join the conversation
2 Linguistic diversity and stratification
Language, multilingualism, linguistic diversity
Hierarchy in diversity
Language pyramids
The diversity of the Other
Seeing 'super-diversity'
Inventing homogeneity
Summary
3 The subordination of linguistic diversity
The territorial principle
Language segregation
Debating the territorial principle
Linguistic diversity and personal responsibility
Grassroots language learning
Judging speakers
Linguistic diversity and moral worth
Remaking language learners
Summary
4 Linguistic diversity at work
Language proficiency as a barrier to employment
What's in a name?
Job interviews
Multiple vulnerabilities
Survival employment and deskilling
Language learning on the job
Suppressing linguistic diversity
Alternative language regimes
Summary
5 Linguistic diversity in education
The monolingual habitus of multilingual schools
Submersion education
Compounding disadvantage
Testing against linguistic diversity
Misdiagnosing language proficiency
Denying the benefits of multilingualism
Summary
6 Linguistic diversity and participation
Linguistic barriers to participation
Language and the gender gap
Linguistically-motivated violence
Micro-aggressions
Linguistic alienation
Summary
7 Linguistic diversity and global justice
Language and development
Injustices of English language education
Injustices of English as global academic language
Paying tribute to the Anglophone center
Psychological damages of global English
Summary
8 Linguistic justice
Normative linguistic justice
Real linguistic utopias
The struggle for linguistic justice
References
