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Author: Ron Schmidt Publisher: Temple University Press ISBN: 9781566397544 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 296
Book Description
Well over thirty million people in the United States speak a primary language other than English. Nearly twenty million of them speak Spanish. And these numbers are growing. Critics of immigration and multiculturalism argue that recent government language policies such as bilingual education, non-English election materials, and social service and workplace "language rights" threaten the national character of the United States. Proponents of bilingualism, on the other hand, maintain that, far from being a threat, these language policies and programs provide an opportunity to right old wrongs and make the United States a more democratic society. This book lays out the two approaches to language policy -- linguistic assimilation and linguistic pluralism -- in clear and accessible terms. Filled with examples and narratives, it provides a readable overview of the U.S. "culture wars" and explains why the conflict has just now emerged as a major issue in the United States. Professor Schmidt examines bilingual education in the public schools, "linguistic access" rights to public services, and the designation of English as the United States' "official" language. He illuminates the conflict by describing the comparative, theoretical, and social contexts for the debate. The source of the disagreement, he maintains, is not a disagreement over language per se but over identity and the consequences of identity for individuals, ethnic groups, and the country as a whole. Who are "the American people"? Are we one national group into which newcomers must assimilate? Or are we composed of many cultural communities, each of which is a unique but integral part of the national fabric? This fundamental point is what underlies the specific disputes over language policy. This way of looking at identity politics, as Professor Schmidt shows, calls into question the dichotomy between "material interest" politics and "symbolic" politics in relation to group identities. Not limited to describing the nature and context of the language debate, Language Policy and Identity Politics in the United States reaches the conclusion that a policy of linguistic pluralism, coupled with an immigrant settlement policy and egalitarian economic reforms, will best meet the aims of justice and the common good. Only by attacking both the symbolic and material effects of racialization will the United States be able to attain the goals of social equality and national harmony.
Author: Ron Schmidt Publisher: Temple University Press ISBN: 9781566397544 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 296
Book Description
Well over thirty million people in the United States speak a primary language other than English. Nearly twenty million of them speak Spanish. And these numbers are growing. Critics of immigration and multiculturalism argue that recent government language policies such as bilingual education, non-English election materials, and social service and workplace "language rights" threaten the national character of the United States. Proponents of bilingualism, on the other hand, maintain that, far from being a threat, these language policies and programs provide an opportunity to right old wrongs and make the United States a more democratic society. This book lays out the two approaches to language policy -- linguistic assimilation and linguistic pluralism -- in clear and accessible terms. Filled with examples and narratives, it provides a readable overview of the U.S. "culture wars" and explains why the conflict has just now emerged as a major issue in the United States. Professor Schmidt examines bilingual education in the public schools, "linguistic access" rights to public services, and the designation of English as the United States' "official" language. He illuminates the conflict by describing the comparative, theoretical, and social contexts for the debate. The source of the disagreement, he maintains, is not a disagreement over language per se but over identity and the consequences of identity for individuals, ethnic groups, and the country as a whole. Who are "the American people"? Are we one national group into which newcomers must assimilate? Or are we composed of many cultural communities, each of which is a unique but integral part of the national fabric? This fundamental point is what underlies the specific disputes over language policy. This way of looking at identity politics, as Professor Schmidt shows, calls into question the dichotomy between "material interest" politics and "symbolic" politics in relation to group identities. Not limited to describing the nature and context of the language debate, Language Policy and Identity Politics in the United States reaches the conclusion that a policy of linguistic pluralism, coupled with an immigrant settlement policy and egalitarian economic reforms, will best meet the aims of justice and the common good. Only by attacking both the symbolic and material effects of racialization will the United States be able to attain the goals of social equality and national harmony.
Author: Ron Schmidt Publisher: Temple University Press ISBN: 1566397553 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 297
Book Description
Well over thirty million people in the United States speak a primary language other than English. Nearly twenty million of them speak Spanish. And these numbers are growing. Critics of immigration and multiculturalism argue that recent government language policies such as bilingual education, non-English election materials, and social service and workplace "language rights" threaten the national character of the United States. Proponents of bilingualism, on the other hand, maintain that, far from being a threat, these language policies and programs provide an opportunity to right old wrongs and make the United States a more democratic society. This book lays out the two approaches to language policy -- linguistic assimilation and linguistic pluralism -- in clear and accessible terms. Filled with examples and narratives, it provides a readable overview of the U.S. "culture wars" and explains why the conflict has just now emerged as a major issue in the United States. Professor Schmidt examines bilingual education in the public schools, "linguistic access" rights to public services, and the designation of English as the United States' "official" language. He illuminates the conflict by describing the comparative, theoretical, and social contexts for the debate. The source of the disagreement, he maintains, is not a disagreement over language per se but over identity and the consequences of identity for individuals, ethnic groups, and the country as a whole. Who are "the American people"? Are we one national group into which newcomers must assimilate? Or are we composed of many cultural communities, each of which is a unique but integral part of the national fabric? This fundamental point is what underlies the specific disputes over language policy. This way of looking at identity politics, as Professor Schmidt shows, calls into question the dichotomy between "material interest" politics and "symbolic" politics in relation to group identities. Not limited to describing the nature and context of the language debate, Language Policy and Identity Politics in the United States reaches the conclusion that a policy of linguistic pluralism, coupled with an immigrant settlement policy and egalitarian economic reforms, will best meet the aims of justice and the common good. Only by attacking both the symbolic and material effects of racialization will the United States be able to attain the goals of social equality and national harmony.
Author: Amy B.M. Tsui Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351560891 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 294
Book Description
Bringing together scholarship on issues relating to language, culture, and identity, with a special focus on Asian countries, this volume makes an important contribution in terms of analyzing and demonstrating how language is closely linked with crucial social, political, and economic forces, particularly the tensions between the demands of globalization and local identity. A particular feature is the inclusion of countries that have been under-represented in the research literature, such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Pakistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Korea. The book is organized in three sections: Globalization and its Impact on Language Policies, Culture, and Identity Language Policy and the Social (Re)construction of National Cultural Identity Language Policy and Language Politics: The Role of English. Unique in its attention to how the domination of English is being addressed in relation to cultural values and identity by non-English speaking countries in a range of sociopolitical contexts, this volume will help readers to understand the impact of globalization on non-English speaking countries, particularly developing countries, which differ significantly from contexts in the West in their cultural orientations and the way identities are being constructed. Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts will interest scholars and research students in the areas of language policy, education, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and critical linguistics. It can be adopted in graduate and advanced undergraduate courses on language policy, language in society, and language education.
Author: Bernard Spolsky Publisher: ISBN: Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 768
Book Description
This is the first Handbook to deal with language policy as a whole and is a complete 'state-of-the-field' survey, covering language practices, beliefs about language varieties, and methods and agencies for language management. It will be welcomed by students, researchers and language professionals in linguistics, education and politics.
Author: Christina Späti Publisher: Berghahn Books ISBN: 1782389431 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 228
Book Description
In an increasingly multicultural world, the relationship between language and identity remains a complicated and often fraught subject for most societies. The growing political salience of questions relating to language is evident not only in the expanded implementation of new policies and legislation, but also in heated public debates about national unity, collective identities, and the rights of linguistic minorities. By taking a comprehensive approach that considers both the inclusive and exclusive dimensions of linguistic identity across Europe and North America, the studies assembled here provide a sophisticated look at one of the global era’s defining political dynamics.
Author: Eric A. Anchimbe Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing ISBN: 9027272417 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 278
Book Description
The (dis)empowerment of languages through language policy in multilingual postcolonial communities often shapes speakers’ identification with these languages, their attitude towards other languages in the community, and their choices in interpersonal and intergroup communication. Focusing on the dynamics of Cameroon’s multilingualism, this book contributes to current debates on the impact of politic language policy on daily language use in sociocultural and interpersonal interactions, multiple identity construction, indigenous language teaching and empowerment, the use of Cameroon Pidgin English in certain formal institutional domains initially dominated by the official languages, and linguistic patterns of social interaction for politeness, respect, and in-group bonding. Due to the multiple perspectives adopted, the book will be of interest to sociolinguists, applied linguists, pragmaticians, Afrikanists, and scholars of postcolonial linguistics.
Author: Jennifer M. Wei Publisher: Lexington Books ISBN: 1461633729 Category : Foreign Language Study Languages : en Pages : 155
Book Description
Jennifer M. Wei argues that construction and perceptions of language and identity parallel sociopolitical transformations, and language and identity crises arise during power transitions. Under these premises, language and identity are never well-defined or well-bounded. Instead, they are best viewed as political symbols subject to manipulation and exploitation during socio-historical upheavals. A choice of language—from phonological shibboleth, Mandarin, or Taiwanese, to choice of official language—cuts to the heart of contested cultural notions of self and other, with profound implications for nationalism, national unity and ethno-linguistic purism. Wei further argues that because of the Chinese Diaspora and Taiwan's connections to China and the United States, arguments and sentiments over language choice and identity have consequences for Taiwan's international and transnational status. They are symbolic acts of imagining Taiwan's past as she looks forward to the future.
Author: Sue Wright Publisher: Springer ISBN: 1137576472 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 388
Book Description
This revised second edition is a comprehensive overview of why we speak the languages that we do. It covers language learning imposed by political and economic agendas as well as language choices entered into willingly for reasons of social mobility, economic advantage and group identity.
Author: Teresa L. McCarty Publisher: Multilingual Matters ISBN: 1847698654 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 297
Book Description
Comprehensive in scope and rich in detail, this book explores language planning, language education, and language policy for diverse Native American peoples across time, space, and place. Based on long-term collaborative and ethnographic work with Native American communities and schools, the book examines the imposition of colonial language policies against the fluorescence of contemporary community-driven efforts to revitalize threatened mother tongues. Here, readers will meet those who are on the frontlines of Native American language revitalization every day. As their efforts show, even languages whose last native speaker is gone can be reclaimed through family-, community-, and school-based language planning. Offering a critical-theory view of language policy, and emphasizing Indigenous sovereignties and the perspectives of revitalizers themselves, the book shows how language regenesis is undertaken in social practice, the role of youth in language reclamation, the challenges posed by dominant language policies, and the prospects for Indigenous language and culture continuance current revitalization efforts hold.
Author: Florentina Taylor Publisher: Multilingual Matters ISBN: 1783090014 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
This book explores the role of identity in adolescent foreign language learning to provide evidence that an identity-focused approach can make a difference to achievement in education. It uses both in-depth exploratory interviews with language learners and a cross-sectional survey to provide a unique glimpse into the identity dynamics that learners need to manage in their interaction with contradictory relational contexts (e.g. teacher vs. classmates; parents vs. friends), and that appear to impair their perceived competence and declared achievement in language learning. Furthermore, this work presents a new model of identity which incorporates several educational psychology theories (e.g. self-discrepancy, self-presentation, impression management), developmental theories of adolescence and principles of foreign language teaching and learning. This book gives rise to potentially policy-changing insights and will be of importance to those interested in the relationship between self, identity and language teaching and learning.
Author: Ron Schmidt
Author: Ron Schmidt
Author: Ron Schmidt
Author: Amy B.M. Tsui
Author: Bernard Spolsky
Author: Christina Späti
Author: Eric A. Anchimbe
Author: Jennifer M. Wei
Author: Sue Wright
Author: Teresa L. McCarty
Author: Florentina Taylor