Abstract
Political theorists, generally non-experts in the language sciences, whose principal aim is often to advance normative theories on desirable states of affairs within liberal democratic states, tend to deal with language as a stable nominal category, as something that one ‘has’ or ‘doesn’t have’, that can be labeled as one thing (e.g., English) or another thing (e.g., French), that may be learned for defined purposes, that has instrumental and symbolic value, that is used principally as a modality for interpersonal communication, with ‘speakers’, possibly with associated geographic territories, and with cultural affiliations and traditions ‘attached’ to named languages and varieties. The fact that situated language practices and behaviors are far more complex and messier than this description suggests is often not taken into account by political philosophers engaged in normative theory construction that involves language(s). I argue in this paper that the complexities of language acquisition, use, and ascribed values need to be seriously taken into account by political philosophers in their theorizing about languages, which will impact how they think about and evaluate extant, or prospective, language policy approaches and frameworks.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abu-Laban, B., Derwing, T., Krahn, H., Mulder, M., & Wilkinson, L. (1999). The settlement experiences of refugees in Alberta. Prairie Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Integration and Population Research Laboratory. Downloaded on March 13, 2009 from http://pcerii.metropolis.net/Virtual%20Library/RefugeeStudy/.
Akabari, A. H. (1999). Immigrant “quality” in Canada: More direct evidence of human capital content. International Migration Review, 33, 156–175.
Appiah, K. A. (2005). The ethics of identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Baker, C. (2006). Psycho-sociological analysis in language policy. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy: Theory and method (pp. 210–228). New York: Blackwell.
Baugh, J. (2003). Linguistic profiling. In S. Makoni, G. Smitherman, A. Ball, & A. Spears (Eds.), Black linguistics: Language, society, and politics in Africa and the Americas (pp. 155–168). New York: Routledge.
Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: A critical introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blommaert, J. (2008). Grassroots literacy: Writing, identity and voice in Central Africa. New York: Routledge.
Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bruthiaux, P. (2003). Squaring the circles: Issues in modeling English worldwide. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 13(2), 159–177.
Canagarajah, S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. New York: Routledge.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. (2012). The science of language: Interviews with James McGilvray. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fernández, R. (1987). Legislation, regulation, and litigation: The origins and evolution of public policy on bilingual education in the United States. In W. A. Van Horne (Ed.), Ethncity and language (pp. 90–123). Milwaukee: The University of Wisconsin System Institute on Race and Ethnicity.
Fought, C. (2006). Language and ethnicity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
General Social Surveys, 1972–1994: Cumulative Codebook. (1994, November). Conducted for the National Data Program for the Social Sciences at National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago.
Haque, E. (2012). Multiculturalism within a bilingual framework: Language, race, and belonging in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Harris, R. (1981). The language myth. London: Duckworth.
Heller, M. (2011). Paths to post-nationalism: A critical ethnography of language and identity. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hopper, P. (1998). Emergent grammar. In M. Tomasello (Ed.), The new psychology of language (pp. 155–175). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kachru, B. (1986). The alchemy of English: The spread, functions and models of non-Native Englishes. Oxford: Pergamon.
Kymlicka, W. (1989). Liberalism, community, and culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lippi-Green, R. (2012). English with an accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Lyons, J. (1990). The past and future directions of federal bilingual-education policy. In C. B. Cazden & C. E. Snow (Eds.), English plus: Issues in bilingual education, the annals (pp. 66–80). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Makoni, S., & Pennycook, A. (2007). Disinventing and reconstituting languages. In S. Makoni & A. Pennycook (Eds.), Disinventing and reconstituting languages (pp. 1–41). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
May, S. (2011). Language and minority rights: Ethnicity, nationalism and the politics of language (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Mill, J. S. (1861/1991). Considerations on representative government. In J. Gray (Ed.), On liberty and other essays (pp. 203–467). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miner, S. (1998). Legal implications of the official English declaration. In T. Ricento & B. Burnaby (Eds.), Language and politics in the United States and Canada: Myths and realities (pp. 171–184). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Otheguy, R., & Stern, N. (2010). On so-called Spanglish. International Journal of Bilingualism, 15(1), 85–100.
Patten, A., & Kymlicka, W. (2003). Introduction: Language rights and political Theory: Context, issues, and approaches. In W. Kymlicka & A. Patten (Eds.), Language rights and political theory (pp. 1–51). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pita, M., & Utakis, S. (2002). Educational policy for the transnational Dominican community. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 1(4), 317–328.
Preston, D. (2009). Linguistic profiling: The linguistic point of view. In R. Salaberry (Ed.), Language allegiances and bilingualism in the US (pp. 53–79). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Reitz, J. G. (2001). Immigrant skill utilization in the Canadian labour market: Implications of human capital research. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2, 347–378.
Rhodes, N. C., & Pufahl, I. (2010). Foreign language teaching in U.S. schools: Results of a national survey. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Ricento, T. (1998). National language policy in the United States. In T. Ricento & B. Burnaby (Eds.), Language and politics in the United States and Canada: Myths and realities (pp. 85–112). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ricento, T. (2005). Problems with the ‘language-as-resource’ discourse in the promotion of heritage languages in the U.S.A. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9(3), 348–368.
Ricento, T. (2008). Researching historical perspectives on language, education, and ideology. In K. King (Ed.), Research methods in language and education (Vol. 10), in N. Hornberger (general editor), Encyclopedia of language and education (2nd ed.) (pp. 41–54). New York: Springer.
Ricento, T. (2010). Language policy and globalization. In N. Coupland (Ed.), The Handbook of Language and Globalisation (pp. 123–141). London: Wiley-Blackwell.
Ricento, T. (2013). Dis-citizenship for refugees in Canada: The case of Fernando. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 12(3), 184–188.
Rist, R. (1970). Student social class and teacher expectations: The self-fulfilling prophecy in ghetto education. Harvard Educational Review, 40, 411–451.
Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Understanding English as a lingua franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stroud, C. (2010). A postliberal critique of language rights: Toward a politics of language for a linguistics of contact. In J. Petrovic (Ed.), International perspectives on bilingual education: Policy, practice, and controversy (pp. 195–221). Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Publishing.
Van Parijs, P. (2011). Linguistic justice for Europe & for the world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Velez, C. M. (2006). A discourse analysis of the meanings of Hispanic and Latino in U.S. newspapers and interviews with academics and journalists. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, San Antonio. San Antonio, TX.
Wee, L. (2005). Intra-language discrimination and linguistic human rights: The case of Singlish. Applied Linguistics, 26, 48–69.
Wee, L. (2010). Neutrality in language policy. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 31(4), 421–434.
Wee, L. (2011). Language without rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wiley, T. (2013). A brief history and assessment of language rights in the United States. In J. Tollefson (Ed.), Language policies in education: Critical issues (pp. 61–90). New York: Routledge.
Willinsky, J. (2000). Learning to divide the world: Education at empire’s end. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Wright, L. (in press). Why English dominates the central economy: An economic perspective on ‘elite closure’ and South African language policy. In T. Ricento (Ed.), Language policy and political economy: English in a global context. New York: Oxford University Press.
Zentella, A. C. (1997). Growing up bilingual: Puerto Rican children in New York. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ricento, T. Thinking about language: what political theorists need to know about language in the real world. Lang Policy 13, 351–369 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-014-9322-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-014-9322-2