In Pursuit Of Societal Harmony Reviewing The Experiences And Approaches In Officially Monolingual And Officially Multilingual Countries

ÿ In pursuit of societal harmony: Reviewing the experiences and approaches in officially monolingual and officially multilingual countries contains a selection of papers on language legislation that were presented at the International Conference on Language Policy in Multicultural and Multilingual Settings, Mandalay, Myanmar, 8-11 February 2016. The editors, both members of the International Academy of Language Law / Acad‚mie internationale de droit linguistique, brought together presentations that deal with language legislation and practices in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. The contributions show that the post-communist trend in language policy has been vastly represented by attempts to eliminate the language, and even the cultural legacy, of the formerly hegemonic nation/s in countries emerging after the collapse of the system. In doing so officials in these countries tend to link the harmonisation of a diverse society with the idea of homogenising its population, and prioritising the cultural legacy of the titular nation. In contrast, some post-colonial countries are more tolerant of the language of their colonisers but consequently do not sufficiently promote the institutionalisation of their indigenous languages.ÿ Furthermore, the absence of visible efforts to follow any legal pattern in this regard often result in a communication gap between government and the various communities. In pursuit of societal harmony therefore challenges from different perspectives the populist notion of ?one nation-one language?, revealing the inherent shortcomings of attempting to establish unity through something as abstract as language without constructively addressing the actual, and mostly gross, inequalities and resulting divisions in many societies. The contributions to this Proceedings suggest that by pursuing social harmony through an alleged common language many countries unwittingly emphasise social inequalities and division and even cultivate the basis for resistance. Scholars that work in the field of language legislation and the sociology of language and readers interested in comparative studies will find the collection of papers presented in this Proceedings an interesting read.ÿ

In pursuit of societal harmony: Reviewing the experiences and approaches in officially monolingual and officially multilingual countries contains a selection of papers on language legislation that were presented at the International Conference on Language Policy in Multicultural and Multilingual Settings, Mandalay, Myanmar, 8-11 February 2016. The editors, both members of the International Academy of Language Law / Académie internationale de droit linguistique, brought together presentations that deal with language legislation and practices in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. The contributions show that the post-communist trend in language policy has been vastly represented by attempts to eliminate the language, and even the cultural legacy, of the formerly hegemonic nation/s in countries emerging after the collapse of the system. In doing so officials in these countries tend to link the harmonisation of a diverse society with the idea of homogenising its population, and prioritising the cultural legacy of the titular nation. In contrast, some post-colonial countries are more tolerant of the language of their colonisers but consequently do not sufficiently promote the institutionalisation of their indigenous languages. Furthermore, the absence of visible efforts to follow any legal pattern in this regard often result in a communication gap between government and the various communities.

In pursuit of societal harmony: Reviewing the experiences and approaches in officially monolingual and officially multilingual countries contains a selection of papers on language legislation that were presented at the International Conference on Language Policy in Multicultural and Multilingual Settings, Mandalay, Myanmar, 8-11 February 2016. The editors, both members of the International Academy of Language Law / Académie internationale de droit linguistique, brought together presentations that deal with language legislation and practices in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. The contributions show that the post-communist trend in language policy has been vastly represented by attempts to eliminate the language, and even the cultural legacy, of the formerly hegemonic nation/s in countries emerging after the collapse of the system. In doing so officials in these countries tend to link the harmonisation of a diverse society with the idea of homogenising its population, and prioritising the cultural legacy of the titular nation. In contrast, some post-colonial countries are more tolerant of the language of their colonisers but consequently do not sufficiently promote the institutionalisation of their indigenous languages. Furthermore, the absence of visible efforts to follow any legal pattern in this regard often result in a communication gap between government and the various communities.

With more than two thousand languages spread over its territory, multilingualism is a common reality in Africa. The main official languages of most African countries are Indo-European, in many instances Romance. As they were primarily brought to Africa in the era of colonization, the areas discussed in this volume are thirty-five states that were once ruled by Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, or Spain, and the African regions still belonging to three of them. Twenty-six states are presented in relation to French, four to Italian, six to Portuguese, and two to Spanish. They are considered in separate chapters according to their sociolinguistic situation, linguistic history, external language policy, linguistic characteristics, and internal language policy. The result is a comprehensive overview of the Romance languages in modern-day Africa. It follows a coherent structure, offers linguistic and sociolinguistic information, and illustrates language contact situations, power relations, as well as the cross-fertilization and mutual enrichment emerging from the interplay of languages and cultures in Africa.

Multilingual Approaches for Teaching and Learning outlines the opportunities and challenges of multilingual approaches in mainstream education in Europe. The book, which draws on research findings from several officially monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual countries in Europe, discusses approaches to multilingual education which capitalise on students’ multilingual resources from early childhood to higher education. This book synthesises research on multilingual education, relates theory to practice, and discusses different pedagogical approaches from diverse perspectives. The first section of the book outlines multilingual approaches in early childhood education and primary school, the second looks at multilingual approaches in secondary school and higher education, and the third examines the influence of parents, policy-makers, and professional development on the implementation and sustainability of multilingual approaches. The book demonstrates that educators can leverage students’ multilingualism to promote learning and help students achieve their full potential. This book will be of great interest to academics, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of language education, psychology, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics.

This book examines two main concepts - harmony and exchange - in relation to the social, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of human life. As such, what differentiates humans from other living species are the possibility of understanding a context and the willingness to collaborate and create complex models of exchange. Specifically, emotion and intellect are established as fundamental dimensions of our being which play key roles in exchange with others and dealing with our environment. This text provides a new perspective that examines «being and becoming» in a multidimensional exchange framework, concentrating on the analysis of a utilitarian society which reduces human beings to operators and servants of techno-scientific machinery. This approach to validity demands conformity to social and political norms which have lost touch with the intellectual and emotional expressions of the citizens of the world, resulting in an environment of alienation, violence, and subordination of humans to meaningless institutions and positivistic ideologies. The quest for true harmony and collaborative exchange in contemporary societies requires the recognition of multiple sites of subjectivity, self-certainty, and global domination of techno-scientific rationality. This book's primary application towards a Legoic society is built on a critical pedagogy committed to dialogue and exchange, and is an environment that is accompanied by the process of development of a critical consciousness based on new systems of agency, moving toward a fundamentally non-reductionist praxis of the socio-political dimension of living together.

Language Policy and Conflict Prevention analyses the components of a balanced language policy with a view to reducing conflict potential. It draws upon contributions from experts working for the OSCE HCNM, Council of Europe, UN as well as leading academics.

Built around the concept of linguistic and cultural plurality, this book defines language as an instrument of action and symbolic power. Plurality is conceived here as : a complex array of voices, perspectives and approaches that seeks to preserve the complexity of the multilingual and multicultural enterprise, including language learning and teaching ; a coherent system of relationships among various languages, research traditions and research sites that informs qualitative methods of inquiry into multilingualism and its uses in everyday life ; a view of language as structured sociohistorical object, observable from several simultaneous spatiotemporal standpoints, such as that of daily interactions or that which sustains the symbolic power of institutions. This book is addressed to teacher trainers, young researchers, decision makers, teachers concerned with the role of languages in the evolution of societies and educational systems. It aims to elicit discussion by articulating practices, field observations and analyses based on a multidisciplinary conceptual framework.