Nationalism, Language and Multilingualism

• Most of us in the industrialized countries of North America, Western Europe, and Australasia tend to take the concept of the nation-state and its associated national standard language for granted, but, in fact, both of these are the outcome of centuries of struggles among competing political and economic groups to advance their own interests” (Foley 2001: 398).

Emergence of Nation-state

• French revolution (1789-94) and industrial revolution: (end of 1800’s)

• French revolution: Expansion of European ideology

• Dismantling of kinship ties and village

A shift in the nature of political communication (Tonnes, 1955)

• Gemeinschaft “community” to Gesellschaft “association”

• Gemeinschaft: likeness, share property of kinship: village

• ---Geertz: “primordial attachments”• Gesellschaft: willed, basedon ideology,‘free’

chosen acts of association: Nation-state

Imagined Communities (Benedict Anderson, 1983)

• Imagining oneself and the rest of the population of a nation as a bounded community

• Willed association, rights and duties

Basis of association in a Nation-State

• Diffusion of national ideologies• --Media• Development of standard language• --exclusion of other languages• Institutionalization of a national language• -- literacy, education of citizens

National language and national ideology (Gellner)

• A Yimas village (Gemeinschaft community)

• produces a competent Yimas• Papua New Guinean nation-state

(Gesellschaft community) • produces an effective Papua New

Guinean

Forces that produce a national language

• Political • --political elite’s reflection• --USA Example: AAVE versus SAE• --attitudes towards multilingualism

• Economic• --corporations, influence, wealth

Multilingualism and nation-state

• Problems: Multilingual entities• --fractionalization of interests: Czechoslovakia• Example Indonesia: One nation, one people, one

language • --Tribal, ethnic problems: Rwanda and Yugoslavia• --Regional fractionalism: Somalia

Geertz’s concept of “primordial attachments”

• Failure to go beyond citizens’• kinship and village ties• National language replaces primordial

attachments• The spread of nationalistic messages• --media: written and electronic, educational

systems

State and nation

• State: any region governed under a central administration, with its own legal and political institutions

• Nation: any community of people who see themselves as an ethnic and culturally (linguistically) unit, in contrast to other groups of people surrounding them

Multilingualism• All modern nations are multilingual

• The result of contact

• 5000 to 8000 languages worldwide

• USA: 27 ethnic groups: 230 languages

Bakhtin (1981)

• Centripetal forces of language: ---political and institutional forces---Imposition of one variety code over others

• Centrifugal forces of language: ---forces pushing speakers away from a common code or language ---multilingualism

---differentiation

Tewa, Arizona (Kroskrity 1993)• Long history of contact (Hopi)

• Links between identity and language

• Some symbols only available to Tewa

• Language medium of identity expression

Catalan, Spain (Woodlard 1989)

• Political control by central government

• Imposition of language code---Centripetal forces: school system, media

• High status in Catalonia

Basis of Linguistic Problems

• Economic and political

• Result in war, genocide ---Yugoslavia, Rwanda

---Hutus and Tootsies

Man: Could you tell me where the French test is?Recep: Pardon? (“Pardon?”)

Man: Could you tell me where the French test is?Recep: En Français (“In French”)

Man: I have the right to be addressed in English by the government of Quebec according to Bill

101.Recept: (To a third person) Qu’est-ce qu’il dit?

(“What’s he saying?”)

Language Status (Multilingual Nations)

• Canada and India• Issues contributing to language status:

---Ethnicity---Race---Political and social power of native speakers

India• Indo-Aryan (74), Dravidian (24), Austro-

Asiatic (1,5) and Tibeto-Burman (0.7)• Hindi official language + 14 state official

languages• English elite language and the second

language of millions• Mass communication affects minority

languages

Kamala Das I don’t know politics but I know the namesOf those in power, and can repeat them likeDays of week, or names of months, beginning withNehru. I am Indian, very brown, born inMalabar, I speak three languages, write in Two, dream in one. Don’t write in English, they said,English is not your mother tongue. Why not leaveMe alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins, Every one of you? Why not let me speak inAny other language I like? The language I speakBecomes mine, its distortions, its queernessAll mine, mine alone…. (In Valentine, 2004)

Canada• Two different cultural and linguistic

identities(linguistic majority French in Quebec)• Economic and politics controlled by Anglo

interests until the 1970’s• Calls for independence (Referendum 1995)

• Official language act1969 : bilingual education,

• Reversal of fortunes in Quebec

Situational Use of Language

• Quebec situation

• Francophones, Anglophones and Allophones,

• language according to situation

• Reflects attitudes

Summary• The rise of the nation-state correlated with the

development of standard languages• Replacement of community attachments of kin and

village to willed free associations of citizens• Standard and national languages play a role in

promulgating a national ideology• In all societies some people speak more than one

language• Conflict are based on economic and political

conditions but appear as linguistic issues• India and canada good examples of multilingualism:

1. Summarise Clark Blaise’s article

a. What is the story about?What are the main themes?