5.2 “Artificial” language conflict

Artificial, or self-imposed, conflict arises out of situations of compromise in which one or more

language communities are disfavored. Artificial language conflict occurs especially when, motivated by the need for rapid international communication, politically influential economic powers export their languages (and their resulting

socioeconomic influence) to their trading partners. Thus Russian (before 1990) and English have

become languages of great economic expansion, despite a noteworthy lack of formal educational

planning. Secondary schools in Strasbourg, for example, have abandoned study of the native German

dialect for English (as the first “foreign language”), with the result that German is being lost as a local

working language.

Québec is the only Canadian province in which French is the sole official language. This particularity is the result of a long series of language battles that are still having repercussions today. The roots of Québec's language tensions go all the way back to the Conquest of 1760, when the French colony became a British possession. English-speaking merchants, who formed a minority in New France, soon took control of the economy and would seek to impose their will on the French-speaking majority for the next 200 years. During that time, the language of business, the workplace and social integration would essentially be English. It was not until the rebellious mindset of the Quiet Revolution and, more specifically, the reactions to the 1965 findings of the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission on Bilingualism, particularly concerning the extent of bilingualism in the federal administration, that French-speaking Quebeckers began to clamour for the right to live in French in the various spheres of their society. The situation became potentially explosive, and a conflict over language in the northeast Montreal neighbourhood of Saint Léonard provided the spark that set off the Québec language crisis of the 1970s.

7 Five Principles for Neutralizing Conflict

The most recent surveys in Belgium, Canada, and Quebec point to the conclusion that measures of

language planning like the principle of territoriality are not sufficient for avoiding conflicts, but they

can soften the repercussions in the socioeconomic, cultural, and linguistic life of multilingual

population groups.

1 The introduction of the territoriality principle is limited to a few key areas like administration

and education.

2 The institutional multilingualism that emerges leads to the creation of independent

unilingual networks which grant equal opportunity of communication to minority and majority

speakers and which exclude linguistic discrimination connected with the prestige language.

3 Measures of linguistic planning are not exclusively based on linguistic censuses carried out

by the respective governments; they should genuinely take into account the situational and

contextual characteristics of the linguistic groups.

4 Linguistic groups in a multilingual country are not judged primarily quantitatively. Because

they are in a minority situation, they should, on the contrary, be awarded more rights and

opportunities for development (“positive discrimination”) than would be due to them, based

solely on their number and their proportion to the majority (for example, a lower number of

pupils per class should be accepted for children of the minority).

5 The fact of according such quality to minorities by assuring them of more rights could, as

suggested by the examples from Belgium and Quebec, result in fewer people adopting an

ideological position or in a decrease in emotionalism at the moment of dealing with possible

sources of linguistic conflict. Initial attempts permit at least a cautious measure of optimism.

37. Language Planning

Language plays a crucial role in social interaction and is an all-important agent in the transmission of

cultural and social values.

Language planning, as a subject of study, has come a long way since 1959 when Haugen (1959 [1968]) gave

his definition of the term5 based on his analysis of the ongoing effort in Norway to modernize, promote, and

implement a “national” language. Language planning was then seen as an activity concerned mainly with the

internal aspects of language; It consisted in “preparing a normative orthography, grammar, and dictionary

for the guidance of writers and speakers in a non-homogeneous speech community” (Haugen, 1959 [1968:

673]). It aimed to settle problems related to “the presence of conflicting norms whose relative status needs

to be assigned” (Haugen, 1983: 270) or else it addressed the “language problems” of the developing nations

through “graphization,” “standardization,” and “modernization” (Ferguson, 1968).

If change in language and language use is the main target of the planning process, it is clear that, although

linguistic variables are affected, language planning decisions and their implementation are motivated by

nonlinguistic variables .

Language policies are generally seen as a way of solving “language” or “communication problems” (Jernudd

and Das Gupta, 1971; Weinstein, 1980). The different ways of dealing with these “problems” have led to the

identification of three main types of objectives (Rabin, 1971; Rubin, 1984). Policies are said to pursue

extralinguistic aims when they deal with changes in the social distribution of competing languages. For

example, the spread of Swahili in Eastern and Central Africa (where it is an official language in Kenya and

Tanzania, and a national language in Uganda) has important consequences, in that it deprives a number of

native languages of political recognition. As for policies which seek to establish or change writing and

orthographic systems, or to promote the spread of a specific pronunciation or linguistic variety, they are said

to carry semilinguistic aims, since these types of interventions also have social and political consequences.

Linguistic pluralism promotes the “coexistence of different language groups and their right to maintain and

cultivate their languages on an equitable basis” (Cobarrubias, 1983: 65). This can be achieved in a number of

ways. For example, it might give rise to territorially based or individually based policies, or any combination

of the two (Wardhaugh, 1992: 348). In Belgium, for example, French is officially recognized in the south,

Flemish in the north, German in the east, while Brussels forms a bilingual French-Flemish district.

Nationalism often favors linguistic assimilation to make sure that every member of a speech community is

able to use the dominant language (Cobarrubias, 1983: 63–4). This results in transferring prestige to and

asserting the superiority of the dominant language. In extreme cases, linguistic minorities are given little or

no rights. Revolutionary eighteenth-century France, which put forth one of the first modern language

planning policies, pursued such a goal when the government planned to annihilate the French “patois” and

other peripheral varieties spoken in France. Primary schooling was to be in standard French exclusively, and

French was decreed the sole language of the law. In 1832, use of the orthographic rules approved by the

French Academy became compulsory (Walter, 1988: 116).

Adoption of an international language is expected to promote modernization and participation in world trade

and technology. However, on the negative side, it reinforces the minorization of indigenous languages. Vernacularization is an alternative to this kind of nationism. Indigenous or national languages are restored or

modernized and officially recognized in lieu of or alongside an international language of wider

communication (Co-barrubias, 1983: 66). Madagascar, where French and Malagasy both enjoy official status,