(PDF) Linguistic sustainability for a multilingual humanity [Language sustainability for a multilingual humanity] [Sostenibilidad lingüística para una humanidad multilingüe] [Sostenibilitat lingüística per a una humanitat multilingüe]
About
Press
Papers
We're Hiring!
Outline
Title
Abstract
Conclusion
References
All Topics
Languages and Linguistics
Sociolinguistics
Linguistic sustainability for a multilingual humanity [Language sustainability for a multilingual humanity] [Sostenibilidad lingüística para una humanidad multilingüe] [Sostenibilitat lingüística per a una humanitat multilingüe]
Albert Bastardas-Boada
2019, From language shift to language revitalization and sustainability. A complexity approach to linguistic ecology. (Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona)
visibility
description
24 pages
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
check
Get notified about relevant papers
check
Save papers to use in your research
check
Join the discussion with peers
check
Track your impact
Abstract
(Text based on the plenary speech for the X Linguapax Congress on 'Linguistic diversity, sustainability and peace', Forum 2004, Barcelona). Previously published in Glossa. An Ambilingual Interdisciplinary Journal (Puerto Rico, 2007), and in Sustainable Multilingualism / Darnioji Daugiakalbystė 5 (Lithuania 2014).
Just as sustainable development does not negate the development and the desire for material improvement of human societies but at one and the same time wants to maintain ecosystemic balance with nature, so linguistic sustainability accepts polyglottisation and intercommunication among groups and persons yet still calls for the continuity and full development of human linguistic groups. Just as in the general sustainability framework we think and act in ways intended not to destroy our very biospheric context and intended to save the natural resources we depend on, in linguistic sustainability we want to develop ourselves and intercommunicate with each other without destroying the linguistic and cultural resources that identify us. From a sustainability ethics, the diversity of the ways different groups of the species communicate is clearly a value to protect, and not as an ‘anthropological’ curio but because of the intrinsic and inalienable dignity of human persons and societies.
We are aware that even though the aims and principles of the philosophy of sustainability are by nature universal, their application must be differentiated according to given situations, their particular constrictions, and their evolutionary moments. Certainly, linguistic sustainability will require different actions according to the degree of, for example, the group’s techno-industrial development, its political organisation, the composition of its populations, collective self-images, the general force of the languages present, etc. But for each case we are sure that we can go forward towards creating ‘good practices’ that will lead us to the application of a sustainable multilingualism. Probably the priorities will be different: in economically underdeveloped groups, for example, swift action would be necessary to keep their own languages from falling into discredit with their own speakers. But in groups with greater economic development but with an already important loss of their language it might be necessary to intervene in the intergenerational transmission still capable of being saved. And in other small countries with a strong presence of an international language, it may turn out to be necessary to replace the functions of the latter in order to halt its abusive and unbalancing uses, etc. Much work still remains to be done to be able to reach a clear assessment of the models, their phases, the different situations to which they correspond, the priorities and interventions, and the most adequate action and evaluation strategies.
Related papers
Towards a global model of linguistic ecology [Cap a un model global d'ecologia lingüística] [Hacia un modelo global de ecología lingüística]
Albert Bastardas-Boada
Catalan International Review, 2009
We explore the consequences of the globalization process, which forms a new sociolinguistic situation. Specifically, this article explains the tendency of society to be bilingual or polyglot socially and the linguistic impact caused by the displacement of a majority language group to another area where there is another stablished code. Of these two consequences and all derived from globalization, public institutions are the responsible ones to deal with linguistic needs and problems. This article also presents the utility of the complex and ecological perspective to solve problems arising from language contact. Finally, we propose the principle of subsidiarity and calls for linguistic sustainability, which international organizations must support within an ethical framework.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Sustainable Development in a Diverse World (SUS.DIV) Benefits of linguistic diversity and multilingualism Participants Durk Gorter, Fryske Akademy, the Netherlands, research task leader
Marie Tryll Tanteo
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Language, multilingualism, biocultural diversity and sustainability
Martin Dodman
This paper examines the relationship between multilingualism, considered both as an environmental and personal phenomenon, and biocultural diversity, a biological, cultural and linguistic complex, each of which are essential components of the characteristics of resilience and transformability that underlie sustainable evolutionary processes. It argues that increasing language mortality and tendencies towards environmental and personal monolingualism put at risk the sustainability of human trajectories and that multilingualism has a fundamental role to play in the search for new pathways.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
From language shift to language revitalization and sustainability. A complexity approach to linguistic ecology. [De la sustitución a la revitalización y la sostenibilidad lingüísticas. Una aproximación compléxica a la ecología de las lenguas]
Albert Bastardas-Boada
From language shift to language revitalization and sustainability. A complexity approach to linguistic ecology. [De la sustitución a la revitalización y la sostenibilidad lingüísticas. Una aproximación compléxica a la ecología de las lenguas], 2019
Drawing on the perspectives more inspired by systems thinking and complexity and yet obviously not ignoring advances in bio-ecology itself, this book is devoted to conceive of an ecology of language contact grounded in a psycho-sociologico-political approach that is multidimensional and dynamic, and can give an account of the intertwinings and interdependencies of levels and factors that influence and/or co-determine the evolution of language forms and varieties involved. This interdisciplinary collaboration, inspired in a general, holistic approach, is the best way of being able to grasp the phenomena arising in the evolution of situations of language contact. This approach, like the constitution of a general (bio)ecology, steers clear of fragmentation and specialization by taking the opposite road, integrating elements from vastly different sociocultural disciplines that are nevertheless useful and necessary to understand human sociolinguistic ecosystems and their whole-part interrelations. Following in the footsteps of bio-ecology, the book also propose adopting the concept of ‘sustainability’ within the fields of sociolinguistics and language policy in order to respond to the escalating rise in language contact, pushed strongly by the spread of English and other major languages in the context of globalization. The goal is to rethink the linguistic organization of humanity – and, therefore, to make language continuity possible – in a frame marked by a clear increase in human polyglotism. How to make compatible the maintenance and development of most of human language communities and the individual plurilingualism that can enable their inter-communication – this is the big question. From this approach, a sustainable linguistic contact will be that which does not produce linguistic exposure or linguistic use in allochthonous language at a speed and/or pressure so high as to make impossible the stable continuity of the autochthonous languages of human groups. The application of metaphors or theoretical images from ecology, complexity and figurational or processual sociology in understanding language and sociocommunication phenomena is of great use. By visualizing, for instance, the different levels of linguistic structure not as separate entities but rather as united and integrated within the same theoretical frame, by seeing their functional interdependencies, by situating them in a greater multidimensionality that includes what for a long time was considered ‘external’ – the individual and his mind-brain, the sociocultural system, the physical world, etc. – and expanding in this way our classical view, we should be able to make important, if not essential, theoretical and practical advances. The fundamental ideas that this book contains can help us to gain a better understanding of processes of language contact – especially those involving minoritization and revitalization or normalization – and be useful not only for human communities aspiring to reverse language shift but also in the attainment of a linguistic organization of humanity marked by greater justice, sustainability and solidarity.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Sustainability of Language Resources *
Linda Simons
2008
Simons, G. F. & Bird, S. (2008). Toward a global infrastructure for the sustainability of
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Capítulo libro Sustainable Multilingualism
José Hernández Ortega
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Dialogue on Language Diversity, Sustainability and Peace Linguapax Congress, Barcelona, May 20-23, 2004 PUBLIC PERCEPTION OF LANGUAGE DIVERSITY
E. Annamalai
2004
Diversity is the natural state of the world (Harmon 2001). It is the quintessence of the evolutionary process as found in the natural world in the multiplicity of flora and fauna called biological diversity and in the constructed world in its multiplicity of cultures called cultural diversity. Language diversity is part of the co-evolution of humans with ecological diversity comparable with the evolution of biological diversity. It is the core component of the ecologically evolved cultural diversity that enables representation and transmission of the fundamental aspects of cultures for acquisition by the succeeding generations of the community and for interaction with other contemporary communities. It is natural for cultural diversity to emerge and sustain itself through language diversity. It is established empirically (Harmon 2002) that the diversity in nature and culture are integrally related and they are connected with the development of ecosystems and with their sustainabilit...
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Editorial: Deciphering the Double Code of Sustainable Multilingualism
Beatrice Boufoy-Bastick
Sustainable Multilingualism, 2020
This first issue of 2020 is an opportune time to trail over its development, remembering the promise of its inauguration, analysing its first eight years of successful scholarly development and to look towards the future vision of Sustainable Multilingualism. Sustainable Multilingualism-Its inauguration Birth and vision of the journal (2012 issue 1). Sustainable Multilingualism was the fruit of a team of dedicated scholars led by prof. dr. Nemira Mačianskienė from Vytautas Magnus University (VMU), Lithuania, who together with prof. dr. Manuel Célio Conceição from Algarve University, Portugal were concerned with sharing communications from the successful 2011 international conference on 'Multilingualism in Higher Education' held in celebration of the 10 th anniversary of the then 'Centre of Foreign Languages', now called the 'Institute of Foreign Languages'. Rather than publishing a one-off proceedings, VMU scholars, in a spirit of collegiality and in an attempt to monitor language policies aimed to strengthen the rich European linguistic capital and enhance the unique European cultural diversity demonstrated by the conference, decided to initiate our biannual Sustainable Multilingualism. Its highly pertinent name, Sustainable Multilingualism, suggested by assoc. prof. Servet Çelik from Trabzon University, Turkey, reflects the intentionality of this vision and the challenges of maintaining multilingualism in a growing global economy. Under the auspices of VMU, the international editorial board, the expert editorial team of prof. dr. Nemira Mačianskienė, assoc. prof. Vilma Bijeikienė, assoc. prof. Servet Çelik and the energetic editorial assistant Jurgita Šerniūtė assisted by IT specialist Martynas Prūsaitis, Sustainable Multilingualism has now earned deserved international recognition for promoting research in European multilingual issues. 'Sustainability' requires growing in response to the changing environment, whether it is the sustainability of 'multilingualism' or the sustainability of the journal of Sustainable Multilingualism. This editorial for the first issue of 2020 evidences the Journal's sustainability by giving a close commentary on the changing environment of Sustainable Multilingualism, particularly in Europe, in conjunction with an analysis of the Journal's response to, and prediction of those changes.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Sustainability of linguistic resources
Andreas Witt
Proceedings of the LREC …, 2006
This paper describes a new research initiative addressing the issue of sustainability of linguistic resources. This initiative is a cooperation between three linguistic collaborative research centres in Germany, which comprise more than 40 individual research projects altogether. These ...
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Linguistic Sustainability: Challenges and Strategies of Preserving Minority and Indigenous Languages – The Case of Indonesia
IJASS JOURNAL
IJASS JOURNAL, 2024
Linguistic sustainability delves into both the theoretical frameworks and practical methodologies essential for the revitalization of languages threatened by the pervasive forces of globalization and cultural homogenization. With predictions indicating that nearly half of the 6,000 languages spoken today will face extinction by the end of this century, this article underlines the critical importance of safeguarding linguistic diversity. Our research scrutinizes major factors contributing to language endangerment, such as socio-economic pressures, cultural assimilation, and the lack of institutional support. The principal aim of our study is to identify powerful strategies for language revitalization and to illustrate how Indonesia, a country boasting over 700 languages, employs these strategies to sustain its linguistic heritage. Adopting a qualitative approach anchored in a comprehensive literature review, we endeavor to delineate the predominant factors precipitating language endangerment and extinction, while simultaneously identifying robust revitalization strategies. The article features an intricate case study of Indonesia, elucidating the nation’s multifaceted approach to language preservation. This includes the integration of regional languages into educational curricula, the promotion of linguistic diversity across various platforms, the digitization of linguistic resources, and the establishment of legal protections. Our findings demonstrate that Indonesia’s diverse and nuanced strategies are effective in fostering linguistic diversity, providing a valuable model for other multilingual societies globally. Ultimately, the preservation of linguistic diversity requires a concerted and collaborative effort from governments, educational institutions, communities, and individuals alike
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
3 Linguistic sustainability
for a multilingual humanity22
3.1. From ‘sustainability’ to ‘linguistic sustainability’
Transdisciplinary analogies and metaphors are potentially useful tools for
thinking and creativity. The exploration of other conceptual philosophies and
fields can be rewarding and can contribute to producing useful new ideas to be
applied to different problems and aspects of reality (Holland, 1998). The de-
velopment of the so-called ‘sustainability’ approach allows us to explore the
possibility of translating and adapting some of its main ideas to the organiza-
tion of human language diversity.
The concept of ‘sustainability’ clearly comes from the tradition of thinking
that criticizes the perspective of economic development that almost totally
overlooks the natural environment—the precise context where this develop-
ment takes place—and which thus leads it to a final end devoid of resources
and clearly harmful for the life of human beings; to an end, that is to say,
which is clearly unsustainable. Against this economicist view, which is blind to
its very important side effects, some academic and activist enclaves have pro-
posed the perspective of ‘sustainable development’ or ‘lasting development’. In
other words, they have theorized, constructed, and begun to practice an eco-
nomic and urbanistic development respectful of, integrated into, and in keeping
with the dynamics of nature. Such a perspective provides a way of improving the
material aspects of human life while at the same time not damaging other envi-
ronmental aspects still more necessary and fundamental for the quality—and
even for the simple possibility—of human existence. In fact, the view is a syn-
thesis of possible opposed patterns. It does not renounce material and eco-
nomic improvement, but nor does it exclude a fully healthy environment that
is appropriate for the continuation of the species.
As a concept, ‘sustainability’ was born at the end of the 1980s. It found
world-wide resonance at the conference of the United Nations in Rio de Ja-
22 Published in Glossa. An Ambilingual Interdisciplinary Journal (on-line), 2007, vol. 2, no 2. Also
in: Sustainable Multilingualism 5 (2014), pp. 134-163.
290 PART II
neiro in 1992. The document known as the ‘Bruntdland Report’ defines the
term as a form of sustainable development which meets the needs of the pre-
sent without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs. Today the term ‘sustainability’ is already being used in many not ex-
actly equivalent senses and by many highly distinct—and even opposed—so-
cial actors, a situation which makes it necessary to go to the root of the prob-
lem and attempt to conceptualize it more basically and in greater depth.
Therefore, we believe that, from a general perspective, the sustainability phi-
losophy would seek the integral development of the human being, with a hu-
manist approach and not a purely economistic social ‘progress’. The aim would
not be to have more but to live better. By way of example, Ramon Folch—one
of the most representative promoters of sustainability philosophy in Catalo-
nia—supports an ability to imagine an ‘economy without growth’ (Reales,
1999). Other thinkers in the movement also explicitly claim to be against what
they call ‘the disease of growth’. From this take on reality, sustainability sets
itself the task of the in-depth re-thinking of society and gradual transformation
of the current paradigm of production and consumption. This view postulates
a nonaggressive economic model towards an ‘ecological’ economy. The aim,
thus, is a mobilizing utopia that presents itself as a new way of hierarchizing
values, in contrast to politico-ideological conservatism.
Opposed in the same sense to growth for its own sake, the sustainability
philosophy is also against expansive and dominating societies and also offers
itself as the mainstay of postcolonial and postnational thought, with a plane-
tary and universal outlook. The movement, then, aims for the formulation of
utopias for the twenty-first century and the building of an international sus-
tainability. In this regard, sustainability thinking recognizes the wisdom of
many societies that are still undeveloped economically and hence can consid-
er, as Folch says, the so-called ‘developed’ societies as “very large barbarians
simply provided with powerful machinery or with decisive financial means”
(Reales, 1999).
One of the fundamental characteristics of the sustainability argument is its
emphasis on the safeguarding of the natural environment, from an ecological
perspective. This philosophy posits a way of overcoming the environmental
crisis and safeguarding biodiversity. It postulates an environmental morality
(Jacobs, 2001) because the basis of the problem lies, more than in legal dispo-
sitions, in the scales of value shared by society and shaped by juridical codifi-
cation. Therefore, a training process for a new collective consciousness is need-
ed, a process of reflection and socioecological debate, so that the ethics of
sustainability can be acquired as a proper value of the moral identity of the
3. LINGUISTIC SUSTAINABILITY FOR A MULTILINGUAL HUMANITY 291
contemporary and future individual, all in order to enable ‘sustainability ecol-
ogism’ to pervade the general socio-economic reality.
This, in fact, is what the aforementioned Brundtland Report was already
saying when it stated that a strict minimum of sustainable development means
not endangering the natural systems that keep us alive, that is, the air, water,
and soils, as well as living beings. Hence, the great challenge will be to find a
way to harmonize economic and social progress without endangering the plan-
et’s natural balance.
If we now try to transfer and to apply this way of thinking to the linguodi-
versity reality, what do we see? Are there useful analogies and metaphors to be
made? We believe there are, and ones that can be used to good advantage, and
linked, moreover, to the traditions of thought that have always been present
but perhaps even more so these last years with the drive to develop the think-
ing we are calling ‘eco-linguistic’. From the outset, we would underscore the
will to connect apparent ‘opposites’ in an integrative conceptualization, such as
the very syntagm ‘sustainable development’. On the sociolinguistic plane, our
debate should probably be about our ‘opposites’, which could be on the one
hand the expansion of the dominant languages and, on the other hand, the
maintenance and development of human linguistic diversity.
Let us note that the existing positions tend to polarize on these two aspects.
For some, it is necessary for peoples to abandon their original languages and
adopt only the great nation-state or global codes of communication in order to
be able to advance their economic and cultural development. For others, the
struggle is clearly in favour of the preservation of linguistic diversity and the
maintenance of distinct collective identities—as a way of avoiding the poverty
and anomie that are the results of disorganization of the traditional subsistence
ecosystem—and of the continuance of the knowledge and wisdom each culture
has produced. These perspectives may seem, at first, to be irreconcilable and
antagonistic, and wholly impossible to integrate and assemble.
Would there be some way of transferring the procedures and the conciliat-
ing conceptualization of ‘sustainability’ to the language field, and combining
the competence and use both of languages of greater communicative scope and
group tongues? An ‘ecological’ and ‘egalitarian’ perspective on linguistic diver-
sity would have the aim to stop and reverse expansionist and dominating ide-
ologies. To put an end to the value hierarchy implied by the belief in linguistic
superiority/inferiority is equally urgent and just. Passing into another histori-
cal phase of humankind where the predominant vision would be one of recog-
nizing the equal dignity of all languages and linguistic groups is, clearly, an
aim that cannot be put off. To paraphrase Ramon Folch, we could say that
292 PART II
linguistic sustainability should be a process of gradual transformation from the
current model of the linguistic organization of the human species, a transforma-
tion whose objective would be to avoid that collective bilingualism or polyglotism
of human beings must require the abandonment by different cultural groups of
their own languages (Reales, 1999). Basically, the ideology opposed to this
would come from the negative human tendency for dichotomous thinking:
black or white, one language or the other. Today, however, from the para-
digm of complexity (Bastardas, 2002b) we know that there are other possi-
bilities.
Why, then, can we not forcefully postulate a morality of maintenance and
development of multilingualism similar to that of the maintenance of species
and of the natural environment? Why must human groups completely give up
speaking their original languages in favour of those that are more dominant?
Why, in so far as it is possible, cannot weak languages be functionally prior-
itized? Why can we not safeguard our linguistic environment, since we are a
species conscious of the problem?
It is then necessary to maintain a vigil over the sustainability of linguistic
groups and the safeguarding of these languages for our descendants. The per-
sonal and groupal benefits of preserving languages (greater self-esteem, great-
er positive self-image of the group, no shame in origins, etc.), while not easily
quantifiable, are important to the happiness of people, as many contemporary
cases show us. The larger majority groups should adopt sociolinguistic ethics
and act in ways that are respectful of linguistic sustainability.
Just as sustainable development does not negate the development and the
desire for material improvement of human societies but at one and the same
time seeks to maintain ecosystemic balance with nature, so linguistic sustaina-
bility accepts polyglotization and intercommunication among groups and per-
sons yet still calls for the continuity and full development of human linguistic
groups. Just as in the general sustainability framework we think and act in ways
intended not to destroy our very biospheric context and intended to save the
natural resources we depend on, in linguistic sustainability we want to develop
ourselves and intercommunicate with each other without destroying the lin-
guistic and cultural resources that identify us. From sustainability ethics, the
diversity of the ways different groups of the species communicate is clearly a
value to protect, and not as an ‘anthropological’ curio but because of the intrin-
sic and inalienable dignity of human persons and societies.
Another facet of the tenets of sustainability, which we consider important,
is naturally its ecosystemic conception of phenomena. As the facts have shown
a great many times, we humans do not live independently of our natural en-
3. LINGUISTIC SUSTAINABILITY FOR A MULTILINGUAL HUMANITY 293
vironment; hence, our actions and productions have a clear interdependent
effect, and vice-versa. The conception that overlooked the settings and con-
texts of all things has inevitably entered into crisis, and today we see clearly
how intervening in a fact or an element means intervening simultaneously—
and above all—in the environment and the context of a fact or an element.
What this signifies is that getting our actions right in the framework of lin-
guistic sustainability requires our in-depth knowledge of the fundamental
evolutionary dynamics and factors of sociolinguistic ecosystems, both on the
local and the global scale. The ecology of languages should take a socio-cog-
nitive holistic approach based on cultural ecosystems and the relations among
these ecosystems, because the basic unit is not language but always the-lan-
guage-in-its-context. Making a language sustainable in a sociocultural ecosys-
tem will mean balancing a complex organization in the framework of which
the corresponding code can be provided with a functional niche that is suffi-
cient to guarantee adequate homeostasis. Sustainability is clearly ecosystemic
and dynamic (Bastardas, 2002, 2004).
From this perspective, it should thus be clear that languages are not sim-
ple objects but rather complex ones, emergences produced and maintained at
the meeting point of different dimensions (Holland, 1998; Vilarroya, 2002). A
real language is not only its grammar or its lexis but also living human cogni-
tion, interaction, and identification, in the simultaneous intersection of, as
Edgar Morin states, the ‘noosphere’ (knowledge systems), the ‘psychosphere’
(the mental individual), and the ‘sociosphere’ (society) (Bastardas, 2003). The
linguistic code, therefore, will register the events of these planes, and will
evolve in accordance with them, naming things that we want to name, and
being used or not in the circumstances which we desire. In this sense, lan-
guages are in our hands and we are in the hands of our own vital circum-
stances. The socio-cognitive ecosystemic approach is, then, indispensable and
essential.
Sustainability is aware of avoiding a break in the dynamic balance of the
different elements that participate in an ecosystem. For example, Jacobs (2001)
observes that ‘“sustainable’ commonly applies to the practice of drawing on
renewable resources at a rate no speedier or greedier than the rate at which the
resources can renew themselves” (p. 67). Folch states that it is necessary to
produce only what is reasonably held to be needed and with the least number
possible of distorting external factors (Reales, 1999). Thus, the aim is always
to conserve/preserve the fundamental balance that makes possible the very
maintenance of the ecosystem and of its components. If we now translate this
analogically to linguistic sustainability, we could clearly establish principles
294 PART II
such as that of using only the allochthonous23 languages for that which is rea-
sonably necessary and with the least cost of functions (or with the least distor-
tion of functions) for the autochthonous languages. Then, sustainable linguis-
tic contact will be that which does not produce linguistic exposure or linguistic
use in allochthonous language at a speed and/or pressure—to a degree—so
high as to make impossible the stable continuity of the autochthonous lan-
guages of human groups. We can, then, state that the sustainable character of
massive bilingualization comes from the comparison between the degree of
valuation and functions of the language that is not originally that of the group
(L2) and that of the language that is originally that of the group (L1). If the first
is lower, the contact and the bilingualization are sustainable; if it is greater, the
bilingualization is not sustainable and the language original to the group will
degrade and disappear within a few decades.
Also applying the terminology of sustainability to the current crisis of many
of the linguistic ecosystems of humanity, we may be able to begin to speak of
assuring the ecological [ecolinguistic] viability of linguistic groups via a socioen-
vironmental [sociolinguistic] management that is made adequate to assure avoid-
ance of excessive disorganization that could be lethal for many of the linguistic
codes which the different human subgroups have built up throughout their ex-
istence. The first task is to avoid abuse against the systems. One should not ex-
ceed their ‘charge capacity’. Therefore, as there are toxic and nontoxic levels,
we should attempt to see what degrees of linguistic contact prove sustainable in
each typology of the different ones that exist, what functions prove to be the funda-
mental ones to be reserved for the autochthonous linguistic codes, and how the
changes introduced work in interaction with other changes that could be taking
place at the same time in the situation. This forces us to go into still greater depth
than is possible at present in our knowledge of the ecodynamics of linguistic
contacts. Linguistic sustainability, however, is not a purely linguistic fact, as we
have seen, since languages depend on their sociocultural ecosystem, and that
ecosystem may be in a continual state of change, receiving the introduction of
new factors. Hence, just as studies are carried out on environmental or bio-
ecological impact, we also should be able to study the sociolinguistic impact of
economic, political, and educative measures, and of migrations, technological
innovations, etc. We need to quickly reach clear and functional models of so-
ciolinguistic ecosystems, to know of the interactions of their different elements,
23 ‘Allochthonous’= the language that is not originally the one of the group (versus ‘autochtho-
nous’ = the language that is originally that of the group).
3. LINGUISTIC SUSTAINABILITY FOR A MULTILINGUAL HUMANITY 295
of how to quantify them and, in so far as it is possible, to be able to make pre-
dictions about their evolution and hence be able to propose measures that are
adequate from the perspective of a sustainable management of plurilingualism.
There is no reason to conceal that being able to reach this state of practical
awareness of public administrations regarding linguistic diversity implies, even
today, a constant and conscientious task in the political and governmental do-
mains. In many cases, these studies would lead us to having to recommend im-
portant alterations in the distribution of power in many states, until now little
sensitive to their internal national and cultural diversity. This would be neces-
sary in order to give to different historical linguistic groups an important degree
of control over their own collective life, something at present unavailable. For
example, the generalization of the principle of what is now known as ‘political
subsidiarity’—enabling decisions to be taken on the maximum number of topics
in politically administrative instances close to the citizens—would undoubtedly
benefit the possibility of such linguistic self-government. Applying another ver-
sion of subsidiarity, in a linguistic sense, we could say that everything that a lo-
cal language can do need not be done by a more global language, i.e., by default,
the language of pre-eminent use should be that of the group, the weaker, except
for those cases of external communications when the situation so requires.
We are aware that even though the aims and principles of the philosophy
of sustainability are by nature universal, their application must be differenti-
ated according to given situations, their particular constrictions, and their evo-
lutionary moments. Certainly, linguistic sustainability will require different
actions according to the degree of, for example, the group’s techno-industrial
development, its political organization, the composition of its populations, col-
lective self-images, the general force of the languages present, etc. But for each
case we are sure that we can go forward towards creating ‘good practices’ that
will lead us to the application of sustainable multilingualism. Probably the
priorities will be different: in economically underdeveloped groups, for exam-
ple, swift action would be necessary to keep their own languages from falling
into discredit with their own speakers. But in groups with greater economic
development but with an already important loss of their language, it might be
necessary to intervene in the intergenerational transmission still capable of be-
ing saved. And in other small countries with a strong presence of an interna-
tional language, it may turn out to be necessary to replace the functions of the
latter in order to halt its abusive and unbalancing uses, and so on. Much work
still remains to be done to be able to reach a clear assessment of the models,
their phases, the different situations to which they correspond, the priorities
and interventions, and the most adequate action and evaluation strategies.
296 PART II
3.2. The imbalance and maintenance
of sociolinguistic ecosystems
Our advance in the design of sustainability principles and interventions will
move more slowly if we don’t equip ourselves with a conceptualization power-
ful enough to account for the fundamental factors and interrelationships of
such interventions, which are responsible for the existence or nonexistence of
human languages. The sustainability or unsustainability of a language, as we
have indicated, obviously does not depend on that language itself, but on the
general sociocultural ecosystem in which it finds itself inscribed, and in which
other elements of reality interrelate. Clearly, humanity’s linguistic continui-
ty—wherever it has occurred—has existed due to the fact that its speakers
were living in a given system of (inter)relations that caused them to use that
code and regularly to transmit it to new and successive generations, even
though structural changes were progressively taking place. Contrariwise, the
phenomena of language shift and abandonment have come about clearly be-
cause of the introduction of new elements into the traditional sociocultural
ecosystem which have ended up dis-(re)-organizing it, and thus taking it into
another phase.
Hence, we can conceive of the ‘linguosphere’ as a set of sociolinguistic
ecosystems in continual internal and external equilibrium inside which the
individuals use or avoid using the codes in their unceasing communication.
These ecosystems, made up of elements such as the human brain/mind, behav-
ioural competences and habits, cognitive-emotional representations of reality,
the sub-groups they constitute sociologically, enterprises, commerce and other
social organizations, the mass media, educational institutions, and govern-
ments and public administrations, for example, sustain—permitting, in the
process, as we have seen, internal change—the mutual communication systems
that are languages.
These, as complex objects, will simultaneously live in the minds, in the
social interaction, and in the general communication of a given community,
which will make use of them for purposes of social relations, categorization of
reality and, when necessary, to identify themselves in relation to other humans
speaking other languages. Historically, if this ecosystem suffers no fundamen-
tal disturbances, it will tend to reproduce itself intergenerationally, even
though with internal change, via self-co-construction of the codes by the new
individuals. If, however, as we have already stated, the ecosystem registers a
large and powerful enough entry of exogenous linguistic elements, then there
could occur a reorganization of competencies and norms of linguistic usage,
3. LINGUISTIC SUSTAINABILITY FOR A MULTILINGUAL HUMANITY 297
and this could lead to important evolutionary repercussions (Bastardas, 1996).
There have been basically two main causes of the historical disruption of lin-
guistic ecosystems: migratory irruptions and politico-economic integrations.
One crucial aspect that is derived from a sustainability approach to linguis-
tic diversity is the distinction between the causes of bilingualization and those
of the intergenerational abandonment of one of the codes which, as the Cana-
dian sociologist Stanley Lieberson already observed some years ago, probably
are not exactly the same (Lieberson, 1981). It is also pertinent here to ques-
tion—in order to attempt to understand more completely the exact mecha-
nisms—the widespread belief that, ineluctably, ‘bilingualism leads to language
shift’. The sociologist Norbert Elias already warned us that when it comes to
dealing with the problem of the need for social change we must clearly distin-
guish the affirmation that ‘figuration B’ will necessarily follow ‘figuration A’
from the affirmation that ‘figuration A’ must necessarily precede ‘figuration B’.
All of which is to say that, in fact, bilingualization must have been previously
existed if any abandonment of an original code was to have taken place. How-
ever, what may be less clear is that by the mere fact of this bilingualization,
individuals have necessarily to abandon their first language as they bring up
their children, for example. That is, that bilingualization is perhaps a condition
that is necessary but not sufficient to explain the evolution towards the inter-
generational disuse of local varieties. The exact answer therefore remains open
in regard to this evolution which is, as we know, unfortunately not at all infre-
quent in many cases.
Sustainability, because it proposes conciliation of two apparent antino-
mies—to develop oneself economically and not damage the natural environ-
ment, or else to know/use more than one language and not abandon any of those
known/used—again places the subject on the table for discussion and therefore
insists that we sociolinguists detail our answer so as to refine our theorizing and
our research. Hence, when and why does a situation of bilingualism or poly-
glotism in a society evolve towards the abandonment of the weaker code by its
speakers and when not? To be able to answer these questions, we obviously
need to refer to the socio-cognitive representations of speakers in regard to the
linguistic varieties that are present and in regard to the contexts in which these
are formed and maintained. As we already said in other publications, the first
important factor that we have seen is usually very active in this type of situa-
tion is the political context. In many cases, the political powers in charge have
sought precisely this result of linguistic abandonment from the very beginning
of the process of massive diffusion of the state language—which, for the great
majority of the population, first coincides with learning to read. In many cases,
298 PART II
the explicit aim was not only that of spreading an interlanguage of general com-
munication but of doing away with the existence of other systems of linguistic
communication that differ from the model adopted by the central and sovereign
political power. The scholastic diffusion of the official standard will, then, be
accompanied by a clearly disparaging and stigmatizing discourse on the ver-
nacular varieties (“soyez propre, parlez français”, in France, or, in Spain, “habla
en cristiano”, “habla la lengua del imperio”) while, at the same time, in many of
these cases, there will even be a decree to prohibit the use of the other different
varieties in public communication.
It is in this framework of subordination and dependency that people, as
they progressively become competent in the newly acquired official language,
will opt to transmit it to their children as the basic variety of socialization that
is, as a native variety, thus interrupting the intergenerational transmission of
the group’s own vernacular. As it is a question of a behaviour that will obvi-
ously be evaluated by the community, the change in habitual norms will re-
quire a clear ideological and/or practical justification and legitimation. This,
however, will be usually brought about by the discourse of the ‘national lan-
guage’ which will favour the idea of the single and general language for all citi-
zens, argued on the basis of images such as “children of the same family” or “ties
that bind siblings” (Balibar & Laporte, 1974: 184). Thus, in the case of France,
for example, renouncing the continuity of one’s own language will officially be
interpreted as an act of patriotism at the service of freedom. From the practical
point of view, the legal imposition of the standard variety of the official lan-
guage known as “French” as the only code for official and public use in parallel
with the processes of industrialization and urbanization that will favour the
social and geographical mobility of the population(s) will increase perception
of the need and essentiality of this language for survival and, especially, for
economic ascent. Gradually, then, and in a process of asymmetric diffusion ac-
cording to the social and geographic groups, the new variety—in the form of
‘langue nationale’—will be adopted first for institutionalized communications
and later transferred to the individualized communications by a generation
already competent which, at the same time, will transmit it as native speech to
the following generation. This latter generation will rarely know the old ver-
naculars and will make the official variety—conveniently adapted to the col-
loquial functions—their only first and habitual language.
If, however, we compare that typical language shift process with the cases
of stable balance, such as the diglossia typical of German Switzerland, we find
that very probably in this stabilization of local varieties there must intervene
the fact of the existence of a highly positive groupal image—Switzerland is not
3. LINGUISTIC SUSTAINABILITY FOR A MULTILINGUAL HUMANITY 299
a poor country that is little developed economically—and the fact that the
adoption of the general German standard is not in any way a foreign imposi-
tion or the fruit of a situation of political minoritization but rather a decision
of the language group itself—and, if they wish, a revocable one freely taken.
In our study of 1997, we concluded that, “fundamentally, then, the reason for
the relative stability of these cases of diglossic distribution must be sought in
the politico-cognitive dimension: none of the cases habitually analysed are
situations of political subordination like those of the minoritized European
communities. The perception of dependence and, in consequence, of self-dep-
recation, taking a group or foreign cultural elements as a main referent of
behaviour and of values, simply does not need to take place. It seems clear,
therefore, that it must not be the simple fact of bilingualization and asymmet-
ric distribution of functions which can lead to intergenerational language
shift, but rather the politico-economic context in which this bilingualization
takes place and the meanings and representations that its protagonists associ-
ate with it”.
Note that in this conclusion, we mention fundamentally two different but
fully interrelated planes of reality, the macro and the micro, the large factors
and events, and, at the same time, the sociosignifications that are produced by
the individuals that live in these circumstances. This is important to bear in
mind because, in spite of the fact that humans can be influenced to a high de-
gree by the events and elements of their sociocultural environment, in the final
analysis it is their brain/mind that creates the representations of reality and
decides, consciously or otherwise, their courses of action. Those who move
more towards the abandonment of their own codes are those human groups
that have no control of their collective life—and hence of their public linguistic
functions—and that are little developed economically but integrated into su-
praeconomic and perhaps more advanced areas, that experience geographic
and social mobility—even if this is internal, for example, from rural areas to
cities—and that maintain a non-favourable self-image while on the other hand
tending to follow another group of reference, whose language they attempt to
adopt and, when possible, use to speak to their children. On the other hand,
the abandonment of the local code is much less frequent in those groups that
to a significant degree control their collective life, their code having enough
public linguistic functions and their group a very high or medium degree of
economic development, and a feeling and self-image of positive identity. In
between, we find all sorts of other cases, with a gradation in which, as the
French sociologist Bourdieu would say, we see clearly how social positions and
dispositions highly correspond.
300 PART II
If we look more closely at how bilingualized people and groups come to
abandon their first languages, we discover a whole series of dynamic charac-
teristics in which often the protagonists of the very phenomenon may not be
particularly aware of the historical process in which they are participating. For
many, consciousness of the problem comes when it may already be too late, as
has been seen in many cases we know of. What happens, however, is that a
series of behaviours is set in motion with important historical consequences
which too often are little understood by their very agents.
The key point of breaking the balance may be in the moment when an im-
portant number of individuals of the same group accept, among themselves
and in a habitual manner, the use of the language that was initially allochtho-
nous. In as much as there is a functional distribution that makes the outside
language basically used to speak with individuals of other groups or to carry
out only determined public functions, there may be a more or less unstable
balance, and the continuity of the linguistic collective appears assured, even
though it is in a context that is perhaps little favourable. If, however, they be-
gin to use it among themselves, and above all this takes place in a general way,
even in the level of individualized communications—those of private and do-
mestic types—then the system can begin a crisis dynamic. If among the mem-
bers of the group, for example, the young people speak in the other code in
important numbers, this will mean that couples will begin to be formed in that
code who will eventually have children, to whom they will also probably tend
to speak in that language. We would then have the first members of the group
that have the allochthonous language as an L1 that is not the original one of
the group. If the behaviour is widely imitated and extended progressively, the
group will progressively be emptied of people who have the original code as
an L1 and its use will continually decrease.
A group can inexorably empty itself in this way, although the functional
endo/exogroupal distribution is not broken, due to the fact of mixed marriage,
especially if it is a question of a demolinguistic situation where the volumes are
equalled or, indeed, if the other collective is the majority. Even if the habit or
norm of speaking together as a group continues to be preserved in the original
language, in a mixed ethnolinguistic couple there will be a strong tendency to
use a single code between conjugal pairs, which will tend to be the best posi-
tioned in the social distribution of linguistic competences. That is, it will be-
come customary to use the language more developed by both participants and/
or seen as more ‘appropriate’ for inter-group relations, a fact that often will
depend on the language policies being applied in the situation, or on the social
context in which the individuals live. In a mixed marriage there is customarily
3. LINGUISTIC SUSTAINABILITY FOR A MULTILINGUAL HUMANITY 301
an important tendency to speak to children in only one of the languages, even
though it is also possible for each parent to speak to the children in a different
language, something which is not, however, as common.
In fact, in order for one partner in a mixed marriage to be able to use with
the child a language which is different from that used by the other partner, an
important condition seems to be the fact that, at least, the other member of the
couple must understand this language. Otherwise, they would not be able to
understand a good part of the linguistic input available in the domestic setting.
This, of course, would limit the possibility of maintaining the transmission of
the codes, although it certainly doesn’t make it impossible if the conjugal
partner willingly accepts the situation. We would then have an individual
with, we could say, two L1s, as long as both languages were spoken to the
child with more or less the same intensity. The strategy of bilingual growth
in the family is an opportunity that too often goes unused for linguistic main-
tenance; one which we think should be favoured and promoted in those cas-
es that are suitable.
It is clear, then, that in situations of politico-economic and/or demograph-
ic subordination it will be more difficult to succeed in creating sustainable
dynamics of linguistic maintenance. This kind of context will hardly be favour-
able and the speakers can abandon the use of their L1 due to negative or at
least not very positive social meanings that can be associated with them in
regard to the other language that is present, or else for practical reasons of
communication in everyday relations among individuals. Hence, it will not be
easy to assure sustainability in all the different sociolinguistic situations that
exist today on our planet.
3.3. What should a sustainable
multilingualism be like?
What we now wish to posit is how to avoid situations whereby people who
have been bilingualized or polyglotized have to abandon the fundamental uses
of their group’s L1 in their daily life. That is, how to make it possible for these
people to continue using their habitual code and using it for the maximum
number of functions. Let us distinguish, in our analysis, between two large
situation types, which, however, can also exist together: vertical contact, and
horizontal contact (Barreto, 1995). What we should consider then is whether
bilingualization is the fruit of a territorial and group integration inside wider
political and socio-economic structures, or whether the situation has basically
302 PART II
come about because of face-to-face contact with other people from migration
processes with whom one coexists on a daily basis.
Prior to beginning to analyse in more detail each major typology, let us be
clear about the fact that in order to be able to act on the abandonment of lan-
guages by its bilingual or polyglot speakers, the main need will be to achieve
an impact on their representations of reality. This is true for two main reasons.
First, in cases where the speakers have arrived at an interiorizing of negative
evaluations regarding their L1, they will need to be exposed to a discourse—and
also, hopefully, a situation—that presents alternatives which promote and dig-
nify their language and their group to keep them from abandoning the use of
that language and, instead, recovering it and making it grow. The second rea-
son is to do with cases where there is no formal negative discourse but there are
demosociolinguistic conditions which spontaneously and in a self-organized
way cause the speakers, for very practical reasons, to progressively stop using
their own L1 almost without realizing it so that they will need to be made
aware and convinced of the need to change their behaviour as effective long-
term language group self-destroyers.
In the first type of situation, that of ‘vertical contact’, we are referring, as
mentioned, to linguistic groups which, without having been displaced from
their territory, habitually become bilingual due to the fact of being politically
integrated into a higher structure which decides to adopt, in the simplest ty-
pologies, a language with an official character, one which is not that of the
affected group. Since there are far fewer states than there are languages, this is
a case that is far from infrequent. In extreme cases, the state, which often con-
sciously desires to build a homogeneous ‘nation’, will tend to put into practice
a policy which exalts the values of the official language, presenting it as the
guarantee of national unity and the symbol of the new nation one wants to
build. Reciprocally, in many cases, the discourse will be one of disparagement
or at least of public oblivion of the other languages existing on the perimeter
of sovereignty. Moreover, if this political subordination occurs, as is often the
case, in the framework of acute technoeconomical change, which often leads
to the destruction of the culture’s traditional economic organization, then the
new language will progressively be seen as the language of the new situation,
in turn seen as ‘modern and of material progress’. The new language will then
need to be not only known well but even adopted if one wishes to become in-
tegrated in the new ruling class or, simply, to improve one’s social status. If
this process becomes generalized gradually among the population, there may
follow cases of group self-abandonment of the original language and thus an
initiation of the process of linguistic extinction.
3. LINGUISTIC SUSTAINABILITY FOR A MULTILINGUAL HUMANITY 303
In these situations, action should be fundamentally political to reorient the
predominant discourses in the directions of self-esteem and, at the same time,
if possible, to provide the peoples with a sufficient degree of political and eco-
nomic selfhood in their collective life. This should permit sociolinguistic self-
determination and provide the freedom necessary to distribute communicative
functions between both languages. Insofar as it is possible for the hegemonic
powers to see their way to adopt this point of view and put it into practice,
halting the abusive uses of the large interlanguage, these situations, if well bal-
anced and if the peoples in question recover their cultural self-esteem, can be
sustainable in the long run so long as other types of factors are not added to
them. There are organizational principles and techniques, as we know, which
can organize the corresponding distributions of functions and linguistic rights
(Bastardas & Boix, 1994). Depending on the territorial distributions of the peo-
ples in question and on their volume, we can be guided by the now classic
criteria of ‘personality’ or ‘territoriality’, to which we personally would suggest
adding those of functionality and subsidiariety, for those cases in which the
other two principles cannot be applied with their optimum force (Bastardas,
2004b). If the political power involves itself in this in a sincere way and the
group’s demographic volumes are not too low, they are cases that can be solved
and lead to long continuity.
These cases, however, may present more sustainability difficulties if, in a
comparative sense, their demolinguistic numbers are proportionally lower
and, indeed, if they are territorially dispersed. Here, the compaction of the
collective plays an important role. If the members are few but compacted, if
they live in a single territorial base that clearly enables them to have public
use of their L1 and easy and continual linguistic interaction, then sustainabil-
ity will be higher. On the other hand, if the group has been progressively
dispersed and has mixed with other groups, even if the state in question rec-
ognizes their rights and has positive official ideologies, they won’t be able
easily to use their code in daily communication, and that could play against its
preservation. In such cases, the acting mechanisms in the mixture situation can
gradually lead to disuse of the L1, in favour of the more general one employed
in the community.
Most probably, the key to the question of linguistic sustainability is to be
found in the states and in their linguistic policies, which of course cannot be
divorced from their responsibility to embrace a sociolinguistic ethics, respect-
ful of linguistic diversity. Hegemonic groups must especially bear in mind that
a language today requires much more than in the past simply to exist. In past
societies the functions of a language were based in those of local quotidian life.
304 PART II
Today, the functions which, for the psyche, can be seen as most important often
depend not on local universes but on supralocal organizations that are not at all
infrequently international. The language of work, of ‘media/cinema/music’, of
‘progress’, and of technological advances, exercises an important influence on
people, who can come to interiorize, as we have seen, a negative vision of their
own L1. In order to compensate for this—since often it will not be possible for
a language to serve all the functions of a contemporary developed society—we
should assign the maximum number of important ‘local’ functions to the origi-
nal languages of the human groups in question, assuring them exclusive func-
tions that makes them useful and profitable in the eyes of their speakers. In
ecological terms, we could say that the states should aid the languages in being
able to find (and occupy) functional niches that are sufficiently important to
invite their maintenance and their intergenerational transmission.
One of the points which states—and populations—have to keep extremely
clear is that techno-economic development does not necessarily require the
abandoning of group languages, just as economic development need not bring
the destruction and degradation of the environment and/or of natural resourc-
es. The decisive fact here is that ‘modernization’ be controlled by the different
society itself, made by it, without having to be politically or linguistically sub-
ordinated to the others. We can make it possible for those countries where very
important techno-economic changes are occurring at present to achieve ‘devel-
opment’ without unnecessarily destroying linguistic ecosystems. The challenge
is to discover what must be accommodated, what must be adapted, but by
designing environmentally and culturally sustainable development. Progress
need not mean destroy and build back but rather it can mean build while con-
serving and rehabilitating, modernizing but maintaining. And this will always
be a vision that is far more civilized than the reverse, the one often adopted by
subordinated and provincial communities.
If we now move toward the type of contact we call ‘horizontal’, that is, the
type in which bilingualism is basically produced by migration and direct face-
to-face exposure, the factors and the dynamics can be different and, it should
be noted, it can be a good deal more difficult to make it sustainable. As we
know, even though linguistic diversity, in order to be generated, needed isola-
tion and uncommunication between the different human groups, these have
always tended to move from their territories, in search of survival, greater
well-being, or even colonizing adventures. This means, and we are at present
living in a critical moment, that the encounter and the physical contact be-
tween different populations is an old phenomenon and at the same time ex-
tremely contemporary.
3. LINGUISTIC SUSTAINABILITY FOR A MULTILINGUAL HUMANITY 305
Here also we would find different typologies. From population displace-
ments from contiguous linguistic areas, one in the direction of the territory of
the other, to migrations in the direction of very faraway lands which, today,
with our transport technologies, are becoming progressively closer. This brings
with it a type of linguistic contact in which, momentarily bracketing the vari-
ables involved in officially controlled public communication, a set of specific
dynamics is generated in which other factors also play an important role. In
this type of encounter, the demographic aspects will have a very decisive weight.
The situation could evolve in a different way if the volumes are clearly unequal
or even approximately the same. If the contact, now leaving aside other fac-
tors, is weighted between, for example, 15% and 85% for each group, then we
could predict that the smaller group will tend more than the larger to abandon
its original code, above all if the people in question are little concentrated and
compacted. Naturally, the pressure to use the codes present will be more fa-
vourable to the L1 of the larger group than that of the smaller. It is also clear
that if there is no prohibition on exogamy for some reason, then 15% has more
possibilities of mixed pairing than the reverse, a situation which will create the
typology of linguistic behaviour in pairing of which we spoke above, with
negative consequences for the L1 of the smaller group. Certainly, other varia-
bles could here come into play. For example, it will not be the same if the de-
mographically smaller group is an economically—or culturally or technically
—superior community, but everything indicates that displacements in unequal
volume will tend to evolve towards the loss of the smaller group.
If, on the other hand, the volumes are more equal, the perspectives for
continuity are clearer since, if there are no other decisive asymmetries, the ef-
fectives can tend to remain very much the same because the statistical oppor-
tunities for mixed marriages will be the same for both. Other factors, certainly,
can contribute to causing the evolutionary balance to shift, such as the linguis-
tic policies under which this encounter takes place and whom it tends, overall,
to favour. In these situations, all the factors—economic, ideological, residen-
tial, media factors, etc.—can become relevant, and in each case specific dy-
namics can be produced.
There are also special situations in the current great urbanization processes
in Africa and, to a lesser extent, in Latin America. The meeting of populations
of different origins in cities in the process of formation, with little presence of
state action and, at times, without a clear predominance of one of the groups,
can provoke a situation in which it is difficult to maintain clearly any lan-
guage, since a tendency can arise to create mixed varieties or else to adopt
general interlanguages that did not originate in any of the groups in contact.
306 PART II
In these cases, attempting to create situations of linguistic sustainability can be
very difficult, more so when the priorities of the groups and the governments
are not centred on these aspects but on others that are much more important
and urgent for the respective peoples themselves.
In more developed societies, with functionally effective states, one can cer-
tainly attempt to arbitrate support policies for the linguistic sustainability of
displaced groups, even if, at times, they themselves consider that they are not
interested, if they have already clearly chosen the option of installing them-
selves in the new country. Often, when a person in such a situation is reminded
that they are different, this fact is not what they most like to hear, since what
preoccupies them, and above all in terms of their children, is making their
adaptation complete, obviating the need for their children to go through the
difficult situations the parents had to experience. Very often, then, if the par-
ents have become somewhat competent linguistically in the language of the
receiving country, they themselves will be the ones who choose to abandon
their groupal code to bring up their children in a way that they feel most ben-
efits them. Here, governmental actions should aim at making people aware of
the fact that, in a host society that is linguistically normal and developed, the
host country’s language will also be learned and that if they transmit their
original L1 then their children will have greater linguistic competence that can
benefit them in future. On the other hand, this could save the parents the in-
convenience of seeing how their children are unable to speak their own origi-
nal language, a situation probably both personally and collectively regrettable.
Here also there would be room for action, especially in dignifying the original
languages and informing the populations of the security of their effective bilin-
gualization at an early age.
One of the conflictive aspects that can be placed on the table with the new
facts of migration is the destabilization of the receiving groups by the dis-
placed groups, especially in those cases in which the receiving society is one
that is not politically independent and is disequilibrated already due to previ-
ous migratory movements, or due to a significant presence of part of the dom-
inant group in its own territory. Again we can find here (with evolutionary
effects of which the actors are unaware) something which makes these cases
into situations difficult to organize satisfactorily and open to intergroupal mis-
understanding and uncertain outcome.
One of the new phenomena that these last movements are provoking in this
age of globalization is the use of the major interlanguages instead of the lan-
guages of the receiving country for the purposes of relations between immi-
grants and receivers, provoked by greater linguistic knowledge—by polygloti-
3. LINGUISTIC SUSTAINABILITY FOR A MULTILINGUAL HUMANITY 307
zation—of the people themselves, both those who move in and those who are
already established. And this can be seen as an unwanted consequence of the
massive polyglotization of societies. Imagine how these societies could evolve
if, simultaneously with their bi- or multi-lingualization, there should come
about important migratory movements, also of multilingual persons, and that
they implant their interrelation in the L2 that is most shared by the two
groups—quite logical, of course, from the operative point of view. This means
that the habit would be implanted whereby in their relations they used not the
language of the country, which was habitually the solution that was tradi-
tional—even though certainly gradual and imperfect but still enabling linguis-
tic sustainability—but instead one of the major interlanguages. If the volumes
of the displaced are very high and the societies progressively become mixed,
we might have here, in the long run, a dangerous situation for the linguistic
continuity of the receiving community, since it would be impossible to linguis-
tically integrate the displaced. Therefore, it would be the receiving community
itself that would be pulled towards new linguistic behaviour led by the immi-
grants, whether in their L2 or their L1, if this L1 is also one of the great inter-
languages.
This situation is not fantasy but something that can happen even in con-
temporary Catalonia, for example, a situation where the most habitual inter-
group language is not Catalan, the L1 of the receiving group which has been
historically subordinated by the governments of the Spanish state, but Spanish,
that of thousands of speech-area migrants coming from the south of Spain over
the course of the twentieth century, and now from Latin America. And the
same thing is happening with the migrations whose provenance is the north
and the centre of Africa or the east of Europe, which tend to establish relations
with the autochthonous people and the other groups more in Spanish than in
Catalan. Certainly, in a meeting of humans, the most logical way of acting
would seem to be to use the optimal communicative instrument for mutual
understanding. But if this behaviour becomes consolidated, and it is not only
transitory, then the great interlanguages will always win. We should thus look
at ways of creating the conditions—among people who live in a stable way in
a territory—by which they also can know and use the less communicatively
powerful languages when these are the historical and first languages of the
receiving societies.
The Catalan situation is one in a state of disequilibrium and which could
be typical of other similar cases that could come about in the future. Bilin-
gualization or polyglotization of compacted and communicating human groups,
with exclusive and secure spaces for their language, can be sustainable; how-
308 PART II
ever, it is not so certain that the language ecosystems will last if the current
migratory volumes into societies that are not fully independent does not stop
or even increases.
However, right now we need to await the outcomes of these cases since, as
is happening in Quebec, it could also occur that the first generation, which
does not know the language of the receiving country, might tend to use one of
the major interlanguages (for example, English) while, for the second genera-
tion, it might turn out to be more general to adopt the original language of the
receiving society—French, in this case—as the language of interrelationship.
This, however, certainly requires good and effective educational institutions
and, above all, a very clear vision of what must be the language of earning a
living and of habitual social relations in society. In the case of Catalonia, the
volumes are different from those of Quebec, as are the historical facts and the
ideologies involved (Bastardas, 2002b). The future, then, is very much open.
This globalization of migratory movements may cause ‘ethnic conscience’
—unlike what one might initially have expected to result from globalization per
se—where there previously was none, or where there was very little. A large,
stable receiving group, with little ‘ethnic conscience’—regardless of the ‘state/
national’—can greatly increase its sense of ‘inter-ethnic’ personal difference if it
comes into habitual contact with people from other groups that have moved to
its territory. Certain groups of medium-large languages may not accept the fact
of having to speak in one of the ‘large interlanguages’ in their own country (e.g.,
the Dutch or the Danish with regard to English). Obviously, they know them for
‘exterior’ communication, but not for ‘interior’ communication. For quotidian
use, they will probably clearly prefer to use their own language, and they may
consider the other person’s persistence in using the interlanguage as offensive
and, if that person indeed resides there habitually, as a demonstration of their
desire not to adapt. Certainly, this could grow in the case of migrations of some
significance in numerical terms, more so than in the case of the isolated ‘visitor’
to whom one feels more predisposed to adapt linguistically.
In all probability, then, to the extent that globalization also increases per-
sonal inter-ethnic contact, it could tend to increase the ‘ethnic conscience’ of
human individuals or groups. The challenge is to organize and manage this: how
are we to avoid conflicts, and inform the population of the fact that this can be
happening? How are we to make known the need for transition phases in lin-
guistic adaptation? We have to find a way of establishing a set of negotiated
principles of coexistence that save: 1) the principle of linguistic stability and
continuity of the receiver group, 2) in consequence, the principle of intergroupal
and social adaptation of the immigrant group and, 3) the principle of personal
3. LINGUISTIC SUSTAINABILITY FOR A MULTILINGUAL HUMANITY 309
freedom of the displaced in regard to the continuity of their cultural elements, at
the intragroupal level. On this point, many questions remain open and much
work remains to be done.
3.4. Conclusion
We must of course be realistic and thus start from the fact that there is still
much terrain to be covered in the creation of sustainable linguistic develop-
ment. At the same time, we should also be aware that we are acting in a differ-
ent and rather peculiar time in the human adventure, one that could create
obstacles to the full attainment of the aims being proposed by those of us in
favour of sustainability. Our times are characterized, as we’ve seen, by an ex-
ponential increase in contact among peoples and languages and, hence, by the
end—or in all events the considerable reduction—of the traditional isolation
that favoured linguistic differences within the same species (Bastardas, 2002).
But simultaneously with this, the creation of new identities of suprastate ori-
gin, the selection of only a few languages to be denominated official and pub-
lic, and the growing role of the large languages of intercommunication, are
facts that tend to work not in favour of maintaining the traditional codes but
of the often abusive and unimpeded extension of these state and international
languages. Moreover, human populations, seeking to survive and to materially
improve their lot, are leaving their historical territories and going to other
linguistic areas, with the consequent disorganization and, in any case, reor-
ganization of the ecosystems that until the present moment had assured the
existence both of the linguistic groups that are moving and many of those that
are receiving them.
On the other hand, now more than ever, awareness of linguistic diversity
is advancing, and high levels of international and governmental organizations
are operating in an ethics of protection and of solidarity in regard to politi-
cally subordinate linguistic and, above all, economically less developed groups.
The complex political structuring of states, with power sharing in different
territorial organizations, is also advancing, and making available more oppor-
tunities for political self-government by linguistically differentiated popula-
tions. This makes it possible for such groups to take decisions autonomously in
regard to the linguistic aspects of their life. It is true that much more still needs
to be done and that there are languages in great danger of extinction, but there
is clearly a general advance—too slow, certainly, and even badly understood
by the hegemonic groups, but an advance nonetheless. The sustainability mod-
310 PART II
el thus offers itself as a horizon and a process on the path to improving the
linguistic life of humans, through the development of interlinguistic equity and
justice. Because the linguistic claims of the so-called ‘minorities’ are not ‘some-
thing from the past’ but clearly for the future, as they are looking for sustain-
able equilibrium and maximum development to be secured.
In order to be successful in this universal undertaking, we will need to
combat the causes more than simply providing palliative remedies. Clearly, we
should overcome the mentality of conservative political positions that hold
that the solution is basically to subsidize languages, and pass over to a view that
adopts more progressive and egalitarian positions based on the adequate distri-
bution of the functions of languages, in the aim of achieving their sustainability.
A lasting compromise must be sought among linguistic groups—and this is the
special responsibility of the large groups, more than of the medium-size and
small ones—in order to efficaciously influence the causes that make people
abandon their own languages, taking as a centre and motivation of our action
the people and not the purely ‘anthropological’ perspective of the museum or
‘reservation’. If the territorial distribution of groups allows this, the ideal hori-
zon is for each linguistic group to tend to maintain control of their own socio-
linguistic space, enabling intervention according to the general evolution of the
sociocultural ecosystem. It should be recalled that, in the present techno-
economic situation, contact and exposition—even if by electronic means—to
other, different languages, will grow and not many populations will remain mar-
ginal. Therefore, only those languages that can initiate compensatory and rebal-
ancing actions in their ecosystem will be able to continue sustainably reproduc-
ing. Given the degree of intensity of contemporary changes, there exists the risk
that populations that are in a situation of high subordination will not be able to
undertake actions that are compensatory or that reroute their evolution. These
will be condemned, very probably, to a slow and gradual abandonment of the
use of their language. Our great challenge, then, will be, as in other sciences and
fields of life, to know how to find the “exact conditions of nonequilibrium that
can be stable” (Capra, 1997: 104), from a fluent conception of the reality.
One special responsibility in this whole state of things falls on the interna-
tional cultural institutions, which must effectively compromise themselves to
adopt the philosophy of sustainability and promote research on practical and
valid organizational principles, for example, based on the Universal Declara-
tion of Human Rights or the more specifically related Universal Declaration of
Linguistic Rights created in Barcelona in 1996. Linguistic sustainability clearly
seeks the concerted world action of all the peoples on the planet, which must
agree and decide upon how they desire to organize themselves communica-
3. LINGUISTIC SUSTAINABILITY FOR A MULTILINGUAL HUMANITY 311
tively in this new century. Let us conclude by simply enumerating five points,
which we think are crucial to recall and which can guide our actions and inter-
ventions in favour of linguistic sustainability. The priorities should be:
1. Stop the abusive uses of the large interlanguages, and extend the ideology
of linguistic equality and solidarity.
2. Dignify the self-image of subordinated, non-majority language groups.
3. Allow these linguistic groups to be able to control their own communica-
tive space, autonomously regulating their public linguistic uses.
4. Distribute communicative functions, providing exclusive and effective func-
tions to the codes of linguistic groups currently in a situation of subordina-
tion.
5. Create awareness in governments, commercial firms, and societies in gen-
eral, of the importance of attaining linguistic sustainability, urging them to
habitually incorporate necessary studies on sociolinguistic impact in their
decision-making processes.
References
Balibar, R., & D. Laporte (1976). Burguesía y lengua nacional. Barcelona: Avance.
Barreto, A. A. (1995). “Nationalism and linguistic security in contemporary Puerto
Rico”. Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism XXII, 1(2), pp. 67-74.
Bastardas, A. (1996). Ecologia de les llengües. Medi, contactes i dinàmica sociolingüís-
tica. Barcelona: Proa. Translated in part I in this book.
— (1997). “Substitution linguistique versus diglossie dans la perspective de la plané-
tarisation”, in G. Bouchard & Y. Lamonde (eds.), La nation dans tous ses états.
Montreal/París: Harmattan, pp. 111-129.
— (2002). “Biological and linguistic diversity. Transdisciplinary explorations for a
socioecology of languages”, Diverscité langues, 7. (Retrieved from http://www.
teluq.uquebec.ca/diverscite/SecArtic/Arts/2002/reflexions2002.htm). (Also in
this book, part II, chapter 1).
— (2002b). “World language policy in the era of globalization: Diversity and inter-
communication from the perspective of ‘complexity’”. Noves SL. Revista de Socio-
lingüística/Journal on Sociolinguistics. (Retrieved from http://www6.gencat.net/
llengcat/noves/hm02estiu/metodologia/a_bastardas1_9.htm). (Also in this book,
part II, chapter 2).
— (2002c). “The ecological perspective: Benefits and risks for sociolinguistics and
language policy and planning”, in A. Fill, H. Penz, & W. Trampe (eds.), Colourful
green ideas. Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 77-88.
312 PART II
— (2002d). “Llengua i noves migracions: les experiències canadenques i la situació
a Catalunya”, Revista de Llengua i Dret, 37, pp. 153-190.
— (2003). “Lingüística general: elementos para un paradigma integrador desde la
perspectiva de complejidad”, LinRed. (Retrieved from http://www2.uah.es/lin-
red/articulos_pdf/LR_articulo_111120032.pdf).
— (2004). “La metàfora ecològica: possibilitats i límits per a l’aproximació socio-
lingüística”, in M. Pradilla Cardona (ed.), Calidoscopi lingüístic. Un debat entorn
de les llengües de l’Estat (pp. 13-24). Barcelona: Octaedro/EUB.
— (2004b). “Subsidiarietat lingüística i funcions exclusives per al català”. Barcelo-
na: Avui, nov. 25, p. 21.
— (2004c) (ed.). Diversitats. Llengües, espècies i ecologies. Barcelona: Empúries.
Bastardas, A., & E. Boix (eds.) (1994). ¿Un estado, una lengua? La organización políti-
ca de la diversidad lingüística. Barcelona: Octaedro.
Capra, F. (1997). La trama de la vida. Barcelona: Anagrama. (Spanish translation of
The web of life. A new synthesis of mind and matter. Hammersmith, London: Fla-
mingo, 1997).
Elias, N. (1982). Sociología fundamental. Barcelona: Gedisa.
Holland, J. H. (1998). Emergence. From chaos to order. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Pub-
lishers.
Jacobs, J. (2001). The nature of economies. Toronto: Random House.
Lieberson, S., & A. S. Dil (1981). Language diversity and language contact. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.
Morin, E. (1992). Introduction à la pensée complexe. Paris: ESF.
Reales, L. (1999). “Una conversa amb Ramon Folch”, Idees, 2, pp. 99-108.
Vilarroya, O. (2002). La disolución de la mente. Barcelona: Tusquets.
References (21)
Balibar, R., & D. Laporte (1976). Burguesía y lengua nacional. Barcelona: Avance.
Barreto, A. A. (1995). "Nationalism and linguistic security in contemporary Puerto Rico". Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism XXII, 1(2), pp. 67-74.
Bastardas, A. (1996). Ecologia de les llengües. Medi, contactes i dinàmica sociolingüís- tica. Barcelona: Proa. Translated in part I in this book.
-(1997). "Substitution linguistique versus diglossie dans la perspective de la plané- tarisation", in G. Bouchard & Y. Lamonde (eds.), La nation dans tous ses états. Montreal/París: Harmattan, pp. 111-129.
-(2002). "Biological and linguistic diversity. Transdisciplinary explorations for a socioecology of languages", Diverscité langues, 7. (Retrieved from http://www. teluq.uquebec.ca/diverscite/SecArtic/Arts/2002/reflexions2002.htm). (Also in this book, part II, chapter 1).
-(2002b). "World language policy in the era of globalization: Diversity and inter- communication from the perspective of 'complexity'". Noves SL. Revista de Socio- lingüística/Journal on Sociolinguistics. (Retrieved from http://www6.gencat.net/ llengcat/noves/hm02estiu/metodologia/a_bastardas1_9.htm). (Also in this book, part II, chapter 2).
-(2002c). "The ecological perspective: Benefits and risks for sociolinguistics and language policy and planning", in A. Fill, H. Penz, & W. Trampe (eds.), Colourful green ideas. Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 77-88.
-(2002d). "Llengua i noves migracions: les experiències canadenques i la situació a Catalunya", Revista de Llengua i Dret, 37, pp. 153-190.
-(2003). "Lingüística general: elementos para un paradigma integrador desde la perspectiva de complejidad", LinRed. (Retrieved from http://www2.uah.es/lin- red/articulos_pdf/LR_articulo_111120032.pdf).
-(2004). "La metàfora ecològica: possibilitats i límits per a l'aproximació socio- lingüística", in M. Pradilla Cardona (ed.), Calidoscopi lingüístic. Un debat entorn de les llengües de l'Estat (pp. 13-24). Barcelona: Octaedro/EUB.
-(2004b). "Subsidiarietat lingüística i funcions exclusives per al català". Barcelo- na: Avui, nov. 25, p. 21.
-(2004c) (ed.). Diversitats. Llengües, espècies i ecologies. Barcelona: Empúries.
Bastardas, A., & E. Boix (eds.) (1994). ¿Un estado, una lengua? La organización políti- ca de la diversidad lingüística. Barcelona: Octaedro.
Capra, F. (1997). La trama de la vida. Barcelona: Anagrama. (Spanish translation of The web of life. A new synthesis of mind and matter. Hammersmith, London: Fla- mingo, 1997).
Elias, N. (1982). Sociología fundamental. Barcelona: Gedisa.
Holland, J. H. (1998). Emergence. From chaos to order. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Pub- lishers.
Jacobs, J. (2001). The nature of economies. Toronto: Random House.
Lieberson, S., & A. S. Dil (1981). Language diversity and language contact. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Morin, E. (1992). Introduction à la pensée complexe. Paris: ESF.
Reales, L. (1999). "Una conversa amb Ramon Folch", Idees, 2, pp. 99-108.
Vilarroya, O. (2002). La disolución de la mente. Barcelona: Tusquets.
September 20, 2023
Albert Bastardas-Boada
Universitat de Barcelona, Emeritus
Professor of "Sociolinguistics" and "Language ecology, language sustainability, and language policy".
Coordinator of the research group of "Complexity, Communication and Socio/Linguistics", and director of the project "Globalization, Intercommunication, and Medium-Sized Language Communities".
Right now my main research interests are (socio)complexity theory, and language ecology and policy for a sustainable multilingualism in the global era.
ICREA Academia researcher (2010-2015). Director of the CUSC - University Center of Sociolinguistics and Communication, UB, from its foundation in 1998 to 2010. Member of the UBICS (Universitat de Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems).
Papers
254
Followers
2,488
View all papers from
Albert Bastardas-Boada
arrow_forward
Related papers
Linguistic sustainability for a multilingual humanity
Albert Bastardas-Boada
Glossa. An Interdisciplinary …, 2007
Transdisciplinary analogies and metaphors are potential useful tools for thinking and creativity. The exploration of other conceptual philosophies and fields can be rewarding and can contribute to produce new useful ideas to be applied on different problems and parts of reality (Holland). The development of the so-called 'sustainability'
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Linguistic sustainability and language ecology [Language sustainability and language ecology] [Sostenibilidad (sustentabilidad) lingüística y ecología de las lenguas] [Sostenibilitat lingüística i ecologia de les llengües]
Albert Bastardas-Boada
Language & Ecology, 3, 2005
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Factors, processes, and policies of a sustainable multilingualism in the 'glocal' age
Albert Bastardas-Boada
2014
One crucial aspect of a sustainability approach to linguistic diversity is the distinction between the causes of bilingualisation and those of the intergenerational language shift. As the Canadian sociologist Stanley Lieberson already observed many years ago, probably they are not exactly the same ones. Bilingualisation is perhaps a condition that is necessary but not sufficient to explain the evolution towards the intergenerational disuse of the local varieties. If we compare language shift processes with the cases of stable balance, such as for example the diglossia typical of German Switzerland, we find that very probably the reason for the relative stability of the cases of diglossic distribution must be sought inthe politico-cognitive dimension. The perception of dependence and, in consequence, of self-deprecation, taking a group or foreign cultural elements as a main referent of behaviour and of values, simply doesn’t need to take place. In order to be able to avoid or to act on the abandonment of languages by its bilingual or polyglot speakers, the main need will be to achieve an impact on their representations of reality. In cases where the speakers have arrived at an interiorising of negative evaluations regarding their L1, they will need to be exposed to a discourse and a situation that present alternatives which promote and dignify their language and their group.To promote the linguistic sustainability of a language in already bilingualized groups requires the maintenance and development of a language’s normal functions within its own geo-social space so that those who speak it retain a highly positive image and feel assured and rewarded as regards their identity. One of the basic principles underlying linguistic sustainability could be funcional subsidiarity, i.e., whatever can be done by the local or group language should not be done by another one which is more global. In other words, the native languages of human communities should, by default, carry out the majority of daily functions, while only those functions of a strictly supra-group nature should be addressed through more widely shared languages. From this point of view, the sustainable character of a massive bilingualisation comes from the comparison between the degree of valuation and functions of the Language that is not originally that of the group (L2) and that of the language that is originally that of the group (L1). If the first is lower, the contact massive and the bilingualisation are sustainable. If it is greater, the bilingualisation is not sustainable and the language original to the group will degrade and disappear in a few decades.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Towards a 'language sustainability': Concepts, principles, and problems of human communicative organisation in the twenty-first century [Hacia una 'sostenibilidad lingüística': conceptos, principios y problemas de la organización de la comunicación humana en el siglo veintiuno]
Albert Bastardas-Boada
Dialogue on Linguistic diversity, sustainability and peace. Forum 2004, Barcelona., 2004
Would there be some way of transferring the procedures and the conciliating conceptualisation of ‘sustainability’ to the language field, and combine the competence and use both of languages of greater communicative scope and group tongues? An ecological and egalitarian perspective on linguistic diversity would have aim to stop and reverse expansionist and dominating ideologies. To put an end to the value hierarchy implied by the belief in linguistic superiority/inferiority is equally urgent and just. Passing into another historical phase of humankind where the predominant vision would be one of recognising the equal dignity of all languages and linguistic groups is, clearly, an aim that cannot be put off. To paraphrase Ramon Folch, we could say that lingüístic sustainability should be a process of gradual transformation from the current model of the linguistic organisation of the human species, a transformation whose objective would be to avoid that collective bilingualism or polyglottism of human beings must require theabandonment by different cultural groups of their own languages. Basically, the ideology opposed to this would come from the negative human tendency for dichotomous thinking: black or white, one language or the other. Today, however, from the paradigma of complexity we know that there are other possibilities. We can imagine new concepts and design new principles of organisation.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Principles of language sustainability
Martin Ehala
Lang, V. & Kull, K. (eds) Estonian Approaches to Culture Theory. Approaches to Culture Theory 4, 88–106. University of Tartu Press, Tartu., 2014
The paper argues that language communities can be conceptualised as autopoietic systems aimed at their own reproduction, i.e. ensuring their own sustainability in time. Factors influencing language sustainability can be divided into three wide-ranging categories: (1) factors of the external environment, (2) factors of the internal environment, (3) ethnolinguistic vitality of the community. Like biological species that are unable to adapt to the changing environment, cultures and languages also become extinct when they are unable to function in the changed environment. To react to the changes in the external environment and to preserve their integrity, language communities attempt to develop their internal environment (social institutions) as fully as possible. The strength of the internal environment depends, crucially, on the third factor: the subjective ethnolinguistic vitality of the community, i.e. its ability to behave in interethnic communication as a distinctive collective entity. The article outlines the main components of all three sustainability factors and characterises their interaction.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Sustainable multilingualism 2021. Book of abstracts. The 6th international conference
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aurelija Daukšaitė-Kolpakovienė
2021
This book of abstracts includes all the abstracts of the papers presented at the 6th international conference “Sustainable Multilingualism 2021”. This time its participants were not able to meet in person at the premises of Vytautas Magnus University, but the online environment turned out to be a very welcomed solution leading to a great success
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Maintaining Local Language Sustainability in the Global Communication Era
FITRI PERDANA
Research and Innovation in Language Learning, 2018
Globalization synonymous with changes in all sociocultural aspects of human life, including languages. The use of local languages as a medium of communication shifted by the national language and English that became dominant. The local language seems to be a rare item, as it is not easy to find families who teach local languages to their children. Attempts to maintain the local language never stop. One of them is through writing. A number of writers in Bandung still write in Sundanese, although quantitatively, the readers are few. This study aims to reveal the motives of 8 writers produce writing in Sundanese and how their efforts to keep generating ideas for their writing. Based on the qualitative-phenomenology method used, this study reveals, the motives of the writers to produce works in Sundanese is the idealism as individuals born and raised in the Sundanese society. They feel they have a responsibility to maintain the existence of Sundanese in the community of native speakers....
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
World language policy in the era of globalization: Diversity and intercommunication from the perspective of 'complexity' [Política lingüística mundial en la era de la globalización: diversidad e intercomunicación desde la perspectiva de la 'complejidad']
Albert Bastardas-Boada
Noves SL. Revista de Sociolingüística (Barcelona), 2002
The extraordinary tendency of human beings to think in terms of dichotomies could be the root of the problem. In the past, and even nowadays, this tendency to think in terms of dichotomies seems to have dominated the view of language contact, thus making it impossible for all groups concerned to live in more harmonious contentment. The vast majority of states seem to find it impossible or very difficult to structure themselves politically in a way that would permit both the continuity of the linguistic life of their constituent groups and the intercommunication necessary for common living between these groups. The great majority seem to choose one over the other: they either impose a single official language for all groups, without recognizing the diversity (and often explicitly against this), or the existing linguistic groups are recognised but the matter of intercommunication is not resolved satisfactorily. It is hard to believe that either option can have a future in the current era of mankind: against the background of positive growth of the democratic and egalitarian conscience of human groups and the dignity of each and every one of these,historical groups that have been thus far subordinated will not sit back and allow the introduction of solutions condemning them to a reduced linguistic existence when this could be full and normal. Moreover, a political and linguistic organisation that does not consider the forms of intercommunication between its components in the best possible way is not sustainable.Thus, there is no alternative but to explore imaginatively other forms of political and linguistic organisation that could make the two objectives above compatible: preserving the linguistic diversity and dignity of all historical linguistic groups, while ensuring fluent intercommunication and a feeling of solidarity among our species.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Eco-linguistics: the integrity and diversity of language systems
Shubham Karmakar
Jadavpur Journal of Languages and Linguistics ISSN: 2581-494X, 2020
Under the wave of the increasing reach of the English language in the era of globalisation, the linguistic diversity of human society is in crisis and many languages are facing disappearance. This feature and the disappearance of ecological diversity are both imminent issues. This article attempts to analyse the crisis of linguistic diversity using the perspective of ecological linguistics and explore the relationship between linguistic diversity and ecological diversity. With the disappearance of the native language, the knowledge embedded in the language of some indigenous groups also disappeared, which is closely related to the ecological destruction of the area where they are located, and the cultural aggression encountered by the native society. This article initiates a discussion on the ecological and linguistic diversity, how human society should preserve both in order to get benefited, furthermore, it analyses the present sit
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Language and Sustainability. In: Rose Marie Beck (ed.). 2013. The Role of Languages for Development in Africa: Micro and Macro Perspectives. (= Frankfurter Afrikanistische Blätter 20 [2008]). Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe. 15-61
Thomas Bearth
The paper explains and illustrates the theoretical concepts of communicative sustainability and its correlate, communicative dependency. A case study from Western Ivory Coast (Tura, Southern Mande) gives substance, local resonance and credibility to the far-reaching theoretical and practical claims derived from these concepts. As the syndrome of dominant language bias (DLB) looses its grip on a local population during the Ivorian crisis, a new rationality emerges from the abyss of socio-political disaster which, by drawing on locally available cultural and communicative resources including local language, leads to resilience and a broadly supported - and officially recognized - post-crisis balance between economic and ecologic objectives.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Related topics
Language revitalization
Sociology of Language
Sociolinguistics
Endangered Languages
Minority Languages
Language Ecology
Language Policy
Language Maintenance and Shift
Bilingualism and Multilingualism
Ecology of languages
Linguistic Sustainability
Indigenous Language Revitalization
Language Sustainability
Explore
Papers
Topics
Features
Mentions
Analytics
PDF Packages
Advanced Search
Search Alerts
Journals
Academia.edu Journals
My submissions
Reviewer Hub
Why publish with us
Testimonials
Company
About
Careers
Press
Content Policy
580 California St., Suite 400
San Francisco, CA, 94104