Constitutionalising Language A Dialogue

T h e P o w e r o f O u r W o r d s | 1

The language issue within the European constitutional space is one of the most fascinating challenges to supranational integration. On the one hand, the principle of equal standing of all official and working languages is constantly reaffirmed; on the other hand the necessity to simplify the European Babel on the basis of a more functional consideration of the language issue seems unavoidable. Several solutions have been proposed both by scholars and by European institutions. The paper argues that there is an intimate contradiction in today’s linguistic policy in the EU, oscillating between the need to simplification and the constitutional duty to respect linguistic pluralism as imposed by the member states. In fact, the language issue is just the mirror of the constitutional law of integration as a whole. Looking closer at the constitutional dimension of supranational integration cal help better address the language issue too. The analysis is divided in four parts, dealing respectively with the role and the limits of law in matters of language, the present allocation of competences in language-issues, the development of the concept of “integrated constitutional space”, and its legal nature under the viewpoint of the language dimension, elaborating some tentative proposals.

2006

The language issue within the European constitutional space is one of the most fascinating challenges to supranational integration. On the one hand, the principle of equal standing of all official and working languages is constantly reaffirmed; on the other hand the necessity to simplify the European Babel on the basis of a more functional consideration of the language issue seems unavoidable. Several solutions have been proposed both by scholars and by European institutions. The paper argues that there is an intimate contradiction in today's linguistic policy in the EU, oscillating between the need to simplification and the constitutional duty to respect linguistic pluralism as imposed by the member states. In fact, the language issue is just the mirror of the constitutional law of integration as a whole. Looking closer at the constitutional dimension of supranational integration cal help better address the language issue too. The analysis is divided in four parts, dealing respectively with the role and the limits of law in matters of language, the present allocation of competences in language-issues, the development of the concept of "integrated constitutional space", and its legal nature under the viewpoint of the language dimension, elaborating some tentative proposals.

Constellations, 2004

PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International …, 2008

Nations and Nationalism, 2008

In contrast to the abstract commitment to individual rights found in liberal critics of Bill 101 and the equally ahistorical approach of multicultural theorists like Bhikhu Parekh, this paper proposes that the particular historical circumstances surrounding the current minority status of different groups is crucial in evaluating the legitimacy of one cultural group to promote its cultural needs over another group within existing states. When the culture of a group residing within a particular state is secure in a neighbouring jurisdiction, the issue at stake is not necessarily the survival of a unique culture but the cultural needs of particular individuals. It does not follow that they have no legitimate claims against the state. However, in examining the language policies in Quebec and the newly independent Baltic states, it is argued that they are different in kind to the rights due to long-standing communities struggling for linguistic survival.

2018

In t r o d u c t io n ^ J ations, lan g u a g es, or states are so much part and parcel of the world in which we live nowadays that we hardly ever spare them a thought. These categories appear "transparent" to us, the "natural" building blocks1 from which our (social) world is composed, or-more aptly-constructed.2 Scholarly lit­ erature frequently suggests that a configuration of these three elements is the cornerstone of nationalism, or the sole ideology of statehood and peoplehood legitimation in today's world after the completion of decolonization and follow­ ing the breakup of the ideologically nonnational polity of the Soviet Union in the second half of the twentieth century. From the human perspective today's world is made of nation-states; the planet' s all inhabited and habitable landmass neatly apportioned among the extant polities. In this study, first, I aspire to "de-naturalize" the categories of nation, (a) language,3 and state (but I exclude from the analysis substate, suprastate, or "not-state-endow ed" nations and nationalisms). On this basis, I reflect on ethnic nationalism as a subspecies of the ideology of nationalism. According to common opinion, ethnic nationalism is quite closely, though in a largely unde­ fined and vague manner, associated with Central (and Eastern) Europe.4 In this pattern of things, the importance of language is customarily emphasized, often by reference to the seminal but rather rambling work Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1784-91 (Outlines o f a Philosophy of the History o f I thank Andrea Graziosi, Michael Flier, and Frank Sysyn for their invaluable sug­ gestions and lengthy discussion of this article's argument, which allowed me to improve it considerably. Obviously, the responsibility is mine for any remaining infelicities.

International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2000

This paper investigates language policy and ideology in present-day Italy by adopting a domain approach, i.e. an approach examining the interrelation among language practices, language beliefs and language management activities in specific domains of language use (Spolsky 2009a). The complex interrelation between the various languages and language varieties in contact will be explored by reporting a few examples of actual language practices. I will discuss, first of all, the possibility of assigning constitutional officiality to Italian in the changing national political scenario. The next section will be devoted the policy governing language use in the public linguistic space, with a special focus on written materials, radio and television broadcasting, and computer mediated communication. This will be followed by a section on language policy within the educational system, which is generally considered to be a crucial domain in the ecology of any speech community. The relationship between the development of the Italian nation state since political unification in 1861 and Italian as the national language will also be explored; the process of "Italianization" aimed at the eradication of Italo-Romance dialects as elements of political disunity will be pointed out as a crucial aspect in the linguistic ecology of the nation.

The Classical Review