This module explores language issues in human rights and linguistic approaches to them, using sociolinguistics as an empirical, comparative core discipline. Students will learn:
* Which human rights are linguistic in nature (whole or part)
* Whether and how language rights qualify as basic HR
* What sorts of conflicts occur around language, and why
* How scholars from different disciplines approach conflicts over language
* How language rights are negotiated in institutional contexts such as the courts, government policy, legislation, schools, healthcare organisations, also language planning through national and international bodies and organisations.
Language is often viewed as manifesting a close relationship with social categories like race, nationality, ethnicity, class, regional origin, & gender. These associations are problematic, both practically for speakers asserting or negotiating their social identity, access to services & human rights; and theoretically for scholars investigating areas such as citizenship & political participation, (im)migration, indigenous peoples/cultures, language extinction, globalization, maintenance/crossing of ethnic boundaries, mass media discourse, the construction of gender ideologies, literacy & development, equal opportunity in the workplace, etc.
We introduce a broad human rights framework, and a sociolinguistic approach to language use and speaker identity. We survey important topics in language rights, focus on the types of conflicts which occur around language, consider the principles upon which they can be understood and investigated, and examine efforts at solutions, as well as locating attempts to identify and make language rights manifest within a broad context of national and international agreements.
* Which human rights are linguistic in nature (whole or part)
* Whether and how language rights qualify as basic HR
* What sorts of conflicts occur around language, and why
* How scholars from different disciplines approach conflicts over language
* How language rights are negotiated in institutional contexts such as the courts, government policy, legislation, schools, healthcare organisations, also language planning through national and international bodies and organisations.
Language is often viewed as manifesting a close relationship with social categories like race, nationality, ethnicity, class, regional origin, & gender. These associations are problematic, both practically for speakers asserting or negotiating their social identity, access to services & human rights; and theoretically for scholars investigating areas such as citizenship & political participation, (im)migration, indigenous peoples/cultures, language extinction, globalization, maintenance/crossing of ethnic boundaries, mass media discourse, the construction of gender ideologies, literacy & development, equal opportunity in the workplace, etc.
We introduce a broad human rights framework, and a sociolinguistic approach to language use and speaker identity. We survey important topics in language rights, focus on the types of conflicts which occur around language, consider the principles upon which they can be understood and investigated, and examine efforts at solutions, as well as locating attempts to identify and make language rights manifest within a broad context of national and international agreements.