Revista Alteridades|
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Revista Alteridades
Fecha
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Introducción. Derechos humanos lingüÃsticos en sociedades multiculturales hot!
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El tema de los derechos lingüísticos irrumpe sólo en años recientes en los escenarios políticos y científicos; está tomando cuerpo y se está transformando en un instrumento de lucha cada vez más importante para proteger las lenguas subordinadas y a sus hablantes, como parte integral de las reivindicaciones de pueblos originarios y minorías etnolingüísticas inmigrantes. Los derechos lingüísticos forman parte integral de los derechos humanos fundamentales, tanto individuales como colectivos. Se refieren a aquellas prerrogativas que parecen atributos naturales y evidentes para todos los miembros de las mayorías lingüísticas dominantes: el derecho a usar su propia lengua en cualquier contexto cotidiano y oficial, particularmente en la educación, como también el derecho a que las opciones lingüísticas del sujeto sean respetadas y que éste no sufra discriminación alguna por la lengua que habla. Sin embargo, en el mundo de hoy, sólo los hablantes de quizás 400 o 500 lenguas gozan de estos privilegios, y muchas veces únicamente en los territorios históricos de sus lenguas. Más del noventa por ciento de las lenguas del mundo —aproximadamente 6,500 según las clasificaciones más altas— no tiene ningún status oficial.
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Introducción. Derechos lingüÃsticos como derechos humanos: debates y perspectivashot!
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Rainer Enrique Hamel. Introduction. Linguistic rights as human rights: debates and perspectives.
The article introduces the volume and reviews the present debate about linguistic human rights. Starting with some basic definitions, it traces the development of the concept and locates it within the framework of fundamental human rights in their second and third generation. The author sustains that international covenant have had relatively little impact on the defense of minority languages in the past, which is in part due to the ambiguous status of linguistic rights —as the right of expression and the right of communication. Although the issue is controversial, the article states that there is a growing consciousness that linguistic rights can only be fully granted if their collective (in addition to their individual) dimension is acknowledged. The right to communicate in one’s own language can only be enjoyed by a community of speakers, not by an isolated individual. The acceptance of collective rights, however, runs counter the traditional concept of a homogeneous nation state, and can only be based on a pluriethnic, pluralistic concept of society which recognizes ethnolinguistic minorities as at least partially autonomous peoples inside the state. The article then revises the development of sociolinguistics and concludes that —until recently— there has been little interest in legal questions within the discipline. Language politics and planning have rarely taken up a language rights perspective, and have limited their scope to explicit interventions by the state. Therefore more interdisciplinary research is needed in order to understand the nature of linguistic conflicts, to identify specific needs of linguistic minorities, and to point out the violation of linguistic human rights, as well as ‘perverse’ effects of language planning. The author suggests that a broad sociolinguistic approach which encompasses both planned and unplanned interventions on languages could set the stage to arrive at a better understanding of how linguistic human rights operate, how they are enjoyed or violated.
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Bilingües y bilingüismo en los Estados Unidos: la polÃtica lingüÃstica en una época antiinmigrantehot!
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Guadalupe Valdés. Bilinguals and Bilingualism: Language Policy in an Anti-Immigrant Age.
In monolingual nation-states, problems do not end for members of linguistic minority groups when they become speakers of the societal language. This is especially the case in immigrant nations during those periods in which anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise. This paper examines the policy problems that confront members of such immigrant groups by examining the case of Latinos in the United States. It argues that this population’s well-being is almost exclusively in the hands of English-speaking monolingual individuals who as recent legal decisions illustrate (e. g., Cota v. Tucson Police Department, Perez v. F.B.I, Hernandez v. New York) - have little or no understanding of the condition of bilingualism and little sympathy for the problems encountered by immigrant populations. The paper includes a discussion of a number of different language issues that have been encountered by the Latino population in this country within the legal, employment, and educational domains, as well as an outline of concerns and questions that need to be examined by those who are concerned about the language rights of minority populations.
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Trabajadores bilingües y reglas de uso de las lenguas en el lugar de trabajo: un estudio de caso...hot!
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Reynaldo F. Macías. Trabajadores bilingües y reglas de uso de las lenguas en el lugar de trabajo: un estudio de caso de una política lingüística no discriminatoria en California
Bilingual workers and language use rules in the workplace: a case study of a nondiscriminatory language policy.Language diversity has been increasing again throughout the United States since 1965, partly the result of major changes in immigration, foreign language and civil rights laws. As a result of this diversity, language issues have arisen in the workplace requiring policy attention. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission adopted rules in 1979 governing when and under what conditions these workplace policies could require that only English be spoken by employees. Consent agreements and litigation brought under this “English-only” rule have resulted in a number of decisions that have assumed certain things about bilingualism and bilinguals, as well as about language attitudes and monolinguals. While not all of these decisions have been uniform, some of these assumptions have raised the following questions: (l) How does bilingual speech affect work performance? and (2) To what extent do English monolinguals need “protection” from hearing non- English languages around them (whether as clients or employees in a work situation)? This paper reviews a selected case of an urban, university based hospital, which successfully solved a conflict over an English-only rule, to look at some of these questions. It found, among other things, that language attitudes were a key component to inter group relations and language status. Non-English languages were the focus of unfounded English monolingual “fears” and “paranoia. “ A workshop taking many cross-cultural communication strategies can be successful in improving these relationships.
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