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dc.contributor.authorMay, Stephenen_US
dc.date.accessioned2008-03-19T05:01:51Z
dc.date.available2007-08-12en_US
dc.date.available2008-03-19T05:01:51Z
dc.date.issued2003-01-01en_US
dc.identifier.citationMay, S. (2003). Rearticulating the case for minority language rights. Current Issues in Language Planning. 4(2), 95-125.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10289/528
dc.description.abstractWhile advocacy of minority language rights (MLR) has become well established in sociolinguistics, language policy and planning and the wider human rights literature, it has also come under increased criticism in recent times for a number of key limitations. In this paper, I address directly three current key criticisms of the MLR movement. The first is a perceived tendency towards essentialism in articulations of language rights. The second is the apparent utopianism and artificiality of 'reversing language shift' in the face of wider social and political 'realities'. And the third is that the individual mobility of minority-language speakers is far better served by shifting to a majority language. While acknowledging the perspicacity of some of these arguments, I aim to rearticulate a defence of minority language rights that effectively addresses these key concerns. This requires, however, a sociohistorical/sociopolitical rather than a biological/ecological analysis of MLR. In addition, I will argue that a sociohistorical/sociopolitical defence of MLR can problematise the positions often adopted by minority language rights' critics themselves, particularly those who defend majoritarian forms of linguistic essentialism and those who sever the instrumental/identity aspects of language. Implications for language policy and planning will also be discussed.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoen
dc.relation.urihttp://www.multilingual-matters.net/cilp/004/cilp0040095.htmen_US
dc.rightsThe final, definitive version of this article has been published in the journal, Current Issues in Language Planning, published by Multilingual Matters. (c) S. May 2003.en_US
dc.subjectlanguage rightsen_US
dc.subjectlinguistic ecologyen_US
dc.subjectminority languagesen_US
dc.titleRearticulating the case for minority language rightsen_US
dc.typeJournal Articleen_US


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