ABSTRACT
Minority Language Rights May (2003) provides a comprehensive overview of the issues surrounding minority language rights (MLR). He supports the arguments for MLR but notes that the arguments offered have usually been situated within the language and theorizing of biological and ecological contexts – the language ecology movement. He argues that rather than view language rights through this context, which belabors the negativity of language loss, endangerment, and the inevitability of language death if languages are not supported, a shift to viewing these matters through sociohistorical and sociopolitical lenses provides a more stable argument for language rights (p. 96). Advocates for linguistic human rights argue that these are also an extension of basic human rights (Wee, 2010, p. 49). The essentialist model of language rights is made through the link between language and identity: without the language, elements of the culture are lost, or misunderstood. In this model, language is still considered the primary means of transmitting the values and beliefs of a culture from one generation to the next (Fishman, 2001; Marsden, 2003; Ngaha, 2011). The danger, as articulated by May (2003), is that such a model can present a romanticized view of the language that suggests an idealistic view of reversing language shift and may promote unrealistic language maintenance goals and objectives. May is concerned that in the push for MLR, proponents inadvertently provide opportunities for their critics to promote instead a mobility argument. In that argument, minority languages, because they are unsupported in the majority language society, cannot provide access to opportunities that are available to speakers of the more powerful majority language. These inequities highlight the power relations that are evident in society and are often catalysts for initiating community activism. Detractors of the essentialist view argue that language is but one element of identity, that markers of identity can change over time, and that language therefore cannot be considered a core value of identity (Edwards, 1985; Kuter, 1989; Nash, 1987). Song (2003) suggests that a more “pervasive marker of identity is that sense of belonging which includes having a common history” (p. 14). This lends weight to the argument for situating MLR discourse within a sociohistorical and sociopolitical framework, but it also assists the push for nationhood and establishing a national or universal language within any given community detracting from equity arguments for minority languages. If we consider that language performance provides indicators of identity that are always situated within particular contexts (Mullany, 2006, pp. 157-159; Omoniyi, 2006, p. 13; Tabouret-Keller, 1997, p. 315) then placing MLR arguments in the sociohistorical and sociopolitical arena may well serve to take the emotive and romanticized elements out of the argument for MLR. McIntosh (2005) and Omoniyi and White (2006) maintain that identity formation provides a frame of reference, “a point of departure from which we can assemble and negotiate who we are” (Ngaha, 2011, p. 15). That frame of reference allows for some retention of values and beliefs, markers of identity such as language, or discarding of such markers as appropriate for the circumstance of the individual. Ngaha (2011) promotes a flexible and fluid model of identity
where language is one of a number of markers of identity that become more or less pronounced according to the circumstance of the individual at any one moment in time. Borell (2005) notes how participants in her study of Māori youth in South Auckland chose locality as a more appropriate defining feature of their identity than te reo, their traditional language. And, when choices are made about which language is used in specific contexts, the individual chooses the language best suited to her or his particular context and circumstance – what Edwards (1985) describes as “economic rationality.” This discussion highlights the position that minority languages find themselves in, where language shift is more pronounced when the minority language has severely limited support in society, and language survival is determined through the unequal distribution of power relations within that society. Minority languages are constantly battling to avoid being subsumed and acculturated into the majority language society, where policies and practices invariably privilege the majority languages. May (2003) urges that the battle for MLR continue, for it is imperative that minority language proponents take an active role in helping make change by challenging the social and political arena that seeks to deny these rights. It is only by being a part of the process that the balance of power can be altered.
