Juan F. Perea
Official English Laws Demography And Distrust:
An Essay On American Languages, Cultural Pluralism, And Official
English, 77 Minn. L. Rev. 269, 250-256 (December 1992)(Excerpted,
Citations Omitted).
Copyright (C) Jaun F. Perea 1992
. . . Language is both our principal means of communication
and a social symbol, malleable and capable of manipulation for
the achievement of social or political goals. As one scholar
states,
[t]here is of course no such thing as an 'apolitical'
language as there is no such thing as an 'apolitical'
person.... Politics is human relations, and language is an
organic component of such relations. It is simply impossible
to disassociate languages from the contexts in which they
are learned and used.
For this reason a study of context, for our purposes the history
of the legal treatment of ethnicity and different American
languages, is fundamental for an understanding of the symbolic
meaning of language.
The context contains many components, social and legal. In
America we have (and always have had) a situation where many
languages coexist, with the English language dominant. Spanish,
for example, is the second most-used American language.
Sociolinguists sometimes refer to this situation as diglossia,
defined as "[a] situation where two languages coexist in the
same speech community but differ in domains of use, attitudes
toward each, and patterns of acquisition and proficiency."
As we can infer from this definition, coexistence does not imply
equal dominance, prestige, or spheres of influence.
Discussions of different languages and other aspects of
ethnicity are discussions of human differences. And "it is
almost an axiom of human society that ... [h]ierarchy is found
everywhere superimposed upon difference." So it is with
languages. Different languages have very different prestige
values in our society. These differences in prestige manifest
themselves through bias, conscious or unconscious, for or against
certain languages.
The perceived intelligibility, for example, of languages is
influenced by these prestige rankings. For instance, if the
people who speak a particular language have prestige and power,
people perceive their language as easy to understand. Conversely,
the languages of groups perceived as lacking in prestige and
power, or groups who are the objects of prejudice, are often
perceived as difficult to understand.
Discourse itself, the expression of ideas, and the ordering of
discourse, who gets to express ideas, who gets to express them
first, and which ideas get expressed, also reflect hierarchy and
relationships of power in society. As Michel Foucault wrote,
"as history constantly teaches us, discourse is not simply
that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is
the thing for which and by which there is struggle .... [D]iscourse
is the power which is to be seized." For example, access to
public forums or the press is an ample power indeed. The presence
or absence of certain languages, their encouragement within or
elimination from certain public forums, like the ballot in public
elections, reflect the results of this struggle and the presence
or absence of domination. Furthermore, discourse and the order of
discourse are governed by ritual, and are thus endowed with
social significance. Accordingly, we pay more attention to those
discourses made significant through rituals with social sanction
than to others.
There are rules, formal and informal, conscious and
unconscious, governing our discourse: "[I]n every society
the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected,
organized and redistributed by a certain number of procedures
whose role is to ward off its powers and dangers." These
principles, expressed in the context of discourse within a single
language, apply with equal force to discourse in different
languages, for a multilingual society must allocate its
discourses and maintain rules to govern discourses in different
languages. Legal rules or sanctions regarding discourse or the
proper languages of discourse thus control that discourse and
create hierarchy in the power of discourse.
To some extent, language usage is self-regulating and reflects
existing hierarchy. Speech communities may be defined as "[t]hose
with whom we share a consensus about language structure, language
use, and norms for interaction ... [and communities] within which
we expect speaker intent and listener comprehension to
mesh." Speech communities generally know and define
appropriate rules for the use of different languages at different
times. These rules can be both formal, as in a statutory rule,
and informal, such as the unwritten rules governing the
overwhelming number of economic and social situations in which
English would be considered the appropriate language to use. The
importance of informal English-language requirements should not
be underestimated: knowledge of English is essential to success
in the economy, in education, and in society. These are powerful
incentives that have always led immigrant peoples to acquire
English.
Furthermore, government can manipulate differences in language
competence for political purposes, such as by controlling access
to power by requiring certain degrees of language competence so
particular groups are favored and others disfavored.
"Requiring a functional knowledge of the language for
participation in political arenas in effect defines a boundary
which impedes the political access of some citizens." The
official English movement aims to regulate access to the
political process through language in this manner.
The symbolic value of a particular language can be made
important as an aspect of nationalism. Furthermore, political
problems are often sublimated into language problems. Language is
often the bearer of strains and problems not related to
communication. Despite its use as a symbol of nationalism,
language is a poor proxy for political unity. As one writer has
noted, "[c]ommunity of language and culture ... does not
necessarily give rise to political unity, any more than
linguistic and cultural dissimilarity prevents political
unity." Political structures, therefore, are "not
necessarily coterminous with language communities." Given
the symbolic and psychological values attached to language,
important psychological consequences result when the government
intervenes and establishes language policies. As one scholar has
explained, one should not minimize the psychological effects
which language policies handed down from above have upon
individuals. One's language is intimately associated with the
individual; new languages are difficult to learn; and language is
a particularly easy tool to use in political control. Therefore,
when language policies establish boundaries between people and
government the effects are likely to be quite significant:
alienation, distancing, and political impotence.... Thus,
language can be used not only to establish real boundaries but
communicate attitudes and feelings of government toward people as
well.
In a democracy, the attitudes and feelings of
"government" are those of the majority or its
representatives. Thus the majority can manipulate language and
language laws to express its approval or disapproval of favored
or disfavored groups within the society.
Often in our society favored and disfavored groups are defined
by their ethnicity: race, national origin, religion, ancestry,
and language. Language often has been the basis for
discrimination against groups whose language is not English.
Language is a fundamental symbol of ethnicity. As Joshua Fishman
has written, [b]y its very nature language is the quintessential
symbol, the symbol par excellence.... ... [It] is more likely
than most symbols of ethnicity to become the symbol of ethnicity.
Language is the recorder of paternity, the expresser of patrimony
and the carrier of phenomenology. Any vehicle carrying such
precious freight must come to be viewed as equally precious in
and of itself. The link between language and ethnicity is thus
one of sanctity-by- association.... Anything can become symbolic
of ethnicity ... but since language is the prime symbol system to
begin with and since it is commonly relied upon so heavily (even
if not exclusively) to enact, celebrate and "call
forth" all ethnic activity, the likelihood that it will be
recognized and singled out as symbolic of ethnicity is great
indeed.... [I]ndeed, it becomes a prime ethnic value in and of
itself.
Language is thus a crucial symbol of ethnicity. This is just
as true of English as of Spanish or any other language. English
is a crucial symbol of the ethnicity of America's dominant core
culture. Language can be a symbol of group status, a symbol of
dominance, and a symbol of participation in or exclusion from the
political process. Campaigns to make a language standard or
official can thus be seen as attempts to create or reinforce the
dominance of the culture of which the language forms an integral
part. [Back]
[Back]
|