The language problem of minorities in a homogeneous state.

In this paper, I aim at presenting the language situation of some regional minorities in Poland: Silesians (Ślązacy), Kashubians (Kaszubi) and the residents of Wilamowice. Protection of language minorities is extremely important from the point of view of cultural development of countries. Throughout a long period of its existence, Poland has been a multi-cultural country populated by representatives of different national, regional and ethnic groups. However, the national and ethnic situation of Poland changed radically after the Second World War. Today Poland is one of the most homogenous states not only in Europe but also worldwide. However, Poland is not free from the discussion about minority rights. Shaping a strong regional identity, which was particularly true for the Silesians and Kashubians and residents of Wilamowice, was a social and cultural phenomenon, completely unknown in the long history of Poland. The Act on national and ethnic minorities and on the regional languages dated January 6, 2005, allows to use of Kashubian language as a “supporting language” before the municipality authorities, the smallest ad-ministrative unit. The other obvious point of this description concerns the demanding of similar linguistic rights by Silesians. The study also highlights the efforts of the residents of Wilamowice to preserve their unique language.

Linguistic territoriality under stress

This article revisits a well-known dichotomy (the ‘territorial’ and ‘personal’ principles) and develops a four-element classification of state approaches (from the most generous to the most menacing, from the perspective of speakers of minority languages). The article examines the implications for language policy of geographically dispersed or spatially concentrated patterns of distribution of speakers of particular languages. We begin by exploring the general literature on language policy, focusing in particular on the territorial and personal principles, the use of ‘threshold rules’ at municipal and other subnational levels, and the hybrid language regimes that are often a consequence of sociolinguistic complexity. We consider the extent to which responses to linguistic diversity across Europe may be understood by reference to these principles and categories. We explain why we have selected particular case studies (the Baltic republics, Transylvania, Switzerland, Belgium and Ireland) for further exploration. We conclude that, notwithstanding the value of the typologies we consider, real-life cases are almost invariably more complex, with states implementing policies that defy categorisation, that may change over time, and that may treat different language minorities by reference to different principles.

Język kaszubski – analiza sytuacji socjolingwistycznej

In this paper, the author presents the language situation of the Kashubian community, and in particular the role of the Kashubian language as the main indicator of the Kashubian identity. Nowadays, the role of the Kashubian language is primarily symbolic: it is used as an everyday communication tool less and less frequently. Despite that, literature is written in this language, each education level is available: from primary school to studies of Kashubian ethnophilology at the University of Gdańsk. The author has depicted the sociolinguistic situation of the Kashubian language, i.e. the regional language in Kashubia, and presented the results of the national censuses carried out in the 21st century and their consequences for the Kashubian community, which does not have the offi cial status of either ethnic or national minority. She has also briefl y described the Polish state policy towards ethnic/national and language minorities.

Moving beyond Asocial Minority-Language Policy

This paper exams how asocial symbolic minority-language policy contributes to the social processes of language shift from the perspective of highly threatened languages, such as Scottish Gaelic. In introducing the concept of language shift through Asocial Minority-Language Policy, we argue that symbolic minority-language policy is detrimental to threatened language minorities in that it is ideologically implicated in language shift when it neglects the societal circumstances of minority-language decline. The prioritisation of the symbolic aspect of language policy also hinders a value-for-money approach to official provision for the minority group. This paper calls for a materialist/functionalist approach to minority-language societal regeneration to counter the social irrelevance of symbolic policy. We suggest policy options for moving beyond the symbolic focus on the minority-language condition.

From Yasashii Nihongo in non-disaster times towards a plurilingual language education approach: an outlook from the perspective of “reasonable accommodation”

In order to address labor shortages, starting April 2019 the Japanese government introduced two new visa categories, and it can be expected that the growing number of foreign residents living and working in Japan will be increasing further in the foreseeable future. Within this context, the notion of Yasashii Nihongo or Simplified Japanese has been gaining attention over recent years. Originally designed as a tool for transmitting information in disaster-related situations and proposed for disaster mitigation purposes, at present it is being advocated as a means of communication to be used in non-disaster situations as well. The authors argue that ultimately Yasashii Nihongo for non-disaster situations may be just a means to an end. Seen from the perspective of “reasonable accommodation”, a concept prevalent in the domain of disability studies, they assert that by de facto creating a new linguistic category making it a tacit prerequisite to communicate in “Japanese only”, Yasashii Nihongo is but a concept geared towards the language majority (speakers using Japanese as their first language) and is potentially serving no other purpose than to alleviate the psychological burden of having to speak in a language other than Japanese, thus potentially leading to a new form of discrimination towards language minorities. Offering an alternative approach for improving multicultural communication aimed at establishing a communicative space based on openness, equality, and mutual respect for each other’s cultural, linguistic and ethnic identities, the authors propose the introduction of language education based on the notion of plurilingualism, as outlined in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) by the Council of Europe.

From Yasashii Nihongo in non-disaster times towards a plurilingual language education approach: an outlook from the perspective of “reasonable accommodation”

In order to address labor shortages, starting April 2019 the Japanese government introduced two new visa categories, and it can be expected that the growing number of foreign residents living and working in Japan will be increasing further in the foreseeable future. Within this context, the notion of Yasashii Nihongo or Simplified Japanese has been gaining attention over recent years. Originally designed as a tool for transmitting information in disaster-related situations and proposed for disaster mitigation purposes, at present it is being advocated as a means of communication to be used in non-disaster situations as well. The authors argue that ultimately Yasashii Nihongo for non-disaster situations may be just a means to an end. Seen from the perspective of “reasonable accommodation”, a concept prevalent in the domain of disability studies, they assert that by de facto creating a new linguistic category making it a tacit prerequisite to communicate in “Japanese only”, Yasashii Nihongo is but a concept geared towards the language majority (speakers using Japanese as their first language) and is potentially serving no other purpose than to alleviate the psychological burden of having to speak in a language other than Japanese, thus potentially leading to a new form of discrimination towards language minorities. Offering an alternative approach for improving multicultural communication aimed at establishing a communicative space based on openness, equality, and mutual respect for each other’s cultural, linguistic and ethnic identities, the authors propose the introduction of language education based on the notion of plurilingualism, as outlined in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) by the Council of Europe.

Raising Awareness of Language Minorities in Japan

Understanding how power functions in relation to teaching and learning languages can provide a clearer picture of language learning. As majorities can control minorities culturally and politically, minorities often suffer language discrimination. Although Japan now has the highest number of foreign residents, it still has a relatively high degree of homogeneity, and most college students have little understanding of them. More surprisingly, they often know even less about Japan's often-overlooked minorities, such as the Ainu and Okinawans. The author demonstrates how to deploy EFL classes to raise students' awareness by using self-made teaching materials and tailored writing assignments within the framework of Exploratory Practice (EP). Drawing on these methodologies, current research on language minorities is used to support a pedagogy that builds cultural awareness by giving majority-language students an opportunity to learn about minorities even when the students' English abilities are limited, as in the case of general EFL courses.

Subtitling for Social and Language Minorities

Speakers of any (minoritised or majority) language sometimes make language mistakes. Bilingual speakers may use a hybrid language, mixing languages within a sentence or even within a word, especially when they are formally similar, as Spanish and Galician are. For minoritised languages, language errors may contribute to a negative perception towards the minoritised language. The Galician public broadcaster Televisión de Galicia (TVG) has received criticism for not being a high-quality language model, permitting the intrusion of language mistakes in its content. From an exclusively linguistic viewpoint, these errors should be corrected in subtitling. Conversely, subtitling guides and target users favour a verbatim rendition of the audio, in which oral language mistakes should not be corrected. Dialectal features, even if they are not considered errors, are non-standard language. This paper aims at answering the question of “to correct or not to correct” oral errors and dialectal features in the case of minoritised languages. It presents the most relevant data from a literature review, and an analysis of subtitling guidelines & standards and of current practices at TVG. These results have yielded an original protocol for the correction or reproduction of oral errors according to speech control, target audience and broadcast genre, the effect of a mistake, and the type of language error (vocabulary vs. grammar).