The Assessment of Sociolinguistic Justice: Parameters and Models of Analysis

Abstract

In the literature of linguistic justice, there is still room for sociolinguistic discussion. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate by the mean of introducing into the analysis a number of sociolinguistic parameters that have been hitherto used for the interpretation of linguistic repertoires, mainly in minority contexts. In fact, the necessary holistic view-driven by the need of rendering justice to the speaker-should lead the researcher to consider the whole set of linguistic varieties present in the repertoire of the communities, at any level of use: international, super-national, national, local. The paper will show and justify the motivations of these parameters and the (social) rules that control their use arguing that their consideration can draw important hints for a better understanding and implementations of issues of linguistic justice.

Two Linguas Francas? Social Inclusion through English and Esperanto

“…The survey on linguistic justice by Alcalde (2018) shows that Esperanto forces us to think again on an effective modelling for linguistic justice that takes into account both mobility (in every form: potential, i.e., motility, and actual; traditional and onlife), and social inclusion. Iannàccaro et al (2018) stress the importance of an analytic description of the repertoire of speakers following certain parameters, in order to assess the power rela-tions between groups in a given society reflected in their language choice, which lead to the introduction of the notion sociolinguistic justice in the ongoing discussion in the literature of linguistic justice. For this purpose, the individuation of linguistic unease is crucial in assessing sociolinguistic justice, which functions as a predictive indicator of the degree of inclusion in a given social context.…”

“…Paradoxically, such global languages foster mobility, but, at the same time, they may hinder social inclusion in the hosting society, especially for people in mobility. The article compares English as a lingua franca and Esperanto in the European context, putting together the linguistic hierarchy of transnational communication (Gobbo, 2015) and the notion of linguistic unease, used to assess sociolinguistic justice (Iannàccaro, Gobbo, & Dell'Aquila, 2018). The analysis shows that the sense of belonging of their respective speakers influences social inclusion in different ways.…”

Towards an index of linguistic justice

“…Although this body of literature provides an important and rich resource, the question of linguistic justice has yet to be addressed from a public policy perspective as well as from an empirical and measurable point of view. 4 One obvious factor explaining this is that there are very different views about what linguistic justice means. Our approach in this article is based on policy analysis, and it focuses on the distributive and redistributive effects on individuals of government's language policy decisions.…”

“… 4. An exception is the work of Iannàccaro et al (2017), who develop different parameters of what they name ‘sociolinguistic unease’, defined as situations in which the speaker's linguistic repertoire is not adequate for the linguistic needs of the moment. Sociolinguistic unease, however, is not in itself a form of injustice as we conceptualize it in this article.…”