Michele Gazzola, "Towards an Index of Linguistic Justice"
Channel: Linguistic Justice Society
Date: 26/05/2022

Michele Gazzola (Ulster University)

Towards an Index of Linguistic Justice


25 May 2022

Linguistic Justice Society Webinars & Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona)

https://hiw.kuleuven.be/ripple/research/linguisticjusticesociety


ABSTRACT: As a step towards systematic comparative evaluation of equality of different language policies, a rationale is presented for the design of an Index of Linguistic Justice based on public economics. The approach taken is to define a "minimum threshold of linguistic justice" with respect to government language policy in three central domains: law and order, public administration, and essential services. The benchmark for evaluation is the theoretically ideal situation in which all individuals have the same rights, independent of their language repertoire; departures from this standard incur lower scores. Indicators are chosen to assess effective access to three kinds of language rights: toleration (lack of State interference in private language choices), accommodation (accessibility of public services in different languages) and compensation (symbolic and practical recognition of languages outside the dominant one). In order to take account of the cost-benefit trade-offs involved in providing language-related goods to language groups of varying sizes, a method is proposed for weighting scores with respect to compensation rights so that lack of recognition for larger groups incurs greater penalties, while factoring in the particular characteristics of each publicly-provided language-related good. A trial set of ten indicators illustrates the compromises entailed in balancing theoretical rigour with empirical feasibility.


SPEAKER BIO: Michele Gazzola is Lecturer in Public Policy and Administration at the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences at Ulster University, and co-director of the Centre for Public Administration at the same University. He has published extensively on the analysis and evaluation of language policies, and on the study of the economic and social aspects of multilingualism. He wrote advisory reports, among others, for the European Parliament, the Swiss Confederation, the Authority for Linguistic Minorities of the Autonomous Province of Trento, the Regional Agency for the Friulian Language (ARLEF), and for the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI). He is editor of the journal Language Problems & Language Planning.

LJS Webinar convenors: Matteo Bonotti (Monash University), Filippo Contesi (University of Barcelona), Ethan Nowak (Umeå University) & Seunghyun Song (KU Leuven)