change the negative attitudes of an endangered language. To answer this question ... strength differential between a group and its most prominent outgroup (PSD); perceived ..... http://www.socresonline.org.uk/3/2/7.html. Hornsey, M.J., & Hogg ...
JoLIE 2:1 (2009)
ETHNOLINGUISTIC VITALITY AND MINORITY EDUCATION Martin Ehala University of Tartu, Finland
Abstract To respect and protect linguistic and cultural diversity is one of the core principles of UNESCO and EU. Yet globalisation has considerably challenged the sustainability of small ethnic and linguistic communities. Increased mobility, concentration of wealth, and new information technologies are inevitably working towards the decrease of cultural and linguistic diversity. However, the maintenance of diversity depends also heavily on various cultural and social psychological factors that could be influenced by education and mass communication. The paper outlines the main social psychological factors influencing the ethnolinguistic vitality of a culture or ethnic group and reveals their structural relationships, for example the prestige of the culture, cultural distance and utilitarianism and discordance. Based on this model, suggestions are made how to enhance the ethnolinguistic vitality of lesser used languages and cultures in the broad framework of bilingual and minority education.1. Key words: Ethnolinguistic vitality; Multiple identity; Self-categorisation.
1. Introduction One of the core principles of UNESCO, the Council of Europe and EU is to respect and protect linguistic and cultural diversity. The “UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity“, adopted by the UNESCO’s General Conference in November 2001, declares that “as a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature. In this sense, it is the common heritage of humanity and should be recognized and affirmed for the benefit of present and future generations“. The Article 22 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, adopted in Nice on 7 December 2000, states that the „Union shall respect cultural, religious and linguistic diversity". The Council of European Union’s resolution of 14 February 2002 on the promotion of linguistic diversity and language learning in the framework of the implementation of the objectives of the European Year of Languages 2001 emphasises that „all European languages are equal in value and dignity from the cultural point of view and form an integral part of European culture and civilisation“. 1
This paper is a part of the project “Ethnolinguistic vitality and identity construction: Estonia in Baltic background” supported by Estonian Science Foundation grant no 7350.
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Martin EHALA
Yet at our time, the time of the global village, to protect cultural and linguistic diversity is not an easy task. Admittedly one language becomes extinct in each week. Although there are at present around 6000 to 7000 languages, from 50% to 90% of them could become extinct within this century (see Krauss 1992, Crystal 2000). While there is some international recognition that a few domains such as science and higher education might be threatened in national languages (Communiqué 2003: 6), generally the endangered languages are those that have neither official status nor legal protection. While it is important to work for legal protection of minority languages, it may not be enough: in our era of global information exchange, the fate of a language may depend less of its legal status than the attitudes of its speakers. There are a number of known cases where the linguists have been more concerned by protecting an endangered language than the speakers themselves. Generally, such attempts have doomed to fail: unless the attitudes of the speakers do not favour language maintenance, it is little what the specialists can do to protect the language. The question that needs to be answered is whether there is anything that could be done to change the negative attitudes of an endangered language. To answer this question one needs to understand the nature of ethnolinguistic vitality and how it is formed. This knowledge could then be purposefully used in minority language education in order to promote a change in attitudes. 2. The nature of ethnolinguistic vitality 2.1. The definition of ethnolinguistic vitality Ethnolinguistic vitality is usually defined as what “makes a group likely to behave as a distinctive and active collective entity in intergroup situations.” (Giles, Bourhis and Taylor 1977: 308). Deep down, it is a group identity issue. According to Tajfel (1978: 63), social identity is “that part of an individual's self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership.” Ellemers, Kortekaas and Ouwerkerk (1999: 386) argue that these three components of social identity – cognitive, evaluative and emotional – are conceptually distinct aspects of identity; and that only the “group commitment appears to be the key aspect of social identity which drives the tendency for people to behave in terms of their group membership.” Portes and Sensenbrenner (1993) call this commitment bounded solidarity, which is the feeling of unity that often arises from real or perceived threats to the group. Thus, ethnolinguistic vitality could be defined as the group’s will to act collectively, deriving from its members’ emotional attachment to this particular group membership. The stronger the affective commitment is, the more vitality the group possesses. Of course, the affective commitment is not the sole cause that motivates group members to behave collectively in intergroup situations. It is often that people are morally forced to participate in the actions of the group even if they do not approve of the action. Portes and Sensenbrenner (1993) refer to this phenomenon as
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enforceable trust, which is defined as the group’s capacity to sanction those who do not obey the norms. To be more precise, bounded solidarity and enforceable trust could be seen as two facets of what Bourdieu (1991: 170) calls symbolic power – a power of “making people see and believe, of conforming or transforming the vision of the world and, thereby, action on the world … by virtue of the specific effect of mobilization … capable of producing real effects without apparent expenditure of energy.” All of the factors mentioned above – emotional attachment, bonded solidarity, enforceable trust and symbolic power are all built communicatively in public and private discourses. Educational discourse is one of the main tools that is used by groups to construct social cohesion and rise ethnolinguistic vitality. In order to influence these discourses it is necessary to know how precisely ethnolinguistic vitality is generated what are its main components. These questions have found a an answer in the V-model (Ehala 2005, 2008) that specifies the structural relations between four key variables of ethnolinguistic vitality: perceived strength differential between a group and its most prominent outgroup (PSD); perceived inter-group distance (R); the level of utilitarianism (U) in the value system of the group studied; and the level of inter-group discordance (D). 2.2 Perceived strength differential Most researchers agree that the driving force behind language shift is power differences between the dominant and minority groups and that identity maintenance or shift depends on the opportunities and rewards, real or symbolic (including more positive social identity) that the two groups can provide to their members. I have called all these factors together as the cultural mass (M) of the group (see Ehala 2005). However, for group vitality, the crucial factor is not the cultural mass itself, but the differential of cultural masses between the two groups – the ingroup and the prominent outgroup. If the cultural mass differential (PSD) is small, the benefits from shifting one’s group membership would not outweigh its emotional and social costs. The larger the PSD is in favor of the outgroup, the more beneficial it would be to shift the identity. Needless to say, what counts is the subjective perception of, or to be more precise, the socially shared vision concerning this difference. Thus, provided that the influence of all other factors is absent, the vitality (V) of the group would be equal to the differential of the cultural masses (M1 and M2) of the minority (G1) and majority (G2) groups: (1)
V = S1 – S2 If V
