Urban Diversities and Language Policies in Medium-Sized Linguistic Communities

Emili Boix-Fuster, Emili Boix-Fuster

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781783093922
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Urban Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book examines medium-sized linguistic communities in urban contexts against the backdrop of the language policies which have been implemented in these respective areas. The authors provide new data and reflections on these linguistic communities which have languages somewhere in between the majority and minority, and re-evaluate the opposition between 'majority' and 'minority'. The book focuses on seven European cities, providing detailed information on their current situation and on the corresponding evolution of their linguistic repertoire. The book aims to improve our understanding of how and why languages live and decay, and of how intercultural cities, where communities show interest in each other's culture and language, can be better developed and encouraged.

1	Mapping Urban Multilingualism in Europe: In Search of Untapped Resources in Primary Schools
	Guus Extra

Summary

First, a range of criteria for the definition and identification of population groups in multicultural contexts will be discussed (Section 1). In Sections 2 and 3, conceptual dimensions for the mapping of diversity in both non-European English-dominant immigration countries and in European Union countries will be addressed and compared. The rationale and methodology of the Multilingual Cities Project (MCP), funded by the European Cultural Foundation, will be discussed in Section 4, and its major outcomes will be assessed in Section 5. Three major home language surveys have been carried out as follow-up studies of the MCP: in Vilnius/Kaunas/Klaipeda (Lithuania), in Vienna (Austria) and in Dublin (Ireland). Section 6 concludes by discussing methodological considerations for the last of these home language surveys, the one performed in Dublin.

1. Criteria for the Definition and Identification of Population Groups in Multicultural Contexts

Collecting reliable information on the diversity of population groups in multicultural contexts is no easy enterprise. What is, however, more interesting than compiling numbers or estimates of the size of particular groups is to establish the criteria that are used to determine these numbers or estimates. Comparative information on population figures in European Union (EU) member-states is available from EuroStat, the Statistical Office of the EU in Luxembourg. Eurostat’s data indicate an overall decrease in the indigenous population in most EU countries over the last decade and at the same time an increase in the immigrant minority (henceforward IM) figures. For a variety of reasons, however, reliable and comparable demographic information on IM groups in EU countries is difficult to obtain. Seemingly simple questions like How many Turkish residents live in Germany compared to France

cannot be easily answered. For some groups or countries, no updated information is available or no such data have ever been collected. Moreover, official statistics only reflect IM groups with legal resident status. Another source of disparity is the use of different data collection systems, ranging from census data to administrative registers or statistical surveys (Poulain, 2008). In addition, most residents from former colonies already have the nationality of their country of immigration. Most importantly, however, the widely used criteria for IM status – nationality and/or country of birth – have become less valid over time because of an increasing trend towards naturalization and births within the countries of residence.

For a discussion of the role of censuses in identifying population groups in a variety of multicultural nation-states, we refer the reader to Kertzer and Arel (2002). Alterman (1969) offers a fascinating account of the history of counting people from the earliest known records on Babylonian clay tablets in 3800 BC to the US census of 1970. In addition to the methods of counting, Alterman discusses at length who were counted and how, and who were not counted and why. The issue of mapping identities through periodical nationwide censuses by state institutions is commonly coupled with a vigorous debate between proponents and opponents of the following ‘ethnic dilemma’: how can you combat discrimination if you do not measure diversity

(Kertzer & Arel, 2002: 23–25). Among minority groups and academic groups, both proponents and opponents of mapping diversity can be found: its proponents defend the social or scientific need for population data bases on diversity as prerequisites for affirmative action by the government in domains such as labour, housing, health care, education and media policies; opponents argue in terms of the social or scientific risks of public or political misuse of these data bases for stereotyping, stigmatization, discrimination or even removal of the ‘unwanted other’. Kertzer and Arel (2002: 2) argue that the census does much more than simply reflect social reality; it plays a key role in the construction of this reality and in the creation of collective identities. At the same time, it should be acknowledged that the census is a crucial area for the politics of representation. On the basis of (home) language databases, minority groups often make language rights one of their key demands.

Decennial censuses became common practice in Europe and the New World colonized by Europeans in the first part of the 19th century. The US became the first newly established nation-state with a decennial census in 1790. The first countries to include a language question in their census, however, were Belgium in 1846 and Switzerland in the 1850s, both European countries with more than one official state language. At present, in many EU countries, only population data on nationality and/or country of birth (of the person and/or parents) are available on IM groups. In 1982, the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs recognized the above-mentioned identification problems for inhabitants of Australia and proposed including questions in the Australian census on country of birth (of the person and parents), ethnic origin (based on self-categorization in terms of the ethnic group a person considers him/herself to belong to), and home language use. In Table 1.1, the four criteria mentioned are discussed in terms of their major (dis)advantages.

First, Table 1.1 shows that there is no simple road to solving the identification problem. Moreover, inspection of the criteria for multicultural population groups is as important as the actual figures themselves. Seen from a European perspective, there is a top-down development over time in the utility and utilization of different types of criteria, inevitably going from nationality and birth-country criteria in the present statistics to self-categorization and home language in the future. The latter two criteria are generally conceived of as being complementary. Self-categorization and home language references need not coincide, as languages may be conceived to varying degrees as core values of ethnocultural identity in minority or migration contexts.

2. Mapping Diversity in Non-European English-Dominant Immigration Countries

Various types of criteria for identifying population groups in multicultural societies have been suggested and used outside Europe in countries with a longer immigration history and, as a result, with a longstanding history of collecting census data on multicultural population groups (Kertzer & Arel, 2002). This holds in particular for non-European immigration countries in which English is the dominant language, like Australia, Canada, South Africa and the USA. To identify the multicultural composition of their populations, these countries employ a variety of questions in their periodical censuses. In Table 1.2, an overview of (clusters of) questions is provided; for each country, the census given is taken as the norm.

Five types/clusters of questions are distinguished in Table 1.2. Both the type and the number of questions differ according to country. Canada takes up a prime position with the highest number of questions. There are only three questions that are asked in all countries, while two questions are asked in only one country. Four different questions are asked about language. The operationalization of the questions also shows interesting differences, both between and within countries over time (see Clyne, 1991 for a discussion of methodological problems in comparing the answers to differently phrased questions in Australian censuses from a longitudinal perspective).

Table 1.1 Criteria for the definition and identification of population groups in a multicultural society (P/F/M = person/father/mother) (Extra & Gorter, 2001: 9)

Questions about ethnicity, ancestry and/or race have proven to be problematic in all the countries under consideration. In some countries, ancestry and ethnicity have been conceived of as equivalent. Examples are US census question 10 in 2000: What is this person’s ancestry or ethnic origin

and Canadian census question 17 in 2001: To which ethnic or cultural group(s) did this person’s ancestors belong

Australian census question 18 in 2001 only involved ancestry and not ethnicity, cf. What is the person’s ancestry

with the following comments for respondents: Consider and mark the ancestries with which you most closely identify. Count your ancestry as far as three generations, including grandparents and great-grandparents. As far as ethnicity and ancestry have been distinguished in census questions, the former is related most commonly to present self-categorization of the respondent and the latter to former generations. The diverse ways in which respondents themselves may interpret both concepts, however, remains a problem that cannot easily be solved.

Table 1.2 Overview of (clusters of) census questions in four multicultural countries (Extra & Yağmur, 2004: 67)

According to Table 1.2, South Africa remains the only country where a racial question is asked instead of a question on ethnicity and/or ancestry. The paradox in South Africa is that questions on ethnicity are often considered to be racist, while the racial question (in terms of Black/White/Coloured/Indian) from the earlier Apartheid era has survived. Although the validity of questions about ethnicity, ancestry and/or race is problematic, at least one question from this cluster is needed to compare its outcomes with those of questions on language. Language is not always a core value of ethnicity/identity and multiculturalism may become under-estimated if it is reduced to multilingualism. For this reason, one or more questions deriving from cluster 4–6 in Table 1.2 are necessary complements to one or more questions derived from cluster 7–10.

Although, according to Table 1.2, ‘ethnicity’ is mentioned in the recent censuses of only two countries, all four language-related questions are asked only in Canada. Over time, a ‘mother tongue’ question has been replaced by a ‘language’ question in three out of four countries. Canada has retained the mother tongue question in addition to the home language question, which allows for comparative analyses of predictably different outcomes. The mother tongue question (7) in Canada is defined for respondents as the language first learnt at home in childhood and still understood, whereas questions 8 and 9 are related ...