In pursuit of societal harmony: reviewing the experiences and approaches in officially monolingual and officially multilingual countries

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dc.contributor.authorA'Beckett, Ludmilla
dc.contributor.authorDu Plessis, Theodorus
dc.date.accessioned2018-02-02T09:03:05Z
dc.date.available2018-02-02T09:03:05Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.descriptionThis publication is available from AFRICAN SUN MeDIA: http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/9781928424130en_ZA
dc.description.abstractIn pursuit of societal harmony: Reviewing the experiences and approaches in officially monolingual and officially multilingual countries contains a selection of papers on language legislation that were presented at the International Conference on Language Policy in Multicultural and Multilingual Settings, Mandalay, Myanmar, 8-11 February 2016. The editors, both members of the International Academy of Language Law / Académie internationale de droit linguistique, brought together presentations that deal with language legislation and practices in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. The contributions show that the post-communist trend in language policy has been vastly represented by attempts to eliminate the language, and even the cultural legacy, of the formerly hegemonic nation/s in countries emerging after the collapse of the system. In doing so officials in these countries tend to link the harmonisation of a diverse society with the idea of homogenising its population, and prioritising the cultural legacy of the titular nation. In contrast, some post-colonial countries are more tolerant of the language of their colonisers but consequently do not sufficiently promote the institutionalisation of their indigenous languages. Furthermore, the absence of visible efforts to follow any legal pattern in this regard often result in a communication gap between government and the various communities. In pursuit of societal harmony therefore challenges from different perspectives the populist notion of ‘one nation-one language’, revealing the inherent shortcomings of attempting to establish unity through something as abstract as language without constructively addressing the actual, and mostly gross, inequalities and resulting divisions in many societies. The contributions to this Proceedings suggest that by pursuing social harmony through an alleged common language many countries unwittingly emphasise social inequalities and division and even cultivate the basis for resistance. Scholars that work in the field of language legislation and the sociology of language and readers interested in comparative studies will find the collection of papers presented in this Proceedings an interesting read.en_ZA
dc.description.versionPublisher's versionen_ZA
dc.identifier.citationA'Beckett, L., & Du Plessis, T. (Eds.). (2017). In pursuit of societal harmony: reviewing the experiences and approaches in officially monolingual and officially multilingual countries. Proceedings of the International Conference on Language Policy in Multicultural and Multilingual Settings, Mandalay, Myanmar, 8-11 February 2016. doi:10.18820/9781928424130en_ZA
dc.identifier.isbn978-1-928424-12-3 (print)
dc.identifier.isbn978-1-928424-13-0 (electronic)
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.18820/9781928424130
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11660/7770
dc.language.isoenen_ZA
dc.publisherSUN MeDIA Bloemfontein (SUN PReSS imprint)en_ZA
dc.rights.holderSUN MeDIA Bloemfontein and the Author(s)en_ZA
dc.subjectPost-colonial and comparative perspectivesen_ZA
dc.subjectLanguage legislationen_ZA
dc.subjectUkraineen_ZA
dc.subjectSouth Africaen_ZA
dc.subjectLanguage policiesen_ZA
dc.subjectAccess to information servicesen_ZA
dc.subjectPost-Soviet and post-Communist studiesen_ZA
dc.subjectIdeologies of languageen_ZA
dc.subjectNational cultural heritageen_ZA
dc.subjectEthnic compositionen_ZA
dc.subjectOntarioen_ZA
dc.subjectBurkina Fasoen_ZA
dc.subjectMacauen_ZA
dc.subjectMalaysiaen_ZA
dc.subjectAzerbaijanen_ZA
dc.subjectLatviaen_ZA
dc.subjectCroatiaen_ZA
dc.subjectLithuaniaen_ZA
dc.titleIn pursuit of societal harmony: reviewing the experiences and approaches in officially monolingual and officially multilingual countriesen_ZA
dc.typeConference proceedingen_ZA
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