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| Sociolingüística internacional |
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Language policies and planning in the context of internationalisation, by Mariano Asensio | |
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CONTINUA |
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The
aim of this article is to suggest the existence of another periphery that already has
characteristics distinct from those that had already been acknowledged. During these times
of economic, cultural and ecological internationalisation, reflections on language
policies and planning can swing away from this periphery towards the centre in a
comprehensive movement that reflects the geographical reality in which we live and the
cultural reality in which we exist. Bearing in mind the analyses of that first criticism
of theoretical assumptions of language policies, interpretations of the cases of
decolonised countries and Creole areas which, in the seventies, served to set in motion
the systematisation of language policies, can establish new perspectives to help shed
light on the relations between languages and nations, cultural identities and the
languages used to discover these. In so doing, we could put forward ways of freeing the
arbitrary paths along which many of the examples closest to the Western reality have lost
themselves.
"L’expérience montre que de nos jours encore, compte tenu de l’inefficacité croissante de l’enseignement scolaire, un discours en français d’Afrique est de plus en plus nettement un discours africain en français. Tout se passe comme si la grammaire française, dans l’usage courant des lettrés, se trouvait non pas remaniée, mais filtrée par le substrat africain qui favorise d’autre part l’expression de certaines relations logiques ou la grammaticalisation de catégories sémantiques pour nous inusuelles. Si l’on veut discerner en créole une empreinte africaine, c’est là qu’il faudra la chercher, dans le langage plutôt que dans la langue. Qu’il eussent ou non conservé leurs idiomes premiers, les esclaves des plantations auraient parlé, et parlé à leur mode; ce truisme ôte beaucoup de son intérêt historique au problème des langues et des nations" (MANESSY:1997.123-124). Our reflection is based on the central premise used by the Spanish philologist Diego Catalán to discuss the objectives of the history of language. This premise is not always explicitly considered in "internal linguistics". He states: "El único agente de la historia es el hombre (ora como persona aislada, ora combinándose con otras en una colectividad), y por tanto la historia de las lenguas sólo puede hacerse en constante referencia a la historia cultural de la comunidad o comunidades que la hablan" (Abad:1986.148b). Professor Abad uses the same theoretical premise when he describes "History of Language", redefining the three traditional areas of this subject: "External history of language"; "Historical grammar"; "History of literary styles". He terms the first of these –the area that interests us- "General diachrony of language", or "external history" of language and aspects or facts of its "internal history" related with this external change; thus, language is viewed as a fact of civilisation, albeit from the rigour of linguistic specialisation. For Professor Abad: "the best scholars do not juxtapose data indiscriminately with no sense of hierarchy, but rather they deal with the history of the language and its linguistic system, and the ideas about it and the literary language, at the point where these converge" (Abad: 1987. 87-88). These are the attitudes and representations of speakers towards their language. Sociolinguistic analysis relies on these facts for a better comprehension of the object of study. The identification that each speaker makes with his/her languages requires recourse to all scientific discourses involved in the study of human-related subjects. When the idea of language=nation=culture identification is added to the above, the pluridisciplinary perception of sociolinguistics is indispensable. In this respect, the description of the language policies implemented in Creole societies and in countries formed after decolonisation raises new questions about the usual terminology. Thus, when Hubert GERBEAU analyses the concept of identity in the history of Reunion Island, he comes across preconceptions typical of colonized cultures in their efforts to find a middle ground between what they were, with and without their colonizers, and what they are without them: "La Réunion, île française, paradis terrestre, serait-elle une colonie comme tant d’autres? Répondre serait déjà conclure, mais nous voudrions d’entrée suggérer que c’est autour des représentations du "Noir" et du "Blanc" que la recherche peut s’avérer la plus fructueuse, que c’est dans le va-et-vient du réel aux fantasmes que l’on peut glaner les premiers signes d’une possible originalité" (GERBEAU: 1997.97). This is one of the characteristics of colonized countries: the almost unanimous confluence of all of the elements of a colonized society in a desire to find a way to legitimate its own culture. Since the identity of a people is very often linked to language, sociolinguistic analysis must focus on actions (regardless of where they emerge from), that try to promote the language of the social group as a factor of unity against the supposed aggression of the language of the colonizer. When Tirvassen
(184) discusses the sociolinguistic situation of the Island of "Le concept de colonisation et toutes les significations qui sont associées ont toujours constitué les paramètres les plus importants pris en compte pour expliquer, dans les pays sous domination coloniale, la mise sur pied d’un ordre social et socio- linguistique. Si, pendant l’occupation française de l’île, il faut situer la "politique" linguistique des administrateurs du pays dans le contexte de la situation de colonisation, il convient de préciser les modalités mêmes de cette colonisation afin que l’analyse sociolinguistique puisse s’appuyer sur une vue plus juste de la réalité sociale". |
