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Thus, there is no alternative but to
explore imaginatively other forms of political and linguistic organisation that could make
the two objectives above compatible: preserving the linguistic diversity and dignity of
all historical linguistic groups, while ensuring fluent intercommunication and a feeling
of solidarity among our species.
I believe that
we might be able to reach some sort of solution if we explore the ideas that arise from
the perspective of 'complexity, which uses the basic contributions of cognitive,
systemic, ecological, chaological, and/or holistic approximations. In a name, the author I
consider best suited to conceptualizing 'complexity' as applied to human affairs, is
French anthropologist, sociologist and thinker, Edgar Morin. It is through this paradigm
that we learn to recognise the limits of our representations of reality and to become
aware of the revision of the categories through which we see the world and our existence.(3) Our representations are
dominated by conceptualizations that tend to come basically from the material world and
not from our own mental world. Representations lie and are produced in the brain/mind, but
this does not mean that these representations are automatically conscious and aware of where
they are produced and how.
The
representations that have dominated and still dominate - Western thinking (which
later spread to many other parts of the world) are based on the properties of material,
physical elements using Aristotelian logic, which is founded on the principle of identity
and exclusion of the third. (4) For example, if a place is
taken by something, it cannot be occupied by anything else. This view, when automatically
applied to the field of human relations (as is often the case), means that if a state or
group already has a language, it cannot have another. Secondly, if individuals see
themselves as belonging to an 'identity, they cannot consider themselves to be
members of any other. This is not necessarily the case in the sociocognitive, mental
world. An individual can know several languages and distribute uses of the languages that
they know, and form part of different categories of identity, within human societies. The
logic of complexity, therefore, "escapes, in its most fundamental points, from the
binary logic of all or nothing".(5) This vision of things, with
more water-type or flexible instead of rock-type or rigid
categories,(6) can therefore encourage a
reformulation of situations, resulting in new possibilities that need to be explored
along with the difficulties that this will no doubt entail with imagination,
creativity and rigour.
In all probability, the world and
societies would be much simpler if there were only one language or identity. This would no
doubt please the supporters of simplist and simplifying thought - whom we would all
probably be if we could. However, the fact is that our world, our societies, and our
individuals are not simple; on the contrary, we can actually be highly complex. To aid
understanding of these non-simple phenomena, Morin attempts to develop the paradigm of
complexity. Complex thought is understood to be "the union of simplicity and
complexity; it is the union of the simplification processes which are selection,
hierarchization, separation, and reduction, with other contra-processes of communication
and articulation of whatever is dissociated and distinguished; and it shies away from
having to choose the alternative between either reductionist thought, which sees only
elements, or globalist thought, which sees only the whole".(7) I believe that these
postulates for the reform of thought should form the basis of attempts to think of
principles of the linguistic organisation of mankind that go beyond traditional
dichotomies. We must now think in terms of and, instead of or.
After years of thinking in terms of or, we now need to explore the linguistic
organization of mankind in terms of and, i.e. from the point of view of
complexity without excluding either objective. We must ask ourselves about how precisely
we can make both possible: the maintenance and development of the various languages
and, at the same time, the necessary intercommunication.
However, as
Morin himself says, complexity is a problem word, not a solution word:
"complexity for me is the challenge, not the answer. I am searching for a way of
thinking through complication (that is, through the countless inter-retroactions), through
uncertainty and through contradictions".(8) Given that "any
objectives we reach will take us down a new path, and that any solution will give rise to
a new problem",(9) we now need to put our
critical imagination and intellectual creativity into action, using this new perspective,
to design the future, accepting initially contradictory positions and working out how we
can fit them all together in the best and most practical way. The challenge, therefore,
lies in making the effort "not to sacrifice the whole for a single part, or a single
part for the whole, but rather to understand the difficult problem of organization".(10)
3. Language contact, equilibrium and
shift
When
looking at the issue of language, it would seem much simpler to think in terms of
and (and not or) in individual competence. Many of us have the
experience of knowing and using more than one language. We are therefore
aware that the phenomenon is possible, with certain costs such as borrowings or mixtures
between the codes we dominate; these are, in any case, not very important and do not
challenge the possibility of personal polyglottism. The perspective of complexity does
become problematic, as we know, at group and sociopolitical levels. There is a widely-held
belief in certain geocultural areas that generalised social bilingualism usually or
even inevitably - leads to a process of language shift, i.e. the weaker
language gradually loses functions whereas the stronger language gains
functions, and the process ends with the abandonment of the groups own code, i. e.
language death.
Although
history reveals a number of cases of this nature that seem to corroborate the above
statement, the evolution is not always as above. As Norbert Elias says, what we may need
to do is at the same time "investigate the nature of this range of possible
transformations and the configuration of factors responsible for the fact that, of all of
the possibilities, only this one is materialized".(11) In other words, we need to
know more precisely why the situation evolves in this way and not in any other (such as
maintenance of the language, for example). Once we have a clear idea of the factors and
mechanisms, we then need to find out whether we can intervene in these cases to prevent
them from being affected by shift, ensuring that the recessive languages are maintained
and that they progress. We urgently need to identify the variables and dynamics of
processes of shift, and to create models that will enable us to design effective
possibilities for intervening in different types of situation, different stages of
development, and the unequal contexts in which these can occur. |