Overview
There are around 7,000 spoken languages in the world today. According to some UNESCO prognoses, before the year 2100 at least 50% of them will either be extinct or very seriously endangered so that only the oldest generations know something of them. Many researchers anticipate a much higher percentage, up to 90-95%. India has one of the highest percentages of endangered languages in the world. Why do languages disappear? The course analyses reasons for this. Globalisation, growthism, and the world’s military, economic and other structural inequalities: linguistic imperialism and internal colonialism are some drivers of this. The media,and lack of linguistic human rights in education are important direct causal factors. Most formal education of speakers of Indigenous/tribal, minority and minoritised (= ITM) children – if they have access to it in the first place - is organised subtractively, using a dominant language (e.g. English, Hindi, or a regional language in India) as the teaching language. All serious research recommends instead mother-tongue-based multilingual education – this is the most important linguistic human right. Current ITM education violates the right to education and can be seen as linguistic genocide educationally, psychologically, linguistically and socially, according to at least two definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide Convention. It can also be seen as a crime against humanity. Much of the detailed knowledge about how to maintain biodiversity and healthy ecosystems is encoded in the small ITM and local languages. When they disappear, the knowledge is not transferred to the replacing languages. Thus maintaining and revitalising the endangered languages is vital for the future of humankind on the planet.
Objectives
Presenting fundamental knowledge about linguistic imperialism, and the limitations on language rights in international human rights instruments and in court cases, especially in relation to education.
Analysing the role of English nationally and internationally, and ideologies that legitimate linguistic imperialism and lack of language rights.
Presenting solid language planning and language policy research from all over the world, particularly in school and higher education, that leads to increased social justice.
To enhance the capability of participants to plan social and educational policies that respect linguistic human rights.
The Faculty
Robert Phillipson is an Emeritus Professor at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. British by origin, he studied at Cambridge and Leeds Universities, UK, and has a doctorate from the University of Amsterdam. His main books are Linguistic imperialism (1992), English-only Europe? Challenging language policy (2003), and Linguistic imperialism continued (2009). Recent co-edited publications: Why English? Confronting the Hydra (2016) and Language Rights (four volumes, 1668 pages, with Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, 2017). He has collaborated with Indian scholars for four decades. He was awarded the UNESCO Linguapax prize in 2010.
For details see: www.cbs.dk/en/staff/rpmsc.
Dr. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas has been actively involved in minorities’ struggle for language rights for five decades. She has published in 51 languages. Some books: Bilingualism or Not: the Education of Minorities (1984); Linguistic Genocide in Education - or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? (2000); Indigenous Children’s Education as Linguistic Genocide and a Crime Against Humanity? A Global View (2010) with Robert Dunbar; Multilingual Education for Social Justice: Globalising the Local (2009), ed. with Ajit Mohanty, Minati Panda, and Robert Phillipson; Multilingual Education Works: from the Periphery to the Centre (2010, ed. with Kathleen Heugh). She was awarded the UNESCO Linguapax prize in 2003.
For more, see www.Tove-Skutnabb-Kangas.org.
Important dates
Course Commencement: Nov 19, 2018 to Dec 1, 2018.
Last date for registration: Oct 10, 2018.
Course Fee1 (for reading material): INR 2000 (students); INR 3000 ( others)
You Should Attend if you are…
Students/faculty/researcher/administrator in the Department of Law,Development Studies, Human Rights, Education, Applied Linguistics,Language Education, Sociology, Political Science, Language Policy and Language Planning.
Activists working for Human Rights and Educational Rights of the children from tribal communities.
Course Coordinator:
Dr Uma Maheshwari Chimirala is a teacher at NALSAR University of Law. Her doctoral work analysed the language and cognitive components of the collaborative dialogue in a collaborative text construction across languages. She makes a compelling case for a languages curriculum. Her current research investigates the relationship between language, engagement in academic tasks and achievement across languages.
Contact details: chimiralauma@nalsar.ac.in
Note: Out Station participants will be provided accommodation on payment of Rs 5000 only
