Abstract
This chapter is an exploration of nationalism and language in contemporary times. The central issue here is how the value of nationalism is rooted in language. Is it a good thing and should we try to cultivate it, or is it a bad thing that we should try to discourage? It may be positive because it can help balance cultural persistence and change in the face of globalization. On the other hand, it may be a negative force because it may provoke violence and chaos.
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Notes
James Sneddon, The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society (Sydney: Univ. of New South Wales Press, 2003), 196–98.
For surveys of Chinese language policy, see Minglang Zhou, Multilingualism in China (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003).
Minglang Zhou and Hongkai Sun, eds., Language Policy in the People’s Republic of China (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004).
See, for example, Stephanie Hemelryk Donald and Robert Benewick, The State of China Atlas (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2005).
Immanuel Kant, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” in Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991), 51.
On Montaigne, Hume, and Kant, see J. C. Laursen, “Skepticism, Unconvincing Anti-skepticism, and Politics,” in Scepticisme et modernité, ed. Marc André Bernier and Sébastien Charles (Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 2005).
One locus classicus for this term is Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1994).
See Wolf Linder, Swiss Democracy: Possible Solutions to Conflict in Multicultural Societies, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).
See Marc Shell, Children of the Earth: Literature, Politics, and Nationhood (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993), 44–57.
José M. Legarra and Erramun Baxok, “Language Policy and Planning of the Status of Basque, II: Navarre and the Northern Basque Country,” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 174 (2005): 34.
Simo K. Määttä, “The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, French Languages Laws, and National Identity,” Language Policy 4 (2005): 167–84.
See Carlos Taibo, “Sobre el nacionalismo español,” in Nacionalismo es-pañol: esencias, memoria e instituciones, ed. Carlos Taibo(Madrid: Catarata, 2007), 15–16.
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© 2010 William Ascher and John M. Heffron
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Laursen, J.C. (2010). Nationalism and the Politics of Language. In: Ascher, W., Heffron, J.M. (eds) Cultural Change and Persistence. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117334_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117334_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-29195-3
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