Abstract
Two centuries have passed since the idea of monolingual nationalism entered the history of Europe. Nevertheless, the nexus between monolingualism and nation seems far from being dismissed. This chapter investigates the nexus between language and national identity, by comparing France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland and examining to what extent different national boundary configurations relate to attitudes towards migrants’ integration. The focus is on perceived criteria of national belonging, with particular reference to the language, among other prototypical national ‘markers’ (such as ancestry, religion, and respect for laws). The empirical investigation is based on survey data from the ISSP (International Social Survey Program), which was carried out in 2003 and 2013.
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Notes
- 1.
This definition is different from the normative approach concerning what national identity ought to be. Referring to Social Identity Theory (Tajfel 1981), and in particular to the definition of social identity introduced by Marilynn Brewer (2001), Citrin and Sides (2004) proposed a conceptualisation of political identity based on three dimensions: (1) cognitive, that is, self-categorisation as a group member (who am I?); (2) affective, that is, the strength of the emotional attachment; and (3) normative, that is, the beliefs about the criteria for inclusion in the group/the attributes of the prototypical member (who are we?).
- 2.
I adopt here the basic definition of national narratives as stories “about the nation” and “told by official documents or representatives of the nation” (Shenhav 2006, p. 248).
- 3.
However, it should be stressed that the two countries have moved in different directions: “While France shows a remarkable stability in its citizenship and integration policies over time, with only minor concessions towards the accommodation of diversity and slightly more restrictive naturalization regulations, Germany has considerably extended its access to citizenship and recognition of cultural rights, and has overtaken France with regard to the inclusiveness of their policies” (Trittler 2017, p. 669).
- 4.
As a matter of fact, scholars have pointed out that this distinction, when applied to the masses, suffers from many weaknesses. Among them, the major shortcomings are the normative and “Manichaean” vision of nationalism and analytical ambiguity (Shulman 2002).
- 5.
Note that COUNTRY’S NATIONALITY refers to the nation that the survey is being conducted in. If there are sub-national units, it refers to the nation as a whole, so British would be used for Great Britain, not English”, Scottish, or Welsh. As regards ‘dominant language(s)’, the translation rule is that if two or more languages are recognised nationwide, both are included in the question. However, if there is one national lingua franca (Spanish, Russian), only this language is given (see ISSP codebook).
- 6.
It is worth pointing out that recent survey data show that language is one of the most important attributes of national identity in several countries (Pew Research Center, Spring 2016 Global Attitudes Survey; data collected in France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Hungary, Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United States). Among the countries considered, the number of people who believe it is very important to speak the national language in order to be a “true” compatriot is around six out of ten in Italy, Canada, and Spain, and this figure goes up to about eight out of ten in Germany, the United States, Hungary, and the Netherlands. The same survey shows that, at least in the European countries considered, the percentage of people attributing great importance to language (77%) is largely higher than the numbers reached on average in the same countries by other markers, such as the sharing of national customs (48%), place of birth (33%), or religion (15%). Unfortunately, this more recent survey does not include questions measuring attitudes towards multiculturalism. Instead, data from the last round of the European Values Survey (where both dimensions are measured) were not yet available at the time of writing this chapter.
- 7.
Because of the strong cross-loading on both factors of the “having [country’s nationality] citizenship” item, it was not included in the next statistical analysis (MGCFA).
- 8.
- 9.
The interpretation of the indices is discussed in the literature, but from a practical point of view there is concurrence on the following cut-off values. The Comparative Fit Index (CFI) varies from 0 to 1 and, by convention, if it equals 0.95, the model can be accepted, indicating that 95% of the covariance observed is reproduced by the model (values above 0.90 are also considered satisfactory). This index is affected by the number of cases in the sample. The Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) is not modified by the size of the sample and is not based on comparison with the null model. Its value is 0 when the model is a perfect fit for the data; values between 0 and 0.05 are considered indicators of a good fit, but values lower than or equal to 0.08 are accepted as indicators of a satisfactory level of fit. A RMSEA value falling in the range of 0.08–0.10 is deemed to indicate a fit which is neither good nor bad. The Standardised Root Mean square Residual (SRMR) is an absolute measure of fit: a value of zero indicates a perfect fit; a value less than 0.08 is generally considered a good fit (Hu and Bentler 1999; Billiet 2003).
- 10.
Data not presented here. Available on request.
- 11.
Analysis not presented here due to the space limitations; available on request.
- 12.
Factorial analysis and index computing not presented here due to the space limitations; available on request.
- 13.
The unidimensionality of the item response data was tested with an Exploratory Factor Analysis (not presented here due to the space limitations; data available on request).
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Guglielmi, S. (2020). Monolingualism and National Identity: Lessons from Europe. In: Strani, K. (eds) Multilingualism and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40701-8_9
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