Grievability of First Language Loss: Towards a Reconceptualisation of European Minority Language Education Practices

Abstract

This paper presents the root causes of the resistance of mainstream European educational institutions to implementation of minority language programmes (bilingual programmes with both an official/dominant language and an immigrant minority language as media of instruction). Differential treatment of different minority languages in the mainstream educational discourse will be discussed. It will be argued within the conceptual framework of Said's Orientalism, especially as it relates to the construction of the oriental subject, that some minority languages are more legitimate than others vis-à-vis mainstream curricular practices, which allows for different degrees of grievability attributed to potential loss of those languages on both individual and community scales. Ultimately, it will be discussed how the power relations between centre and margin are recirculated in support of educational structures that lead to first language loss among immigrant children, and what conditions would bring about a reconceptualisation of minority language education practices.

Keywords:

• bilingual education
• grievability
• first language loss
• immigration
• minority language education
• Orientalism

Notes

1. Heritage language classes in Canada and the USA involve instruction in immigrant minority languages for children who are speakers of those languages. Heritage language programmes are typically offered by community organisations and school boards at weekends with the purpose of L1 maintenance. According to Freeman (2004: 3), ‘there are a wide range of programme types and structures but very little research on programme outcomes’.

2. Souvent négligé, sinon dévalorisé, le bilinguisme des enfants de migrants est appréhendé comme un bilinguisme soustractif (qui handicape l'enfant), alors que le bilinguisme à partir d'une langue à statut social et économique élevé est présenté comme additif (positif et valorisant).

3. In a CBC (the state-run Canadian TV station) feature report (20 June 2006) on attitudes to Muslims in Canada, the reporter kept making a distinction between ‘us’ (Canadians) and ‘you’ (the representatives of the Muslim community – quite an Orientalist grouping in and of itself) in an interview with a Muslim scholar. The scholar became quite upset with this distinction, which in turn made the reporte upset too. Obviously, the reporter could not force himself to accept the visible, audible and ideological difference of his interlocutor as an admissible part of Canadian-ness. Canadians tend to think that Canada is a more tolerant society than Europe; the reporter's questions inadvertently (or deliberately?) subverted this notion.

4. For North American economic and security structures especially, recent efforts in learning Mandarin and Arabic are often caused by the necessity to get ‘under the skin’ of the economic and military competitors (San Francisco Chronicle, 2006).