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Linguistic Human Rights:
A Sociolinguistic
Introduction
by Prof. Peter. L
Patrick
Dept. of Language & Linguistics
References
Credits
Debts and acknowledgments:
My academic interest in this issue stems originally from my studies with William Labov,
1984-91. It was made real through fieldwork in Jamaica
– a unique speech community, but also typical in many ways of how language
discrimination generates pain and profits. Daphne McGann, Peter Harris and
Freddy Power taught me through particularly vivid examples, which helped me to
put into context my Jamaican schooldays experiences as a linguistically-elite
outsider in the years 1964-73.
While
lecturing at Georgetown
University
I became familiar with the conflicts surrounding the English-Only movement,
about which I learned a considerable amount from the work of Dennis Baron
and James Crawford.
I also became involved then in forensic linguistics, serving as an expert
witness in several criminal cases, which brought home the limited nature of the
language rights exercised by Creole speakers in societies where a standard
language is dominant in the courtroom. My experiences working in healthcare
contexts in Jamaica
in 1994-7 with Arvilla Payne-Jackson, Mervyn Alleyne and Linda Camino showed me
another side of this. John Baugh’s work
challenging illegal housing discrimination on the basis of ethnic accents was
an inspiring example of action scholarship. John Rickford
led the Linguistic Society of America in responding to the national paroxysm of
racism and self-hate focused around language that was the Oakland Ebonics
incident. However, it was the work of Rosina Lippi-Green that first led me to
join these various threads within a framework venturing beyond sociolinguistics
into civil rights law and ideology. Ceil Lucas
and Leila Monaghan,
and all the Deaf and Deaf-identified students I worked with at Georgetown,
taught me about the impact of spoken and written language prejudice on people
whose primary language is sign-based.
I
have also been fortunate to know and work with several people from the legal
arena interested in language. Katie Thomas Trites developed the material on
rules and legal theories governing the use of languages other than English in
US workplaces, which I have summarised on this site, while she was assisting me
at Georgetown.
Celia Brown-Blake’s work-in-progress (comparative
analysis of the legal principles governing the exercise and enforcement/denial
of language rights across several jurisdictions) for her PhD at Essex promises to extend my view beyond
those few situations I already know well. My friends of many years, Marshall Dayan and David Shelledy, have shown me
much of what I know about US criminal courts, served as my guides in thinking
about the ethics of capital cases, and been interested to discuss the role of
language discrimination with me.
Most recently, Jan Blommaert’s writings and discussions have
clarified for me some of the problems in understanding the production of
linguistic inequality. Christina Bratt Paulston has helped to illuminate the
conflict between universal and relativist positions in relation to language
rights, and put me on to useful sources. Closer to home, Paul Hunt at Essex has patiently responded to
my naïve questions, and focused my attention on language rights as a subset of
cultural rights. My undergraduate students have reacted enthusiastically,
encouraging me to place further emphasis on language rights as a perspective
for teaching sociolinguistics. My Head of Department, Martin Atkinson, has
provided the resources for inviting colleagues to speak, and been generally
supportive.
To all these and others – teachers,
colleagues, students, and friends - who have helped me to think more coherently
about language rights, I am very grateful.
Contact Info
Mailing address:
Peter L. Patrick
Professor of Sociolinguistics
Department of Language and Linguistics
University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom
Email: patrickp (after it, put @essex.ac.uk)
Tel: from UK (01206) 872088
from abroad 44.1206.872088
Fax: from UK (01206) 872198
from abroad 44.1206.872198
Office: Room 4.328
Linguistic Human
Rights homepage
- Peter L Patrick
homepage
Last revised 2 November
2005
University of Essex