I am a contributor who is currently based in the United States, but grew up in Singapore. I am interested in human rights, migration and global health, and look forward to learning about these topics with everyone here. I worked on the Women Migrant Workers from Developing Countries article during the first semester of my Poverty, Justice and Human Capabilities class, and look forward to editing another article for the second semester of this class. I'll be working on the Linguistic Discrimination this semester, and here's the a draft of the proposal I have for the article.

Rationale for expansion

1.    Globally, only 10% of languages enjoy any form of formal status. Speakers of the many other minority languages are often denied access to their linguistic human rights, including access to basic education, political representation or a fair trial. While the existing article provides an extensive analysis of linguistic discrimination in the United States, and to a lesser extent that in Canada and Europe, the examples it provides of non-western countries tend to be brief. In addition, it does not explore the relationship between colonization and linguistic discrimination, even though this concern remains very relevant in the large majority of countries that have previously been colonized. In many of these countries, the imbalance in power between colonial and indigenous languages has exacerbated class disparities between the local bourgeoisie, who are typically fluent in colonial languages, and rest of the population. In addition, many former colonies continue to use colonial languages in both governance and education, making it difficult for speakers of indigenous languages to access these services. My edits seek to address the Eurocentric bais of the existing article by exploring the impact of colonization on linguistic discrimination in a variety of non-western former colonies.

2.    Parts of this article are poorly organized: for example, there are two sections both titled “examples”, making it difficult for readers to find what they are looking for. In my edits, I hope merge the two “examples” sections and organize the newly combined section in a consistent manner. More specifically, I intend to group the varied list of examples in the second “examples” section by continent for easier reference.

Comparison with other articles

I compared my article with other articles on discrimination, such as the one on “Sexism”. Unlike my article, the article on “Sexism” specifically explored the impacts discrimination can have on different spheres of life, such as employment and education. I hope to do the same in my article, by discussing in greater depth the impacts linguistic discrimination can have on education and civic participation.  

Outline changes

1.    Linguistic prejudice

2.    Language and social group saliency

3.    Written linguistic discrimination

4.    Linguistic Discrimination and Colonization

5.    Examples

a.         Linguistic prejudice and minority groups

a.    Africa

i.     Cameroon

ii.     South Africa

b.    Asia

i.     Anti-Chinese legislation in Indonesia

ii.     Japanese rule in Korea

iii.     Tamils in Sri Lanka

iv.     China

c.    In Canada

i.     Francophone community in Quebec, New Brunswick, Ontario and the Red River Rebellion

ii.     Quebec and the Anglophone community

d.    In the European Union

i.     Linguistic disenfranchisement rate

ii.     Ireland, Wales and Scotland

iii.     Basque

iv.     France

v.     Norwegianization

vi.     Magyarization in Hungary

vii.     Russification

viii.     Anti-Hungarian Slovak language law

ix.     Dutch in Belgium

e.    Middle East

i.     Ancient Egypt

ii.     Kurdish in Syria

f.      In the United States

i.     Perpetuation of discriminatory practices through terminology

ii.     African Americans

iii.     Hispanic Americans and linguicism

iv.     American Sign Language users

a.         Texts

a.         Prejudice

1.         Examples

Planned changes

1.    Linguistic Discrimination and Colonization: My planned contribution involves the addition of a new section entitled “Linguistic Discrimination and Colonization”. In this section, I will explore both the theoretical basis for linguistic discrimination in former colonies, as well as a range of specific examples of such discrimination.

a.    Linguistic Imperialism: This subsection will provide a brief primer on the history of linguistic imperialism in colonized regions. As colonizers sought to promote their own mother tongues as “civilized languages”, they frequently suppressed the native languages of indigenous populations. This was often to the detriment of the local population: for example, when the French arrived to “civilize” Algeria, the literacy rate in Algeria was over 40%, higher than that in France at the time. However, when the French left in 1962, the literacy rate in Algiers was at best 10-15%.

i.     Rannut, Mart. Linguistic human rights: Overcoming linguistic discrimination. Vol. 67. Walter de Gruyter, 2010.

ii.     Canagarajah, Suresh and Said, Selim. “Linguistic Imperialism.” In The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics, edited by James Simpson, 391-404. Abington, UK: Routledge, 2010.

b.    Colonial Languages and Class: This subsection will discuss how the mastery of colonial languages can perpetuate class disparities in neocolonial societies. In countries such as Haiti, members of the local bourgeoisie are often fluent in colonial languages, which they use both socially and in business, while the majority of the local population speak indigenous languages, which are often deemed to be of a “lower” class.

i.     Chitpin, Stephanie, and John P. Portelli, eds. Confronting Educational Policy in Neoliberal Times: International Perspectives. Routledge, 2019.

ii.     Parameswaran, Radhika E. “Colonial interventions and the postcolonial situation in India: the English language, mass media and the articulation of class.” Gazette (Leiden, Netherlands) 59, no. 1 (1997): 21-41.

c.    Linguistic Discrimination in Education: This subsection hopes to explore the ways in which education can perpetuate linguistic discrimination in postcolonial societies. First, class disparities in postcolonial nations are often reproduced through education. In countries such as Haiti, schools attended by the bourgeoisie, which are usually of higher quality, use colonial languages as their means of instruction, while those attended by the rest of the population are often taught in indigenous languages. The resultant disparities in colonial language fluency and educational quality can impede social mobility. On the other hand, in other are such as Kenya and French Guiana, colonial languages are taught in all schools, often to the exclusion of local indigenous languages. As colonial languages were viewed by many as the “civilized” tongues, being “educated” often meant being able to speak and write in these colonial tongues. Indigenous language education was often seen as an impediment to achieving fluency in these colonial languages, and thus deliberately suppressed. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that minority children have the right to “use his or her own language”, and the suppression of indigenous languages within the education system appears to contravene this treaty. Children who speak indigenous languages are also significantly disadvantaged when educated in “foreign” languages, and often have high illiteracy rates.

i.     Chitpin, Stephanie, and John P. Portelli, eds. Confronting Educational Policy in Neoliberal Times: International Perspectives. Routledge, 2019.

ii.     Bunyi, Grace. “Rethinking the place of African indigenous languages in African education.” International Journal of Educational Development 19, no. 4-5 (1999): 337-350.

iii.     Rannut, Mart. Linguistic human rights: Overcoming linguistic discrimination. Vol. 67. Walter de Gruyter, 2010.

d.    Linguistic Discrimination in Governance: Due in part to the linguistic diversity of Africa, colonial tongues were often seen as “unifying” languages that were adopted as official languages even post-independence. Even though colonial languages are used as the languages of governance and commerce in many postcolonial nations, these colonial tongues are mostly spoken by the bourgeoisie in some of these countries, leading to the disenfranchisement of many locals who speak indigenous languages. For example, French is the official language in Mali, even though only 5-10% of the population speaks it. This subsection will explore instances of linguistic discrimination in governance, including its role in the Bengali Language Movement and formation of modern-day Bangladesh.

i.     Islam, Rafiqul. “The Bengali language movement and the emergence of Bangladesh.” Language and Civilization Change in South Asia. Leiden, EJ Brill (1978): 142-152.

ii.     Skattum, Ingse. “Mali: In defence of cultural and linguistic pluralism.” Language and national identity in Africa (2008): 98-121.

Links

The article has existing links from the broader parent article on “Discrimination”. However, it does not have as many links to topics that intersect with linguistic discrimination, such as “Educational Inequality” and “Social Class”. I intend to add links both from those pages to my article, as well as from my article to those pages.

Potential difficulties

Colonization has resulted in linguistic discrimination in a large number of countries all over the world, each with its own unique culture, systems and manifestations of discrimination. As one of my goals is for the article to be more representative of linguistic discrimination around the world, this diversity could make it difficult to craft an article that is truly representative of this range of experiences. In addition, certain countries are more represented in the literature on linguistic discrimination and colonization, and this bias in academia would likely also be reflected in the Wikipedia article.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any thoughts or suggestions. Thanks for visiting my page!

This user is a participant in WikiProject Feminism.

This user is concerned about Human Rights

• Linguistic Discrimination
• Female Infanticide in China
• Women Migrant Workers from Developing Countries

Women migrant workers from developing countries is currently rated as a start-class article. I hope to help reorganize and edit the article, and would like to incorporate existing research on the impact of specific governmental policies, societal discrimination and segregation, and power disparities on women migrant workers. I also hope to include more information on how the globalization of reproductive labor can affect countries of origin, including the workers' children who are left behind at home, and cover a greater range of countries and cases.

References:

1.    Parrenas, Rhacel Salazar. “Migrant Filipina domestic workers and the international division of reproductive labor.” Gender & Society 14, no. 4 (2000): 560-580.

2.    Yeoh, Brenda SA, and Shirlena Huang. “Negotiating public space: Strategies and styles of migrant female domestic workers in Singapore.” Urban studies 35, no. 3 (1998): 583-602.

3.    Semyonov, Moshe, and Anastasia Gorodzeisky. “Labor Migration, Remittances and Household Income: A Comparison between Filipino and Filipina Overseas Workers 1.” International Migration Review 39, no. 1 (2005): 45-68.

4.    Senaratna, B. C. V., H. Perera, and P. Fonseka. “Mental health status and risk factors for mental health problems in left-behind children of women migrant workers in Sri Lanka.” Ceylon Med J 56, no. 4 (2011): 153-8.

5.    Ball, Rochelle, and Nicola Piper. “Globalization and regulation of citizenship – Filipino migrant workers in Japan.” Political Geography 21, no. 8 (2002): 1013-1034.

6.    Jureidini, Ray. “Trafficking and contract migrant workers in the Middle East.” International Migration 48, no. 4 (2010): 142-163.

7.    Mannon, Susan E., Peggy Petrzelka, Christy M. Glass, and Claudia Radel. “Keeping them in their place: Migrant women workers in Spain’s strawberry industry.” International Journal of the Sociology of Agriculture and Food 19 (2012): 83.

8.    Giusta, Marina Della, and Uma Kambhampati. “Women migrant workers in the UK: social capital, well-being and integration.” Journal of International Development: The Journal of the Development Studies Association 18, no. 6 (2006): 819-833.

9.    Kofman, Eleonore, and Rosemary Sales. “Migrant women and exclusion in Europe.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 5, no. 3-4 (1998): 381-398.

10. Silvey, Rachel. “Transnational domestication: state power and Indonesian migrant women in Saudi Arabia.” Political Geography 23, no. 3 (2004): 245-264.

A more detailed proposal can be found on my sandbox page.