Uneingeschränkter Zugang

Maxi-Min Language Use A Critical Remark on a Concept by Philippe van Parijs

   | 26. Okt. 2016

Zitieren

Philippe van Parijs explains in Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World the concept of maxi-min language use as a process of language choice. He suggests that the language chosen as a common language should maximize the minimal competence of a community. Within a multilingual group of people, the chosen language is the language known best by a participant who knows it least. For obvious reasons, only English would qualify for having that status. This article argues that maxi-min is rather a normative concept, not only because the process itself remains empirically unfounded. Moreover, language choice is the result of complex social and psychological structures. As a descriptive process, the maxi-min choice happens in the reality fairly seldom, whereas the max-min use of languages seen as a normative process could be a very effective tool to measure linguistic justice.

eISSN:
2068-7583
Sprache:
Englisch
Zeitrahmen der Veröffentlichung:
2 Hefte pro Jahr
Fachgebiete der Zeitschrift:
Sozialwissenschaften, Politikwissenschaften, Allgemeines, Innenpolitik, Parteien, andere politische Organisationen, Internationale Beziehungen, Menschenrechte