rss_2.0Sciendo RSS Feed for Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, European and Regional Studieshttps://sciendo.com/journal/AUSEURhttps://www.sciendo.comhttps://sciendo-parsed.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/6470c96b71e4585e08aa57b5/cover-image.jpghttps://sciendo.com/journal/AUSEUR140216https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0001ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00012016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0016ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00162016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0014<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>The programme which was planned for more stages started in 2010 and undertook the monitoring of Hungarian news programmes (since 2011, cultural programmes have also been monitored) of national audiovisual media from different regions. The aim of monitoring these programmes is to study the strength of samples as to what extent professional speakers, reporters observe the norms of vernacular language and to what extent their use of language acts as part of sample language in a regional, bilingual, and dialectical environment.</p><p>In my study, I present the methodological questions of media monitoring (the aspects of sampling, the requirements regarding content and form in processing documentary material), paying attention to the differences between Romanian and Hungarian media-monitoring programmes.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00142016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0007<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>The notion of <italic>linguistic justice</italic> should be related to the concept of <italic>linguistic ease</italic>, by which we mean the full social and communicative freedom of concern of the speaker in a given social interaction involving the use of language(s) present in the society, according to the social norms of use. To acquire an acceptable degree of linguistic ease, the knowledge of at least one L2 is considered important. But the acquisition of a L2 is interfered by the previous linguistic skills of the learner/speaker who, in many cases, does not have a suitable competence even of the languages of the society in which he/she lives.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00072016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0009<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>Philippe van Parijs explains in <italic>Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World</italic> 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.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00092016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0015ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00152016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0008<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>In the European and world-wide scenario of linguistic justice offered by <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_auseur-2016-0008_ref_010_w2aab2b8b5b1b7b1ab1ac10Aa">van Parijs (2011)</xref>, it is argued that we need one <italic>lingua franca</italic> only and that the only suitable candidate is English. In order to sustain his argument, the author has to reject three known alternatives against the English-only scenario. The second alternative is Esperanto. Van Parijs argues that there are some inner defects in the Esperanto language, and therefore Esperanto is not suitable for the role of world-wide <italic>lingua franca</italic>. This paper offers counterarguments based on the evidence of facts, showing that if nowadays Esperanto is only a lesser-used language the reason is not in the inner traits of the language, rather in geopolitical decisions. I argue that in the most probable global scenario English still plays the actual major role, but along with other cultural languages being regional <italic>lingua francas</italic>.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00082016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0005<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>The relevance of languages and multilingual communication for social policy and solidarity in the context of the nation-state has generally been recognized. However, in the context of Europeanization, this factor has been underestimated and neglected in scientific research. This paper argues that languages and multilingual communication are relevant for the design of Social Europe. In order to support this hypothesis, the paper relies on an analytical tool, the so-called floral figuration model proposed by <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_auseur-2016-0005_ref_004_w2aab2b8c18b1b7b1ab1ab4Aa">De Swaan (1988)</xref>. This model allows us to isolate social and linguistic actors and track down complex patterns of linguistic and communicative exclusion in Europe’s system of multilevel governance. These patterns also refer to international or global English or its technically adapted Brussels variety, ‘Euro-English’. From this, also follows that these patterns of linguistic and communicative exclusion must be rendered into inclusive ones before a European social policy can be realized.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00052016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0004<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>In his book <italic>Linguistic Justice for Europe and the World</italic>, Van Parijs analyses in one of his chapters the brain drain from non-Anglophone to Anglophone countries, which hurts the economic development of the non-Anglophone states. Van Parijs deems it clear that English is a very important factor to explain high-skilled migration. He, therefore, urges the non-Anglophone countries to relax their linguistic territorial constraints and allow English as a communication language in many different sectors, most notably higher education and scientific research. This would remove the incentive for potential expatriate brains to migrate for linguistic reasons. This article takes a closer look at Van Parijs’ reasoning and proposed solutions. It is concluded that the assumed connection between English and high-skilled migration cannot be proven empirically for research on this topic is scarcely available. Furthermore, the solutions presented by Van Parijs will produce uncertain results at best. Van Parijs rightfully puts the brain drain problem on the political and research agenda, but much more additional studies are needed to formulate solid solutions.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00042016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0003<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>Should English be promoted as a worldwide lingua franca for justice-related reasons? Philippe Van Parijs answers affirmatively in order to promote global distributive justice. In contrast, I argue that a rapid expansion of English could lead to one undesirable consequence that ought to be prevented: the globalization of an Anglo-American life-world that impoverishes democratic-deliberative debates. Inspired by John Stuart Mill, I will defend the idea that the more dominant the Anglo-American life-world is, the less diversity of life-worlds and, therefore, the less diversity of substantial voices in the global democratic-deliberative process there will be. It might be that more voices could be heard (because of the lingua franca), but with less substantial diversity of opinions. In that sense, the life-worlds (and language as an access key to them) have an instrumental value that enables plurality and better deliberative discussion. For that reason, I contend that there is a <italic>pro tanto</italic> reason to prevent the expansion of English as a lingua franca.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00032016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0002<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>In the European Union language regime debate, theorists of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism have framed their arguments in reference to different theories of justice and democracy. Philippe Van Parijs advocates the diffusion of a <italic>lingua franca</italic>, namely English, as means of changing the scale of the justificatory community to the European level and allowing the creation of a transnational <italic>demos</italic>. Paradoxically, one key dimension of democracy has hardly been addressed in this discussion: the question of the democratic legitimacy of language regime choices and citizens’ preferences on the different language regime scenarios. Addressing the question of the congruence of language policy choices operated by national and European elites and ordinary citizens’ preferences, this paper argues first that the dimension of democratic legitimacy is crucial and needs to be taken into account in discussions around linguistic justice. Criticizing the assumption of a direct correspondence between individuals’ language learning choices and citizens’ language regime preferences made by different authors, the analysis shows the ambivalence of citizens’ preferences measured by survey data. The article secondly raises the question of the boundaries of the political community at which the expression of citizens’ preferences should be measured and demonstrates that the outcome and the fairness of territorial linguistic regimes may vary significantly according to the level at which this democratic legitimacy is taken into account.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00022016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0011<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>In advocating the use of a global auxiliary language, Van Parijs forms part of a tradition that stretches back to the seventeenth century. However, he differs from this tradition in promoting the use of English rather than an artificial language of some sort. This paper examines the theoretical situation that van Parijs proposes as the most fair, in which English functions worldwide as the preferred auxiliary language and in which certain measures have been taken to counterbalance injustices of three types. I draw attention to injustices of each of these types done to speakers of English in that situation. This leads to the conclusion that proposals to use an artificial language as a global lingua franca that were made in the seventeenth and later centuries have a stronger case than van Parijs has argued.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00112016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0013<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>The analysis of interference is a popular topic in sociolinguistics, and the researchers addressing it investigate the phenomena of interference with a special regard to mother tongue texts of speakers living in a linguistic minority. In order to analyse the phenomenon, one needs to be clear about the identity of the author of the particular text, in addition to the linguistic environment, the circumstances in which the phenomenon appears, etc., and this is particularly difficult in the case of historical texts. The most frequent interference phenomenon in Old Hungarian texts is the occurrence of Latin elements in the utterances of Hungarian mother tongue speakers; nevertheless, we can find other linguistic interferences as within the regions inhabited by Hungarians the speakers came in contact with and learned the language(s) of several communities with other mother tongues. In this study, I analyse Romanian words and phrases that appear in the texts of Hungarian-language testimonies given by Romanians living in Transylvania; these linguistic elements cannot be classified as regional borrowings in the Hungarian lexicon, and if they can, they were used by the Hungarian speakers for a very short period of time. Thus, my paper analyses phenomena of interference that are connected to mother tongue elements appearing in a foreign language text.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00132016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0010<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>In this note, we outline various possible long-run effects of an English-only acquisition policy in the European Union. The point of departure is how individual behaviour adapts to constraints in the environment. This leads to changes in collective behaviour, which becomes part of the environment, again influencing individual behaviour. Possible equilibria of this feedback mechanism are discussed. It is argued that domain loss and diglossia may result. The process is further characterized by external effects. Looking at language knowledge as a merit good, path dependencies and multiple stable equilibria can be explained.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00102016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0012<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>The article is a brief evaluation of the regulatory environment of language use in Transylvania, Romania based on Van Parijs’ conceptual toolkit presented in his 2011 book <italic>Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World</italic>. This linguistic regime is a coercive hybrid regulation containing elements stemming from both the categorical regime (personality principle) and territoriality. In municipalities or counties where the official use of minority languages is permitted, it is typically present in a conjunctive manner, but its enforcement is weak and inconsistent. The principle of territorially coercive linguistic subdivision – proposed by Van Parijs as an optimal solution for a greater linguistic justice – is not accommodated in any of the fields of official communication and under present political circumstances it has no further plausibility. A hypothetical alternative for the territorially coercive regime would be the introduction of English as a lingua franca in interethnic communication. We argued that this latter option would be fair only if English could entirely replace the official languages currently in use or it would receive a fully equivalent status at least in those regions where a considerable number of linguistic minorities live.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00122016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-0006<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>This contribution will engage with Van Parijs’s approach to linguistic justice and his working principles for the reduction of unfairness in the language domain (in particular, the need for intervention and his territorial principle), reflecting on a range of cases of multilingual practice and linguistic coexistence – respectively, in the multilingual capital of the world which is London today; in Fryslân, the minority language area in northern Netherlands; and in Europe, through its European Charter of Regional Minority Languages.</p><p>Overall, my argument, on a theoretical level, is for the further exploration of the relationship between linguistic diversity and human rights in civil society; and, on a practical level, for the development of a World Language Atlas as envisaged by UNESCO, containing vital information on all the world’s languages – an urgently needed basic resource for policy-making, to ensure, especially for the world’s many endangered languages, the linguistic justice and fairness advocated by Van Parijs.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2016-00062016-10-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2015-0015<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p> In the modern world, processes of migration are expected to contribute to economic development, the interchange of progressive technologies and knowledge as well as the blending of cultures. Solving the problems linked to migration processes is an important task to be accomplished by various state policies of European Union member countries. Both internal and external reasons explain why such policies are treated with much consideration nowadays. The present paper describes the development of European Union regulations on immigration and asylum, while tackling certain - primarily legal - aspects of immigration policies, too. Its conclusion based on the discussion of processes and legal provisions relates to the possible future of Europe.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2015-00152016-03-18T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2015-0014<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p> One of the key concepts of the MIME (Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe) project is, obviously, ‘inclusion’. However, precisely describing what the concept means is not as straightforward as it may seem. It has been used in different contexts in scientific literature. This paper attempts to contribute to the enfolding MIME-framework by critically reflecting upon the definition of ‘inclusion’. Drawing upon theories of acculturation, three core concepts in minority literature, namely ‘assimilation,’ ‘integration,’ and ‘inclusion’ will be examined, and their differences demarcated. In the light of recent developments, such as transnationalism, it will be determined which concept is best suited to analyse contemporary accommodation processes of minorities in their countries of residence. After examining the trade-off between mobility and inclusion, a central topic in all MIMErelated research, some general conclusions about ‘inclusion’ and diversitymanagement will be drawn.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2015-00142016-03-18T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2015-0012<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p> This article gives an overview of the actual situation of language rights in Slovakia, focusing mainly on the minority language usage. The status of minority languages in Slovakia is still a politicized question and a series of conflicts arose especially between Slovak political elites and the representatives of ethnic Hungarians because of the controversial legislation of minority language rights. Slovakia was subjected in the field of minority protection and heavily criticized during the adoption of the State Language Law. Strict regulations on the use of state language have negative effects on the use of minority languages as well. In spite of the fact that in 1999 the Law on Use of Minority Languages was adopted and Slovakia ratified all of the international agreements in this field, the problem of minority language usage was not solved. This legal vacuum motivated the Hungarian civil sphere to take alternative actions in order to ensure bilingualism and promote the use of minority languages in official communication. Summarizing the legal accommodation of minority language rights, this paper is devoted to examine a recently less-observed civil activism supporting the use of regional languages in Slovakia.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2015-00122016-03-18T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2015-0013<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p> In this paper, we will attempt to outline the process of how the nationality/minority rights, especially the minority language rights, were changed in the former Yugoslavia in the next period of times: … and how they have changed in Serbia since 1990, and in Vojvodina. We present the most significant constitutional and legal changes, their impact on the institutional and everyday life, and the language policy tendencies.</p><p>Finally, we discuss how the formation of the Serbian National Councils have shaped the linguistic rights of minorities in Vojvodina, in particularly after 2009, through examining the work, experiences, and the strategy of the Hungarian National Council and the Hungarians living there.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/auseur-2015-00132016-03-18T00:00:00.000+00:00en-us-1