How to Solve Conflicts in Linguistic Policy?

The language of education is an important factor which determines its quality and gives everyone an equal access to education opportunities – that is how Jan de Groof, Academic Supervisor of the Center for Education Law of the HSE Institute of Education, began his greeting speech as a part of lectures dedicated to the question “How to solve conflicts in language policy? – Federalism, Autonomy, Pluralism, Identity, Access and Inclusion”.

The problems of language rights in modern society has become one of the key topics during the “Week of Education Law” in the HSE Institute of Education.

Professor de Groof, who has a great experience in dealing with this issue, focused his speech on the fact that language should be a factor of nation’s self-identity. He emphasized the necessity to solve the existing linguistic conflicts using a variety of tools based on two approaches: combining “hard” and “soft” law and implementation of regulations both within the countries and at the international level.

The two key questions selected by Professor de Grood were: the quality of teaching in the official language and the use of the native language which is very important not only for education, but also for fulfilling fundamental human rights.

Knowing the language is the key to the successful integration into society. The government should make a positive intervention into the language environment, respecting proportionality principles and ensuring the preservation and development of minority languages – said  Jan de Groof

Then the floor was given to Ingo Richer, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law in the University of Paris. At the beginning of his report, Professor Richter has pointed out the importance of discussing contemporary problems that have arisen because of globalization. These problems, he said, are impossible to resolve using traditional methods.

Professor Richter has described four types of linguistic conflicts: the problem of territoriality, based on a confrontation between official and regional languages; the question of learning foreign languages; the problem of political and economic migrations, leading to an increase in a number of existing dialects; the importance of global communication.

In the 19^th century communication was international. Each sphere was using its own language. But today we should arise the question of global communication. Which language, for example, should we use to command the ISS? – that is how Professor Richter illustrated the relevance of this topic, noting that people nowadays face new challenges and can solve them only globally.

There is a common opinion that English is becoming the new lingua franca, but there are still some areas left where English is limited and that is why the development stops – concluded Professor Richter.

As the ways of solving the existing problems he has developed six principles for regulating the language policy: federalism, autonomy, pluralism, identity, accessibility and inclusion.

There was also a question raised about what fundamental right to education really means. Does it provide the opportunity to receive education in the individual’s native language?

The participants of the discussion asked questions about the reasons for considering language as a fundamental right and about the need for protecting not only minority languages but other languages as well.

Professor Alexey Mayorov, Deputy Chief of the State Duma’s Committee on Education in the Russian Federation, asked about this problem in regard to the Russian reality, emphasizing the existing missmatch between the legal regulation and jurisprudence. In his answer, Professor de Groof named as some of the problems – the absent of a clear government position concerning the question of proportionality, the language parity and the existing mismatch between the Russian policy and international agreements.

Dr. Pablo Meix Cereceda, Professor of the Roma Tre University in Italy, marked the importance and ambiguity of the question concerning the use of language rights as means of political struggle.

While answering the questions, Professor Richter has noted that language problems are connected with social problems. Is it right to force people to speak they native language? Doesn’t it mean that we will push minorities to isolation? – asked Professor, marking that the duty to preserve one or another language is the responsibility of those who speak this language. And only native speakers, in his opinion, should define the proportion of teaching the language based on their personal needs.