TY - JOUR

T1 - The speaking citizen

T2 - language requirements and linguistic neoliberal colonialisms

AU - Fortier, A.-M.

PY - 2022/7/31

Y1 - 2022/7/31

N2 - This article concerns contemporary common-sense politics around language, integration, and citizenship that pervade Western European countries, where language is at the basis of a new model of citizenship – jus linguarum. I situate jus linguarum as the product of two seemingly different logics: the logics of neoliberalism and the logics (and legacies) of colonialism. I argue that jus linguarum obscures the fact that ‘national language’ is a historically constructed category with roots in imperialism, and allows for the disappearance of other categories, such as whiteness and middle-classness. The chapter shows how a form of ‘provincialised national languages’ arise from the tensions between the inevitability of multilingualism in today’s global world, on the one hand, and the insistence of one-nation-one-language, on the other. The analysis of jus linguarum developed in this paper forces a new understanding of citizenship where regimes of seeing and regimes of hearing combine in definitions of citizenship and citizens, through intersecting inequalities of language, race, and class.

AB - This article concerns contemporary common-sense politics around language, integration, and citizenship that pervade Western European countries, where language is at the basis of a new model of citizenship – jus linguarum. I situate jus linguarum as the product of two seemingly different logics: the logics of neoliberalism and the logics (and legacies) of colonialism. I argue that jus linguarum obscures the fact that ‘national language’ is a historically constructed category with roots in imperialism, and allows for the disappearance of other categories, such as whiteness and middle-classness. The chapter shows how a form of ‘provincialised national languages’ arise from the tensions between the inevitability of multilingualism in today’s global world, on the one hand, and the insistence of one-nation-one-language, on the other. The analysis of jus linguarum developed in this paper forces a new understanding of citizenship where regimes of seeing and regimes of hearing combine in definitions of citizenship and citizens, through intersecting inequalities of language, race, and class.

KW - Language

KW - languaging

KW - linguistic colonialism

KW - national language

KW - verbal/audial hygiene

KW - class and race inequalities

KW - jus linguarum

U2 - 10.1080/13621025.2022.2091226

DO - 10.1080/13621025.2022.2091226

M3 - Journal article

VL - 26

SP - 447

EP - 453

JO - Citizenship Studies

JF - Citizenship Studies

SN - 1362-1025

IS - 4-5

ER -