Linguistic discrimination in Europe

Linguistic discrimination in Europe

Nowadays, discrimination of others is an important topic amongst our society. It is mostly related to nationality, gender or religion, but linguistic discrimination also exists and happens every day at the workplace, at school and on the streets. It is the unfair treatment of individuals whose use of language is different. It can be based on a person’s sound of voice, their pronunciation or lack of formal dictionary. How did this phenomenon come about, where does it most significantly appear and what are the reasons? The research is focusing on Europe as it is interesting to see how a system said to be unifying can still be and is discriminating towards otherness.

Kratzer, H. (2012, December 30). Deutsch können nur die anderen. Retrieved from http://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/mundart-als-anlass-fuer-diskriminierung-deutsch-koennen-nur-die-anderen-1.1561015

The article is talking about the current situation of dialects in the German media. The author says that TV presenters and comedians have made it a norm to ridicule every German dialect and guests, who appear on television shows, are asked to speak standard German or they get subtitled. Mr. Kratzer also mentions Mr. König, the publicist of the book “dtv-Atlas Deutscher Sprache”, who says that there is no “real” German language and all varieties are equivalent.

For my study, I found it relevant how the author mentions specific cases of language discrimination in Germany. Mr. König finds it interesting that although economy and education is proven to be the best in the South, the rest of the German population, according to a poll, thinks that Southerners are not able to speak “real” German. In the 19^th century this dialect was still spoken by university professors and scientists, nowadays children are taught to speak in the standard, “Northern” dialect which puts the students under big pressure. The author of the article also talks about the history of standard German. It first appeared in the South as a dialect, from where it was brought up North from Martin Luther and popularized by theatre and the big German dictionary, the Duden.

Kontra, M. (2005). Mi a lingvicizmus és mit lehet ellene tenni? Retrieved from http://web.unideb.hu/~tkis/kontra_lingvicizmus.htm#_ftn1

Milroy, J., & Milroy, L. (1999). Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English (Third ed.). London/New York: Routledge.

Miklós Kontra is a professor at the University of Szeged and a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. This text is originally from a speech he has given in Kishegyes and later written down by him. The text explains the situation of linguists in Hungary and how uncertain the population is concerning standard language use.

In the article I found another approach of linguicism, namely the wrong use of Hungarian language and its discrimination. Kontra mentions Milroy and Milroy who say that linguists generally think of people who can not use standard language as people who are just unable to learn the right way. Milroy and Milroy talk especially about their experience in Britain, but Kontra also makes examples of this way of thinking in Hungary. His group also made a poll which measured if people with higher education are able to speak gramatically more correct Hungarian. Anthony Kroch says that the worst type of linguicism is when people of the “elite” make up their symbols for outcasting the rest of the population, for example symbols like language use. Kontra’s article also ends with a solution to language discrimination.

Jánk I. (2014, August 15) Nem-e magyart tanítunk? – A társadalmi beidegződés. Retrieved from http://www.nyest.hu/hirek/nem-e-magyart-tanitunk-a-tarsadalmi-beidegzodes

Jánk István starts his introduction with mentioning John Myhill, who differentiates between three kinds of correctness in language use: textual, prescriptive and prestige-based. The last one, according to Jánk leads to language discrimination. He also says that education and culture are strongely bound together. Education is accomodating to the classes’ cultural background and the school’s behaviour with foreignness is going to effect the students as well.

Jánk says that because language is a part of the culture, next to values, norms, beliefs, symbols and technologies, schools should accept and treat other language varieties just like the standard. Unfortunately, Hungarian society still has a normative mind concerning these issues, which the school system encourages rather than diminishes. We often hear Hungarian people say „grammar: failed” or „you missed the grammar lessons, didn't you?” when someone messes up a grammatical phrase. Jánk says, that we should stop this kind of discrimination in schools, so that it does not continue later on.