Cover not available
Part of
The Politics of Multilingualism: Europeanisation, globalisation and linguistic governance
Edited by Peter A. Kraus and François Grin
[Studies in World Language Problems 6] 2018
► pp. 145–166

Chapter 7
How to measure linguistic justice?

Theoretical considerations and the South Tyrol case study of the Calvet Language Barometer

| University of Amsterdam | University of Turin

When the concept of linguistic justice was proposed by Pool (1991) in order to cope with the asymmetries quite often found in multilingual contexts, it immediately provoked a great deal of debate. To sum up the debate, there is broad agreement on the meaning of linguistic in-justice, but it is still not clear what linguistic justice really is. This doubt is reflected in the mechanics of the proposed methods for the evaluation of multilingual contexts. What are we measuring? In particular, justice for whom, for example, national citizens or migrants? At which level of analysis, that is to say, at local, national, or transnational? The answers to these types of questions will determine our choice of the right – or at least the appropriate – parameters to be taken into account in order to design an index of the proposed measurement method. In other words, measures are far from neutral, in spite of the fact that they are quantitative, especially in the field of analytical sociolinguistics (Iannàccaro & Dell’Aquila, 2011). After almost a decade of refinements, in particular by Van Parijs (2004, 2011, 2012), Grin (2011), and Grin and Gazzola (2007) observed that the intangible value of a language, being one of the main carriers of culture, is quite often left aside in the indexes that propose to measure linguistic justice as a whole. The only variable that seems to be generally accepted as being relevant is territory.

In this chapter, I examine the Calvet Language Barometer (CLB) in its latest version, published on the web in 2012, under the perspective of linguistic justice. I will proceed backwards, as the CLB aims to measure the “linguistic altitude” of languages in isolation – i.e., their position on the scale – while linguistic justice refers to languages in contact and mainly to multilingual contexts. However, the worldwide gravitational model presented in Calvet (2006, 1999), is naturally compatible with the CLB and can be used for this purpose. The case study of South Tyrol will be presented in order to test the CLB in this perspective, showing to what extent the barometer works, where it does not work, and why. In the conclusion, some preliminary ideas about a genuine multilingual measure of linguistic justice will be presented, based upon an operative notion of multilingual equilibrium.

Keywords: linguistic justice, Calvet Language Barometer, multilingualism, language in contact
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A barometer to measure the altitude of languages
    • Parameter 1: The number of speakers
    • Parameter 2: Entropy
    • Parameter 3: Vehicularity
    • Parameter 4: Official status
    • Parameters 5 and 6: The role of translation
    • Parameter 7: International literary awards
    • Parameter 8: The number of Wikipedia articles
    • Parameters 9 and 10: Human Development Index (HDI) and total fertility rate
    • Parameter 11: Language use in the Internet
    • Two versions of the barometer: Unweighted versus weighted
  • 3.The gravitational model and the barometer
  • 4.An application: The barometer of the linguistic justice in South Tyrol
  • 5.Final observations
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 September 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/wlp.6.07gob
References
Alcalde, Javier
in press). “Linguistic Justice: An Interdisciplinary Overview of the Literature”, in: Michele Gazzola, et al. (eds) Language Policy and Linguistic Justice: Economic, Philosophical and Sociolinguistic Approaches Berlin Springer Verlag. Pre-print published online at [URL] DOI logo
(2014) “On the Need for a Linguistic Justice Index”, Peace in Progress: Linguistic Conflicts, No. 21.Google Scholar
Beckner, Clay, Richard Blythe, Joan Bybee, Morten H. Christiansen, William Croft, Nick C. Ellis, John Holland, Jinyun Ke, Diane Larsen-Freeman and Tom Schoenemann
(2009) “Language is a Complex Adaptive System: Position Paper”, Language Learning, 59 (Supp. 1): 1–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bonfiglio, Thomas Paul
(2013) “Inventing the Native Speaker”, Critical Multilingualism Studies, 1 (2): 29–58.Google Scholar
(2010) Mother Tongues and Nations: The Invention of the Native Speaker. New York: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Calvet, Louis-Jean
(1999) Pour une ecologie des langues du monde. Paris: Plon.Google Scholar
(2006) Towards and Ecology of World Languages. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Calvet, Louis,-Jean, and Calvet Alain
(2012) “Baromètre Calvet des langues du monde. WikiLF”. Published online at: [URL].
Gazzola, Michele
(2014a) “Partecipazione, esclusione linguistica e traduzione: Una valutazione del regime linguistico dell’Unione Europea.” (Partecipation, Linguistic Disenfranchisement and Translation: An Evaluation of the Language Regime of the European Union). ELF Working Paper: #12. Université de Genève.
(2014b) “Lingva justeco: kiel taksi ĝin? La ekzemplo de Eŭropa Unio.” (Linguistic Justice: How to Evaluate it? The Example of the European Union), ELF Working Paper: #14. Université de Genève.
(2014c) “Language Policy and Linguistic Justice in the European Union: The Socio-Economic Effects of Multilingualism.” ELF Working Paper: #15. Université de Genève.
Gazzola, Michele, and François Grin
(2013) “Is ELF more Effective and Fair than Translation? An Evaluation of the EU’s Multilingual Regime”, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 23 (1): 93–107. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gobbo, Federico
(2010) “Review of: Jennifer Jenkins. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity”, Language Problems & Language Planning, 34 (1): 81–83. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grin, François
(2011) “Using Territoriality to Support Genuine Linguistic Diversity, not to get Rid of it”, in: Philippe Van Parijs (ed.), The Linguistic Territoriality Principle: Right Violation or Parity of Esteem?, pp. 28–33. Brussels: Re-Bel, 11, available at: [URL].Google Scholar
Grin, François, and Michele Gazzola
(2007) “Assessing Efficiency and Fairness in Multilingual Communication: Towards a General Analytical Framework”, AILA Review, 20, pp. 87–105. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hale, Scott A.
(2014) “Multilinguals and Wikipedia Editing”, WebSci ’14. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Hiddinga, Anja, and Onno Crasborn
(2011) “Signed Languages and Globalization”, Language in Society, 40 (4): 483–505. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Houtkamp, Christopher
(2014) “Integrating Language in Theories on Long-distance Movement: Migration vs Mobility & the Concept of Mobility”. A’dam Multiling. Working Paper #2.Google Scholar
Iannàccaro, Gabriele, and Vittorio Dell’Aquila
(2011) “Numeri soggettivi. Spunti sulla vitalità linguistica da inchieste e trattamenti quantitativi”, in: Bruno Moretti, Elena Maria Pandolfi and Matteo Casoni (eds), Vitalità di una lingua minoritaria. Aspetti e proposte metodologiche (The Vitality of a Minority Language. Aspects and Methodological Issues), pp. 151–192. Bellinzona: Osservatorio Linguistico della Svizzera Italiana.Google Scholar
Kloss, Heinz
(1967) “Abstand Languages and Ausbau Languages”, Anthropological Linguistics, 9 (7): 29–41.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons and Charles D. Fennig
(eds) (2014) Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Seventeenth Edition, Dallas TX: SIL International, available at: [URL], accessed repeatedly since its publication.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul, and Gary F. Simons
(2010) “Assessing Endangerment: Expanding Fishman’s GIDS”, Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, 55 (2): 103–120.Google Scholar
Lindstedt, Jouko
(2010) “Esperanto as a Family Language”, in: Fred Dervin (ed.), Lingua francas. La véhicularité linguistique pour vivre, travailler et étudier, pp. 69–80. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Marácz, László, and Mireille Rosello
(eds) (2012) Multilingual Europe, Multilingual Europeans. Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meluzzi, Chiara, Simone Ciccolone and Ilaria Fiorentini
(2013) “Contact-induced Innovation in a Multilingual Setting: Evidence from Italian, German, and Ladin in South Tyrol”, 9th UK Language Variation and Change Conference (UKLVC9), Sheffield.
Neumann, Stella
(2014) Contrastive Register Variation: A Quantitative Approach to the Comparison of English and German. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Paolillo, John, Daniel Pimienta and Daniel Prado, et al.
(2005) Mesurer la diversité linguistique sur Internet (Measuring Linguistic Diversity on the Internet). Paris: UNESCO.Google Scholar
Pallaver, Günther
(2014) “South Tyrol’s Changing Political System: From Dissociative on the Road to Associative Conflict Resolution”, Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, 42 (3): 376–398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pool, Jonathan
(1991) “The Official Language Problem”, American Political Science Review, 25 (2): 485–514.Google Scholar
Swaan, Abram de
(2001) Words of the World: The Global Language System. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ wa
(1986) Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Nairobi: East African Publishers.Google Scholar
Van Parijs, Philippe
(2004) “Europe’s Linguistic Challenge”, European Journal of Sociology, 45 (1): 111–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011) Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012) “On Linguistic Territoriality and Belgium’s Linguistic Future”, in: Patricia Popelier, Dave Sinardet, Jan Velaers and Bea Cantillon (eds), Belgium: Quo Vadis? Waarheen na de zesde staatshervorming, pp. 35–60. Antwerp: Intersentia.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 6 other publications

Hofer, Barbara
2023. Applying DLC to the Study and Discussion of Early Multicompetence in a Trilingual Minority Context in Northern Italy. In Language Awareness and Identity [Multilingual Education, 45], ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Kanaki, Argyro
2021. Multilingualism and Social Inclusion in Scotland: Language Options and Ligatures of the “1+2 Language Approach”. Social Inclusion 9:1 ► pp. 14 ff. DOI logo
Ravyse, Natasha & Adriana J. M. van Zyl
2022. Between two fires. Language Problems and Language Planning 46:3 ► pp. 318 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Ai-Ling
2021. Are We Living in a Globalized World?. In Redefining the Role of Language in a Globalized World [Advances in Linguistics and Communication Studies, ], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Ai-Ling
2022. Are We Living in a Globalized World?. In Research Anthology on Applied Linguistics and Language Practices, ► pp. 1320 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Soziolinguistische Bibliographie europäischer Länder für 2018Sociolinguistic Bibliography of European Countries for 2018Bibliographie sociolinguistique des pays européens pour 2018. Sociolinguistica 34:1 ► pp. 277 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.