Language and Participation

In this piece, I tackle a current subject of popular controversywhether growing multilingualism in the United States imperils the future ofAmerican democracy. I offer a positive theory, centered on the value ofdemocratic participation, of how a society like the United States shouldapproach the multilingualism of its population. I conclude that embracingbilingualism in individuals and multilingualism in society is more likely tomake linguistic pluralism socially functional and to sustain the vitality ofpublic and social institutions than demanding public monolingualism. Ibegin by demonstrating that current approaches to language diversity inconstitutional democracies, including our own, are largely remedial in nature. They focus either on ensuring the survival of particular minoritygroups historically present and marginalized in a given nation-state, or onhelping immigrants overcome language barriers as they assimilate into thedominant language of the society in question. On its own, this remedialconception cannot ensure that linguistic diversity complements, rather thanundermines, democratic institutions, because it does not account for thevariety of linguistic interests present in a multiethnic society. I then address this limitation by offering an alternative, participatory theory of language difference. I base my conception of participation on principles ofdecentralized decisionmaking. This focus requires considering how to expand the individual\u27s associative options and improve access to the midlevel social institutions where we live out most of our lives, such as theworkplace and the public schools. In accommodating speakers of multiplelanguages in a given institution, we should focus on promoting social investment by individuals and groups, as well as preserving individual control over matters of deeply personal concern, rather than on the survival ofparticular languages or cultures. In developing this framework, I drawfrom the experiences of other multilingual societies and legal systems, but Ipresent the United States as a case study to explain what a participatoryapproach would look like in practice. I focus on the major sites of language conflict in the United States- the political arena, the debate overofficial English, the workplace, and the public schools-and argue that amultilingual understanding of these sites and the legal rules that structurethem best promotes participation