Language, Hegemony and the European Union

Language, Hegemony and the European Union

Glyn Williams Gruffudd Williams Language, Hegemony and the European Union Re-examining Unity in Diversity

Glyn Williams Ynys Môn, United Kingdom Gr uffudd Williams London, United Kingdom ISBN 978-3-319-33415-8 ISBN 978-3-319-33416-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33416-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016953101 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 Th is work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Th e use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Th e publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper Th is Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature Th e registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland

Author Preface The relationship between the nation state, society and culture was relatively stable between the inception of the modern nation state at the start of the nineteenth century and the second half of the following century. Each state was largely responsible for its own internal arrangements for regulating the economy, society and culture. The social fabric was constructed out of the forging of a common identity and a common language. It was substantiated by integrated and mutually interdependent institutions that shared an understanding of a common goal around common interests. The associated discursive practice involved institutions speaking from a common place in forging a normativity, the subject of which was the nation as a collective subject. Social class presumed the existence of the nuclear family within which roles were ascribed on the basis of birth, which in turn assumed the centrality of gender differentiation, the gender-based division of labour and marriage. The family was defined by orthodox normative constraints and disciplinarity, and the family situation was defined in institutional terms. Social class was understood as the primary basis of social inequality, and class consciousness was the primary form of social awareness. Moral principles were aligned around this normative context. They informed notions of justice within a relatively narrow context that was reinforced by key institutions around which social life was organised. v

vi Author Preface Language objects were largely constructed in relation to the nation state and its citizenry. In this respect language was territorialised. Its form was regulated through the relationship between standard and syntax. The standard was the normative form against which variation was evaluated, this evaluation being subject to social differentiation. In sustaining the universalism of the state language, attempts were made to relegate all alternative claims to language to the private sphere. Language was a universal among other universals. Across Europe this system was repeated, generating a linguistic diversity. At the European level, the language of the state as a universal based on unity became a particular that lacked a universal signifier. Any universal unity constructed at this level could rely on sustaining the diversity of the particular. On the other hand, it could involve a strategy adopted by the nation state whereby any internal diversity is eliminated in favour of the universal. The emergence of the European Union (EU) as a political entity claimed the objective of creating a unity that did not threaten any internal diversity. How this objective was to be operationalised is unclear. To an extent the EU is the consequence of how the process of globalisation and its underlying discourse obliges a need to be competitive economically within the global order. A European universalism that challenges the universalism of the nation state is constructed by some as a threat, shattering any related notion of unity. This threat is constructed as a challenge to the sovereignty of the nation state, and how this sovereignty is an essential feature of sustaining a sense of identity linked to language and culture. Th e crux of the universal for each nation state is the nation. As a construct, the notion of nation is imaginary; consequently, it is fragile, held together by institutions and their stabilised discourses. As these institutions change in the face of neo-liberalism and globalisation, this fragility becomes evident and the unity of universalism begins to fragment. There is a transformation in how the state governs and in the extent to which it is able to do so. In considering whether the EU s objective of unity in diversity can be sustained without threatening the integrity of linguistic diversity we explore that which has sustained the unity of the nation state its hegemony, and how it is operationalised. In the modern nation state this

Author Preface vii involves a range of institutions generating a predominant way of thinking and understanding, which allows them to cooperate around shared problems, interests and goals. That is, their practices as unified and integrated. We argue that the orthodox hegemony of the nation state is being challenged by the global hegemony of neo-liberalism, leading to a novel brand of governance that focuses on the self as the locus of autonomy. Consequently, any unravelling of hegemonic change is obliged to consider the nation state and its relationship to the neo-liberal discourse. This involves a range of governance narratives involved in various reform programmes. It also involves technologies of the self whereby individuals can operate on their own bodies, transforming themselves in achieving their goals in life. It is a self-reflexive process, related to new forms of subject construction and constitution. Understanding discourse in terms of social practices that operate in constituting subjects and objects and the relationships between them, involves identifying particular discourses and the institutional contexts from which they gain their identity. That is, we are looking for that which constructs these practices the institutions and their capacity to manipulate the human body. If we are now in a period of self-governance, then we are looking for how the self is constructed and constituted and the regimes that do this. We explore how the relationship between the self and language changes, and the relationship of this change to new forms of disciplinarity. How language objects are constructed is not remote from such change processes. Language is deterritorialised and in some cases, reterritorialised. The relationship between language objects changes, and with it the relationships between the associated language groups as social groups. How language plays a role in the constitution of the individual as the subject changes; language playing a new role within a context of selfregulation and self-governance. The technologies of language hegemony bear a distinctive relationship to the technologies of the self. Within the political, public governance or policy derives from political administrative intervention, but it is an intervention also informed by academic discourse. It is here that sociology is brought into play. In this respect it is important to recognise that lines of questioning are always inscribed in both academic and political administrative intervention.

viii Author Preface That is, the subjects and objects that they construct play a central role in the production of the outcome. Since sociology acknowledged the limitations of structural functionalism and Marxism there have been at least three broad trends in its production. First, the work of Beck and Giddens argues that modernity is in retreat, being replaced by a more complex order that involves a high degree of individual and institutional reflexivity. In the view of Beck this contributes to an increasing sense of risk and insecurity. Second, what is referred to as the new social movements, were movements that challenged the prevailing understanding that social class was the predominant dimension of inequality around which liberation and emancipation revolved. Predominant among them were the various movements that sought to assert the rights of minority languages that had been displaced within the nation state. These movements involved a mixture of selfdetermination and liberation from what was constructed as the authoritarianism of the state. Third, the post-structuralism that derived from the work of French academics during the 1960s. This argued that discourse constitutes the world, with chance and contingency playing a predominant role. Power is claimed to operate on human bodies, transforming them into individuals who are allocated to positions in the social through the effects of discourse. Th is book is an exploration of these changes. It focuses on the single theme of how the European Union s goal of establishing a unity in diversity is unwinding. Given the orthodox structuring of unity within the nation state, and how each nation state has institutionsalised its own language, it considers the extent to which a new unity forged out of a multiplicity of language systems can be achieved. In so doing it considers the relationship between the EU and the nation state with reference to how the hegemonic process that has sustained the autonomy of the nation state is changing. Th e opening chapter provides an introduction to how we understand recent developments in sociolinguistics and attempts to integrate an interest in language, both as an object and as a process, with sociological perspectives. It allows us to situate our own approach. The second chapter explores the various discourses that have emanated from the EU, and how they have involved different understandings of the nature of

Author Preface ix language and culture and their relationship to a dynamic social. We argue that academic discourse plays a role in these developments. In Chapter 3 we consider the nature of social change as it relates to globalisation and political change. The objective is to outline the nature of change rather than to account for it. We focus on changes in sovereignty and how this influences the dynamics of change. This leads to a focus on social, political and language hegemony in Chapter 4, allowing us to narrow the understanding of hegemonic processes. Chapter 5 involves a discussion of how principles of justice have changed, bringing new dimensions and new objects to the debate. This influences the constitution of language in society. The following three chapters focus on three key institutions law, education and government with the objective of teasing out the extent to which relationships between the nation state and the EU intervene in the operation of the respective institutions within the nation state. In each case the focus is on the embedding of language in the institutional processes. The concluding chapter draws together the preceding discussion by focusing on the relationship between unity and diversity by reference to the hegemonic logic. While the book does not offer a template whereby the goal of unity in diversity can be achieved, it does strive to discuss the issues around which a conception can be framed. In this respect it should be understood as an exercise that seeks to clarify the place of language in society and politics within a world that is rapidly changing. We are grateful to Nik Coupland and Adam Jaworski for reading an earlier version and making valuable comments. Of course, they are not in any way responsible for any deficiencies in this version.

Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 EU Discourse 37 3 Globalisation and Change 75 4 Disciplinarity and Language 105 5 Justice 135 6 Th e Legal Order 173 7 Governance 203 xi

xii Contents 8 Education 231 9 Unity in Diversity 271 Bibliography 303 Index 323

List of Tables Table 8.1 Distribution of states by level of educational flexibility 242 Table 8.2 Change in number of languages (and languages other than English = FLOTE) studied per pupil between 1999/2000 and 2004/2005, ISCED 1 level a 243 Table 8.3 Change in number of languages taught and proportion of pupils learning at least one language between 1999/2000 and 2004/2005, ISCED-2 level 244 Table 8.4 Change in the number of languages taught and in the Proportion of pupils learning more than one foreign language between 1999/2000 and 2004/2005, ISCED 2 level 245 Table 8.5 Change in the percentage of pupils studying languages other than English between 1999/2000 and 2004/2005, ISCED-2 level 246 Table 8.6 Average number of languages learnt per pupil by rank order (ISCED 2 2004) 247 Table 8.7 Changes in the number of languages taught and in the proportion of pupils learning at least one foreign language between 1999/2000 and 2004/2005, ISCED 3 level 247 xiii

xiv List of Tables Table 8.8 Changes in the number of languages taught and the proportion of pupils learning more than one foreign language in the same school year, between 1999/2000 and 2004/2005, ISCED 3 level 249 Table 8.9 Change in average number of languages (and languages other than English) studied per pupil, in the same school year, between 1999/2000 and 2004/2005, ISCED 3 level 249