Speaking Freely: Linguistic Domination, Republicanism and Federalism

Linguistic diversity is a common feature of contemporary societies, leading political philosophers to question how best to approach such diversity and the conflicts it sometimes engenders. One morally significant phenomenon that linguistically diverse societies are prone to is linguistic domination.

This occurs whenever a person or group is subject to uncontrolled interference over their linguistic status (the legal/official recognition of a language), conditions (the social conditions in which individuals and groups perform their daily linguistic practices) and use (the daily linguistic practices of individuals and groups) by some other person, group or political institution.Theories of linguistic justice have so far neglected the concept of linguistic domination, and one important aim of my project is to demonstrate that eliminating it is a necessary condition for linguistic justice.

In addition to establishing the centrality of linguistic domination for theories of linguistic justice, my project will draw on insights from the study of federal societies to propose innovative mechanisms to address it.

Federalism involves dividing political power amongst central government and sub-state units, including linguistic minorities, and as such can provide the basis for institutional remedies against domination.