<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The article is a brief evaluation of the regulatory environment of language use in Transylvania, Romania based on Van Parijs’ conceptual toolkit presented in his 2011 book <italic>Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World</italic>. This linguistic regime is a coercive hybrid regulation containing elements stemming from both the categorical regime (personality principle) and territoriality. In municipalities or counties where the official use of minority languages is permitted, it is typically present in a conjunctive manner, but its enforcement is weak and inconsistent. The principle of territorially coercive linguistic subdivision – proposed by Van Parijs as an optimal solution for a greater linguistic justice – is not accommodated in any of the fields of official communication and under present political circumstances it has no further plausibility. A hypothetical alternative for the territorially coercive regime would be the introduction of English as a lingua franca in interethnic communication. We argued that this latter option would be fair only if English could entirely replace the official languages currently in use or it would receive a fully equivalent status at least in those regions where a considerable number of linguistic minorities live.</p></abstract>

The article is a brief evaluation of the regulatory environment of language use in Transylvania, Romania based on Van Parijs’ conceptual toolkit presented in his 2011 book Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World. This linguistic regime is a coercive hybrid regulation containing elements stemming from both the categorical regime (personality principle) and territoriality. In municipalities or counties where the official use of minority languages is permitted, it is typically present in a conjunctive manner, but its enforcement is weak and inconsistent. The principle of territorially coercive linguistic subdivision – proposed by Van Parijs as an optimal solution for a greater linguistic justice – is not accommodated in any of the fields of official communication and under present political circumstances it has no further plausibility. A hypothetical alternative for the territorially coercive regime would be the introduction of English as a lingua franca in interethnic communication. We argued that this latter option would be fair only if English could entirely replace the official languages currently in use or it would receive a fully equivalent status at least in those regions where a considerable number of linguistic minorities live.

Linguistic Justice and English as a Lingua Franca from a Minority Perspective

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

– The Case of Hungarians in Transylvania –

The article is a brief evaluation of the regulatory environment of language use in Transylvania, Romania based on Van Parijs’ conceptual toolkit presented in...

Linguistic Justice and English as a Lingua Franca from a Minority Perspective

Published Online: Oct 26, 2016

Page range: 83 - 93

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/auseur-2016-0012

Keywords
multilingualism, language policies, Hungarians in Romania, English as a lingua franca

© 2016 Zsombor Csata, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Linguistic Justice and English as a Lingua Franca from a Minority Perspective

Published Online: Oct 26, 2016

Page range: 83 - 93

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/auseur-2016-0012

Keywordsmultilingualism, language policies, Hungarians in Romania, English as a lingua franca

© 2016 Zsombor Csata, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
multilingualism, language policies, Hungarians in Romania, English as a lingua franca