Linguistic Circle

Speaker: Alison Phipps (University of Glasgow)

Title: Languages and Cultural Justice: Tentative steps towards a third age of common heritage of humankind

Abstract: Much of the struggle against language death, or linguacide or the language attrition is researched and studied under rubrics of counting and auditing the extent of the loss of diversity and economic benefits, or through the appeal to language rights. In this respect the considerable endeavours of scholarship, which have also been critiqued for the varieties of metaphors deployed – from kinship to ecology and beyond – remains within at best what Pureza (2005) refers to as the two ages of the common heritage of humankind.

In this talk I will consider the possibility of a third age which might see the intangible and tangible common cultural heritage of humankind as which might be amenable to the framings and exemplars offered by the concept of cultural justice.

Resting on the normative directions offered by Article 27, and the critical engagement of indigenous and migrant-led or informed scholarship I will offer some tentative suggestions as who we might consider safeguarding epistemic and ontological linguistic heritage for moving towards a third age of common heritage of humankind.

Expect poetry, proverbs, music and some prose.

Contact details

Linguistic Circle committee