Mother tongue, language policy and education

Mother tongue, language policy and education

GySrgy Sz6pe

The term 'mother tongue' is a metaphor coined by European civilization. It derives no doubt from the situation prevalent in the monolingual family where the mother is usually the main source and guide of the child's primary social adaptation. (It is of course equally true that all the rest of the family, from older siblings to grandparents, have their own part to play in this process.) Terms associated with 'mother', such as 'mother earth', 'mother country', usually carry a positive connotation.

The term can even be said to contain its own definition, since it answers the question of who belongs to which community, such membership being also symbolized by nature. Thus, if asked who could be defined as an American Indian, Indians themselves would reply that it was anyone whose mother was Indian. The reply encompasses even those American Indians who, though no longer speaking their ancestral languages, still profess to having cultural affinities with them.

Next, there arises the question of 'orphans', or people who for some reason or other did not learn their first language from their mother. The customary solution is to postulate a surrogate 'mother' who took over the maternal

Gy6rgy Sz6pe (Hungary). Head of the Department of general and applied linguistics at the Research Institute of Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Professor of linguistics at the Janus Pannonius Uni- versity at Pdcs. Former Vice-president of the Inter- national Association of Applied Linguistics. Editor of several books and author of numerous books and articles.

functions and whose language should be taken as the corresponding mother tongue.

What happens if two or more languages are used in a family and the infant starts speaking them at the same time and in equal measure? Can one have two, or more, mother tongues? There is another stock reply, i.e. that in such cases one of the languages is likely to be the dominant one and must then be regarded as the mother tongue.

But is it really essential to come to a definite conclusion in this matter? Surely, as far as the child is concerned, the question is best not asked at all; better by far to observe the actual situation and use the findings for the benefit of the child's development. (It should b e remembered that the promotion of the child's development ought to be the prime concern and that, in this complex task, language represents only one factor.) It is thus usually others who ask this question, often w i t h a view to using the answer to establish the relative number of speakers of a particular language in a certain territorial area. In turn this datum is needed for a realistic decision on the choice of languages in which educational and cultural services should be provided. Membership of linguistic communities is of course one of the demographic data gathered by census, and such population counts are an instrument of policy.

In a census an adult enumerator elicits infor- marion about adults, including their mother tongue; moreover, the adults are questioned not just about themselves but also about the children in their family. I t is therefore on the basis of another person's say-so and opinion that a child's mother tongue is determined. I know

Prospects, VoL XIV, No. I, I984

64 GySrgy Sz~pe

of no instance of either an adult or a child having to undergo a test in this matter. In most cases those responsible for compiling the census questionnaire fail to take into account the scientific view of the mother-tongue concept.

To be labelled with a particular mother tongue cannot be a matter of indifference even to adults, in view of the possible legal, political and cultural consequences, as well as possible implications for employment. In an adult's lengthy career he might easily have left the locality where the question of his mother tongue could be answered in a clear-cut manner. Hence it would perhaps lead to greater accuracy if the census were to ask: As far as you can remember, what was your first language? I f the person still speaks that language it would have to be recorded as his mother tongue. (Whether a person still speaks a language or not is no longer a matter of subjective opinion but of verifiable fact.) I f the person happens no longer to speak the language which he remembers as having used first, or if he no longer remembers which language it was, then, and only then, ought he to be asked what language he now considers to be his mother tongue.

It might be added that the census question about a person's mother tongue is connected with that of his nationality, and sometimes with his knowledge of other languages. This question of nationality or of ethnic character, though in many cases also capable of being answered on the basis of objective criteria, is from the census point of view a matter of subjective judgement; no wonder, therefore, both census enumerators and respondents often look upon this as a declaration of loyalty, primarily to the majority language group or, more accurately, to the state representing that group, or even, as sometimes happens, to the respondent's own language community.

Finally, it might be added that by rights both enumerators and respondents ought to be informed about the types of reply that might appropriately be given and the considerations that ought to govern the answer to this question.

How does school enter into all this? Teaching at schooI is generally given in the children's

'mother tongue', what constitutes that particular mother tongue being largely decided on a national (sometimes on a local) level by these population counts. In case of doubt, why not make it a rule to ask the children themselves when they come knocking at the school door, or rather the adults who accompany them?

These, then, are the assumptions underlying the European model of mother-tongue education. In most European countries in the twentieth century it rests on the cardinal principle of the official state language, supplemented by that of the provision of education for the linguistic (national) minorities. It is a most instructive model and one which, as we shall see, has exerted a profound influence on the rest of the world. Just as instructive, however, are the cases where the model in its pure form has failed to work.

As to the model itself, suffice it to say that it works best in a monolingual environment, especially in towns and with students engaged in a prolonged course of studies, i.e. in secondary and higher education. It might also be added that this model is best suited to children who have learnt to speak the school's language at home or have acquired only that and none other.

To return now to our original question: What language does the child's family use? In many cases children do not communicate at home in the same 'language' as the one they use at school. Realization of this comes as a considerable shock to them when they start school. Some children, for linguistic reasons, find it difficult to join in scholastic work, acquire reading-and-writing skills, take part in the verbal intercommunication between teacher and pupils, and participate in much of the inter- action based upon such verbal communication.

From the school's point of view, what language or linguistic variant do children use to communicate? In Europe two variants are found to predominate. The first, deriving from social and cultural stratification, results in some pupils from the lower strata using a 'restricted' code of communication which inevitably puts them at a disadvantage vis-a-vis their fellow pupils who

Mother tongue, language policy and education 6 5

have acquired in their family circle the more elaborate code required by the school and almost exclusively used by the majority of teachers. Some children adopt the more elaborate code alongside their own restricted one. This phenomenon has been the subject of British socio-linguistic research, in particular, by B. Bernstein. What is certain is that for various reasons there exist in all the education systems of Europe some disadvantaged pupils, and that their limited linguistic achievement is one of the symptoms of the disadvantaged state. Of course there might be biological reasons for such underachievement, but interestingly enough, for these cases the European education system seems to have swiftly evolved suitable solutions in the shape of remedial teaching, speech therapy and other specialist services. (Needless to say, in the past, social and cultural handicaps were frequently attributed to biological causes or described as being of biological origin.)

The second typical variant has its origin in dialect. Schools of course generally teach a standard version of the language, i.e. one determined in its written form by the accepted rules of orthography and stylistically by literature, including in many cases political and religious writings. In the realm of the spoken word, in many countries the speech of the capital's 'educated' stratum, or--increasingiy over the last few decades--the language of certain television programmes, has come to be taken as the yardstick for correct speech, i.e. have come to be the norm. Let us leave aside the differences due to socio-cultural stratification alluded to earlier and focus rather on the fact that the standard version of the language differs from nearly all its dialects. This is because it is either based on a single dialect or it is trying to achieve a balance between several of them. Sometimes in any one language the differences between a certain dialect and the standard form are greater than those between two officially distinct languages. Within a language there can also often coexist an 'upper' standard form and a 'lower' dialectal version. This is the original form of diglossia, or bilingualism, within one

and the same language. Pupils from rural areas usually commence school speaking a dialectal version--as do in many instances pupils from urban areas--and it is only at school that they change from being monoglot dialect speakers into diglossical individuals. It is obvious from this that teaching will get off to a better start whenever it is based on the pupil's dialectal mode of communication.

The nation-states of Europe--and those else- where, which have attained their present status either by following the European example or through independent historical processes--are based on a 'national' standard language. Their education system favours it and it is supposed to be mastered by everyone, certain federal states and one or two special cases excepted. Whoever speaks another language is reckoned to belong to a national (or linguistic or ethnic) minority group. Some sections of the minority might live on the country's periphery, far from the centre and close to its frontiers. They might inhabit the area in a single bloc or be scattered in smaU communities. The nationalities or national minorities living en bloc might possess in theory exactly the same linguistic, as well as cultural and educational, rights as the majority. But the extent to which these rights can be effectively enjoyed in education will depend on a number of factors, such as: whether the minority in question constitutes a majority in another country; the size and strength of the relevant group; the country's policy towards the group, etc. What is certain is that in the case of large groups exactly the same diglossical situation will exist as in the monolingual countries. Over and above this, however, at a certain level in the education process a statutory intervention by the state (or federal government) will nearly always occur to ensure mastery of the common and literary language as an essential prerequisite of social mobility. In mixed communities, children and adults will pick up each other's dialectal language outside school. In the case of widely scattered or numerically very small national (linguistic) communities, on the other hand, the children will only rarely receive any education in their mother tongue. They will

66 Gy~rgy Sz~pe

start out speaking a national dialect and be taught the standard version of the official state language at school. This is sometimes defended on the grounds that it would be too costly to make special linguistic provisions for such small numbers of pupils, especially since they would have to learn the majority's language later anyway. Sometimes the excuse is connected with the state's or nation-state's political unity. It can happen, of course, that at certain critical junctures in any country's history the state feels obliged to resort to exceptional measures: these, however, must never last for very long, unless the state's objective be the forcible assimilation of all ~allophone' national communities on its territory, Efforts aimed at such forcible assimi- la t ion-at linguistic ethnocide--can occur even when the national (linguistic and ethnic) minority concerned is living in quite a sizeable, compact bloc.

The situation obtaining in non-European countries is often far more complex. Let us leave aside the fact that in colonial times the absolute majority of inhabitants in the various countries found itself in a disadvantaged pos- ition from a legal, political, cultural and linguistic point of view. In that context the emergence of the vernacular concept meant a genuine step forward.

It is obvious, for instance, that by far the greater proportion of new African states are not monolingual: nearly all of them have had to develop their own language policy in the particular geographical area--often arbitrarily determined in the colonial period--where they set out to attain their independent statehood. A tremendous number of linguistic variations must here be taken into consideration, including language and dialect, languages with and without written forms, standard and non-standard versions, regional linguae francae, such as Arabic and Swahili, and the languages of the former colonial powers which as often as not are a convenient means of wider international communication. This much is certain, that many African countries are in the process of evolving their own many-tiered policy of language education. In th i s~ i f I am not mistaken~they are

using many foreign ~components', ranging from the example of India to the experiences of a number of European countries. Whereas a state (or federal) language will be found to exist in nearly all the developing countries, at the opposite pole, the individual's language of primary social adaptation is only just beginning to be given its due in a number of countries.

So, proceeding step by step, we have now come to recognize that whoever rules the state rules the schools and the language. And equally that any child not belonging to the educated urban section of the majority language community might find itself disadvantaged. Can this really be true? Does the state really 'rule' the mother tongue? Admittedly, whether it is to be really every child's birthright to be taught in school in his mother tongue is largely for the state to decide; so is the question as to what variant (code or dialect) of the language shall be the principal medium of instruction, and so are numerous other related issues.

It will be necessary, therefore, to take a closer look at the character of the mother tongue. As indicated earlier, exact categorization of this metaphorical term is not easy. A child is born into its family and that is where its primary social adaptation takes place--though some people believe a larger unit than that represented by the family must be taken into account, even for the primary process of social adaptation. The majority of linguists, anthro- pologists, psychologists and brain physiologists concerned with psychological problems hold today that language is the sole innate distinguish- ing characteristic of the human species. Every infant living in a human community acquires by a certain age (5 years at the latest but, according to some, sometimes much earlier, i.e. from 14 months onward) the language of its environment. No genetic predisposition whatsoever is involved in this process. That means the child does not in this connection inherit anything from its ancestors or parents; it uses its inborn, distinct, general human linguistic abilities to build up the structure of its mother tongue, aided in this by communicating adults. Hence,


this is a process comaected with a specific linguistic environment.

Acquisition of a language does not take place in isolation but goes hand in hand with, and forms an indissoluble part of, the child's complex physical, psychological and social development. Equally, the rate at which the language is being acquired and any ~defect' in this respect are also of a physical, psychological or social character. In point of fact, it is never simply a matter of defects, but rather of a number of individual factors which, relative to an assumed ideal adult norm, come to be represented as shortcomings. Now, since language is the instrument of communication, strictly speaking no one can be described as suffering from a linguistic defect as long as he is capable of communicating sufficiently to satisfy life's fundamental needs. I t might well be the case that his linguistic achievements at a given time will not come up to certain standards, but that is an altogether different question.

But it is not simply a matter of the child's ability successfully to communicate with the environment about the basic needs of life: we must add the proviso that such communication must be commensurate with its general development. In other words, linguistic attainment is not only an index, but to some extent also a prerequisite, of the child's general development. First and foremost, it provides an indication of the child's stage of development in communication. Thus, development of the ability to communicate in the mother tongue comes to mean development of the child's personality.

Can this not apply equally to another language, i.e. to one other than that of primary (family) social adaptation? Experience has shown that, given classroom conditions, for a child to start its eduCation in a language other than the one that he uses at home can become a considerable handicap---in some instances even an insurmountable one. (Outside school the question does not arise, for during a certain period of his life the child becomes effortlessly bilingual or learns to use several variants of the same language.) The critical age from the point of view of language acquisition lies around 8 years.

It is, therefore~ of prime importance to the individual child that he should begin his education in his mother tongue, as this will provide the optimum conditions for the development of the personality and will improve his social chances by enabling him to compete in the language in which he communicates at home.

Indirectly, this must also serve the interest of the state (or wider community, whatever its name), for any interests of the state that depend upon the achievements of its people can be considered legitimate only if they derive from the interests of the individuals concerned.

A conflict might arise where the state (or wider community) happens also to have other interests, deriving from different considerations, for example from a Cneed for cohesion', from reasons of national policy, from responsibilities assumed for a certain geographical area or an acknowledged or accepted obligation to satisfy certain social and economic needs, or from certain cultural considerations~ as well as from irrational and symbolic notions. Sometimes such considerations will persuade the decision- makers in some countries to attribute less importance to the development of the individual's personality than to certain interests as conceived at state level.

Few people will deny the benefit to pupils of mastering the state's principal language, seeing that the state is increasingly becoming also the principal agency in the sphere of economics, culture and communication. The chief problem here lies in the fact that this principal language--which often also carries a legally designated official status--is most easily acquired if the instrument of primary social adaptation which we term Cmother tongue' develops before school age, at the start of schooling, or during the initial period at school.

Thus on the one hand is the mother tongue and the state's or federation's principal language on the other. Between these two there might well exist another language, or several of them, whose acquisition wilI benefit the individual and hence ultimately the community.

A case in point are languages coexisting in the

68 Gytirgy Szdpe

same locality, dubbed in the Yugoslav context 'languages of the environment'. They include the principal languages of a country's provinces or languages of a federation's constituent states. Thus, within a country or federation at least two strata can be discerned: that represented by the individual's mother tongue and the other by the state's principal (official) language in its standard form. In some cases three, four, or even five languages make up the aggregate of languages to be acquired. Vital to all strata, however, must be the individual's cultivation of his first language, his mother tongue, or to be exact, the particular variant of his mother tongue which he uses.

To this must now be added another aggregate, one made up of languages spoken outside a particular country. Its composition will depend on several factors. First and foremost, on human contacts: in other words those languages which the pupil will be able to use later on need to be acquired most. In addition to these so-called world languages, the group will include the languages of neighbouring countries. Although living or dead world languages (such as Latin) acquired for the sake of passive knowledge and from a desire to keep up certain religious, cultural, ethnic, or other traditions, are of

secondary importance, their significance is none the less undeniable. Finally, mention must be made of international or regional auxiliary languages, like Esperanto, though they may not be anyone's mother tongue. 1

The importance of the mother tongue consequently goes far beyond the classroom: within limits it concerns human life as a whole and effective use of the mother tongue is one of the guarantees of a successful life.

The mother tongue is also the most effective linguistic medium at the start of scholastic life. We have seen that during the first years of European--and not only European--schooling the learning of reading-and-writing skills oc- cupies the foreground of attention, and that �9 this work is almost invariably carried out in a standard language. Hence, the tools considered essential for subsequent academic work can only be painlessly acquired by those pupils who

were capable of using the standard linguistic variant that underlies reading and writing even before they started school. The reason why entry into school life is often so traumatic is that the pupil has to learn two things at the same time: a new linguistic variant and a new code of signals. Various methods have been explored to ease the sometimes overpowering burden of the task. The most promising seems to be the one whereby, in the first phase of scholastic work, the teacher closely takes into consideration the actual linguistic variant used by the pupils, whatever grammatical forms, dialects, creolized mixtures, or pidgin versions might be involved. This increases the responsibility of teachers as well as for education auth- orities. Special syllabuses and teaching aids will have to be provided; suitable procedures, de- rived from experiment, will have to be devised; teacher-training and further-education courses will have to be enhanced by additional material; people at all levels of the education process, whether they be directors, inspectors, head- masters, teachers or parents, will have to be made more sensitive to this type ofhnguistic problem.

Let us bear in mind that such a linguistic sensitivity, which for the sake of brevity might also be described as tolerant and hberal-minded, though it is in fact based on a strict regard for the individual's development, is exactly the opposite of the normative view of the language still prevalent in European schools today, a view which characterizes everything other than

adul t intellectual 6htes' elevated mode of ex- pression (in most cases applied to some dis- tinguished literary genre) as being ungram- matical, 'narrow', and undeveloped, or simply dismisses it in a romantically condescending way as 'exotic'.

This is not to say that it would not be advisable for pupils to learn some of the 61ite's linguistic forms for the benefit of their later years. That, however, can hardly be the object of the initial phase of schooling. It might well be included, however, among the aims of more intensive teaching for the over-Io-year-olds to ensure they acquire all the oral and written linguistic variants necessary to enable them


eventually to make full use of their political rights, to carry on their studies, and to do their work.

In the initial phase of schooling the actual linguistic variants used by children must be treated with the greatest respect. This is not only dictated by the above-mentioned individual, and hence public, interest, but also by the children's own rights. The right to use one's mother tongue happens to be a fundamental, socially expressed human right applying equally to children.

The question of linguistic rights has been discussed over the last half-century in a variety of settings. Attention focused primarily on the legal safeguards of the freedom of national minorities to exercise their linguistic rights; in this connection minorities' rights were to be assured by the peace treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain to those original inhabitants of the ~defeated countries' who would henceforth find themselves living in another state. This praiseworthy endeavour figured less promi- nently in the settlements following the Second World War, despite the fact that, in the opinion of international lawyers, the provisions to pro- tect minorities, made after the First World War, including the ones relating to matters of language, have never been rescinded and are therefore still in full force to this day.

Among the linguistic rights, the right 'to the use of the mother tongue in the initial phase of school life' has not been elaborated to any great extent. Consequently it is only tacitly taken to be still in force.

During the first decade of Unesco's existence and the period preceding the dissolution of the colonial empires, the so-called vernacular principle came into prominence. It embodies the by now self-evident demand for children to be taught in the local population's own language and not in that of the colonial power. The vernacular was the non-industrialized language and not the European and colonial countries' language, but the language of the native and subject population. The postulate that teaching at school ought to be in that language was tantamount to a criticism of the colonial education system.

The shrinkage, break-up, and final disap- pearance of the colonial empires has changed the situation. In the developing countries, the principle of teaching in the mother tongue is today almost universally applied, though a fairly wide variety of models exist. Unfortunately a survey of the different types of solution adopted is beyond the scope of this article.

The vernacular concept, on the other hand, is beginning to gain acceptance also in a number of European countries where in the past a strong nation-state had paid but scant attention to the rights of the national (linguistic) minorities to use their mother tongue and to be taught in that language. The I97os saw a renaissance of European nationalities. It would seem that the vernacular concept, detailed elaboration of which is still awaited, and the right t o be taught in one's mother tongue are but two sides of the same coin.

The preceding paragraphs outlined the es- sence of the vernacular concept and right to be taught in one's mother tongue. One or two special issues remain to be examined. First, at what age does all this become applicable? Six is of course the European primary-school age, and also generally the age at which reading- and-writing instruction begins. Nursery or pre- school education is nowadays gaining in popu- larity. In my opinion, the vernacular principle applies to nursery education as well. The success of bilingual minority nursery schools shows that infants are quite capable of effortlessly absorbing any linguistic variant, including the standard version of the language preferred by the state; and since at that age the acquisition of the language does not take the form of instruction but of Cnormal' communication, it is free from any element of compulsion.

The second question concerns the value and utility of the non-standard variants in the initial phase of schooling. No one will dispute the fact that the teacher is able to get on that much better with his charges if he can talk to them in their own language; the advantage to the children is equally obvious. What is not yet clear is how best to include the children's non- standard resources (primarily their vocabulary

7 0 Gy~rgy Sz~pe

and modes of speech) in the teaching of reading and writing. In certain cases no problem arises, such as when the self-same symbol can be read in a number of different ways. In fact, there is absolutely no reason why children should not learn to read and write the linguistic variant they use at home. The transition from this to the standard form will be far easier than having to learn to read and write in an alien standard linguistic variant.

What happens if no written version of the mother tongue exists? This is the case with the European gypsies and similarly with one or two creole languages, as well as of course with some bilingual families. I f confined to just one family, the problem will be difficult to remedy. I f a whole community is involved, then a written version is well worth creating, as Soviet and other examples demonstrate.

Put differently, it is part and parcel of the right to use the mother tongue to expect a written version of the mother tongue to be produced. As only relatively small groups of people sharing the same language will probably be involved, it is hard to see how this can be achieved without outside help, and expert help at that. The history of the introduction of writing systems has shown that it is possible to create a written form for every language, irres- pective of the system employed. Whether to adopt the same alphabet for all the different variants occurring in a particular language is a different matter--doing so might ensure the learning of the standard version, if one exists. (There are instances of course where provision of a written form for a linguistic variant will not automatically entail a high degree of standard- ization for that variant; it will in all cases, however, provide a suitable medium to bring literacy to children and adults alike.)

Some other groups will also present special problems in education in the mother tongue. As not all of them can be listed, the following examples may serve as an illustration: children of nomads; children of fishermen living afloat; children of foreign guest-workers (possibly num- bering hundreds of thousands in a single country); children of (intellectual) workers resi-

dent abroad; children of those pursuing ad- vanced studies abroad or on a prolonged tour of study abroad; children of diplomatic or similar staff stationed abroad.

After the national (ethnic, linguistic) minorities, the most substantial group is of course made up of the children of immigrants. Some countries (e.g. Sweden) are engaged in setting up an entire educational subsystem for them, while the home countries for their part increasingly assist emigrants (or ex-compatriots) in their efforts to cultivate their language. A special problem are those who were obliged to leave their homeland because of war or similar events, i.e. the offspring of refugees, deportees, displaced persons, etc. No state is particularly keen to provide them with separate educational facilities in their mother tongue; on the other hand, they will be helped to learn the state language, thereby facilitating their integration in the host country's schools and labour market. Here a middle-of-the-road solution will ensure that, apart from familiarizing themselves with the host country's language, in which they will receive their education, these bilingual children will also have a chance to study their own language, history and culture. Not only will this be of major importance for the development of their personality, even though such knowledge will necessarily be restricted, but will also play a vital part in the preservation of their ethnic identity. (At the same time it must be em- phasized that language is not the only, or an indispensable, means of preserving ethnic character--cultural heritage and religion must also be taken into account here.) All this will turn to the host country's advantage as soon as the different foreign-language-speaking elements can be regarded as that country's po- tential cadre of bilingual manpower. For this to happen there must be available at least one secondary school where pupils can graduate in the languages for which a need exists.

Presenting a not dissimilar problem are the children speaking a minority language who have moved with their parents from their traditional area of residence, where they had their own schools, but still remain in the country. The

Mother tongue, language policy and education 71

problem might also be put differently: entitlement to use of one's mother tongue is a personal, socially expressed right which (a) en- joys priority status in a particular territorial area and (b) carries an entitlement to assistance even outside that area anywhere within that country. Such 'positive discrimination' in favour of the national (linguistic) minorities is per- fectly legitimate for the sake of mother-tongue education. A certain amount of positive discrimination is also required for the other groups referred to above.

Education in their mother tongue for these fragmented or scattered national (linguistic) minorities presents, of course, its own peculiar organizational and methodological problems. Often it is only possible for the children's mother tongue to be cultivated and sustained on a part-time basis (afternoons, weekends and vacations), though the value of teaching aids like tapes, radio and correspondence, as well as private and distance study, should not be underestimated.

So far I have largely dealt with questions relating to the teaching of the mother tongue and in particular to the initial phase of the process. This phase may end at different times between the ages of 8 and I4; in many cases the transition to secondary education, which starts during the Io-15 age-range and ends at 16-19, is a gradual process. Given the differences in character of the various school systems, it is extremely difficult to do full justice to the whole range of issues connected with the teaching of the mother tongue. I shall therefore confine myself to just a few.

First, it should be stressed that in any country it is desirable for a student to be allowed to continue his studies for as long as possible in the language in which he started them. In relation to secondary education, this means that the teaching of the mother tongue should ideally go on until the end of secondary school; that applies also to teacher training, as well as to the members of non-majority groups sizeable enough to be provided with this facility. An acceptable, if not ideal alternative--and one generally preferred by the state--is the bilingual

secondary school in which the minority- language pupils will also be taught the state language to the majority's standard, The usually critical shortcoming of this arrangement is that it does not extend to secondary schools that also provide vocational education. It must be ac- counted only as a stop-gap solution if minority- language pupils can pursue studies in their mother tongue only in subjects connected with their own language, culture and history, and must tackle all others in another tongue. In these cases, a heavy responsibility rests on the particular linguistic (ethnic) community school's extramural activities. It is unacceptable that the pupils' mother tongue should be considered by the school to be their own private affair, so that they are forced to pursue all their studies entirely in another language. For the individual this amounts to a violation of his educational and cultural human rights; if it happens in circumstances of coercion to a whole national group, then it must be regarded as tantamount to ethnocide.

Naturally, after the initial phase of schooling there also arises the problem of how the linguistic medium of instruction is turned into a i school subject. This division into subjects begins very early in the education process; but because at this level reading, writing, e tc . , are not yet proper individual school subjects, there can be no objection to their inclusion in a general mother-tongue subject or under this subject heading. (As a rule this is done in pursuit of worthwhile aims and with a view to creating a more diverse sphere of activities.) Around the age of lO, pupils encounter the mother tongue as a school subject, with grammar as its time-honoured foundation and literature its constant partner. In a large part of Europe in the first half of this century, the mother tongue's part of the language- and-literature syllabus in the curricula of German, French, Russian or Hungarian, secondary schools, etc., was far less concerned with the tasks of linguistic education than was the case with the classical languages. In fact, the examination concluding French mother-tongue secondary education was just as much a selec-

7 2 Gy~rgy Sz~,pe

tion process for those aiming to pursue academic careers as were the competitive examinations in China in the fourteenth century. In the .early twentieth century, with very few exceptions, grammar came to be regarded as a purely scholastic pursuit based on academic concepts from the nineteenth century or even earlier, and this view is unfortunately still held in many quarters today. Attempts at reforms, based on modem linguistic studies, began in the I96os:and r97os simultaneously in a number of language terri- tories. In one or two of them these reforms ex- tended over the whole field of education in the mother tongue, the teaching of reading and writing included, from the initial period of school to the end of secondary education. Longi- tudinal models emerged. A tacit convention developed whereby during the last few years of secondary education, and preparatory to uni- versity, scientific linguistics could be taught, alongside pupils' communication skills. Sadly, little progress has been made in the language- education part of secondary vocational training, despite the fact that this type of school affects the majority of pupils and that among them are to be found most of the speakers of the non-standard language variant. However curious it may seem, the least developed age-group in mother- tongue education is that of the io-i4-year-olds , where syllabuses backed by the findings of modem psychology for the under-Io group no longer apply, yet where steps towards the teaching of scientific philology and social psychology combined with communication dare not be taken.

How best to co-ordinate the teaching of the mother tongue and that of one or more other languages is a problem of its own; it should include, where appropriate, the teaching of the state language. Obviously all the parties concerned will have to take full account of the needs and general activities of their partner or partners. To be successful, this co-ordination must rest on common theoretical foundations. These foundations appear to derive in outline from applied linguistics, with due regard to pedagogy and psychology. Other disciplines, too, come into this co-ordination: in the first

place, elements of the study of literature-- inasmuch as they represent a distinct subject, then elements of psychology and sociology, and even mathematics and the natural sciences. Paradoxically, a situation has now arisen in some European schools whereby, since logic is no longer taught as a separate school subject, its role has had to be taken over partly by mathematics and partly by linguistics.

All the foregoing applies to the type of school we have taken for our point of departure--one that is monolingual and dedicated to preparing a developed, industrial country's urban youth for an intellectual career. On a worldwide scale this type of establishment must rank as an 61ite school, even if turning out an 61ire is not among its objectives. How, then, can these observations help those developing countries where the eradication of illiteracy is at present the prime concern, just as it was in Europe 50 to I5o years ago? It would be dangerous simply to try and adopt the experiences gained by these 61ite schools, since for the time being the majority of the developing countries possesses neither the material nor social prerequisites for them. None the less, certain lessons can be learnt~ the three principal ones being: (a) continued adherence to a century-old tradition of language teaching at school is no longer justified; (b) the mother tongue as a school subject can be based on the findings of modern linguistics in their widest application, as well as on those of social psychology (study of communication); (c) this subject continues to retain its close connections with all other 'national' or'ethnic-oriented' issues, but its specific aims will also include objectives totally unconnected with questions of nationality, such as the scientific study of man's general linguistic capacity--as is the case with, say, mathematics or the natural sciences.

However, a development in the opposite direction cannot be altogether excluded, that is, one in which some of the systems of education, possessing by European standards far fewer resources, will come to organize the teaching of the mother tongue in a totally different manner. History shows that opportunities do

Mother tongue, language policy and education 73

exist, one example being rhetoric, the art of persuading the community. Attempts are under way even now with a view to bringing the whole subject of the mother tongue and language teaching in general within the purview of semiotics, the study of signs and symbols. Wide open also are the fields of anthropology, infor- mation technology, of systematic research on communication, in Far Eastern countries the study of the particular relationship between language, writing, literature and culture, and many others of this nature. We cannot know what the future holds. All we can do is to lay bare the problems of the present.

A pointer to the future is the increased use of technology in education in the mother tongue, both when the mother tongue is itself the medium of instruction and where technology might help develop mother tongue into a secondary-education subject. Items of technical equip- ment connected with language and communication have begun to make a sporadic appearance in the classroomncameras, radios, typewriters, sound films, television, tape-recorders, video- recorders, and electronic calculators, to name but a few. For the time being these aids to education in the mother tongue have only been used on the periphery, as it were. Why have not European schools as yet made it their business, for instance, to ensure every pupil's proficiency in the use of a typewriter or tape- and video- recorder? The benefit of these technical aids, say, in the teaching of children suffering from disabilities in their powers of communication, to students working on their own, or in solving a host of methodological problems is self-evident. It would, for instance, undoubtedly enhance the process of co-ordination involved in learning to read and write if the young children could write their letters (symbols) with the aid of a light-touch typewriter keyboard.

But the future cannot be seen purely in terms of technical development. Equal importance might come to be attached to the African oral traditions, to the methods of teaching languages and writing based on the Chinese visual culture, to Freire's method, or to the industrial, urban civilization's school system, which, while trying

to escape from the Gutenberg galaxy, is yet anxious not to forego its advantages. No one has a monopoly on the future.

Education in the mother tongue is not just education for its own sake: its primary aim is to help the child and serve the interests of man. We realize that genuine reforms, major leaps forward, happen but rarely in any single sector of education, affecting only one particular aspect of it. Education is not operating in a vacuum: it has to be regarded as a long-term investment serving the widest interests of the country concerned. It might well be that education in the mother tongue will yield some special extra benefits, in strengthening, for example, a people's, a nation's or linguistic community's identity and cohesion. It cannot achieve this alone, but only in co-operation with other educational and non-educational agencies. However that may be, the main objective will always govern the quality of any by-products. In the prime objective of producing creative men and women capable of continued self-education, of expressing themselves verbally and in writing in a literate manner, education in the mother tongue has undoubtedly a crucial part to play. []

Note

International linguistic policy has one other chapter which does not fall either within the group of national problems or under the heading of world issues. I t includes, for instance, the international role of Arabic which not only acts as a link between different Arabic- speaking countries or those where Arabic is also spoken, but as a means of verbal communication for a world religion. Latin used to possess a similar function of

world language before the Second Vatican Council, and Hebrew still does.

Under this heading comes also the whole complex of issues connected with the efforts made by certain linguistic regions to bring about a measure of uniform- ity in the systems of writing used: Africa, India, the Soviet Union, China, as well as others on a smaller scale, spring to mind. Language education must pay close attention to these matters when deciding what--and how--languages~are to,be taught.

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Mother tongue, language policy and education