About

In an age of increased immigration, language has emerged as a key issue in debates about integration in democratic societies. While there appears to be a common prevailing sentiment that newcomers ought to learn the host society’s language, there is little agreement on what this means in practice.

• Should newcomers be expected to learn the languages of the host society, and if so, to what level of fluency?

• How and when should they be expected to use these languages? Should expectations extend to using host society languages in informal, private interactions?

• Should linguistic integration be understood solely as the learning of host society languages, or should it refer more broadly to the integration of newcomers into society by means of language?

• What level of linguistic support or training should host societies be expected to provide to enable newcomers to acquire their languages?

• To what extent should the linguistic needs of newcomers be a consideration for public institutions in domains such as education, healthcare, and law and policing?

• And more broadly, how should the social cohesion and social mobility interests that are served by ensuring broad competence in host society languages be balanced against the interests that newcomers may have in maintaining their distinctive linguistic heritages?

Positions on these matters are often justified by appealing to liberal democratic principles like fairness, equality, rights and duties, underscoring the fundamentally ethical nature of such debates. Yet while ethical questions related to race, ethnicity and gender have received much attention, the ethical challenges related specifically to linguistic integration are still largely underexplored. As a result, there exists little understanding of what constitute fair and equitable methods of integrating newcomers into host society languages and the legitimate expectations of newcomers and host societies alike regarding their rights and responsibilities in the linguistic integration process.

Funded by a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant, the Ethics of Linguistic Integration (ELI) project (2024-2027) aims to fill this gap by offering the first systematic interdisciplinary study of the ethics of linguistic integration. It examines the ethical challenges posed by linguistic integration within democratic societies in the light of core liberal principles, with the aim of developing a consolidated theoretical framework for understanding the complex ethics of linguistic integration. It also focuses on three different contexts (England, Quebec and Wales) in recognition of the complexity of linguistic integration as a product of diverse sociolinguistic and political circumstances. Indeed, the ethical considerations in majority-language societies like England differ from those in regions with ‘fragile majorities’ (McAndrew 2013) unable to rely solely on the status of their language for integration, as is the case in Quebec, or minority-language settings with ongoing revitalisation efforts, as in Wales. Fruitfully combining insights and methods from applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and normative political theory, the project will offer a nuanced and grounded form of ethical analysis that considers the multifaceted nature of linguistic integration in various contexts.