Northern Ireland’s Language Policy（Part II）

北愛爾蘭的語言政策（下）

施正鋒

淡江大學公共行政學系副教授、歐洲聯盟研究協會理事

Associate Professor, Tamkang University Department of Public Administration

Member, European Union Studies Association - Taiwan

                                                         本文原刊載於 2003年1月20日 Taiwan News

INTRO. In the present essay Professor Shih Cheng-feng relates the setbacks and advancements of the Gaelic language against the background of several centuries of political, religious and ethnic-group struggle in Ireland and Northern Ireland.  It closely examines the relationship between language policies on the one hand and allocation of resources and cultural identity at various stages in history, in hopes that it may serve as a reference for Taiwan’s implementation of a multilingual social policy. This article is the first installment of a two-part essay, the first to appear in the January 6 issue of Taiwan News.

 作者施正鋒教授整理愛爾蘭語言在數百年政治、宗教、族群抗爭中的興衰起落，詳細地分析各個時期的語言政策與資源分配、文化認同的關係，可作為國內實行多語政策的參考。本文做上、下兩部分，第一部分將於1月日刊登。

本文開始

Language policy evolution

參、語言政策的發展

As analyzed by Annamalai, the objectives of language policies range over a spectrum from annihilation to tolerance to positive promotion.  Policies of annihilation employ punitive measures to prohibit the use of a given language in public or even in private settings, with the intent of causing its users to feel that it is a loathsome burden, to adopt in its place the approved language and, ultimately, to reach the goal of “language shift,” which in effect means “assimilation.”  As the term implies, “tolerance-oriented” policy is aimed at maintaining the status quo, entailing no special effort to encourage the use of underprivileged-group languages, and no intention of taking positive action to redress the social, structural inequalities accompanying the use of such languages — in effect leaving them to “self-destruct.”  The aim of language-promotion policies is to devise ways of preventing the extinction of a given language, including the encouragement of private use and guaranteeing the freedom of public use without discrimination.

根據Annamalai (2002)，語言政策的目標可以根據光譜的分布分為消滅、容忍、以及推動。消滅性的語言政策就是以處罰的方式禁止某語言在公開場合、甚至於私下使用，用意是讓使用者覺得該語言是一種負債，轉而採取被認可的語言，最後達到語言轉移 (language shift)，也就是同化的地步。顧名思義，容忍性的語言政策就是保持現狀，並未刻意去扶助弱勢族群的語言，也不想去扭轉跟隨語言而來的結構性不平等，甚至於就是令其自生自滅。推動性的語言政策就是想辦法避免任何語言的消失，包括鼓勵私下使用、或是確保公開使用而不被歧視。

In 1921 Britain agreed to the partition of Ireland, whereby the 26 counties in its western and southern region would form the Irish Free State, and 6 northern counties would remain as part of the United Kingdom, possessing its own regional parliamentary government, the Stormont, controlled by a Protestant majority.  Gallagher has delineated three major features characterizing Northern Ireland’s cultural policies up to the year 1972: (1) wishing at the same time neither to win over the hearts of the Catholics nor to change their religious faith; (2) though not absolutely banning expressions of the Catholics’ culture, nevertheless not permitting its prominent appearance in public places, as for example prohibiting the use of Gaelic for street signage; and (3) the intentional cultivation of a society with a homogenized Protestant-culture outlook.  It is evident, then, that such policies adopted by the Northern Ireland government were exclusionary, ethnically biased policies, manifesting the Protestants’ political domination in all aspects of the society’s culture — a condition which was bound to provoke Catholic backlash, leading to the use of direct, physical violence by the Irish Republic Army in order to resist indirect, structurally imposed violence.

英國在1921年同意愛爾蘭進行分割 (partition)，讓西南方的26個郡成立「愛爾蘭自由邦[1]^[1][1]」(Irish Free State)，北方的6 個郡繼續留在聯合王國 (United Kingdom) 裡面，有自己的內閣制區域政府 (Stormont)，由新教徒依多數決所控制。 Gallagher (n.d.) 把一直到1972年為止的北愛政府的文化政策歸納成三大特色：（一）既不想收攬天主教徒的心，也不想改變他們的信仰；（二）雖然不會禁止天主教徒的文化表現，但是不准其出現在公共場所，譬如禁止用愛爾蘭語當街道名稱[2]^[2][2]；以及（三）刻意扶植新教徒的單一文化特色。我們可以看出來，北愛政府採取的是排他性的族群化政策，將新教徒的政治支配貫徹在文化表現，自然會引起天主教徒的反彈，愛爾蘭共和軍 (Irish Republican Army, 簡寫為IRA) 甚至於以直接暴力來對抗結構性暴力。

Based on observations by O’Reilly, development of language-policy ideological frameworks in Northern Ireland falls into three major successive lines of thought, respectively emphasizing nationalistism/decolonialization, cultural identity, and linguistic rights.

根據O’Reilly (1997) 的觀察，歷年來北愛爾蘭的語言政策論述可以歸納成先後發展的三大：民族主義論／去殖民、文化認同論、以及語言權利論。

 Those who adopted a nationalistic stance regarded Gaelic as a strong weapon for countering British imperialism — from which point of view learning Gaelic constituted political action, and speaking Gaelic was a demonstration of one’s Irish national identity.  In the view of the Irish Free State-founding hero Michael Collins, Gaelic was inextricably related to the task of creating and building an independent Ireland:

持民族主義論者以為愛爾蘭語是對抗英國帝國主義的利器，因此，學習愛爾蘭語就是一種政治動作、說愛爾蘭語就是表達自己的愛爾蘭人認同。愛爾蘭開國英雄 Michael Collins就認為愛爾蘭語與愛爾蘭的獨立建國密不可分：

 We only succeeded after we had begun to get back our Irish way; after we had made a serious effort to speak our own language; after we had striven again to govern ourselves.  We can only keep out the enemy and all other enemies by completing that task.  The biggest task will be the restoration of the Irish language (O’Reilly, 1997).

唯有在---重拾愛爾蘭之道之後、盡力使用我們自己的語言之後、爭取自治之後 ，才得以獲得勝利。唯有在完成一項艱鉅的任務，我們才能夠抵禦外侮。而這項重大的任務，就是在於恢復我們的愛爾蘭母語。(O’Reilly, 1997)

This ideological stance of linguistic nationalism was actively disseminated by Northern Ireland’s Sinn Féin political party during the 1980s.  One reason contributing to the romantic, sympathy-evoking image of Bobby Sanders — an IRA member who in 1981 fasted to death while incarcerated in prison — is that he could speak Gaelic. In contrast with that stance, the Northern Ireland government of that time, being opposed to unification with Ireland, was recalcitrant with regard to programs for promotion of Gaelic. 

新芬黨 (Sinn Féin)[3]^[3][3] 在1980年代積極傳播這種語言民族主義觀 (linguistic nationalism)；1981年獄中絕食致死的愛爾蘭共和軍成員Bobby Sanders之所以獲得浪漫式的同情，原因之一是他會講愛爾蘭語。相對之下，當時反對與愛爾蘭共和統一的北愛政府，對於愛爾蘭語的推廣就顯得意態闌珊。

The government of Northern Ireland has consistently taken a cultural-identity ideological stance.  While conceding that language does carry with it a cultural-identity-defining, culture-transmission value, it has expressed its opposition to the utilization of language as a political-movement tool.  Previously, those devoted to the work of reviving Irish culture had also consented to minimizing the political coloration of Gaelic language promotion in so far as possible.  In other words, they endeavored, through acceptance of a distinction between “cultural nationalism” and “political nationalism,” to employ the Gaelic language to unite diverse groups of people while at the same time endeavoring to avoid creating a sense of threat in the minds of Protestants who advocated unionism (keeping Northern Ireland within the U.K.).  Realistically speaking, however, the “depoliticization” of language is itself a kind of political stance; and given, especially, the fact that those who originally adhered to this approach accepted the proposition that “language = identity,” it has proven impossible to entirely cast off language’s linkage with politics. 

北愛政府一向持文化認同論，雖然贊成語言有其負載認同、傳承文化的價值，卻反對把語言當作政治運動的工具。在過去，關心復振的工作者也同意將愛爾蘭語的政治色彩降到最低的程度，也就是在 區隔 文化民族主義、以及 政治民族主義 的前提下，嘗試以愛爾蘭語來結合各路人馬，同時避免讓主張聯合主義的新教徒產生威脅感。坦承而言，「去政治化」也是一種政治立場，特別是當這些人接受「語言＝認同」之際，就無法擺脫語言的政治關聯。

Currently, promoters of Gaelic language use have switched their conceptual framework to that of treating language as a basic human right — meaning that they regard speaking Gaelic as a means for the Catholic community to assert their human freedom.  Their approach entails the “multipoliticization” of language, which is to say that, given the impossibility of continuing to pretend that language is a politically neutral thing, the conceptualization of the meaning of “language” may as well be expanded to encompass its political significance; and that, while acknowledging the ethnic-identity aspect of the Gaelic language, they are nevertheless searching for approaches aimed at enhancing group identity or cultural identity, while at the same time downplaying the element of Irish nationalism.

目前，愛爾蘭語言推動者改採語言權利論，將語言當作最基本的人權，也就是認為講愛爾蘭語是天主教徒表達自由的形式之一。他們的做法是要將語言「多重政治化」(multipoliticize)，也就是說，在無法假裝語言是政治中立的情況下，乾脆擴大接受其政治意義，除了接受愛爾蘭語的民族認同面向，也探索其族群認同、或是文化認同的可能，想辦法沖淡其愛爾蘭民族主義的成分。

Edited by Tina Lee/Translated by James Decker/ Organized by EUSA-Taiwan

編輯 李美儀/ 英文翻譯曹篤明/ 策劃 歐洲聯盟研究協會

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