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ÐÏ à¡± á > þÿ ^ ` þÿÿÿ ] ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿì¥Á a ð ¿ N% jbjb„,„, $Z îN îN N ÿÿ
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{5 41 41 . Ì Ì $ ð Ä Ì Ì ð Well, while this presentation warms up
let me first of all express my thanks to the organizers of this event.
I’m very happy to be here, very honored To be invited to take part in this event
And discuss with you all questions which I believe to be not just intellectually
interesting, but also socially and politically important. Not just for
the particular language groups who are going to be the focus of these two days,
but I think for people in general, independently of what language group they
associate themselves with or they feel they belong to. So I think we’re dealing
with very important issues there. Even though the focus of these two days
is very much going to be on Tibetan language and culture,
I’m afraid I have no expertise on Tibetan language and culture.
A long time ago, actually thirty years ago to be precise, I had some minimal exposure
to Tibetan language and culture when I went to Zanskar in 1979. That was the year
after it was first opened to foreign visitors. It was a very important experience for me
back then, but I cannot claim that this has resulted in any particular expertise.
So don’t count on me to contribute. There are many people here who are vastly
more knowledgeable than I ever can be on Tibetan language and culture
in its many facets. What I can try to share with you, however,
is a slightly different, slightly unusual perspective on minority languages,
diversity, and one of the facets of this, namely mother tongue medium education.
I’ll do this from an economic perspective. As Eveline Yang has mentioned in her
very kind introduction, I come from economics, but my main area of work
is the economics of language, the economics of education, the evaluation
of public policy in those areas.
And what I would like to do in the next 40 minutes or so is to tell you a little
more about this area of research and perhaps try to show how it can help
make a case in favor of linguistic diversity, and make a case in favor
of mother tongue medium education. I will try to speak for a bit less than
the 45 minutes given to me so that we have perhaps a little more time for
discussion, for questions. I’m aware that many of the instruments that I will
talk about now may not be familiar to everyone, so feel free to ask questions.
By the way, if during my talk itself, one particular expression is not clear,
don’t hesitate, just interrupt me. I think we’re a small group we can
do this informally. But otherwise, I’ll be very happy to take any questions
at the end of this presentation. So what’s the starting point for today?
The question is: “Is mother tongue medium education economically justified
and does it carry value?” I’ve put these two words in bold red type because
they tend to be bandied about quite a lot, but they have very specific meaning in
economic analysis, so we’ll take a closer look at that. More precisely,
what kind of value are we talking about? What do we mean by value? How do we
identify something as valuable in an economic sense? Once we’ve
identified it, we can ask ourselves “How much?” So from identification
we move to measurement, or quantification. Then there is also policy and an important
question at the policy level, namely: “To what extent is the value of
mother tongue medium education related to the value of linguistic
diversity in general?” So these are huge questions, and as always, we
have to start by circumscribing them a little bit. So I actually need two
slides to circumscribe the issue. It’s in small print but I hope
you can read it nonetheless. First of all, I want to make it clear
that I’m going to move away from the standard, well, not standard,
but often-deployed educational arguments in favor of
mother tongue medium education. These educational arguments may be
perfectly right, perfectly appropriate, however, they do not address the question
of value in the economic sense.
It’s a different thing. This is why since I’ve been invited to talk about the
economic aspects, I will therefore not talk about the education aspects,
which by the way, many of our colleagues here in this room know much better than I
do. I will also move away from the
ethical/legal arguments, which can be enshrined for example in
the concept of LHR (linguistic human rights). And these ethical arguments may be
perfectly right. There’s no problem with that. But then, they do not
generally suffice to convince those who have opposing views. So in a sense,
what I’m trying to do is ask, “What can we do to speak not to the converted,
but to speak to the non-converted?” which means we need to try another angle.
And the other angle is provided by the public policy argument. And
the public policy argument deals with an intervention by society on itself,
on its destiny, but it very much uses economic concepts, concepts which are
very much at the heart of economic theory. And it deploys itself in two
main dimensions: one is resource allocation, which we can also call efficiency.
There is a raft of terms there: effectiveness, cost-effectiveness,
efficiency. We will not get into that conceptual detail. But essentially
on the one hand, we have resource allocation, called “efficiency,” and
the other is resource distribution, which we also call “fairness.”
And fairness in the economic sense is not the same thing as fairness
in the ethical or philosophical sense. So we’ll take a closer look at this,
but in this talk, following an explicit request which I received during
the exchange of emails which we had when we were arranging for me to come
here, I will focus mostly on resource allocation, namely efficiency,
although we will be saying a few things about fairness at the end.
So, what is efficient in the economic sense? To address this, I need
a second slide to circumscribe the issue. We have to distinguish between
two planes, two levels. Interestingly, we were discussing this with
Tove Skuttnabb-Kangas over breakfast. There are two
conceptually very different levels at which we can address the question
of efficiency or effectiveness or cost effectiveness of linguistic diversity
and cultural diversity. There is what one might call the absolute level:
is linguistic and cultural diversity good in the absolute? Implicitly,
the counterfactual would be uniformity. Is diversity better than uniformity?
I suppose most of us here would say “Yes of course!” but for many people,
the answer is “No, of course not.” So we have to be aware that out there,
there are plenty of people who simply do not share our views in this respect.
So, if linguistic and cultural diversity is good, then we would ask more
specifically about the languages that make up this diversity, are they good?
Therefore, if they are good, then do we have economic reasons to protect and
promote them and by way of consequence, arises the question of whether we should
use mother tongue medium education as a tool to do this.
As opposed to this very general question, there is what I might call
“the contingent issue.” We may agree that for whatever reason—economic
reason or political or whatever, it doesn’t matter—let us accept that
we view linguistic diversity as something good. And then we can
ask ourselves a different economic question, namely: “How can it be
quote/unquote produced at an acceptable cost or in a
cost-effective manner?” So, see these are two very different questions
and answering one does not automatically proide an answer to the other.
And the first one is, in a sense, broader, deeper, more difficult and
we will try to focus mostly on this one, although we will be building bridges
to the other one as well. So, the last way in which I want
to circumscribe the issue addressed in this talk is I will try to focus
on the general question of the value of languages or linguistic
diversity before moving on to the implications that this might have
for mother tongue medium education,
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