Rationality in language policies

In a recent article, Native Speaker Fallacy, I explained how persons unrelated to language expertise who are allowed to make important decisions in language policy may only succeed in making a mess out of an important element in education in Malta. Unfortunately, the resultant mess is not only linguistic but also economic. An island whose economy is built on tourism, to a large extent, must establish the most rational ways of promoting language and languages as an economic policy. (See also my article Language And The Modern Economy in The Teacher, reproducing a paper I read at the Budapest College of Communication and Business.)

I had criticised as an inferiority complex the mentality that native language speakers teach best their language to non-natives for they often have a fundamental communication, thus pedagogical, problem in spite of enthusiastic intentions.

I had also pointed out that the best language teachers are those who belong to the same culture as the learners but who have made massive effort in incorporating the foreign language they are transmitting.

Ergo, I had justifiably lambasted the insufficient utilisation of Maltese returning from scholarships abroad.

The Education Division and language policy

In 2009, the Education Division issued a call for supply teachers in which part 6a stated that these teachers must “be able to communicate in the Maltese and English languages”. There was some furore about this and I had agreed with the Education Division, as the call obviously included language teachers, for the reasons I mention above. So far so good but…

Why is university education tertiary?

If university education were completely autonomous from the rest of education, it would not be called “tertiary” in relation to primary and secondary. I, thus, take it as logical that university education, as a tertiary education, is a continuation of primary and secondary education.

I have actually met people who believe tertiary language policies may not necessarily follow what has been laid as basic mentality and attitude in language policy prior to university education. This is obviously a gross educational irrationality as university education is constructed on the foundations laid in prior education not on ignoring these foundations. (Try to build a third storey of a house while ignoring the first and second floors!) Thus, what the Education Division’s call for applications stated in 2009 is not a mentality related to pre-university education and completely cut off from university education. I see this globalistic mentality as rational and the “native speaker fallacy” as irrational.

Indeed, once more, University rector Juanito Camilleri has expressed his conviction the University must be at the centre of Malta’s development. I very much agree and to this I add that development is based on self-confidence – like all of Malta’s Prime Ministers have often declared. Have we not sometimes sinned against this by hiring foreign natives when we were capable of development ourselves? Is self-development not possible without foreign intervention?

Ministerial intervention

There are differences between ministerial thinking as far as developmental rationality is concerned. I recently spoke to some ministers and other intelligent politicians about the autonomy of parastatal bodies receiving funds from the government, that is from the taxpayer. They had no difficulty in declaring that when lack of logic appears in parastatal decisions it is a ministerial duty to intervene and promote rationality where irrationality existed. Thank God this proves wrong another minister I had spoken to!

Customer care

I had not been to the Education Division’s customer care section for some time but I remember very well there used to be some very courteous ladies and gentlemen working there. I recently went back to enquire about evening classes and my previous pleasant experience prepared me to be careful not to trip over the red carpet. However, I was quite shaken to come across in this customer haven a lady whose language was quite abrupt and argumentative. Indeed, I asked if this was really the customer care section and the language became even sharper. The word that came to my mind was that this lady was quite żorra (shall we say dry) which is not the feminine of Zorro.

I was strongly directed to the evening classes section where I found that an online application had not arrived. Why? Because the Education Division’s electronic wizards seem to recognise applications made through Internet Explorer only and not through Mozilla Firefox. I do not remember that the Education Division’s refined electronics department had established anywhere on its website, and particularly close to evening classes applications, that Mozilla is sistema non grata. Speak about rationality!

An exercise in association between the words Zorro, Żorra, Mozilla and Godzilla would be interesting. Lack of space makes me postpone this exercise.

Dr Licari is a researcher in multiculturalism.