030522 KU Multilingualism in the legal sphere (2023W)

This course is primarily about multilingualism and the challenge and opportunities that multilingualism entails. We will explore what language, identity and law have in common and how language rights have been politically fought for and legally secured in the past. We will look at theories of multiculturalism and translation and will inquire into how legal systems that take the multilingualism of their population seriously operate. We will also look at factual obstacles that inhibit the exercise of already secured rights. In addition, we will look at the needs, challenges, and opportunities that migration movements bring in linguistic terms, and look at how the presence of people of different language backgrounds affects existing categories such as "language minorities" and "language rights."
We elaborate these topics by looking at different contexts and time periods, including language(s) and law in former colonial territories, Habsburg language policy and language reality, multilingualism at the EU level, and the activity of court and official interpreting.