Monolingual language policy: legal and sociolinguistic characteristics

Today, most states at least in some case may be characterized as culturally diverse. International dialogue of scientists and artists, qualified migration and student mobility leads to the situation where in most countries significant numbers of people belong to different cultures. And that's not taking into account the indigenous peoples with their distinctive cultures. The problem arises precisely from the fact that many culturally distinctive people want to comfort live in the country where they grew up or came in, so the authorities must organize a collective democratic community within the country. In this connection the question arises: to what extent the cultural diversity can consider as acceptable and tolerable and how to ensure harmony in these circumstances? When within a single society coexist people with different cultural traditions, it is necessary to solve a number of problems, to provide and arrange all the rules of social life and to determine the range of rights and responsibilities of individuals and communities. Because to solve these issues is not easy, governments have to choose between different options of language policy. One such option is a monolingual language policy, and as noted by A. Patten, such language policy, tending to linguistic convergence is useful for countries with different points of view. Firstly, such a language policy provides social mobility for all non-carriers of the state language, giving them the opportunity to show their loyalty and get access to all major public institutions. Secondly, the presence of prestigious single-language mediator can effectively build a collective identity of citizens and, thirdly, to provide a quick and efficient exchange of views within the state, which is very important for any democratic state. Finally, fourthly, one obligatory state language allows to minimize expenses on state transfers and bilingual communication that determines the economic value of a language policy. The ways of resolving these issues in the framework of language policy are based on two basic concepts: attitudes towards languages and respect for the linguistic rights. In this paper we analyze the monolingual language policies of different countries in terms of their normative content in the major legal sources, such as the constitutions, administration and special language legislation. According to this analysis it is clear, that states, conducting monolingual language policy, consider the state language as a tool of internal integration, where it serves not only as a function of the general mediator of communication, but also as an important political symbol. States focused on the preservation of national policy, adhere to monolingualism, which means a special, privileged position of language (in relation to the other) in order to unite the communities within the state as well as achieve a number of objectives that contribute to maintaining the stability of the political regime.

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