Language policies are increasingly acknowledged as being a necessary component of many decisions taken in the areas of the labor market, education, minority languages, mobility, and social inclusion of migrants. They can affect the democratic control of political organizations, and they can either entrench or reduce inequalities. These are the central topics of this book. Economists, philosophers, political scientists, and sociolinguists discuss ¿ from an interdisciplinary perspective ¿ the distributive socio-economic effects of language policies, their impact on justice and inequality at the national or international level, as well as the connection between language choices and an inclusive access to public services. The range of social and economic issues raised by linguistic diversity in contemporary societies is large, and this requires new approaches to tackle them. This book provides new input to design better, more efficient, and fair language policies in order to manage linguistic diversity in different areas.

Studies the socio-economic effects of language policies with a special focus on inclusion, participation, and justice

Introduction: An Economics Approach to Language Policy and Linguistic Justice.- Overview of Literature: Linguistic Justice - an Interdisciplinary Overview of the Literature.- Political and Philosophical Perspectives on Linguistic Justice: Justice in the Linguistic Environment.- Towards an Adaptive Approach to Linguistic Justice.- Language Proficiency and Migration.- The Myth of English as a Common Language in the EU, and Some of Its Political Consequences.- Economic Approaches to Language Policy and Linguistic Justice: The Case of Canadian Provinces.- Evidence from Catalonia.- Languages, Human Capital and Well-Being in Sub-Saharan Africa.- Linguistic Disenfranchisement and Labour Mobility in Europe.- Choosing Working Languages in a Multilingual Organization.- Sociolinguistic Views and Applications: The Assessment of Sociolinguistic Justice - Parameters and Models of Analysis.- Regulatory Environment, Linguistic Inequalities and New Opportunities for Hungarian Minority Interest Representation in Romania.- The Economic Value of Mastering Languages - the Case of Ethnically Mixed Areas in Slovenia.- Language and Translation Policies in Context of Urban Super-Diversity.- Language Policies for Migrants in Italy.- Esperanto and Linguistic Justice - an Empirical Response to Skeptics.