Linguistic Justice: From Theory to Practice

ABSTRACT

This concluding essay proposes a reflection on the themes treated in the preceding essays from a twofold perspective: that of the author of a theoretical book that distinguishes three fundamentally distinct senses of linguistic justice and that of the chair of a Council for Multilingualism set up by the regional government of the capital of the European Union. How English and its standard varieties fare in terms of linguistic justice as fair cooperation, equality of opportunities and parity of esteem varies greatly depending on the context, for example, ex‐colonial countries, post‐Brexit Europe and a city that has two official languages with English not one of them. Whatever the context, an inequality between languages is not necessarily a linguistic injustice, and a linguistic injustice can be a collateral damage justified by the pursuit of a more comprehensive conception of social justice.