The English-Only Movement and the Political Legitimacy of Linguistic Minority Rights: The Case of Spanish in the United States

Abstract

This interdisciplinary study is a contribution to the field of sociolinguistics, intercultural communication studies and related major field of research. Its contribution consists of addressing the problem of recognition of the United States as a multicultural and multilingual society, hence counteracting the proponents of English as the sole official language of the United States (hereafter in this study EASOLUSA). This attitude not only violates the human rights of this country'sminority language speakers and fellow human beings but also fails to promote and protect the dignity of these languages as integrated national and universal cultural resources (Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson, 1995). To address this contestation and foster unity within diversity, this study proposes a paradigm that I am calling the existential sociolinguistic paradigm (ESP) as an inclusive model for more humane language policies and employs a blended methodological framework approach, that is, an empirical philosophical investigation framework (Anderson et al., 2018).