In this piece, I will briefly discuss language policies in Scotland vis-à-vis languages of migrant communities. The aim is to highlight a key contradiction of UK language policies. The contradiction I am referring to concerns the fact that, in the UK, policy practice or implementation exists without legislation that serve as a legal basis for such practice. I have discussed this contradiction in my doctoral thesis (Sharma 2019) and will outline here the drawbacks of such a policymaking strategy using the example of immigrant communities in Scotland.
Scotland is one of the four countries that constitute the United Kingdom. The other three are England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Traditionally, the main indigenous languages of Scotland are English, Scottish Gaelic and Scots. Scottish Gaelic represents - along with Cornish, Manx, Irish and Welsh - the Celtic language family in the UK. One might find it interesting that, for a long time, Scots was not considered a 'language' but a 'dialect'. According to Costa (2015), the debate on whether Scots should be considered a dialect of English or a language in its own right has been ‘rife for decades’. However, the common perception of Scots as a ‘dialect’ might change in the context of Scots’ numerical strength exhibited in the 2011 Census, according to which more than 1.5 million speakers claimed to have some knowledge of Scots (Scotland’s Census 2011a).
Scotland’s language diversity is not limited to English, Gaelic, and Scots, and consists of around 180 languages (Scotland’s Census 2011a). Such abundance of languages can be attributed to the immigration from the EU and non-EU states. O’Rourke/Castillo (2014) observe that it is now not uncommon to find a range of new languages including Polish, Portuguese, and Russian in schools where Urdu und Punjabi used to be the main allochthonous languages. The linguistic diversity in Scotland was huge even before the expansion of the EU, and has grown further as a result of it. According to the 2011 Census, the most widely spoken first language after English and Scots is Polish (54,186 speakers) (Scotland’s Census 2011b). The other most widely spoken first languages in Scotland are Urdu (23,394), Punjabi (23,150), Chinese (16,830), and French (14,623) (Scotland’s Census 2011a). According to Martowicz/Roach (2014: 6), by the end of 2014, Polish speakers constituted over 26% of the school students whose main home language is other than English. In light of Scotland's significant linguistic diversity, it is imperative to examine policies devised to address the needs of the migrant population.
One of the few statutes that concern immigrants in Scotland is the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1966. Through this Act, the British Government made financial provisions for immigrants ‘from the Commonwealth whose language or customs differ from those of the community’. It allowed the Secretary of the State to pay to local authorities that are required to make ‘special provision’ as a consequence of the presence of substantial numbers of immigrants within their areas (Art. 11). The Act did not specify whether the grant was directed towards promotion of immigrant languages or for English language courses for immigrants. In 1994, this provision was modified through the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. The 1994 Act substituted the ‘immigrant from Commonwealth whose language or customs differ from those of the community’ with ‘persons belonging to ethnic minorities whose language or customs differ from those of the rest of the community’ (Art. 166). This change is significant because whilst the 1966 Act referred specifically to immigrants, the 1994 Act applied to any community that qualified as ‘ethnic minority’. It means that the funding earlier reserved for minorities could also be spent on non-immigrant population such as Gaelic or Scots.
Besides the two statutes named above, there is hardly any piece of legislation that directly concerns languages or language use of immigrants in Scotland. For example, if we take the case of healthcare, there are no statutes concerning translation and interpretation services that the migrant population might need.[1] However, despite the absence of such legislation, NHS Scotland considers the needs of people with limited English proficiency. For example, in 2010, NHS Lothian published a policy document on its language policy, according to which it offers interpretation, and translation services (such as translation of health care records, professional-to-professional communications, and letters from or to patients) (Robinson 2010). These services are funded by NHS Lothian itself. In response to a Freedom of Information request, NHS Lothian revealed that its most requested languages for interpretation were Polish (37.52%), Arabic (10.49%), Cantonese (6.68%), Mandarin (6.03%) and British Sign Language (5.59%) (NHS Lothian 2017).
Similarly, in a response a Freedom of Information request, NHS Tayside revealed that in the time period from 1 November 2017 to 30 April 2019 it received 18,175 interpretation costs, and spent £364,000 towards interpretation services (NHS Tayside 2019). Most requested languages were Polish, Arabic, British Sign Language (BSL), Romanian, Bengali, Russian, Cantonese, Urdu, Bulgarian and Mandarin (ibid.). These data reveal the contradictory nature of language policies, as implementation or practice exists without any statutory provisions. At the same time, it should also be taken into account that the political discourse might not take a positive stance on such costs. For example, the Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser urged NHS Tayside to reduce costs towards translation and interpretation (McIntosh 2019).
Another example of policy practice existing without any statutory provisions concerns the domain of social welfare. These initiatives are either run by the government or by NGOs which receive funding from the government. For example, Hemat Gryffe Women’s Aid (HGWA), is an NGO founded in 1981 to address the problem of domestic abuse amongst Asian, Black and Minority Ethnic Women, offers its leaflets in Bengali, Cantonese, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu (HGWA 2018). HGWA receives financial support from the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council outreach services (HGWA 2018). It must be reiterated that although these initiatives conduct some of their work in minority languages, the legislation itself does not make room for these languages.
These examples showcase that in Scotland policy practice exists even though there is no legislation. One might argue that considering only legislation whilst speaking of policy is tantamount to severely narrowing down the definition of the term 'policy', since literature on language policy defines the term 'policy' in a multitude of ways. I agree that the term 'policy' can be defined in a number of ways. However, what I want to highlight is that if policies are not legally-binding, it can make the communities which they are directed towards vulnerable. If the government might to chooses to withdraw funding for, let's say, healthcare, it will be difficult to challenge such decisions in the court because they is no legislation in place to counteract such funding cuts. So, if the NHS decides to withdraw its translation and interpretation services, it would be difficult to challenge it legally, and the communities affected will be left on their own for the services needed.
Note:
[1] The NHS Borders Race Equality Scheme 2008-2011 addresses language-based services and refers to the Race Relations Act 1976 (Amendment) Regulations 2003 as the statute that serves as the legal basis for offering language-based services in order to ensure that there is no racial inequality. However, I want to point out that the term 'language' is not mentioned anywhere in the entire text of the 2003 Regulations named above.
References
Costa, James. 2015. ‘Can Schools dispense with Non-Standard Language? Some unintended Consequences of introducing Scots in a Scottish Primary School’, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 25: 25-42
HGWA (Hemat Gryffe Women’s Aid). 2018. ‘Hemat Gryffe Women’s Aid’, URL: < http://www.hematgryffe.org.uk > [accessed 18 April 2020]
NHS Lothian. 2017. Freedom of Information – Translation and Interpretation, URL: < https://org.nhslothian.scot/FOI/RequestAndResponseRegister/FOIs/2000.pdf > [accessed 18 April 2020]
NHS Tayside. 2019. Freedom of Information - Interpreters, URL: < https://www.nhstaysidecdn.scot.nhs.uk/NHSTaysideWeb/idcplg?IdcService=GET_SECURE_FILE&dDocName=PROD_322695&Rendition=web&RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased&noSaveAs=1 > [accessed 18 April 2020]
O’Rourke, Bernardette & Castillo, Pedro. 2014. ‘“Top-down” or “Bottom-up”? Language Policies in Public Service Interpreting in the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Spain’, in Interpreting and Translating in Public Service Settings, ed. by Raquel De Pedro Ricoy, Isabelle Perez and Christine Wilson (London: Routledge), pp. 33-52
Martowicz, Anna & Roach, Andrew. 2014. Polish Language Learning in Scotland: Key Facts and Opportunities. Cross-Party Group on Poland at the Scottish Parliament (Education Subcommittee: Edinburgh), URL: < https://edynburg.msz.gov.pl/resource/404ed315-da04-4254-ac82-6f41863d18e2:JCR > [accessed 18 April 2020]
McIntosh, Kirsty. 2019. ‘£364,000 bill for health board translators revealed’, in The Courier.co.uk, 24 June 2019, URL: < https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/scotland/920214/364000-bill-for-health-board-translators-revealed/ > [accessed 18 April 2020]
Robinson, James. 2010. ‘Interpreting and Translating in NHS Lothian: Policy for Meeting the Needs of People with Limited English Proficiency’, NHS Lothian, URL: < http://www.nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk/yourrights/tics/documents/interpretingtranslationpolicy.pdf > [accessed 18 April 2020]
Scotland’s Census. 2011b. ‘Languages other than English used at home’, National Records of Scotland, URL: < https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ethnicity-identity-language-and-religion > [accessed 18 April 2020]
Scotland’s Census. 2011a. ‘Ethnicity, Identity, Language and Religion’, National Records of Scotland, URL: < http://scotlandcensus.gov.uk/documents/censusresults/release2a/rel2A_Language_detailed_Scotland.pdf > [accessed 18 April 2020]
Sharma, Abhimanyu. 2019. Language Policies in the European Union and India. PhD Dissertation: University of Cambridge.
How to cite this article:
Sharma, Abhimanyu. 2020. Implementation without Legislation? Migrants and Language Policies in Scotland, URL: < https://sharmaabhi1.wixsite.com/mysite/post/implementation-without-legislation-migrants-and-language-policies-in-scotland > [accessed dd/mm/yyyy]
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A revised version of this blog is also available via Academia Letters:
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