Linguists and the Official Language Movement
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2913307 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Geoffrey Nunberg (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 65 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 579 |
| Publication date | 1989-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Language (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0097-8507 • E-ISSN: 1535-0665 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/415223 |
| OpenAlex | W2334747523 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 4 |
The 'U.S. English' organization provides a model success story for modern entrepreneurial political movements. The group was started in 1983 as an offshoot of the restrictionist Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR); its founders were former U.S. Senator S. I. Hayakawa and FAIR founder John Tanton, a Michigan ophthalmologist with a background in the environmentalist and population control movements. Its goals were to establish English as the official language of the United States, and to oppose bilingual education and, more generally, the provision of bilingual services in the public or private sector. In six years, U.S. English has built a national membership of between 250,000 and 350,000, relying primarily on sophisticated direct-mail solicitations sent out under the names of a distinguished advisory board.' With an annual operating budget of $7 million, it has been able to mount legislative or electoral campaigns in almost forty states.2 The movement first attracted extensive national attention in 1986, when an official-language amendment was passed by 73 percent of the California electorate. In 1988, similar measures were passed by the voters of the states of Arizona (where it received 51% of the vote), Colorado (61%), and Florida (84%). In all, 17 states have declared English their official language, and bills are pending in at least eight more.3 Official-language
Aesthetics · Linguistics · Movement (music) · History · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.08 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1989 - 2002 (14) |
| Highly cited | No |