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Ideologies across Nations
≥

Language, Power and
Social Process 23
Editors
Monica Heller
Richard J. Watts
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin
·New York

Ideologies across Nations
The Construction of Linguistic Minorities
at the United Nations
by
Alexandre Ducheˆne
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin
·New York

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague)
is a Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin.
Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines
of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ducheˆne, Alexandre.
Ideologies across nations: the construction of linguistic minorities
at the United Nations / by Alexandre Ducheˆne.
p. cm.(Language, power and social process ; 23)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-11-020583-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-3-11-020584-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Linguistic minoritiesNew York (State)New York.
2. United NationsLanguage policy. I. Title.
P119.315.D83 2008
341.4185dc22
2008035954
ISBN 978-3-11-020583-1 hb
ISBN 978-3-11-020584-8 pb
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet
at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
Copyright 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin.
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-
copy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher.
Cover design: Christopher Schneider.
Printed in Germany.

Acknowledgements
This book is the achievement of a complex journey that led me to various indi-
viduals who contributed to it in various ways. Georges L¨udi was the ﬁrst to see
the relevance and potential of this project. He strongly supported this work insti-
tutionally and conceptually. Monica Heller has been an essential interlocutor at
various stages of this project. Her insightful comments and critical questioning
enabled me to strengthen my arguments and to signiﬁcantly extend the scope of
my research.
The research project and the present book received institutional and ﬁnancial
support from the Swiss National Research Foundation through a personal grant,
providing excellent conditions for the drafting of this book.
The book was ﬁrst written in French and then translated into English. I
would like to thank Carolyn Henshaw for her contribution, and Richard Watts
for proofreading the English version. I would also like to express my special
gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
I take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues from the Universities
of Neuchˆatel, Lausanne, Basel and Toronto for their support. Furthermore, I
would like to acknowledge the indirect contributions of my parents, who through
their own life trajectories and dedication were able to make me aware of social
inequalities from the early stages of my childhood. Finally, my warmest thanks
go to Georges Zecchin for his dedicated support and for being here.

Contents
Acknowledgements v
Introduction 1
Chapter 1
The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry5
1. The protection of linguistic minorities: research direction5
1.1. A sociology of objectifying language: language as the object
of protection 6
1.2. “Critical” sociolinguistics: a protection for whom, why, and
with what interests? 10
1.2.1. Language between practices and politics 10
1.2.2. Minorities and the state: a complex relationship 13
1.2.3. Towards a critical and historically situated sociolinguis-
tics of minority protection 18
1.3. Why study linguistic minorities within the United Nations? 19
1.3.1. An international institution 19
1.3.2. The United Nations: a unique terrain of its kind 20
1.3.3. The United Nations: a central object of investigation 22
2. Conceptual framework 23
2.1. Production of knowledge 24
2.2. Ideologies 26
2.3. Discourse 28
2.4. The historicity of discourses, ideologies and the production
of knowledge 31
3. Collection of data and analytical frame 31
3.1. An immersion in UNO and an apprehension of the ﬁeld 31
3.1.1. A critical look at the institution 32
3.1.2. An in vivo vision of UNO debates 32
3.2. Documentary research:the process of collecting historiographic
data 33
3.2.1. Collection of data by trial and error 33
3.2.2. A systematic collection of data 34
3.2.3. Collection of data and making the object of study precise 36
3.2.4. Synthesis of this section 37
3.3. Framework of analysis 37
4. Outline 40

viiiContents
Chapter 2
Discursive spaces and the protection of minorities: historical,
institutional and ideological conditions of knowledge production 43
1. Introduction 43
2. The emergence of international institutions and the international pro-
tection of minorities 45
2.1. From consultation to elaboration: a brief history of interna-
tional institutions 45
2.2. The League of Nations: the era of consultation 47
2.3. Synthesis of the section 54
3. The United Nations: the emergence of the institution 55
3.1. Historical premises 55
3.2. The Conference of San Francisco: institutional architecture and
the emergence of human rights 57
3.2.1. The architectural bases 57
3.2.2. The ﬁligree of human rights 60
4. The discursive spaces of the UN and linguistic minorities 61
4.1. Three discursive spaces,three modesof functioning,three forms
of hierarchical relations 62
4.2. The Commission on Human Rights: a political space63
4.2.1. The creation of the Commission on Human Rights 63
4.2.2. The mandates of the Commission on Human Rights 67
4.3. The Sub-Commission: a space of expertise 69
4.3.1. The mandate of the Sub-Commission: its emergence
and negotiation 69
4.3.2. The methods of work of the Sub-Commission 73
4.4. The Working Group on Minorities: a space of dialog and con-
sultation 80
5. Conclusion 85
Chapter 3
Production of discourse and institutional constraints:
the search for objectivity 88
1. Introduction 88
2. From speech to text: the regulation and production of discourses at
the United Nations 90
2.1. Speaking out at the United Nations: some discursive dimensions 91
2.2. The United Nations and the production of documents97
2.2.1. The institutional regulation of discourse:
example – the summary record 99

Contentsix
2.2.2. The summary record: from desire for objectivity
to necessary selection 100
2.2.3. From directions to writing: discursive “passages” 108
2.2.4. Synthesis of the section 116
3. Conclusion 118
Chapter 4
State divergences and the principle of universality:
a protection throughabsence 120
1. Introduction 120
2. Presence and ambivalence 122
2.1. First steps towards the Declaration and ambivalence
on the question of minorities 122
2.2. Discursive movements and the location of an article124
2.2.1. Three propositions, three stages of writing124
2.2.2. The discursive processes of modiﬁcation 127
2.3. Ideological issues, changes and diversity of positions 130
2.3.1. The reasons given to explain the changes 130
2.3.2. The ideological issues of the discursive movements 134
3. The Commission on Human Rights and the eviction of minorities 137
3.1. A non-legitimate presence 138
3.2. Proponents of the presence of the Article: towards a justiﬁcation 143
3.3. Synthesis of the section 146
4. The General Assembly: power relations and ideological divergences 147
4.1. The Declaration as a culture of compromise 147
4.2. Polarization of points of view and ideological division:
minorities in question 148
4.2.1. The Soviet endeavors and criticism of the Declaration 148
4.2.2. Response to criticism and commendation of collegiality 151
4.2.3. Criticism of the state as the backdrop of discussion 152
4.3. The fate of minorities: the pursuit of expertise153
5. Conclusion 155
Chapter 5
Ambivalence, particularism and the reproduction of state interests: alimited
protection 159
1. Introduction 159
2. The strategic cautiousness of the Sub-Commission: the emergence
of an article 160

xContents
2.1. The search for multi-modal measures of protection: the ﬁrst
steps towards the speciﬁcation of an article on minority rights 162
2.1.1. Three discursive strategic positions in the ﬁrst steps 163
2.1.2. The establishment of the conditions necessary for for-
mulation, and the conceptual premises 166
2.2. A strategic article, a reproduction of state interests177
2.3. Synthesis of the section 179
3. An accepted presence, a formulationunder discussion: the debates
of the Commission 180
3.1. The conditions of possibility foracceptance 180
3.2. Three propositions, three conceptions of minorities
and their protection 182
3.2.1. Three propositions 182
3.2.2. The arguments 183
3.3. Identifying the “right” proposition: a political decision 186
3.3.1. The fears: separatism and the creation of new minorities 187
3.3.2. The proposition by the Sub-Commission as an appease-
ment of fears 193
3.4. Synthesis of the section 194
4. Distance, non-commitment and legitimization: the discussions
of the Third Commission 195
4.1. Acceptance of presence through negation of existence 196
4.2. Acceptance of the presence as legitimization
of national institutions 199
4.3. Synthesis of the section 202
5. Conclusion 203
Chapter 6
Institutional continuity, the management of paradoxes
and state consensus: acontrolledprotection 205
1. Introduction 205
2. The emergence of theDeclaration on Rights of Persons Belonging
to Minorities 207
2.1. The proliferation of rights and international mechanisms within
the United Nations 207
2.2. The emergence of the Declaration on minority rights within
the Sub-Commission 209
2.2.1. The Capotorti report and the premises of the Declaration
on minority rights 210

Contentsxi
2.2.2. The reception of the report: acceptance of the recom-
mendations, rejection of the deﬁnition 213
3. The elaboration of the Declaration 215
3.1. Preliminary steps 216
3.1.1. A source document 216
3.1.2. A deﬁnition of the term “minority” as a necessary con-
dition of formulation? 218
3.2. The resolution of paradoxes: the conditions of the Declaration’s
acceptability 229
3.2.1. A paradox between the necessary presence of a deﬁni-
tion and the impossibility of creating one230
3.2.2. A paradox between collective and individual rights 234
3.2.3. State duties and state interests 236
3.2.4. Synthesis of the section 238
3.3. The Declaration: the ﬁnal document and the place of language 239
3.3.1. The general structure of the Declaration 239
3.3.2. Linguistic minorities and language:
their discursive inclusion 240
3.4. A step forward, but for the Others: the acceptance
of the Declaration 246
4. The Declaration and new possibilities for the protection
of minorities: the Working Group 248
4.1. General context of the Working Group’s procedure249
4.2. The catalog of particular situations as the production of knowl-
edge and institutional action 249
4.3. The adoption of new measures: a future Convention? 253
5. Conclusion 256
Chapter 7
Conclusion 258
Notes 265
References 270
Index 280

Introduction
Since the rise of the nation-state in the 19th century, issues concerning linguis-
tic minorities have generally been debated within the contexts of nation-states
and their institutions. This can explain historical emphases on the constitutional
rights for linguistic minorities and on the implementation of language regulation
bodies within the boundaries of the nation-state. Over the past several decades,
however, the nation-state has been displaced as a major site of discursive produc-
tion on linguistic minorization. Supra-national and international organizations
(such as the United Nations, the European Union, NGOs, etc.) have emerged as
key sites for the examination of debates on linguistic minorities. In fact, these
discursive spaces play fundamental and authoritative roles in the management
of diversity as well as in the propagation of essentialized views of language
and minorities by endorsing universalistic assumptions (e.g. universal language
rights, linguistic biodiversity, etc.).
Perhaps due to their rather recent emergence, international organizations
have attracted little critical attention within the ﬁeld of linguistic anthropology
and sociolinguistics. Fundamentally, I consider that these sites can no longer be
ignored and should be considered as key sites for the sociolinguistic considera-
tion of linguistic minorities, since on the one hand they shape the distribution of
power and on the other reify state ideologies under the umbrella of international
structures.
Precisely for this reason the present book aims to take up the challenge and
engage in the discussion surrounding the role of international organizations, in
adopting a critical stance on the internationalization and universalization of the
protection of linguistic minorities.
To do so, this book takes a detailed look at one speciﬁc international or-
ganization, the United Nations, as a power institution producing discourses,
knowledge and actions on the protection of linguistic minorities. The book in-
terrogates the institutional structure through a close and innovative examination
of the interests and ideologies at stake in the establishment of international reg-
ulation of the protection of linguistic minorities within an international setting.
Concretely, the book examines the internationalcomponent of language and
institutional ideologies by asking the following questions:
– What does it mean to talk about the protection of linguistic minorities within
an international context?
– Who is considered legitimate to address minority issues, why and how?

2Introduction
– What are the economic, political and national interests and implications of
creating international structures to protect linguistic minorities?
This study arises from the idea that the United Nations have played, and continue
to play, a particular role in debates about the protection of linguistic minorities
because: 1) as an international organization, they are part of the collection of
places where the norms in this matter are established; 2) they produce a knowl-
edge speciﬁc to this subject; 3) because they are the object of criticism or used as
a legitimate voice in various places; but also, 4) they are composed of states that
created the United Nations and are managed by them, thus raising the question of
state interests, as far as minority protection is concerned, within an international
institution.
I consider that the study of the United Nations as a ﬁeld of research essen-
tially allows the demonstration of the following elements constituting the central
argument of this book:
– Expert and state discourses are anchored in different – sometimes convergent
and sometimes divergent – positions and envisage the protection of minorities
from an essentially political and national angle while, at the same time, seeking
to construct a common international ideology;
– The discourses on minorities are embedded in the conceptual and institutional
frame of human rights and therefore reﬂect a series of paradoxes in regard to
both the universal and the particular;
– Finally, the protection of linguistic minorities within the United Nations is a
complex phenomenon, comprising a form of recognition of minorities while
allowing for the preservation of state prerogatives.
This work therefore seeks, on the one hand, to contribute to the understanding of
the ambiguous relations between states and their minorities; on the other hand,
it will allow for the provision of elements that are likely to make a contribution
to the discussion of the protection of linguistic minorities and their languages:
1) by providing a critical examination of the complexity of any undertaking that
aims toprotectminorities and 2) by insisting on the necessity of understanding
international action as being closely linked to the various national interests
involved.
Drawing on the understanding of discourse as a jointly constitutive and con-
straining practice, the book examines how discourses of linguistic minorities
are conditioned by historical and institutional processes. In particular, it draws
attention to the elaboration of minority rights issues by the United Nations by
considering them not as a stable product but as an institutional process and a site
of power. Focusing on the various debates on the protection of linguistic minori-
ties from 1946 to 2003, the book addresses the question of the historical, insti-

Introduction3
tutional and discursive conditions that enable a speciﬁc legal instrument to take
form. It follows step by step, through a close analysis of the debatesaccessible
through summary records, the construction of international laws, and offers an
insightful understanding of the machinery of the production of discourses on and
knowledge of linguistic minorities. Finally, the historical perspective provides
a diachronic understanding of the political issues and international concerns
surrounding the protection of linguistic minorities throughout and across major
eras from post WWII to the Cold War, from decolonization to globalization.
This book is an invitation to a genealogical understanding of the ideological
and discursive processes that have emerged out of the regulation of linguistic
minorities issues within an international context. It highlights the contradictions,
limits and possibilities in the elaboration of international measures within the
universalistframework of human rights.The book also emphasizes the paradoxes
between national interests and the elaboration of an international community,
paradoxes in which minority issues fundamentally question the homogeneity of
the state. It shows that despite the shift from national spaces to international
ones the fears of nation-states for linguistic minorities remain. Finally, the book
reveals the importance of the reproduction of the interests of nation-states within
an international organization and the reproduction of power through the legal
management and regulation of minority rights in general, and those of linguistic
minorities in particular.
The general history of this book, i.e. the history of the United Nations, its vi-
sion of the protection of linguistic minorities, the underlying ideologies that have
emerged, as well as the limits and possibilities of action, should contribute to a
better understanding of the complexity of the protection of linguistic minorities
and the role of language ideologies within an international context.

Chapter 1
The protection of linguistic minorities
as a ﬁeld of inquiry
1. The protection of linguistic minorities: research direction
The research questions set out in this book originate in questions that have
marked the history of ideas in sociolinguistics, and persist today. Indeed, soci-
olinguistics emerged in the sixties as a counter-movement to innatist approaches
put forward by generativist studies and structuralist approaches seeking to lo-
calize the homogenous language system. Contrary to the dominant movements
of that time, sociolinguistics was involved in a more general consideration of the
links between language(s) and society and, within this framework, has sought
to understand the manner in which social processes and the processes of lan-
guage articulate with one another. Different approaches emerged, seeking ei-
ther to break away from classical linguistics by studying language from the
perspective of practices or, on the contrary, to lay claim the existing theoreti-
cal framework while expanding its ﬁeld of investigation to that of “speech” and
“performance”,dimensions that were excluded from the system of Saussure and
Chomsky. While, in the current path of sociolinguistics, approaches are diverg-
ing, the investigation of linguistic minorities, on the contrary, assumes a major
overarching importance in a signiﬁcant number of past and present s tudies in
the discipline.
The emergence of linguistic minorities as the object of investigation for
linguists is grounded in reﬂections on linguistic diversity and language contact
within a given place, and is accompanied by different attempts to promote action
in linguistic, educational and social politics. Accordingly, the following section
will deal with the question of understanding how linguistic minorization has
become an important component ofacademic studies and why the protection
of languages appears as a praxeological undertaking for researchers in this do-
main. These investigations also seek to understand the subjacent conceptions of
language that can be extrapolated from these studies.
In fact, I have foreseen the complexity of the elements involved in under-
standing linguistic minorities, distancing myself from structural and functional
studies by taking my bearings from interactional and critical sociolinguistics.
These studies are founded upon what I consider to be a change of paradigm in the
scientiﬁc understanding of linguistic minorities; i.e. an approach to linguistic
minorities as a discursive production situated and envisaged in the perspective

6The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
of power relations, connected to ideological and political stakes. I shall then
clarify the relevance of the chosen ﬁeld in order to establish my work under the
aegis of a historically situated and explicative sociolinguistics.
1.1. A sociology of objectifying language: language as the object
of protection
Among the research trends in sociolinguistics, there is one that has a particular
bearing on the issue of protecting linguistic minorities and languages through the
intermediary of law, language planning and language policies. I consider that this
trend has strongly inﬂuenced the history of linguistic ideas, as well as remaining
dominant in current research. Accordingly, an examination of the conceptual
framework demands that we pause here in order to understand how linguistic
minorities have become an essential object of investigation for researchers in
this framework.
This research movement, which I qualify as a sociology of objectifying lan-
guage, is based on the work of the sociolinguist, Joshua Fishman. For Fishman
(Fishman 1972), the question of linguistic minorities leans essentially towards
language as theobjectof investigation. The recognition of plurilingualism as an
established fact, then, leads to an attempt to understand the functioning of such
a co-existence of languages within a given society. Anchored in a functional and
structural approach, language is a phenomenon that can be located and observed
within previously delineated borders in the framework of a given state. In this
way, Fishman’s work led to the valorization of state plurilingualism and to the
promotion of diverse forms of language planning, while seeking to demonstrate
the factors determining the retention and the loss of language (Fishman 1972,
1991, 2002). This kind of work thus tends to construct linguistic minorities and
minority languages as existing within a “natural” space. They are not created;
they are a fact. Languages in co-existence are described in their internal func-
tionality and connected to social determinants, in terms of correlations. They
become the object of a continual investigation with regard to their vitality and to
their possibility of existing within a given state. Language is a transparent and
foreseeable given and the linguistic community, in Fishman’s work, is connected
to the existence of languages or of stable, overlapping variations in a system of
collective values and norms.
These discourses, founded upon a functional and structural approach to lan-
guage, entail different kinds of consequences that emerge through the promotion
and establishment of language policies. They thereby seek to respond to a social
necessity: the “painful” co-existence of different languages or varieties. The

The protection of linguistic minorities: research direction7
many studies emerging from this trend will thus be included in a regulatory
logic of inter-group relations and will attempt to put institutional systems into
place that favor linguistic diversity within a given territory.
The focus on language planning (Kloss 1969; Haugen 1987; Cooper 1989)
has made considerable advances in North America and also in Western Europe.
Language is perceived, in these studies, as a necessary factor in the construction
of identity, as well as in the preservation of cultural and historic patrimony. Lan-
guage is identity, and, in this sense, language must be preserved and protected, if
not ﬁxed. In addition, ﬁxation becomes the guarantee of the stability of identity.
Language planning will thus seek to enact and legitimize these practices for the
purposes of identity and nationality. Quantitative approaches to linguistic vital-
ity like, for example, demolinguistics (cf. Heller 2002a, for a critic of this tool in
Canada), support the theses of assimilation and reinforce the need for linguistic
division in order to preserve certain groups. Language is thus quantiﬁable and
measurable.
This trend is progressively accompanied by movements of “revival” (cf. Free-
land and Patrick 2004 for a historical overview of this discourse) in which the
preservation of linguistic characteristics becomes an object of struggle and is
therefore considered as a social necessity. Academic circles actively participate
in this and endeavor to establish a linguistic minority by defending the char-
acteristic that makes the minority a marginal group, i.e. language. An echo of
this is also to be found in the ﬁeld of education (cf. Cummins 2000; Skutnabb-
Kangas and Cummins 1988). The teaching of patrimonial languages, teaching
by immersion or bilingual teaching become the means by which to resolve social
problems.
If, in this approach, the construction of the linguistic borders of the nation-
state remains central to the understanding of the relationship between individuals
and their language, the question of linguistic rights (cf., for example, Giordan
1992; Fenet 1985; Maurais 1997) as a means of action to reduce social inequality
becomes, like educational initiatives, an essential stake in the sociolinguistic un-
dertaking. These rights movements, similar to those dealing with language plan-
ning, seek to integrate a legal recognition of the languages of minorities into state
constitutions. Sociolinguists will have a considerable role to play in this regard
and will promote the law as a guarantee of the peaceful co-existence of commu-
nities.This work, which seeks to establish linguistic minorities in a judicial order,
is currently making new advances by including linguistic rights from the per-
spective of their universality and that of human rights in general (Phillipson and
Skutnabb-Kangas 1995; Skutnabb-Kangas 1998, 2002; Skutnabb-Kangas and
Phillipson 1995, 1996; Skutnabb-Kangas, Phillipson and Kontra 2001). Studies
such as these rest explicitly upon an irrefutable fact – the death of languages

8The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
and, with it, loss of patrimony; even, more radically, the death of the population.
The proof of this fact arises from a presupposition similar to what we have seen
before, i.e. that clear borders exist between languages, that they can be counted,
catalogued with certainty and that, above all, their vitality can be promoted and
their disappearance prevented. Language here is considered principally as an
object, which exists of course in relation to speakers, but fundamentally these
speakers only seem to exist via the language they speak. What must be pro-
tected above all, then, is the language; if the language can be protected, then
individuals and groups will also be protected. Thus, Skutnabb-Kangas (2002)
emphasizes that “through linguistic genocide in schools we are not only killing
languages, we may be killing the prerequisites for our great-great-grandchildren
to exist”. In this sense, the inter-relation between “linguistic genocide” and the
disappearance of a section of humanity becomes obvious. The author goes on
to say that “the knowledge for preventing this exists, but it is not being used”
(p. 900), thus insisting on the ethical duty ofeach individual in the activation of
this existing and established knowledge.
While the consequences of this research may be to promote multilingualism
and to ﬁghtagainstdiscrimination – and in doing so, it could not please me more –
it does seem to lead to certain logical impasses. As in Fishman’s sociology of
language, upon which this ﬁeld of thought is based, language is disconnected
from its social dynamics in the sense that it exists without it – or, rather, the
only reason to refer to social dynamics is to explain the death of languages.
In other respects, the emergence of the principle of universality and human
rights as praxeological and conceptual paradigms tends to give rise to valuable
principles in all situations and contributes in a particular way to the linearity of
the processes rather than adding to their complexity. There is therefore a kind of
paradox inherent in these approaches: the paradox of diversity being associated
with universality. It is revealed even more explicitly with the emergence of the
notion of the biodiversity of languages, and it leads to an essentialist vision of
language, putting it in a position equivalent to plant and animal species (Mafﬁ
2000), even indicating, indeed, that the extinction of languages is more rapid than
the extinction of species (Skutnabb-Kangas 2002). A classiﬁcation of languages
thus comes to be grafted onto the classiﬁcation of species, following the same
logic and allowing an objectiﬁcation of “facts”.
Criticism with regard to the state is present in these various studies, and
emphasizes above all how the state fails in the recognition of linguistic diversity.
However, here again, as commendable as this criticism is, these studies tend to
reproduce particular kinds of categorizations of language that are essentially the
product of the nation-states themselves (cf. Duchˆene and Heller 2007) and only
partially succeed (this is probably not one of their objectives, even though there

The protection of linguistic minorities: research direction9
is an insistence on the necessity of diversity) in bringing back into question the
unitary vision of languages.
As Heller (2002a) remarks, “the basic idea of this approach . . . is that the
‘normal’state of a language would be the European model from the period of the
nation-state’s construction, which links the ideology of language as a watertight,
coherent and complete system to the ideology of the homogenous and clearly
delineated nation and to the ideology of the State with its well-deﬁned borders”
(p. 178). The consequence of a structural and functional approach therefore
somehow tends to avoid a re-questioning of the linguistic principles established
by states, and to conceive language, therefore, as an object that can be delineated
and identiﬁed.
In summary, these studies envisage the protection of linguistic minorities
by emphasizing the inclusion of linguistic rights in universal human rights and
by favoring the axis of language above that of minorization. Furthermore, they
also emphasize an understanding of the phenomenon by putting it on an inter-
national level, distancing themselves from the kind of particularism inherent
in the multiplicity of sociolinguistic situations, while at the same time seeking
speakers outside the state, i.e. at the inter-state level. Furthermore, they effec-
tively establish linguistic minorities as objects of reality and in this way follow
the logic of nation-states.
Although there is no question here of a deliberate intention to proceed in
this way, I consider, nevertheless, that the epistemological foundation of these
studies can only ﬁx the linguistic borders and thus demarcate a certain kind
of standard, which alone can make political action in the matter of language
possible. The object, “linguistic minorities”, appears to be necessary to the very
existence of the discipline, somehow legitimizing it. Theseacademic discourses
are incidental insofar as they do not succeed in going into the complexity of
the actual existence of linguistic minorities – i.e. their constructions within
the ideologies of nation-states – and, in this sense, they maintain a vision of
language as, above all, objectifying. Moreover, these studies pass into silence
just as political action with regard to language, grounded in the same logic as the
logic of nation-states, supports proto-nationalist theses in line with particular
movements of linguistic minorities emerging at the end of the sixties.
As far as I am concerned, and subsequent to different critiques relating to
these studies (see Blommaert 2001; Heller 2002a, 2004; see also for another
nuanced perspective on linguistic rights May 2003, 2004, 2005), I consider that
this approach tends to reify language in its ﬁxed and delineated dimension, and
that it is not capable of integrating the complexity of the social, economic and
political factors that are involved in any process of linguistic, cultural or other
minorization and, by extension, in any kind of protection of minorities. Accord-

10The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
ingly, those who adopt this approach – often put in the position of experts –
tend to misconstrue the ideological meaning of their own discourse, while at
the same time denying the very principles that cause minorization – principles
that therefore go beyond the single object language to a considerable extent. It
is necessary, then, that we seek to understand what is at stake in the protection
of linguistic minorities as a discursive product within the nation-state. It will
be a necessity to envisage the complexity of questions regarding minorities in
constant relation to the places in which these discursive constructions emerge,
i.e. the places where a means of using the notion of minority exists.
1.2. “Critical” sociolinguistics: a protection for whom, why, and
with what interests?
The approach to and the reading of linguistic minority protection that I am
proposing here are different, and correspond to how I consider language and
minorization. I shall attempt, then, to reveal the complexity of what is at stake in
minorities by calling upon various reﬂections relating to the necessity of under-
standing language and minorities in terms of what they represent on a political
level. I thus intend to establish my approach to linguistic minorities within social
theories.Thereafter, and according to the position that I then develop, I intend to
show where and how it is possible to envisage the study – in a critical manner –
of linguistic minorities in an international framework, and to demonstrate the
possible contribution of such an undertaking for the question at hand.
1.2.1. Language between practices and politics
Contrary to the approaches that I have referred to above, I consider that language
is above all linked to communication practices and thereby establishes itself as
eminently social. The formal contours that a language assumes do not emanate
from some “divine” process; they exist beyond any given territory and are the
product of the language practices that form andtrans-form its structural com-
ponents. Language in this sense does not allow itself to be catalogued, classed
and ordered in the same way as geometric forms, and does not obey the same
rules as the formulae of logic and algebra.
Indeed, language is above all a dynamic phenomenon that transforms and
modiﬁes itself, to incorporate new forms just as it may well lose other forms.
This vision of language is, of course, nothing new. Since Hymes (1973) – and
the concept of communicative competence that seeks to divert Chomsky’s in-
natist opposition of competence and performance – we have known that lan-
guage practices do not materialize through a homogenization of form, and that

The protection of linguistic minorities: research direction11
communication practices allow language to insert itself into a series of social
processes that tend towards different interactional objectives. For Hymes (ibid. ),
not only does a diversity of languages exist, but also a diversity of manners of
speaking according to a diversity of situations. In that sense, it is impossible to
separate the social and the linguistic or to shut them up in variables and cor-
relations. Other works in the ethnography of communication (Gumperz 1981a,
1981b; L¨udi and Py 2003) also seek to develop a dynamic approach to language
in the understanding of the contexts of its emergence, in its social role and
in its processes of co-construction (cf. also L¨udi 1991). Language, therefore,
is fragile, ﬂuid, fundamentally heterogeneous and must necessarily pursue the
objectives of communication. As researchers working in multilingual sociolin-
guistic contexts have shown (cf. L¨udi 1992; L¨udi and Py 2003; Matthey and de
Pietro 1997), the structures of language are modiﬁable; they are not immedi-
ately “evident” and accessible. Language interactions in plurilingual contexts
thus bring about pragmatic, speciﬁc and contextualized ways and means. The
utilization of language forms is balanced by strategies that are not homogenous
and that constantly modify the normalized state of the language. Internal or
external migration situations create new language forms that are progressively
incorporated into the dominant language of a region, without the native speakers
necessarily realizing it (cf. Grosjean and Py 1991).
Moreover, the inclusion of migrants in the understanding of the dynamics of
language allows us to go beyond some of the monolithic visions of strictly speak-
ingnationallanguages. Indeed, for L¨udi (1990b), in a traditional conception of
minorities, “we close our eyes, so to speak, with regard to what is sometimes
delicately calledpersonal linguistic minorities(Mackey 1983) resulting from
migratory movements of various origins (refugees, migrant workers, repatriated
colonial civil servants, etc.)” (p. 114). The author goes on to emphasize the im-
portance of going beyond the split between national linguistic minorities and
migrant communities in order to depart from a piecemeal conception of identity
and to be able to conceive of a plurilingual identity that transcends national splits.
It is also along these lines that we can re-think Ferguson’s concept ofdiglossia
(Ferguson 1959) in order to arrive at the concept ofpolyglossy, and demand a
fundamentallyplurilingualapproach (cf. L¨udi 1990a).The latter approach effec-
tively permits us to go beyond a simple inter-relation between “high” language
and “low” language, and to include here the interactional complexity and the
dynamic side of plurilingual practices. A moving and “circulating” conception
of language practices, moreover, brings about a re-reading of the identiﬁcatory
and symbolic components of language in that such a re-reading would allow us
to see particular identity acts that a structuralist approach to language is inca-
pable of revealing (cf. Le Page andTabouret-Keller 1985; Duchˆene 2000).These

12The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
acts are essential to an understanding of the complex mechanisms relevant to
the means of language, and allow us to think of language and language practices
as no longer only observable and demarcatable, but also as part of a cluster of
social phenomena.
At the same time, language also constitutes a political means, a means of
struggle, a means of exclusion. The necessity of ﬁxing a language at a particular
moment in order to achieve objectives of standardization, in order to create
a particular common denominator, is an eminently political and ideological
act that, in a particular way, is out of step with effective practices. Language
can be the object of uniformity and standardization. Monolingualism can thus
be preferred to linguistic plurality or to a selective linguistic plurality. It is
at this moment that language becomes the object of struggle because, at play
behind these objectives of homogenization, are ideological stakes and eminently
political choices in which languages, varieties and practices will be put into a
hierarchy according to research objectives (see Higonnet 1980; Swiggers 1990;
Kasuya 2001 for the historical dimensions, and also Klinkenberg 2001a, 2001b).
Bourdieu (1980, 1982) emphasizes the characteristic of language as an ide-
ological means by insisting on the phenomena of inclusion and exclusion that
are linked to it. For him, language is above all to be understood in terms of the
power relationships that it brings to light: “la langue . . . est sans doute le support
par excellence du rˆeve de pouvoir absolu” (Bourdieu 2001: 66) [‘language . . . is
without doubt the supreme support of the dream of absolute power’]. Language,
therefore, is more than a simple object: it is practices but it is also symbolic and
material resources. In this way, language conditions particular forms of social
stratiﬁcation, permitting or limitingaccess to positions of power. Language thus
becomes a means of exclusion and social inequality, just as it allows social repro-
duction. The specter of exclusion and social inequality can be seen in different
institutional settings, for example at school or in the workplace (Boutet 1994;
Goldstein 1997), as well as in different forms of conﬂictuality within the micro-
cosm, like the couple (Piller 2002) and the family (Desprez 1994; Duchˆene and
Rosenbaum 1999; Duchˆene 2001). The importance of the political and social
stakes with regard to choice of language(s) or of variety(ies), for example, is
thus included in the dominant perceptions of what is valued or devalued in a
given society.
When we return to the perspective of linguistic minority protection, the ques-
tion of which languages, varieties and practices should be protected – and why
these and not others – arises.Seen from this angle, the question of the protec-
tion of languages becomes far more complex, more ideological and necessarily
more arbitrary. Behind these questions, there are others concerning who has
the capacity to decide, according to what criteria and with what legitimacy, thus

The protection of linguistic minorities: research direction13
referring to the state and dominant ways and means. In this way, questions about
language are joined to those about minorization insofar as language is one of
the elements on the basis of which exclusion occurs, and insofar as exclusion
is inscribed in a cluster of complex factors in which the relation between power
and the proclamation of norms based on certain characteristics tends to maintain
a constant quest for homogeneity.
1.2.2. Minorities and the state: a complex relationship
To raise the question of minorities and their protection seems to me above all
to envisage their existence within a certain social and diachronic order; more
speciﬁcally, it is about thinking of linguistic minorities as a discursive production
and political means.
As Hobsbawm (1990) emphasizes, at the beginning of the 20th century, the
national question in the whole of Europe assumes a central importance. The
principle of nationalities was replaced by the principle of the state, leading to
the idea that a state should comprise of a single nationality, which led in turn
to a radicalization of language and ethnicity as the only condition of national-
ity. Furthermore, the nationalism that emerged at the end of the 19th century
manifested itself in the form of discourse arising from right-wing politics at
the beginning of the last century. The socialist workers’ revolution, directed in
several nation-states by the lower middle classes, became an obvious danger and
authority tended to react by promoting a race – nation equation. What followed
was a nationalism of the masses, inﬂated by the petite bourgeoisie in power,
irrefutably assuming the features of anti-Semitism and racism. The ideological
manipulation consisting of allying the national question to the social question
allowed the union of all social classes under the banner of patriotism, with
nationalism thus becoming the solution to the states’ social problems.
After the FirstWorld War, the fall of composite empires brought about, for the
ﬁrst time in history, the emergence of a European continent characterized by the
presence of numerous states, most of them deﬁned in terms of the United Nations
but also conceived as “some kind of bourgeois parliamentary democracies”
(Hobsbawm 1990: 131).
1
Through the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, a form of
equation from the time of the French Revolution was reproduced: state = nation =
language; the notion of race, ethnicity, religion, etc. can be substituted for the
last element of the equation. This territorial demarcation, however, does not
take a fundamental fact intoaccount, i.e. the states, newly created out of great
empires, remained multinational and multilingual:
The main change was that states were now on average smaller and the ‘oppressed
peoples’ within them were now called ‘oppressed minorities’. The logical im-

14The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
plication of trying to create a continent neatly divided into coherent territorial
states, each inhabited by a separate ethnically and linguistically homogeneous
population, was the mass expulsion or extermination of minorities. (Hobsbawm
1990: 133)
The artiﬁciality of the construction of states after the Treaty of Versailles also
introduced a new element, i.e. that the notion of nation was revealed as not really
coinciding with the identiﬁcation of the people concerned. What characterized
the inter-war years was the use of nationalist ideas by fascist and extreme right-
wing movements. Nationalist propaganda had as much weight within the middle
classes as within the working classes, in that state problems were seen in the
form of external causality.The pre-First World War premises of state nationalism
were therefore extended, taking into account the different economic crises facing
many nation-states. Fascist ideologies made full use of nationalist ideas (in
Germany and Italy), while minorities without states sought a radicalization of
separatist positions.
One can consider the supreme form of nationalism to be found in the Nazi
ideas of the Third Reich: the adoption of a racist discourse in order to construct,
by any means possible, a homogenous empire. Racial and linguistic ideas then
converged in a form of racial order that allowed genocide to be legitimized
and that was anchored in the production of a knowledge founded above all on
lauding the superiority of one race and one language over another (cf. also Hut-
ton 1999, 2004). Confronted by this ideology, opposing world movements then
stressed the need for an alliance between bourgeois nationalism and socialist
ideologies, united under the same banner of anti-fascism. It nonetheless remains
the case that, under this banner, the homogenous ideals of the states were per-
petuated from the end of the Second World War until almost the end of the 20th
century.
These reﬂections about the research on homogeneity and its political utiliza-
tion allow us to emphasize the quest for national unity and the appropriation of
language for nationalist purposes. Here, language is effectively embodied in a
framework that is much larger than its form; language is therefore essentially
submitted to means that go far beyond it and that by necessity lead to a reﬂection
on the construction of minoritization. The very notion of minority is concomi-
tant with a radicalization of nationalist ideas and thus allows us to understand
how the problem of minorities emerged and is constructed historically.
Indeed, minorities have historically been constructed in relation to nation-
state ideologies thatconsist of the quest for homogeneity, leading states to qualify
as “minorities” those groups that do not meet the dominant criteria. The minori-
ties thus emerge in line with the radicalization of nationalist movements and the
territorial changes after the First World War (cf. Hobsbawm 1990).

The protection of linguistic minorities: research direction15
For nation-states, the existence of minorities effectively constitutes a chal-
lenge to national unity, and they are not inclined to favor linguistic and cultural
heterogeneity. The dominant characteristics by which a state deﬁnes itself be-
come, then, “the symbolic ground for the construction and legitimization of the
nation-state and of its citizens” (Heller 2002a: 179). The state seeks by vari-
ous means to stiﬂe heterogeneity by practicing assimilation or the transfer or
displacement of minorities, but does not succeed in destroying this diversity.
Minority movements emerged progressively during the sixties, demanding the
same rights – legal recognition of their existence – and brandishing the specter
of separatism in order to do so.
The emergence of these movements places the constant interaction of sites
of the production of discourse in minorities inaccordance with the evolution of
the state. This has, moreover, been shown by numerous studies in critical socio-
linguistics, which seek to understand the origins of nationalist discourses and
to include their research in an ideological understanding of the stakes involved
in linguistic minorities.
Jaffe (1999), for example, emphasizes the importance of discourse about
the Corsican language as a claim for autonomy in the face of the centralizing
power of the French State. For sociolinguists of the Corsican language and its
standardization through, among others, spelling, the means of language became
a means of politicalaction.This also shows, moreover, thatthe means of language
become means of identiﬁcation, and therefore reveal the multiple processes of
minorization from which the nationalist Corsican movements seek to distinguish
themselves by creating a group uniformity, a process in which language takes
the form of a consequent means. “Nationalists have consistently kept the issue of
the Corsican language at the forefront of political discourse, and have been the
catalysts for all the early language related legislation in the Corsican Regional
Assembly” (1999: 69).
We ﬁnd this kind of discourse in other nationalist movements of the time:
in the Basque country, in Wales, Ireland and Brittany. In the case of Brittany,
for example (McDonald 1989), the identiﬁcatory discourse seeks to distinguish
itself from “French” and to be constituted as a people with homogenous charac-
teristics. The protectionist discourse that emerges therefore explicitly takes its
bearings from the French state’s linguistic and cultural strategies of homogeniza-
tion. McDonald emphasizes this: “militants regard French educational policy
since the eighteenth century as a continuous ‘cultural genocide’” (1989: 76).
In Quebec, nationalist discourse during the period of minority movements
took the form of demands for provincial powers.The French language became an
object of discursive struggle in the face of the dominant English-speaking power.
The nation was created discursively, breaking away from the traditional concept

16The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
of the French Canadian nation. Quebec thus constructed a discourse anchored
in the idea of a Quebecois nation-state (Heller 2002b). Within this ideological
transformation, language becomes an essential element of discourse. As Heller
states (2002b): “combining its legitimisation as defender of a Quebecois nation
with roots in ethnic nationalism, and its legitimisation as representing the other
citizens” and persevering “to the extent that one could claim that language is
something that can be learned, it is a better symbol of belonging than race,
religion or ethnicity” (p. 42). Language as a means of uniﬁcatory value appears
here as a place of resistance and gathering.
In their opposition to the dominant power, therefore, the demands of mi-
norities themselves remain dependent on the same state ideologies, reproducing
within themselves the homogenization that led to both their minority status
and the exclusion that has confronted them. The inclusion of diversity becomes
problematic precisely because it constitutes a risk that prevents the clear and de-
marcated existence of the social groups trying to gain a kind of independence.
The reproduction of nation-state ideologies can also be explained by the hege-
mony of a world order that tends to set up the concept of the nation-state as a
norm and therefore necessarily situates minority discourses within this logic.
To be recognized means acceding to a proper national identity.
Faced with this and dependent on its own nationalist ideologies, the nation-
state thus considers minority movements not only as a challenge for the state’s
homogeneity but also as a real threat to internal peace and stability.The state then
ﬁnds itself in a series of dilemmas: to recognize minorities, thereby avoiding
the specter of separatism, but taking the risk of moving away from the pur-
suit of national ideals and of creating more radical grievances; or maintaining
its homogeneous principles through assimilation, taking the risk of enhancing
the separatist movements; or, ﬁnally, explicitly promoting “national diversity”
pursuing common internationalist objectives. There are, of course, the other al-
ternatives of using force to displace minorities or to eradicate them completely.
The 20th century is unfortunately the arena of a series of genocides involving
minorities.
With the emergence of a new world order and the advent of new kinds of
economy and technology, state borders and nationalist ideologies seem to be
somewhat blurred. Minorities likewise ﬁnd themselves involved in a series of
transformations in which essential values rest on a global economy and a valuing
of particular forms of authenticity (cf. Heller and Labrie 2003; Heller 2003).
These transformations lead to new forms of inequality while at the same time
allowing minorities new possibilities ofaccess at the economic level. The state
is being gradually replaced by a private economy but without the state interests
being completely compromised. On the other hand, although these remarks are

The protection of linguistic minorities: research direction17
valid for western nation-states and even for developing states that have been
able to take advantage of these world order transformations, in other parts of the
world where state regimes are far from attaining the democratic ideals promoted
by a western approach to society, the question of minorities is quite different.
Discrimination and the enactment of genocide on the basis of ethnic differences,
for example, persist. The ideologies of such a nation-state, inspired by the west,
sometimes increase their dictatorial powers, leading to a radicalization of the
state’s homogenization.
These observations on the relations between states and minorities necessarily
lead us to consider the whole question of their protection in all its complexity
and in the multiplicity of possible responses. The protection of minorities raises
several questions, which can be summarized in a formula: who protects whom,
and from what? By this, I mean that minorities demand rights and thereby de-
mand to be protected and recognized by the state. At the same time, their main
interlocutor is, and remains, the state, from which they demand protection –
and what they demand to be protected from, is generally the state itself. Further-
more, the state seeks to protect itself from the risk posed by the very existence of
minorities; one may well ask whether the protection of minorities then becomes
the protection of the state. Finally (and the observations I have brought for-
ward above emphasize this), it is essential to ask the following questions: what
protections for which minorities, in what states and when? By means of such
questioning, I wish to make it clear that the protection of minorities is a phe-
nomenon that is intimately linked to particular contexts, according to particular
needs and particular social, political and economic situations.
As I have attempted to demonstrate in the two preceding sections, the call
for linguistic minority protection not only has a bearing on the question of
language, but is also fundamentally included in the processes of minorization.
In this sense, the understanding of the protection of linguistic minorities cannot
avoid these social and political components, nor can it ignore its ideological as
well as historic complexity. In fact, I consider that the existence of minorities and
their protection only make sense in the logic of the nation-state.Accordingly, any
study of them is completely dependent on an interrogation, not only of minorities
and language, but also of the relations between linguistic minorities and states,
taking into account that the discourses emanating from minority groups as well
as those of majority groups are essentially conditioned by ideological processes.
These reﬂections are all the more important if they are considered in connec-
tion with an international protection of minorities which, in a particular manner
as we shall see, seeks to bring about the most general and universal protection
possible – in that it would have to respond to the needs of minorities all over the
world – while still safeguarding the interests of the states, which will themselves

18The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
design this protection and be required to adhere to it. The international dimen-
sion of the minority question – at least within the framework of the institution
concerned here – in no way annuls the position of the nation-state. On the con-
trary, it contributes to the generalization of the nation-state as a form of good
governance (this will be all the more obvious with the gaining of independence
of colonized countries), to which all countries should aspire. On the basis of
these observations, it seems necessary to claim an approach to the protection of
minorities from a critical sociolinguistic perspective.
1.2.3. Towards a critical and historically situated sociolinguistics
of minority protection
“Critical” sociolinguistics seeks to understand the interests subjacent to the so-
cial construction of minorities and language. In this sense and as Heller (2002a)
emphasizes, this sociolinguistics “questions the way we use ideologies, language
practices and language ideologies in order to advance interests by means of the
construction of social categorisation and regulation of access to the produc-
tion and distribution of resources” (p. 184). Hence, this approach will consider
minorities and language in all the complexity of the networks and social rela-
tions in which they exist, and will reveal the reasons that cause particular actors
to produce particular discourses on minorities, majorities, language, religion,
ethnicity, etc. It will, above all, approach language issues from the angle of
their historically situated discursive production. Language and minorities will
therefore be envisaged here not in a correlative connection, but rather in the
general context of social (for an overview of the possible bases of social and
sociolinguistic theory, cf. Coupland, Sarangi and Candlin 2001) and historical
(cf. Seriot 2004) theory, which principally seek to explain certain phenomena
without reducing language to an object.
Studying the protection of linguistic minorities therefore presupposes that
these different parameters are taken into account and seeks to understand the
interests that are subjacent to action, discourse and the production of knowledge
within a given context and according to speciﬁc places. But what is particular
about the approach that I am using here is that it also adheres to the necessity
of thinking about the discourses of linguistic minority protection from the per-
spective of their place in history. I do not intend to say what these discourses
are, but rather to describe how discourses on minority protection emerge and are
transformed in the course of time, according to state and institutional ideologi-
cal movements. This study does not, therefore, directly concern the current state
of discourses on minority protection, but represents the opinion that historical
development and diachronic institutional creation bring out the complexity of

The protection of linguistic minorities: research direction19
minority protection issues, while at the same time providing a particular reading
grid for current questions. It is my belief that an understanding of the interests
that underlie these discourses therefore presupposes a critical and necessarily
historicized approach.
The above remarks establish this study ontologically and epistemologically.
I shall now attempt to specify the particular context of my investigation, in order
to make the relevance of the ﬁeld, as well as the possible beneﬁts of studying it,
more explicit.
1.3. Why study linguistic minorities within the United Nations?
While the question of linguistic minorities and their protection has generally
been considered within state institutions, I have chosen, in this study, to place
the object of investigation within the setting of an international institution: the
United Nations. This choice requires an explanation that ought to reveal the
purpose of having such an organization as the ﬁeld of investigation, as well as
the possible contributions of this undertaking. This is the main objective of this
section.
1.3.1. An international institution
As we shall later see in more detail (see Chapter 2), the existence of international
institutions is a fairly recent phenomenon in the history of humanity. They have
emerged in response to a rapid economic and technological evolution, and are
structured in accordance with concomitant social and political institutions (Abi-
Saab1981). They are the result of movements that began to emerge from the
end of the 19th century onwards: the development of international conferences
and the creation of international unions to produce a network of co-operation.
These movements led to the increasingly elaborated constitution of international
administrative systems, allowing a proliferation of multinational treaties and
internationally regulated activities. Moreover, these movements appeared for
reasons that go beyond the simple regulatory structuring of state relations, being
in fact woven into a tapestry of relations that allows for the construction of both
political and economic agreements.
The United Nations, as such, is inscribed in the rupture with the League of
Nations.The latter was created following the FirstWorldWar and was connected
to the Peace Treaty with Germany.The founders of the League of Nations essen-
tially sought to resolve international problems in the form of bi- or multilateral
treaties. Its failure, enshrined by theSecond World War, highlighted the gaps
in this kind of institution. The international catastrophe that caused its failure,

20The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
however, reiterated the necessity of a new international order to maintain peace
and security. It was in terms of these dynamics that the United Nations was
created. We shall see that, while the United Nations’ objectives are most com-
mendable, from its very inception it has been involved in a mainly national logic.
States that created the United Nations are nation-states; the quest for peace and
democracy is attached to the western model of the state. The United Nations
does not, therefore, constitute a supra-national institution, but rather a conclave
of states, emphasizing the principle of state sovereignty as the necessary condi-
tion of its existence. In the course of its history, the United Nations has known
moments of glory and of darkness, has been strongly criticized, praised or used
for political ends. The United Nations remains a place where alliances among
nations are made and broken, where ideological debates reside at the heart of
decisions, and where states legitimize their own practices and condemn the
practices of others. Above all, this institution has always been, and still is, an
inter-nationalinstitution.
1.3.2. The United Nations: a unique terrain of its kind
Various elements of the United Nations make this organization an “exceptional”
terrain that allows various aspects of the protection of linguistic minorities to
be brought to light.
The ﬁrst characteristic of this institution is, without doubt, its universality,
determined from its foundation by the presence of both the United States and the
Soviet Union (contrary to the League of Nations, of which the United States –
for various reasons – had refused to be a member). The number of member
states has increased markedly over time. Every state wants to become a mem-
ber of the UN, and none of them has withdrawn its membership. The United
Nations has therefore become a unique world forum, with an infrastructure that
regulates international relations. The universality in the composition of states
is reﬂected in the universality of the general principles prevalent in the United
Nations. Membership of the United Nations presupposes, on the part of states,
the recognition of treaties in operation and, more fundamentally, the acknowl-
edgement of the United Nations Charter.The success of this institution lies in its
rallying around principles that are considered to be “good” for humanity, which
are continually legitimized and reinforced by the high demand for membership.
Moreover, universal human rights have proved to be a fundamental link since
the beginning of 1945 when, during the San Francisco Conference, the necessity
of giving this new institution the means of taking up the protection of human
rights was raised and, with this, the means of setting international standards for
rights and fundamental freedoms.

The protection of linguistic minorities: research direction21
Another characteristic of the United Nations is its wide range of activities.
The United Nations is concerned with all areas of human activity: social, eco-
nomic, political, cultural and technological. Emphasis has often been placed on
the economic and social level, leading to actions that ensure protection from
tensions that could pose a threat to peace. These different activities, despite
their diversity, are therefore part of the constitution of central objectives af-
ﬁrmed and re-afﬁrmed by the institution. The actions of the United Nations are
totally determined by these objectives. Furthermore, it is here that structures
for the production of knowledge are created – a production that is closely con-
nected to the entire UN machinery and dependent on diverse interests. It is also
a production of knowledge with the objective of action, which gives rise to a
series of reﬂections about the relationship between knowledge and action on the
international level.
The United Nations can be seen as a place where world tensions are mirrored
within the institution itself. This leads us to another characteristic of the United
Nations: its dimension of conﬂict (cf. Brucan 1981). The reproduction of world
conﬂicts may be considered as a microcosm of international relations, but this
microcosm is situated within an ordered and determined place. Nonetheless it
is still the case that all forms of debate must be understood in terms of the
distribution of power, in which displays of strength emerge and inequalities are
reproduced.
Finally, the United Nations appeared at a key moment in international re-
lations: the height of nationalism. The United Nations would witness and con-
tribute to de-colonization; would be the theatre for the confrontations connected
with the Cold War; would witness the transformations related to the dismem-
berment of the Eastern block and communist ideology; while also seeing new
ethnic conﬂicts, the move to globalization and ﬂuctuations in alliances between
states according to political interests. In this sense, the United Nations is not
only the place where conﬂicts are reproduced, but is also witness to, and an
agent of, change in the world order.
These dimensions, which appear to characterize the United Nations, can
be supported by the general framework in which the protection of linguistic
minorities is dealt with. The universal principles, the “human” dimensions of
activities and the mission to keep the peace, as well as the fact that the United
Nations is a microcosm of world conﬂicts and witness to the history of the second
half of the twentieth century, immediately place the means of minority protection
within a frame situated in philosophical principles, in actions, conﬂicts and a
history. It is in this sense that I consider the United Nations to be a unique terrain
of its kind, which both offers the analyst the possibility of understanding different
state maneuvering as well as providing the researcher with a reading grid for

22The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
international issues of protecting of minorities. In fact, the United Nations can
be seen as a window opening onto the ideological plurality of the conceptions
of minorities and the complexity involved in their protection.
1.3.3. The United Nations: a central object of investigation
Apart from the fact that the United Nations is a unique terrain, I consider that it
is a central object of investigation in the quest to understand the complex issues
of minority protection.
Indeed – as we have seen in the context of research on the protection of
languages – current discourses seek to place the defense of languages under
the aegis of universal rights and human rights. The United Nations is often
considered as a necessary interlocutor with regard to these proceedings. Even
though the United Nations is criticized for its inaction and lack of consideration
with regard to language, it is nonetheless one of the unique world organizations
where human rights are envisaged. In this regard, the United Nations is the
ultimate symbol of these rights and, in spite of criticism, it is the legitimate
setting of possible action.
Today, it is possible to observe a displacement of the discourses on minori-
ties, language and multilingualism – from exclusively national to international
spaces, NGO and private foundations (cf. Duchˆ ene and Heller 2007; Muehlman
and Duchˆene 2007). This shift is concomitant with the fragility of territorial
borders and various processes of globalization without, however, leading to the
disappearance of the nationalist paradigm. Instead, it emphasizes the address of
discourses on the international rather than strictly local level. The United Na-
tions is an integral part of this process; the nature of its institutions, of its creation
and of its history offer the possibility of understanding how international dy-
namics allow the expression of new forms of discourse, while still maintaining
a particular conceptual continuity.
Lastly, from its inception the United Nations has been, in effect, a producer
of discourses on minorities as we shall see in the course of this work. Within
its institutional logic, therefore, the United Nations elaborates standards in the
form of international instruments in the matter of minority rights.
These standards, although not always effective, bring about a particular man-
ner of thinking about linguistic minorities that has consequences at different
levels. Like all international law, these measures of protection elaborate grand
principles, conceived and adhered to by states. The existence of these measures
symbolically allows states to ofﬁcially prove their commitment to world causes
through the ratiﬁcation of these instruments and, in this regard, they are obliged
to demonstrate the intention to enact the rights to which they have adhered.

Conceptual framework23
Furthermore, insofar as these instruments are intended to be standards, they
are often used as the standard for state constitutional modiﬁcations. At the same
time, the intended recipients of these rights are able to invoke them – even though
in numerous cases there are no effective sanctions available – when these have
been ﬂouted. Accordingly and apart from how well they work, these instruments
can be a means of seeing how particular problems are envisaged, just as they
are the possible conditions of all international actions regarding the protection
of minorities.
For these reasons, I consider that the United Nations constitutes a central
object of investigation, in view of the current understanding of the means of
linguistic minority protection. As mentioned above, this work will not seek to
explain the discourses as they are produced today but, through the history and
genealogy of discourses on the protection of minorities within the institution,
rather contribute to an understanding of the present emergence of discourses of
protection at an international level. Furthermore, by taking into consideration
nationalist, international and institutional dimensions, I shall seek to understand
the place occupied by minorities and their protection within the United Nations.
By studying this terrain, it is possible to take up the invitation made by Philips
(1998) “to think more about the extent to which nation-imagining language
ideologies speciﬁc to particular institutions are also shared across institutions
and nations” (p. 224).
The general perspectives outlined here – that is, a foundation in a critical
sociology of language, an understanding of minorities linked to the ideologies of
the nation-states, as well as of the international dimension that their protection
is gradually assuming – infer a particular conceptual framework as well as a
collection of data, which I shall outline below. I am committed to understanding,
by researching its historicity and conditions of emergence, the construction of
minorities within the United Nations.
2. Conceptual framework
As previously indicated, this work is designed around different key notions that
I propose to clarify, thus giving anaccount of the framework of this study. To be
more precise, I shall reveal here the conceptual framework that arises from and
contributes to the ontological and epistemological positioning developed above.
In order to do so, I shall retain three dimensions that seem essential and that
constitute my reading grid of the object of investigation. Firstly, I shall consider
the importance of the production of knowledge as intrinsically linked to action,
as fundamentally constrained and as incidental. I then intend to brieﬂy develop

24The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
the notion of ideology, as it will be used in this study: that is, as a complex ﬁeld
of ideas about language and about minorities in relation to political, economic
and institutional interests. Finally, I shall devote the last axis on the discourses
that form the material relevant to my analysis, as well as a praxeological axis
that is particular to the institution. For the sake of this exposition, these three
notions will be considered separately but, as I shall demonstrate in the course
of this text, they should be understood as parts of a whole and as inter-related.
In the presentation of this conceptual framework, I shall also endeavor to
demonstrate the reﬂective aspect involved, and shall then emphasize the conse-
quences of the production of knowledge, the necessarily ideological component
of my reading and the existence of a discourse that is mine and, therefore, essen-
tially subjective. Finally, in the synthesis, I shall return to a transversal aspect
in the establishment of this conceptual framework: that is, the historicity of the
production of knowledge, of ideologies and of discursive material.
2.1. Production of knowledge
Seeing the production of knowledge as an element of the conceptual frame
presupposes that this production constitutes an issue for the institutional ﬁeld
envisaged here. In brief, I consider that the production of knowledge is intrin-
sically connected to the needs of the institution, as well as constituting a form
of action and giving rise to the linguistic minority object. This knowledge is
not envisagedde factoas a ﬁxed and stable object, but rather as the result of
a complex elaboration that brings about various parameters, which inﬂuence
its presence. We know this – and, in this sense, studies in the sociology of
science (cf. Latour 1989) as well as those emerging from the micro-sociology
of ethno-methodological obedience (for example, Mondada 2000, 2001, 2004)
have made a great contribution to bringing this aspect to light. The production of
knowledge obeys rules intended to ﬁx and crystallize the object but which, at the
same time, are also situated within a process of the negotiation and localization
of meaning.
The production of knowledge is fundamentally institutional insofar as it com-
plies with a series of constraints that allow it to exist while also limiting it. In this
way, the interest in the institutional dimension of the production of knowledge is
closely related to Foucault’s work. It is primarily from the position of history as
a discipline that Foucault (1969 [1972]), in his work onL’Arch ´eologie du savoir
[“The Archaeology of Knowledge”], contends that approaching a question of
history or even a particular theme should not be considered from the perspec-
tive of a linear succession of events alone. On the contrary, the most important

Conceptual framework25
thing is how a particular notion is constituted as an institutional object. Thus
madness, to refer to one of his earlier works (Foucault 1967), does not exist in
itself: any description of the history of madness should have the primary aim of
explaining how it becomes important within a given institution. The analyst’s
work is therefore not only to point out the coherent systems that compose the
history of a notion, but also to indicate the ruptures, the cuts and the ties.
Foucault thus distances himself from the classical structuralist movement
dominant at that time in the ﬁeld of the human sciences. Structure only makes
sense in and through its ruptures. The historical dimension of his study lies in
observing the variabilities present in the discontinuity of linearity. Basically,
the human sciences are made possible by a frame of knowledge that they them-
selves set up – a frame that categorizes, linearizes but also creates a regime of
discourse of the order of truth. In the ﬁrst volume of hisHistoire de la sexualit´e
(1976), Foucault follows his reasoning in emphasizing the fact that a diversity
of places for the production of knowledge exists and that, behind the production
of knowledge, the obvious workings of power can be seen. No knowledge can
occur without power. Knowledge is the manifest result of power, and power is
omnipresent, thus undercutting the idea that power issues are only situated in
the sphere of politics.
As such, the production of knowing/expert discourse on linguistic minori-
ties is not exempt from the machinery of power. Heller (1999b) shows that
the knowledge produced in the ﬁeld of Quebecois sociolinguistics is included
within a production of legitimized knowledge,according to political positions.
2
Likewise, for Jaffe (1999), the production of knowledge of sociolinguists of the
Corsican language is included within an activist movement, and the knowledge
that they produce is constructed within the logic of resistance or of power, being
situated either in the production of the dominant discourse or in the evident re-
jection of this dominant discourse. The production of knowledge with regard to
questions of language, therefore, arises from various interests, always anchored
in a dynamics of the relation of strength or domination. In this regard, Hutton
(1999) shows how the use of linguistic theories – or, to be more precise, the
choice of particular linguistic theories – contributes to a legitimization of polit-
ical positions in line with Nazi ideology and with the aim of supporting racial
theories. Basically, the knowledge that is produced is never neutral: it is biased.
Knowledge is conditioned by a series of interpretations of facts according to
constraints and to a particular ideological framework.
If the production of knowledge is important here, it is not only because
knowledge creates and gives form to certain objects, but also because knowledge
is consequential. What I mean by this is that the knowledge that is produced has
consequences, that it has an inﬂuence on the construction of future knowledge

26The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
and that it provides the context for the interpretation of action, as well as allowing
this interpretation.
Therefore, knowledge is action, just as it determines action. It is essentially
in these two dimensions of the production of knowledge that I shall seek to
understand the role played by the institution in the construction of linguistic
minorities. I shall maintain the following points:
1. The production of knowledge is not neutral – it is institutionally determined.
2. The production of knowledge is action, just as it determines future actions.
Thus, it is only in and through the interrogation of knowledge (in retracing its
“archaeology” in Foucault’s sense of the word) that one can engage in a critical
undertaking. Focusing on an institution like the United Nations does not mean
examining what linguistic minorities actually are (just as it is not the medical
explanation of what madness is that matters); what matters, rather, is explaining
how linguistic minorities emerge and are constructed as an institutional object.
Similarly, it is necessary to interrogate the ways in which knowledge is con-
structed and to see how this knowledge is established as a means of power.
This vision of things therefore also reﬂects a questioning of the knowledge pro-
duced in the academic ﬁeld and, indirectly, of the knowledge produced in the
framework of this work itself.
Indeed, the knowledge I am producing here is determined by various param-
eters: ﬁrstly, my personal “belief” that leads me to take up a particular position;
the academic, institutional framework that allows this work to exist while setting
out the rules for its existence; and, lastly, the limitations inherent to this produc-
tion that are able to give only a very partial view of things. In fact, this production
of knowledge assumes a fundamentally subjective, biased and ideological tint.
2.2. Ideologies
The importance of the production of knowledge in the context of this work
has brought to light the consequential and constrained character of knowledge
itself. At the same time, an established knowledge exists in relationship with
the existence of ideologies, just as the action resulting from this knowledge is
woven into a mesh of conceptions about the world.
To deﬁne ideology is a task of the most complex kind; the myriad possible
ﬁelds of meaning that this term assumes testify to its difﬁculty. I therefore in-
tend to give meaning to this term as I use it, without entering into a debate on
terminology that seems to me to be futile at the very least. Following the work
of Berger and Luckman (1967), I consider ideology to be a social construction
that has as its object the legitimization of society’s institutions. Ideologies are,

Conceptual framework27
moreover, the result of constructions of power relations that also allow the le-
gitimization of political actions, even though constructed on the basis of the
interests and interpretations of a particular kind of reality. I thus put forward
Moshe Zuckermann’s (1999) deﬁnition, which sums up, as far as I am con-
cerned, the various elements of ideology as it is envisaged in the context of this
work:
Grunds¨atzlich sei hier angemerkt, daß Ideologie nicht als eine personenbezogene
Idiosynkratie zu begreifen ist, sondern eben als das geistig-kulturelle “Abbild” des
real Bestehenden, welches dies Bestehende allerdings mitformt und strukturiert
und sich dabei in mannigfaltigen, mit einander streitenden und konkurrierenden
individuellen¨Außerungen zu manifestieren pﬂegt. Ideologie liegt also ein Allge-
meines zugrunde: sie ergibt sich aus komplexen Diskurspraktiken, die ihrerseits
von im Werden begriffenen oder bereits bestehenden Macht-, Herrschafts- und
Gewaltstrukturen ¨okonomischer, politischer oder auch kultureller Natur herr¨uh-
ren. Somit erf¨ullt Ideologie zum einen eine “positive” kittende, zum anderen
eine das Bestehende in seinen teils verdeckten, teils offenen Machtverh¨altnissen
rechtfertigende Funktion. (Zuckermann 1999: 23)
[Basically it may be said that ideology should not be understood as an individual-
related idiosyncrasy but rather as the mental-cultural “image” of what really
exists. However ideology shapes and structures what exists and manifests itself
in diverse individual utterances which dispute and compete with each other.Thus,
ideology is based on a general notion: It arises from complex discourse practices
which on their part stem from evolving or existing structures of economic, polit-
ical or cultural power, dominance and violence. Consequently, ideology fulﬁls a
“positive” cementing function as well as a function that legitimates what exists
with its partly covert, partly overt power relations.]
This conception of ideology brings various elements to light:
– Ideology is representational and collective.
– Ideology is structuring and structured.
– Ideology is discursive.
– Ideology brings out interests arising from relations of power, of domination
and of economic and political issues.
It is in terms of these elements that I understand the ideologies of institutions,
states and also of language.
By “institutional ideology”, I mean – in the context of this work and in line
with the deﬁnition above – the collection of beliefs that makes the institution
function as an entity. These beliefs are constructedaccording to various basic
principles and according to an international and bureaucratic logic.They consti-
tute a kind of kernel of common thinking around which various conceptions of
the institution are elaborated, organized and enacted. The collective component

28The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
of institutional ideology is also evident in the structures, actions and ideas that
were at the origin of its creation and evolution. They are not necessarily stable
and immutable: rather, they are stabilized at a given moment andde-stabilized
at others, to be laterre-stabilized. Generally, these processes refer to praxeolog-
ical interests, in that these ideologies exist with a view to legitimizing action or
inaction. At the same time, as institutional ideologies, they must nevertheless
incorporate the essential component of the institution concerned, i.e. states and
their ideologies.
By “state ideologies”, I understand the group of beliefs that a given state
promotes in order to legitimize its actions within its own territory. These ideolo-
gies basically have a bearing on the role that the state assigns itself and on the
vision of the society that it seeks to promulgate. State ideologies should ﬁrst of
all be considered at the level of a state’s idea of the “nation”, but also of its idea
of internationalism. To speak of state ideologies likewise leads to an emphasis
on ideology as a place where power is expressed.
Finally, I refer to the concept of the ideologies of language, widely debated in
sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology (e.g. Billig 1995; Blommaert 1999,
2005; Jaffe 1999; Heller 1999a, 2002b; Silverstein 1998;Woolard 1998). For the
purposes of this work, I shall consider that the ideologies of language affect dif-
ferent levels: 1) the discursive ideologies that demonstrate beliefs about the na-
ture, impact, structuring and importance of discourses within the institution and
2) the ideologies of language and languages in the sense of how these form the
object of a group of ideas about what language is and what it is not. Furthermore,
the ideologies of language will be connected with institutional and state ideolo-
gies, but also with the ramiﬁcations that they have for the notion of minorities.
I emphasize the concept of ideology because I consider that, through this
prism, it is possible to focus on the interests at play in the production of knowl-
edge and of discourse. I also consider that ideologies and their interrogation in
this regard permit an anchoring in a political and historical dimension, as well
as a continual search to understand the reasons that compel particular agents to
act and to speak in a certain manner. Ideology is therefore a construction; it is
action; it is power; but it is also discourse.
2.3. Discourse
I shall now explain my conception of discourse and how this refers to a concep-
tualization of the relations between discourse, the institution and its production
of knowledge, and also between discourse and ideologies. I intend to express my
belief about what discourse is, and why a discursive approach seems necessary
in order to examine the research questions broached in this work.

Conceptual framework29
In this, I place myself in a ﬁeld of reﬂection claiming a post-structuralist
approach, supported by the work of Foucault in particular. In Foucault’s work,
the approach to discourse is primarily based on a critique of the structuralist ap-
proach as it was envisaged not only in linguistics but within the human sciences
as a whole. In this regard, I refer to a quotation from Foucault (1969 [1972])
that he himself presented as being programmatic of his scientiﬁc undertaking:
I would like to show that ‘discourses’, in the form in which they can be heard or
read, are not, as one might expect, a mere intersection of things and words: an
obscure web of things, and a manifest, visible, coloured chain of words; I would
like to show that discourse is not a slender surface of contact, or confrontation,
between a reality and a language(langue),the intrication of a lexicon and an ex-
perience; I would like to show with precise examples that in analysing discourses
themselves, one sees the loosening of the embrace, apparently so tight, of words
and things, and the emergence of a group of rules proper to discursive practice.
(p. 49)
This quotation offers a position with regard to discourse which cuts across and
clearly breaks away from the structuralist approach that emphasizes the relation
between the signiﬁer and the signiﬁed in the form of an indissoluble interface.As
the pivot of the structuralist approach, the sign as observable fact represents the
incarnation of the relation between words and things. By placing the debate at the
levelof discourse as the result of work on the object(work that can only take place
within an understanding of its historical conditions and factors of emergence),
rather than on the strict analysis of linguistic structuring, Foucault exploded the
signiﬁer–signiﬁed relation and the notion of signiﬁcation itself. In fact, there is
no rejection of the existence of meaning, but a refusal to conceive of signiﬁcation
as an intangible, ﬁxed object, in favor of a critical conception that could be
paraphrased as follows: signiﬁcation, yes – but for whom, for what, and when?
More speciﬁcally, Foucault clearly shows the constraints that are involved in
and through discourse. He indicates that what is said is not the result of chance,
or coincidental, but rather the product of determinations. Because of these, dis-
course has a vital importance in our societies, no matter what form it takes. The
work that is proposed is not simply a description of discursive organization, but
is rather a work of explication. This program breaks the classical perception – in
linguistics – of the analytical units. These units are only of interest when one is
capable of showing why they are there, and why these and not others. This is far
from the notion of a paradigm and interchangeability of signs, far from the idea of
arbitrariness – this is singularity: “we must grasp the statement in the exact speci-
ﬁcity of its occurrence; determine its conditions of existence, ﬁx at least its limits,
establish its correlations with other statements that may be connected with it,
and show what other forms of statement it excludes” (Foucault 1969 [1972]: 28).

30The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
This conception of discourse leads us to bring up another aspect of the discur-
sive approach used here: its materiality. Indeed, if discourse is not the reﬂection
of reality, by the same token it is not the reﬂection of the mind either – two fun-
damental ruptures with the traditional conceptions of discourse demonstrated
by Martin Rojo and Pujol (2000). Discourse is matter, and the materiality of
these discourses is the result of a constrained and biased process. One can then
consider that discourse is not only the object of analysis, but also the trace of a
social practice that is institutionally, historically and ideologically situated. The
conditions for the emergence of discourse are therefore anchored in a series of
constraints and possibilities.
Furthermore, discourses are situated in relation to other discourses, to which
they respond.There is therefore a circularity and inter-textuality (Bakhtine 1970)
that take into account the impossibility of isolating the object and constraining
it within an autonomous explicative context. Discourses are the object of a
production by agents; they are used by others and assume a particular status and
a kind of authority according to their uses.
The manner in which I shall approach the questions of this study emphasizes
discourse as the place of emergence, crystallization and materialization of the
positioning of actors and institutions. Indeed, discourses form an important part
of the institution’s functioning: they are omnipresent, articulated among them-
selves, but they also legitimize. They constitute the place of existence within and
beyond the institution, and the object of a very strong institutional control in the
form, organization of content and hierarchical ordering of the documents them-
selves. Generally, it can be said that all that is observable materializes in written
documents, which retroactively account for all of the institution’s processes of
legitimization. I am therefore seeking to understand the production of discourses
connected with the institution that produces them, with the notion of power that
is associated with it, and with the notion of the production of knowledge.
I consider that discourses are of primary importance in direct connection
with my research questions:
1. The action of the United Nations is fundamentally of a discursive nature;
2. Discourses allow entry into the complexity of ideological positions;
3. Discourses constitute an interface between historical-institutional constraints
and the production of a particular knowledge of linguistic minorities.
In this regard, discourses will be of interest principally in their legitimizing,
ofﬁcial and historic dimensions. I do not seeking to know the hidden side of
discourses, which by deﬁnition seems inaccessible, but rather to understand the
reasons for their existence. I shall do so by considering that the form they assume
is not neutral, by emphasizing the bonds that link them and by constantly seeking
to place them within the interests that lead to their construction and use.

Collection of data and analytical frame31
2.4. The historicity of discourses, ideologies and the production of knowledge
I now come to what I consider to be the “cement” of my conceptual, analytical
and interpretative undertaking, i.e. the notion of “historicity”. Indeed, if dis-
courses, ideologies and the production of knowledge are the object of several
constraints and are anchored in a collection of various interests, they only make
sense in and through historicity. In my opinion, historicity differs from history
as a discipline in the sense that it presupposes a dynamic element of process.
Historicity is a historical super-structure as well as a micro-structure that man-
ifests itself within a given context. Historicity allows us to think in terms of
archaeology as well as genealogy; it invites us to search for traceability which
in turn allows us to understand.
In this sense, I shall systematically seek to show how discourses on minorities
overlap one another chronologically, how ideologies are included in historical
developments, and how the production of knowledge is dependent on the histor-
ical conditions that allow them to emerge. This continual search for historicity
will lead me to think of the collection and analysis of data in a dynamic manner,
thus revealing the complexity of discourses and ideologies, as well as the com-
plexity of knowledge. Historicity thus allows us to make links while seeking to
understandin a speciﬁc way.
3. Collection of data and analytical frame
The conceptual frame and the problem outlined above presuppose a collection
of data that would allow an understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon
envisagedhere.I have chosento proceedwithresearchbasedon texts – onofﬁcial
documents – in order to understand the place of linguistic minorities in their
historicity. In order to succeed in locating the pertinent documents constituting
the basis of this research, several phases were necessary as I will retrace in what
follows.
3.1. An immersion in UNO and an apprehension of the ﬁeld
When I decided to explore more deeply the question of the place of the United
Nations in the protection of minorities, I set out to understand the institutional
functions, history and procedures in the production of knowledge. I had been
aware, from my preliminary investigations, that linguistic minorities were pri-
marily dealt with in the context of spaces dealing with human rights. I then
naturally oriented my ﬁeld of investigation in this direction.

32The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
In order to do so, I embarked upon a postgraduate study, organized by an
NGO that had UN accreditation, involving a six-month period of online courses
as well as courses within the United Nations itself, during the summer when
sessions of various committees and commissions relating to human rights were
conducted. This program allowed me not only to acquire knowledge about the
institution, but also made me immediately aware of its limitations. Hence it
greatly contributed to the preparation of my ﬁeld of observation.
3.1.1. A critical look at the institution
The procedure adopted by the postgraduate program I undertook consisted of
seminars given by specialists in international law as well as by agents of the
institution (experts, members of the General Secretariat, etc.). That particular
year, the courses were given in French and the participants came from the var-
ious “francophone” regions in the world, mainly from Africa and Asia. As the
days went by, while we were learning more and more about the workings of the
institution, a particular tension became noticeable. Several participants thought
that what they were hearing was hollow and rather unsatisfactory. The ideals,
which we initially thought were adhered to, were mishandled by the impasses
constituted by the institution. Listening to my colleagues, I began to perceive
signiﬁcant difﬁculties in thinking uniformly about the essential principles of
human rights and the priorities of the institution. The slowness and bureaucratic
restrictions seemed aberrant for many participants from developing countries,
and elicited reﬂections on universal values but more often than not on the in-
stitution’s lack of effectiveness. In addition, many of these participants had the
impression that their grievances were going unheard.
In fact, what I recall of these meetings is above all the heterogeneity of not
only the interpretation of human rights but also the expectations of the subject. In
a way, the discussions that occurred during this course of study made me aware
of certain paradoxes inherent in the institutional structure, while emphasizing
the multiplicity of ideological positions – including mine, of course.
3.1.2. An in vivo vision of UNO debates
The second beneﬁt of this program was an immersion within the institution, thus
giving me the opportunity to pace the corridors, to attend various Commission
meetings and, most importantly, sessions of the Sub-Commission on Prevention
of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. Indeed, we were able to attend
these sessions in the available areas allowed by the course. I was immediately
fascinated by the sessions of the Sub-Commission as they dealt with the ques-
tions that had motivated both the course and the present research. I therefore

Collection of data and analytical frame33
engaged in the task of observation, taking notes on the ﬁeld, observing the way
that the sessions unfolded, who spoke, the various classiﬁcations, etc.
During these observations of the inner workings of the institution, I be-
came aware of the importance of the power relations, of the hierarchical strat-
iﬁcations, of the speakers in the debates, as well as of the type of discourse.
With the approval of the organizing members of the course, I obtained per-
mission to attend the Sub-Commission’s sessions each year and, gradually, I
attained an understanding of the functions, institutional issues and constraints
involved.
This immersion in the UNO was the ﬁrst phase of my work and collection
of data: the phase that allowed me to progress in a place that is known to be
labyrinthine at the very least. The observations that I was able to make over the
years are an integral part of this work, even if they merelyappear ﬁligree.Thanks
to these ethnographic observations, I acquired knowledge that consequently
directed my choice of data, enabling me to choose – among the vast array of
documents – those which seemed to be most pertinent. It also enabled me to give
these documents a more embodied or incarnated dimension. In this sense the
analytical work of Chapters 2 and 3 attempts to incorporate these observations.
Finally, the course of study also allowed me to concentrate my collection of
data according to particular, precisely located spaces (cf. Chapter 3) that were
meaningful in terms of the questions I proposed.
3.2. Documentary research: the process of collecting historiographic data
3.2.1. Collection of data by trial and error
While I was beginning to gradually understand the mechanisms of institutional
functioning, another challenge awaited me: the challenge of moving into in
the documentary labyrinth of the United Nations. My intention had been to
conduct research, founded on work about discourse, by seeking to establish a
historiography. What interested me, moreover, were the ofﬁcial discourses, those
that somehow provided a window onto the United Nations. The documentary
part of my research would thus prove to be essential.
The general headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva has a library that
contains a paper version of every ofﬁcial document of the United Nations (sum-
mary records, reports, resolutions, etc.). Most documents from 1993 onwards
are also accessible by means of a computer program. Thus, when I was investi-
gating the documentary possibilities, my ﬁrst option was to carry out searches
via key-words in the bank of computerized data. I was seeking to give a direction
to my research and, because of this, the only preferred axis at the time was the

34The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
axis of “linguistic minorities”. I then found myself with a wide array of docu-
ments, all very different from one another, but with the advantage of obliging
me to immerse myself in this textual diversity. Reading them allowed me to un-
derstand that these documents, if taken in isolation, had little chance of making
sense – that they were, in effect, fundamentally characterized by intertextuality.
They quoted other documents and also had, as an object of discourse, documents
that were only mentioned in quotations. I also ascertained that they were of a
very different textual nature and that they could therefore not be apprehended
homogeneously at an analytical level.
I therefore proceeded in this work by trial and error, trying – alittle desper-
ately at times – to ﬁnd some coherence in this extremely varied conglomeration
of text. In the course of my search for coherence, I nonetheless noticed that
certain spaces were more important than others in the production of documents,
and that they corresponded to spaces I had already located or was in the pro-
cess of locating. My tentative effort therefore allowed me to bring to light, in
default of coherence, a convergence between particular discursive places and
the documents that I had already located.
Finally, this procedure made me familiar with the organization of paper
documents, the signiﬁcance ofquotations and their location. During this stage
of my research, I was the recipient of generous, patient and professional advice
from the librarians of the United Nations. Their help, right up until recently, has
been very valuable and their presence often prevented me from sinking under
the avalanche of information.
Brieﬂy, this stage of the collection of data by trial and error allowed me to:
1. understand the documentary logic of the United Nations
2. bring to light the spaces that produced pertinent documents
3. realize the intrinsically inter-textual nature of these documents
4. realize the importance of establishing a more systematic research.
3.2.2. A systematic collection of data
The ﬁrst phase of my research and the discoveries I was able to make then
led to a second phase: a systematic collection of data. The different points
referred to above had in effect directed my research towards the collection of
data in connection with discursive spaces relevant to the question of linguistic
minorities. In Chapter 2, I shall discuss these spaces in more detail but, for
the purposes of this section, I wish to emphasize that the collection was made
on the basis of the documents produced by the Human Rights Commission,
the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection
of Minorities, the Working Group on Minorities. These three areas were in

Collection of data and analytical frame35
hierarchical positions with regard to one another and the texts that they produced
were thereby related. Here, then, it was possible for me to extricate a coherent
line at the level of intertextuality. In spite of their diverse nature, moreover, the
documents produced by these institutional areas functioned in a similar manner,
which prevented me from getting lost in an overwhelming diversity.
I decided, ﬁrstof all, to check allthe reports of the Human Rights Commission
and of the Sub-Commission. These reports are documents that summarize all
the discussions and decisions that took place during the sessions. There is one
report per year, corresponding to the year of the members’ meeting. The reports
are drafted, not only for the space concerned, but also with a view to transmission
to other, higher bodies.
Starting from 1946 (the year of the ﬁrst meeting of the Human Rights Com-
mission and Sub-Commission) up until 2003 (when I ended the systematic
collection of data), I gathered a body of the reports of the Human Rights Com-
mission and Sub-Commission. I noted the agenda items that explicitly dealt with
minorities and thus acquired a diachronic vision of the subjects under discussion
regarding minorities. Thereafter, I researched all the summary records ofeach
year in accordance with the items concerning minorities. Summary records are
detailed verbal records (cf. Chapter 3 for more speciﬁc details) of debates and
therefore permit an understanding of the discussions in a polyphonic manner.
Indeed, these documents (albeit synthetic, as they are not transcriptions but re-
formulations) record all the contributions of the participating members, making
them ideal documents for understanding the different positions, divergences and
consensus.
With regard to the Working Group on Minorities, established in 1995, collec-
tion of data began in 1996 (the date of the Group’s ﬁrst report) and concluded,
within the context of this systematic collection, in 2002. There are noaccessi-
ble summary records of these meetings; therefore the only documents obtained
initially were annual reports.
The examination of all these texts brought to light the existence of recurrent
themes in the debates and allowed me to ascertain the importance of particular
discursive events as areas of debate. These events are characteristic of the in-
stitutional approach to the production of knowledge as well as to action in the
matter of minority protection. It was above all through the examination of these
documents that I gradually came to focus on the discursive objects about which
I wanted to elaborate my collection of data and, by extension, my analysis.

36The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
3.2.3. Collection of data and making the object of study precise
These two preliminary phases led to a third: a collection of data located ac-
cording to the precision of the object of investigation. The examination of these
documents gave me a greater understanding of the functions of the different
areas, as well as of the main themes that characterized them. As stated earlier,
I wanted to demonstrate not only the place occupied by minorities, but also the
production of knowledge about them and the institutional procedures envisaged
by the United Nations in order to protect them. In doing so, I found that the
principal documents were related to the elaboration of international law texts.
Over the years, discursive spaces, in effect, produced a particular knowledge
that can be linked to these international instruments, which I consider here as
discursive events. Studying the discourses leading to the elaboration of interna-
tional instruments then allowed me to uncover a series of phenomena that seem
to be the key to understanding discourses on minorities and their protection:
1. They constitute a frame of reference for all production of knowledge, as well
as being the result of a production of knowledge.
2. The international instruments regarding minorities occur at intervals in time
and thus permit a historical approach to discourses on minorities.
3. International instruments assume an essential place in the context of the
institution and thereby permit analysis to be included in the dynamics and
ideologies of the terrain envisaged here.
4. Their construction and the ﬁnal product are eminently discursive while also
seeking to be praxeological, thus permitting an analysis of discourse at the
level of form and content, but also of their workings.
These observations, which in my opinion are essential, then led me to pursue
my collection of data in regard to the precision of the object. Because of this,
they brought about a new manner of collecting documents that were relevant to
my investigations.
In order to do so, I extended the ﬁeld of research to areas where decisions
are made, like the General Assembly. I included in my data working papers, res-
olutions, information arising from the General Secretariat, etc., each one being
linked to the elaboration of the international instruments under examination. Of
course, by proceeding in this way, I once again found myself confronted by the
enormous heterogeneity of discourses but, thanks to the precision of the object,
it was possible to link these documents and to show their genesis as well as the
effects they had on one another. Finally, it was possible to achieve a collection
of localized data with the intention of re-tracing a particular discursive route
over a period of time.

Collection of data and analytical frame37
The precision of the object in itself is a limitation of the analysis that I
undertake in this work; nevertheless, it offers the possibility of focusing on
what the institution considers to be important and, therefore, on the possibility of
connecting the political and institutional mechanisms relating to the production
of discourses on minorities.
3.2.4. Synthesis of this section
If I have insisted on giving a step-by-step vision of the collection of data, it
is above all because I consider that it is not a simple task of reviewing and
evaluating. It contributes signiﬁcantly to the construction of the object, while
being wholly related to the work of analysis. I have shown here that through
the various procedures of the collection of data, I have also widened my ﬁeld
of understanding of the functioning of the institution, of the functioning of
discourse and, above all, of the construction of the object of analysis.
I have also chosen to present my collection of data from this perspective
because I consider that it is above all a subjective and biasedundertaking; that
it is the result of a continual interpretation of the object under examination;
and that it is, because of this, the product of an insatiable quest for explication.
In this sense, my work does not in any way claim to be representative, but
rather seeks to make explicit the data on which I decided to work. These data
prove to be lacking, and sometimes disparate. Selection thus determines the
possible analyses that I shall make. Furthermore, the analytical framework that
I subsequently develop is effectively subordinate to the data, just as the data that
were collected were subordinate to the conceptual framework presented in the
preceding section.
3.3. Framework of analysis
The analyses undertaken therefore ﬂow from the conceptual framework, just as
they depend on the available data and the selection that was made. It is now
a matter of grasping the organizational thread of the documents, the relations
between them and the historical aspects of their appearance. In order to do so,
we must turn towards fundamentally multiple approaches and refuse to only see
the data in their internal function.
The data that I am working on, moreover, are situated fundamentally in
time and space. They emerge in discursive areas that make it possible for these
discourses to be produced while, at the same time, restricting them. Furthermore,
the work on these texts must be understood as a work on dialog insofar as no text
exists in isolation. Indeed, a text is produced by someone or by several people,
for others; it responds to other texts, brings inter-textual dimensions into play

38The protection of linguistic minorities as a ﬁeld of inquiry
and ﬁnds itself necessarily articulated with contexts of emergence and with other
texts that give it a kind of coherence. The textual work here is therefore not to be
understood as a work of formal textual linguistics, but as a work on the nature,
form and contents of documents, as well as on the institutional constraints that
constitute it. It is, furthermore, a question of seeing these texts in their ideological
dimension, in the power that they have and the function they perform.
I therefore propose to apprehend the analysis of these data as follows:
1. To consider the discursive data within the constraints of their production –
how does the institution manage discourses, what importance does the insti-
tution attribute to them and how does the institution exert control over their
production?
2. To consider the discursive data in terms of their use – how are discourses
appropriated and re-appropriated, how do the UN agencies use discourses
and how do discourses articulate with one another?
3. To consider the discursive data in terms of their historical emergence – how
do discourses emerge in the course of the organization’s history, how are they
transformed historically and how do historical events inﬂuence them?
4. To consider the discursive data in their intra- and extra-textuality – what are
the various genres of discourse, and what do these genres tell us in terms of
ideology?
5. To consider the discursive data as ideologically characterized – how do dis-
courses refer to ideological conceptions, how do they give anaccount of
positions and interests?
6. To consider the discursive data in terms of their limitations – what is not
accessible through the data, what escapes us?
In order to give these programmatic elements further coherence, I have decided
to extract a thread of analysis that aims to take into consideration the nature of
the data, their place in the institution and their historical occurrence. Here, I
shall use three key notions: 1) discursive spaces, 2) production of discourse and
3) discursive events.
In reference todiscursive spaceI consider that all discourse is produced in
particular spaces, in which it is meaningful (Heller1999a) to speak – in this
instance, of “minorities”. Discursive spaces assume institutional forms. In this
context, these are organs that have been given the mandate to produce knowl-
edge about minorities. Attached to or grafted onto this institutional anchoring,
however, is the construction of a symbolic space that transcends the exclusive
borders of the relevant physical spaces, leading to the creation of a universe of
discursive meaning relating to minorities. In order to identify the pertinent dis-
cursive spaces, it is necessary to have a knowledge of institutional functioning
and, consequently, an ethnographic approach. Furthermore, this identiﬁcation

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BUT seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you.
Matthew 6:33.
By giving up worldly things, you will receive manifold more in
return in spiritual blessing.
AND he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that
hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children,
for the kingdom of God’s sake, Who shall not receive manifold
more in this present time, and in the world to come life
everlasting.
Luke 18:29-30.
FOR he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap
corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit
reap life everlasting.
Galatians 6:8.
Jesus said, “Ye can not serve two masters," (Matthew 6:24) but you
will serve one,—Christ or the Devil, which shall it be? The Devil
pays, “the wages of death,” (Romans 6:23) but Christ gives
eternal life.
Illustration: Matthew 19:16-22.

Excuses.
I CAN NOT surrender all.
Some think it means too much sacrifice.
FOR whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall
lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.
Mark 8:35.
AND Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no
man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or
mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake, and the
gospel’s; but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time,
houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and
lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.
Mark 10:29-30.
Can you not give up some thing for Christ, who has done so much
for you?
FOR ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he
was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his
poverty might be rich.
II Corinthians 8:9.
Paul gave up all for Christ.
BUT what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

Philippians 3:7.
If we follow Christ, as we should, we will be called to make some
sacrifice.
SO likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that
he hath, he cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:33.
We are strengthened however in our suffering when we recall the
promise.
IF we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he
also will deny us.
II Timothy 2:12.

Excuses.
The christian life Is TOO HARD.
Some say that the Christian life is hard, but they are mistaken about
this; they may have tried to reform in their own strength, but
they know nothing about the power of the Spirit in their souls to
save, keep and deliver them—
FOR this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments:
and His commandments are not grievous .
I John 5:3.
HER ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are
peace.
Proverbs 3:17.
THOU wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of
joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
Psalms 16:11.
FOR the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace
and glory: no good thing will be withhold from them that walk
uprightly.
Psalms 84:11.
It is the sinful, and rebellious life that is hard.

There are certain worldly pleasures that please the carnal heart for a
few moments, but these are like the foam on the “soda water” that
passes quickly, they do not give true satisfaction.
GOOD understanding giveth favor: but the way of transgressors
is hard.
Proverbs 13:15.
BUT the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest,
whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
Isaiah 57:20.
THERE is no peace, saith my God, unto the wicked.
Isaiah 57:21.
REJOICE, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in
the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and
in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these
things God will bring thee into judgment.
Ecclesiastes 11:9.
Read: II Thessalonians 1:7-9; Luke 16:19-31.

Excuses.
I have tried and FAILED.
You say you have tried and failed!
Was it God’s fault, or your own?
Let us call your attention to a few things it done by you, will
assure you success in the Christian life—
1st. Seek the Lord with ALL YOUR HEART.
AND ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me
with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13.
2nd. You must OBEY GOD.
IF ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.
Isaiah 1:19.
AND we are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy
Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him.
Acts 5:32.
3rd. You must CONFESS Christ.
THAT if thou shalt confess with thy mouth (not your influence)
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised

him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man
believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is
made unto salvation.
Romans 10:9-10.
4th. You must PRAY.
YE have not, because ye ask not.
James 4:2.
FOR whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved.
Romans 10:13.
FOR the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are
open unto their prayers.
I Peter 3:12.
5th. JOIN the church!
If you have not joined the church, you ought to do so.
ONE shall say, I am the Lord’s; . . . and another shall subscribe
with his hand unto the Lord.
Isaiah 44:5.

Excuses.
I have TRIED and FAILED.
You say you have tried and failed!
May I ask you a few questions?
When you began the Christian life, did you:
1st. Trust Christ’s FINISHED WORK alone?
WHO his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,
that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by
whose stripes ye were healed.
I Peter 2:24.
2nd. Did you SURRENDER all to God? God is demanding this.
MY son give me thine heart.
Proverbs 23:26.
3rd. Did you CONFESS CHRIST publicly?
WHOSOEVER therefore shall confess me before men, him will I
confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever
shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father
which is in heaven.
Matthew 10:32-33.

4th. Did you PRAY constantly?
PRAY without ceasing.
I Thessalonians 5:17.
5th. Did you faithfully STUDY YOUR BIBLE? Have you read it
today?
AS newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may
grow thereby.
I Peter 2:2.
6th. Did you shun EVIL COMPANIONS?
BLESSED is the man that walketh not in the council of the
ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat
of the scornful.
Psalm 1:1.
7th. Did you GO TO WORK for Christ?
AND to every man his work.
Mark 13:34.

Excuses.
Can’t HOLD OUT! God’s KEEPING power.
Of course you cannot in your own strength. But He is mighty to
save. Put your trust for pardon in the finished work of Christ and let
Him come into your life.
WHO are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation
ready to be revealed in the last time.
I Peter 1:5.
BUT the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you
from evil.
II Thessalonians 3:3.
NOW unto him that is able to keep you from falling (R.V. from
stumbling), and to present you faultless before the presence of his
glory with exceeding joy.
Jude 1:24.
BEING confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a
good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:6.
FEAR thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy
God: I will strenghten thee; yea I will help thee; yea I will
uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee,
Fear not; I will help thee.
Isaiah 41:10,13.
When you are tempted remember that Christ has promised to deliver
you.
THERE hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to
man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that ye are able; but will WITH THE
TEMPTATION ALSO MAKE A WAY OF ESCAPE, that ye may be able
to bear it.
I Corinthians 10:13.
THE Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of
temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment
to be punished.
II Peter 2:9.
AND I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
John 10:28
MY Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is
able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
John 10:29.
FOR the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am
not ashamed: for I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED, and am

persuaded that HE IS ABLE TO KEEP that which I have committed
unto Him against that day.
II Timothy 1:12.
HE giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he
increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the
Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings
as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and
not faint.
Isaiah 40:29-31.
NOW unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above
all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in
us.
Ephesians 3:20.
WHEREFORE he is able also to save them to the uttermost that
come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession
for them.
Hebrews 7:25.
God never gives grace in advance, but He does promise “as thy day
thy strength shall be.”
WHEN thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and
through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou
walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither
shall the flame kindle upon thee.
Isaiah 43:2.

Excuses.
I have no FEELING.
The word "feeling" occurs but once in the Bible in connection with
salvation, and then it is used in connection with the man “Who is
past feeling," but faith in Christ is mentioned three hundred
times. Conviction is one thing and emotion is another. The latter
does not necessarily follow the former. Our feelings are like the
weather, they may change daily; but God’s word, in which we
trust, will never change.
Which would you rather trust? God’s unchanging word, or your
ever-changing feelings?
You know you are a sinner and lost. What you need is Jesus Christ.
Look to Him; accept Him; trust Him; confess Him; and He will do
the rest. Take the blesser and you will have the blessing.
BUT as many as received Him (Christ), to them gave He power to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His
name.
John 1:12.
See! you are to receive a personal Saviour, not work up some
special feeling.
If you are waiting for the feeling that an earnest working Christian
has, we would have you note, that feeling is the “fruit,” not the

“root” of salvation. A feeling of joy, peace, and rest comes, because
we “trust” in Christ, “confess” Him as our Savior, “defend” His
cause, and try to “obey” Him.
AND we are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy
Ghost, whom God hath glven to them that obey Him.
Acts 5:32.
It is to those that “obey Him” that the blessing is given—
Repentance is doing what God commands you to do, whether
you feel like doing it or not, and the feeling follows as you seek to
do God’s will -—
BUT the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith.
Galatians 5:22.
Never be guided by the experiences of some one else, but by God’s
Word.
The Devil’s order is: 1st, Feeling; 2nd, Faith; 3rd, Fact; but God’s
order is: 1st, Fact; 2nd, Faith; then Feeling.
“The Fact you’re a sinner, you cannot but see,
That Faith in Christ saves you, is ever our plea;
The feeling will follow in service and love;
Then take from Christ Jesus His gift from above.”

AND they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved, and thy house.
Acts 16:31.
VERILY, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and
believeth on Him that sent me, HATH EVERLASTING LIFE, and
shall not come into condemnation (judgment); but is passed from
death unto life.
John 5:24.
BUT these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life
through His name.
John 20:31.
Some are making more of their feelings than they are of the
Word of the Lord.
Feelings are as changeable as the wind. You get up many a cold
morning when you don’t feel like it. Religion with the Christian is
obedience; and the highway leading to the life “hid with Christ in
God” is known as obedience, not feeling.
If I should puncture your arm with a needle and you should be
unable to feel it, your anxiety would be intense, your condition
physically would be regarded as very precarious indeed. When I
come to talk to you, of your soul’s salvation, and you say you have
no feeling, it shows the peril of your position.

Your very indifference ought to arouse you to thoughtfulness and
action-—
Illustration: Matthew 9:9.

Excuses.
I am not CONCERNED.
If a man were asleep in a burning building, he would be more in
danger of losing his life, than he would be if he were awake.
So, there is more danger of a man losing his soul, if he is
unconcerned, than there would be if he had some interest. God
calls you to wake up and think about these things—
WHEREFORE he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from
the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
Ephesians 5:14.
I TELL you, Nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise
perish.
Luke 13:3.
AND as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the
judgment.
Hebrews 9:27.
AND ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
John 5:40.
It you are lost, it will be your fault.
These Scriptures teach that you will not come to Christ and that you
prefer darkness to light, and unbelief to faith, and will not turn to

God and be baptized that you may have eternal life in Jesus Christ.
HE that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that
believeth not shall be damned.
Mark 16:16.
AND these shall go away into everlasting punishment.
Matthew 25:46.
You go away, God does not send you—
THE wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget
God.
Psalms 9:17.
You in your indifference are “forgetting” God, not necessarily living
a wicked life—
HOW shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?
Hebrews 2:3.
Read: II Thessalonians 1:1-9.
Illustration: Luke 16:19-31.

Excuses.
The INDIFFERENT neglecting his soul.
Listen to what God says to the indifferent.
His word ought to lead you to the most thoughtful consideration of
His ways.
AWAKE thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead.
Ephesians 5:14.
Your indifference has put you to sleep and God calls you to
awake.
TURN ye, . . . turn ye for why will ye die?
Ezekiel 33:11.
THE soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Ezekiel 18:4.
THE wages of sin is death.
Romans 6:23.
EXCEPT ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Luke 13:3.
HOW shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?
Hebrews 2:3.

BE not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap.
Galatians 6:7.
HE that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of
God abideth on him.
John 3:36.
HE that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that
believeth not shall be damned.
Mark 16:16.
VERILY, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into
the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a
thief and a robber.
John 10:1.
BE sure your sin will find you out.
Numbers 32:23.
AND the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man.
Genesis 6:3.
Read: Psalms 9:17; Psalms 11:6; Revelation 2:8.

Excuses.
Those who KNOW NOT the way.
God has made very clear in His word, the fact that He loves us and
gave Jesus to be the way.
JESUS saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no
man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
John 14:6.
God wants us to forsake our way, which is the wrong way.
LET the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his
thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have
mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Isaiah 55:7.
God has promised to hear us when we call.
THEN shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me,
and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me,
when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:12-13.
More, He has promised to accept us if we turn to him with true
repentance.
ALL that the Father giveth me shall come to me: and him that
cometh to I will in no wise cast out.

John 6:37.
Believe. His promise and know the way.
VERILY, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath
everlasting life.
John 6:47.
TO him gave all the prophets witness, that through his name
whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
Acts 10:43.
IF any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
John 7:17.
THAT if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and
shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved.
Romans 10:9.

Excuses.
I don’t know WHAT or HOW to believe.
Study to know God’s will and do it, Christ-like, holy in living and
humble in service.
IF any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.
John 7:17.
You are to SEEK!
AND ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me
with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13.
To LOOK.
LOOK unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am
God and there is none else.
Isaiah 45:22.
To CALL.
FOR whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved.
Romans 10:13.
To BELIEVE.

VERILY, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, HATH EVERLASTING LIFE, and
shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto
life.
John 5:24.
To Receive.
BUT as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.
John 1:12.
To Taste.
O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that
trusteth in Him.
Psalms 34:8.
To Submit.
THEREFORE to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to
him it is sin.
James 4:17.
You are to COME.
COME unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.
Matthew 11:28.
To COMMIT.

FOR the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am
not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and I am
persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have
committed unto him against that day.
II Timothy 1:12.
To TAKE.
AND the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that
heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come....And
whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely.
Revelation 22:17.
To CONFESS.
THAT if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and
shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto
righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation.
Romans 10:9-10.
To Be ACQUAINTED.
ACQUAINT now thyself with Him, and be at peace; thereby good
shall come unto thee.
Job 22:21.
To FOLLOW.

THEN shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: His going
forth is prepared as the morning; and He shall come unto us as the
rain . . . unto the earth.
Hosea 6:3.
HE that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have
the light of life.
John 8:12.
MY sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
John 10:27.

Excuses.
I can’t understand the Bible.
WHY can’t you? Because the carnal mind can not understand
divine truth without the Spirit’s teaching.
BUT the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of
God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know
them because they are spiritually discerned.
I Corinthians 2:14.
MANY shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked
shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand; but
the wise shall understand.
Daniel 12:10.
Do God’s will, and you can understand.
IF any man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
John 7:17.
You ask, How may I KNOW?
1st. Pray.
IF any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all
men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
James 1:5.

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Ideologies Across Nations The Construction Of Linguistic Minorities At The United Nations Alexandre Duchne

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Ideologies Across Nations The Construction Of Linguistic Minorities At The United Nations Alexandre Duchne

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