Linguistic and Religious Pluralism

Through what political, economic, cultural and social processes is difference transformed into inequality? Specifically, how are linguistic and religious pluralism implicated in the production and reproduction of inequality? I consider the political rules that privilege some languages and religions and disprivilege others; the processes that confer differential economic value on particular languages and religions; the discursive and symbolic processes that confer prestige, honour and stigma on particular languages and religions; and the differential informal treatment of persons who speak different languages or practice different religions, as well as the ways in which linguistically or religiously differentiated social networks entail differential access to the resources that flow through such networks. I argue that political and economic forces generate deeper and more consequential forms of inequality between languages than between religions in contemporary liberal societies, while discursive and symbolic processes generate more profound forms of inequality between religions. The major sources of religious inequality derive from religion’s thicker cultural, normative and political content, while the major sources of linguistic inequality come from the pervasiveness of language, and from the increasingly and inescapably ‘languaged’ nature of political, economic and cultural life in the modern world.