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Showing posts from April, 2018

Third Cultures

While  human rights  can be widely agreed upon in principle and this enables cooperation among the many countries that have promised to uphold the  Universal Declaration of Human Rights , disagreement often arises about how to implement rights in practice. In some parts of Asia, for instance, many people feel that economic security, including the right to have a job or a home, is more important than the right to engage in free speech or political activity. Many Europeans, on the other hand, would argue that economic security depends on the right to speak freely or take part in political activities.  When it comes to  language rights , there is an even wider spread of opinion. Like human rights, language rights can be personal, because everyone's individual experience of learning and using languages is different. On the other hand, language is a community rather than an individual activity, so when we discuss language rights we tend to think of the rights of communities. B