“Do as I say, not as I do." Legitimate language in bilingual Malta!

Abstract

This paper examines an event of language planning in education that took place in the Republic of Malta (Mediterranean). For the first time, the Malta National Minimum Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1999, henceforth NMC) included recommendations about the language medium at the secondary school level. The value of bilingualism in Maltese and English is acknowledged in the NMC (Principle 10), but English-only medium instruction is recommended for most subjects (p. 82)! The aim of this chapter is to illustrate how in a well established bilingual community like Malta, bilingual speakers themselves find it difficult to accept, and to legitimise their own bilingual norms of language use. This is explained in terms of a "double-consciousness". On the one hand, Maltese bilinguals see themselves as a distinct community with a national language (Maltese) and an international language (English). On the other hand, they see themselves through a monolingual consciousness where code-switching, for instance, is anathema, a belief imbued historically through British education, which is traditionally monolingual. A sociolinguistic overview of Malta is first presented as background, followed by an account of the process involved in the development of the NMC. A discussion ensues about the relevant issues, namely (i) a conflict in ideology apparent in a number of contradictory statements in the NMC, and (ii) a puzzling recommendation on the use of code-switching put forward in the NMC. [Introduction]