Shallow Equality and Symbolic Jurisprudence in Multilingual Legal Orders

This book offers a comprehensive account of official multilingualism and its legal ramifications. Janny H.C. Leung shows that while offering official status to multiple languages has become normalized, actual implementation and success vary. Despite often elaborate institutional adaptations, changes hardly ever challenge the status quo enjoyed by a dominant linguistic group. Leung argues that both "shallow equality" and "symbolic jurisprudence" are characteristics of official multilingualism driven by strategic pluralism.