The Investigation Of Various Official Languages’ Sorting In Multilingual Countries

The multilingual countries which have various official languages are the objects of this paper. From the perspective of social linguistics, this paper will study and analysis the official languages’sorting in the multilingual countries. The analysis is based on the Constitution and the actual situation of the languages. Then, compare the legal sorting with actual ranking and see whether they are same or not. Based on the comparative data, this paper attempts to make a conclusion on tendency and basis of the official languages’ sorting. This article is divided into six sections:The first chapter is the introduction, mainly outline the multilingual countries’ language policy:the research of language policy is divided into different countries, and focuses on the relationship between language and the politics, fewer pay attention to the sorting of official languages. This paper aims to overcome past deficiencies, and give the necessary explanation of research object, operating methods, as well as the data sources.The second chapters, mainly investigate quantitative statistics of multilingual countries, and classify these countries. According to the model of multiple official languages, these countries will be divided into three categories:a. the official languages which all belongs the main national languages; b. the official languages which are native language and the former sovereign state language; c. the official languages which are the original federal common language and regional language.The third chapter analyses the official languages’ legal sorting and actual ranking in the countries that use major national languages as official languages. Then, compare and see whether they are the same.The fourth chapter briefly highlights language promotion policy of the UK, USA, France, Portugal and Spain during the colonial period. And under the Constitution, these countries are divided into two categories:a. the native language is in the front; b. the the former sovereign state language is in the front. Then the paper analyzes the legal sorting and the actual ranking of the two different types of multiple official language countries.The fifth chapter elaborates a series of policies to promote the Russian during the Soviet Union period. Then according to the official legal status of the Russian, this chapter divides the fourteen independent former member states into two categories:a. Russian obtains the status of an official language; b. Russian doesn’t get official status. Then inspects the changes in legal sorting of Russian and the actual situation of the language used in these two types of states. Finally analyzes of the status of the Russian in the independent former members states of Soviet Union.The sixth chapter summarizes this paper. This chapter mainly elaborates the basic ideas of the various official languages’ sorting in multilingual countries, and proposes some in-depth topics.