The Historical Construction of the Term “Mother Tongue” and Its Opposition to “National Language” in Language Policy

The present study investigates the historical and discursive construction of the term “mother tongue” and its opposition to the concept of “national language” within the framework of language policy. Employing a mixed-methods design, it integrates qualitative and quantitative analyses. The qualitative phase draws on Critical Discourse Analysis, while the quantitative phase utilizes quantitative content analysis. The dataset consists of 300 texts, including official documents and media statements by Iranian authorities, collected through purposeful sampling and library research between 2013 and 2024. The findings indicate that the dominant discourse reinforces and institutionalizes the national language through a monolingual ideological framework, while concurrently marginalizing other languages under the label of “mother tongue.” This discursive opposition is not driven solely by linguistic factors at the micro level; rather, it is shaped by macro-level, nonlinguistic dynamics such as power relations and hegemonic structures in language policy. These dynamics contribute to the exclusion and suppression of non-dominant languages from official domains.
 
Extended Abstract

Introduction

The expression mother tongue is one of the most widely circulated linguistic terms in both formal and informal discourse. Although it carries affective and seemingly neutral connotations, it is rooted in historical and ideological layers associated with marginality, gendered symbolism, and linguistic hierarchies. These meanings have been reinforced through oppositions constructed in language policy, where terms such as national, official, or standard language are elevated while other linguistic varieties are relegated to categories such as local, indigenous, or vernacular. Within Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), language is viewed as a medium through which ideology, power, and domination are reproduced. The binary between mother tongue and national language thus functions as a mechanism of legitimizing one linguistic variety while discursively marginalizing others. This study addresses the problem of how the term mother tongue often taken for granted in previous scholarship operates as a historically constructed category that acquires ideological force through its opposition to national language. By tracing its conceptual development across religious, nationalist, and colonial discourses, the study aims to reveal how mother tongue becomes a discursive tool within modern language policies.

Theoretical Framework

From a discourse-oriented approach, language policy is shaped within institutional, historical, and political contexts that rationalize dominant ideologies (Reisigl & Wodak, 2009). Language hierarchies are constructed through discourses that promote one language as the national or legitimate code, while others are framed as secondary or marginal (Tollefson, 1991). In CDA, the opposition between the national and the mother tongue is therefore interpreted as a relation of symbolic power. National language is portrayed as a unifying and official medium, whereas mother tongues gradually lose prestige and are confined to non-official spheres.
Mother tongue has also been progressively removed from educational domains through what Skutnabb-Kangas (2000) describes as subtractive education, in which learning the official or foreign language occurs at the expense of maintaining the first language. The rise of nationalism intensified this hierarchy, as modern nation-states constructed a national language as a central symbol of identity and authority (Willard, 2001). In the Iranian context, policies of Persian linguistic homogenization have historically marginalized minority languages. This process, documented in media and intellectual discourse since the Pahlavi period, produced a discursive opposition that elevated Persian as the national language while relegating other languages to the private or local sphere.
The historical origins of the term mother tongue are also ideologically charged. Medieval evidence suggests that mother tongue referred to the vernacular, associated with the domestic and feminine sphere, while father tongue referred to Latin, associated with authority and literacy (Kluge, 1967; Illich, 1981). This gendered distinction reflects the social structure of medieval Europe, where women were excluded from formal learning. Early meanings of mother tongue therefore conveyed inferiority rather than affection or identity (Haugen, 1991). Due to conceptual inconsistencies, linguists prefer the term first language (L1), which avoids ideological and gendered implications. In multilingual countries such as India or Kenya, mother tongue may refer not to early-acquired language but to ethnic affiliation, further illustrating its ambiguous nature.
Terms such as national, standard, and official language similarly carry ideological rather than linguistic meanings. Historically, national languages were institutionalized through coercion and colonial expansion, as seen in the suppression of Gaelic in Ireland, Breton in France, or Catalan in Spain (Anderson, 1983). Through Gramscian hegemony, such linguistic orders become naturalized; speakers gradually internalize the superiority of one language and the inferiority of others, even without direct coercion.
Identity formation through language is fluid, situational, and discursively constructed (Hall, 1996; Bucholtz & Hall, 2005). Linguistic identity emerges from the multiplicity of codes individuals use, making fixed or essentialist notions of identity analytically unstable. This view challenges frameworks that equate mother tongue with a singular and stable linguistic identity.

Methodology

This study adopts a mixed qualitative–quantitative design within the CDA framework to examine the opposition between mother tongue and national language in Iranian language policy discourse. Data consist of headlines, sentences, and textual excerpts from official documents and media sources published between 2013 and 2024. Purposeful sampling was based on relevance to the two focal terms and their discursive salience. Lexical searches were conducted across digital archives, news databases, scholarly platforms, the Parsijoo engine, and a corpus of 300 official and educational documents, following large-scale methodologies used in previous research (Mohammadi 2023/2024). Triangulation ensured analytic reliability.

Discussion and Results

The quantitative analysis of 300 texts shows that both terms mother tongue and national language appear with high frequency from 2013 to 2024, with mother tongue consistently appearing more often. Its recurrence peaks annually around International Mother Language Day. This pattern indicates heightened discursive sensitivity and ongoing ideological negotiation. After 2018, both terms stabilize as central components of Iranian language policy discourse. The higher frequency of mother tongue suggests increasing contestation and public engagement with linguistic rights and diversity.
 

Conclusions

The findings show that mother tongue is not a neutral linguistic term but a historically and ideologically constructed category shaped by gendered, nationalistic, and colonial discourses. In Iranian policy discourse, mother tongue is framed as emotional, regional, and culturally local, while national language (Persian) is portrayed as standardized, scientific, and legitimate. This framing legitimizes the dominance of Persian in education and administration while marginalizing minority languages. Although mother tongue appears frequently in public discourse, its usage is often symbolic rather than policy-oriented. The opposition between mother tongue and national language is therefore rooted in extralinguistic ideologies of homogenization and state-building. A shift toward multilingual policy frameworks is essential for strengthening linguistic justice, social cohesion, and cultural inclusion in a multilingual society.
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