Language Planning and Education

2018

In t r o d u c t io n ^ J ations, lan g u a g es, or states are so much part and parcel of the world in which we live nowadays that we hardly ever spare them a thought. These categories appear "transparent" to us, the "natural" building blocks1 from which our (social) world is composed, or-more aptly-constructed.2 Scholarly lit­ erature frequently suggests that a configuration of these three elements is the cornerstone of nationalism, or the sole ideology of statehood and peoplehood legitimation in today's world after the completion of decolonization and follow­ ing the breakup of the ideologically nonnational polity of the Soviet Union in the second half of the twentieth century. From the human perspective today's world is made of nation-states; the planet' s all inhabited and habitable landmass neatly apportioned among the extant polities. In this study, first, I aspire to "de-naturalize" the categories of nation, (a) language,3 and state (but I exclude from the analysis substate, suprastate, or "not-state-endow ed" nations and nationalisms). On this basis, I reflect on ethnic nationalism as a subspecies of the ideology of nationalism. According to common opinion, ethnic nationalism is quite closely, though in a largely unde­ fined and vague manner, associated with Central (and Eastern) Europe.4 In this pattern of things, the importance of language is customarily emphasized, often by reference to the seminal but rather rambling work Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1784-91 (Outlines o f a Philosophy of the History o f I thank Andrea Graziosi, Michael Flier, and Frank Sysyn for their invaluable sug­ gestions and lengthy discussion of this article's argument, which allowed me to improve it considerably. Obviously, the responsibility is mine for any remaining infelicities.

Every planned intervention by a subnational, national, or supranational political organization which is directed toward the otherwise unregulated development of a language or any of its varieties can be regarded as an act of language planning and language policy. The choice, for example, of one particular language or one particular variety of a language as the official national medium of communication is one such measure at the national level, as is the development of a writing system for a particular variety or its standardization and codification or, indeed, its mandatory use in national institutions such as schools, the media, and public service facilities. Subnational measures include the development of a regionally or ethnically restricted variety, its expansion for communication in various functions and domains, or the spread of its use in speech and writing, to name just a few. Supranational measures include, for example, the UNESCO decision that every child has the right to achieve literacy in his or her mother tongue. However, the protection of minority languages against the danger of extinction or marginalization under the pressure of a nationally dominant language is also a further measure, just as is the decision to adopt certain languages for negotiation in supranational institutions and for employment in economic, scientific, or cultural networks on an international level. In other words, language planning and language policy comprise a multitude of activities on every conceivable level from individual localities and regions all the way to global networks. 1. Types of language planning and policy It is possible to divide these activities up, somewhat generously, into measures on behalf of languages and language varieties (status planning), on the one hand, and structural linguistic activities (corpus planning), on the other. Questions of status include political decisions about the " rights and duties " which individual languages or varieties have in diverse institutional areas. Examples include the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1992) or agreements about the use of immigrant languages in schools and state institutions. 1.1 Consequences of policy changes In this context we should not forget that multilinguality is the normal condition within national states and that every policy decision in regard to a language or variety has systematic consequences for all the other language in the same state. A previously unwritten language which is provided with an orthography and hence becomes a written language will have a changed relationship to the other written languages and changed communicative functions in relation to other as yet unwritten languages and their more limited functions. Or: a variety which has up to now been purely regional may be raised to the level of a language of national communication in a process of standardization and now stand in contrast to the other varieties of the language. This

Language policy is an academic discipline, which is considered to be a part of sociolinguistics. There is a history to this discipline and this history will be briefly explored in this paper. The creation of this discipline can be attributed to various governments all over the world. Thus the reasons behind the involvement of various governments in the creation of this discipline will also be explored. Moreover the spread of European imperialism in Asia and Africa coincided with the emergence of this discipline. Therefore language policy and planning was also introduced in various colonised nations. This led to the glorification of the language of colonisers and suppression of the language of the colonised. The paper will explore all the aforementioned areas of concern

2018

This Handbook offers a state-of-the-art account of research in language policy and planning (LPP). The Handbook examines the ways in which scholarship in language policy and planning (LPP) has understood the changing relationship between LPP and political-economic conditions, and how this changing relationship has shaped knowledge production in the field. With an underlying interest in language, social critique, and inequality, scholars in this volume work in widely divergent local, regional, national, and institutional settings, to investigate the ongoing processes that have gradually become the focus of contemporary LPP research, in many cases forcing scholars and practitioners in the field to revisit their own assumptions, views, and methodological perspectives. Through a critical examination of LPP, the Handbook offers new directions for a field in theoretical and methodological turmoil as a result of the socioeconomic, institutional, and discursive processes of change taking place under the conditions of late modernity. Chapters in this handbook are divided into three major sections: conceptual underpinnings of LPP; LPP, nation states, and communities; and LPP and late modernity. Subsections include chapters focusing on LPP and nationalism, minorities, standardization, and globalization; LPP in institutions of the nation-state and in communities; language, neoliberalism, and governmentality; language and mobility, diversity, and new social media; and new approaches to extending LPP scholarship. A final chapter offers an integrative summary and suggestions for future directions in LPP research.

Language vitality in South Asia. Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim …, 2009

The paper argues that a typology of multilingual contexts that witness different kinds of development of languages and national identities has to be viewed as a cline. At one extreme lie Type A societies in which 'language' as an entity is anthropomorphized by its speakers, so much so that in some communities, it is revered and regarded as an object of worship. Language develops like an organ or a faculty among children of these communities and remains with them as long as they live. Their language becomes a matter of passion for which the community is ready to make sacrifices, and the history of nation-building is often written after such sacrifices. Bangladesh is an ideal example of this type.

Barakos, E. & Unger, J. (eds.), Discursive Approaches to Language Policy, 2016

International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2008

I would like to thank Alan Firth for his thoughtful and broadly positive review of my book on language planning and education, and I am grateful too to IJAL both for publishing a review of my book in the first place and for offering this opportunity to respond to the review. It is perhaps inevitable that author and reviewer will not see eye to eye on every aspect of a book and this is the case here, so I begin by taking issue with Firth on some matters of fact and interpretation before commenting briefly on a wider issue. Referring to Chapter 1, Firth suggests that I mount 'a post-structural, critical sociolinguistic critique of conventional language planning (LP) scholarship, where it is contended that LP had, until very recently, become preoccupied with: (a) the European context, which has led to (b) the rise of Eurocentrism'. The comment takes me somewhat by surprise since, while I find aspects of post-structuralist thinking illuminating, I am unconvinced by certain of the tenets of the post-structural position, and my intention in the chapter was to report on rather than endorse these 'post-structural, critical sociolinguistic' critiques. More puzzling still, however, is the attribution to me of the proposition that LP had been preoccupied with the 'European context'. It is puzzling because near the beginning of the first chapter I make clear that in its early years academic LP was very much focussed on the language problems of newly emergent post-colonial states, but that the solutions to these problems often drew, inappropriately, on European models of the nation-state. Moving on to Chapter 2, Firth complains that the focus is 'placed solely on the European context' (my emphasis). Here I have to differ, for on pages 27 and 28 I mention, and discuss the work of, language academies in Latin America, in Malaysia (Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka), in Tanzania (Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa) and in South Africa (PanSALB); I give examples of lexical elaboration from Indonesia on page 30; on pages 30-32 I illustrate the operations of linguistic purism with a discussion of the 1930s Turkish language reform, and on page 33-in an exegesis of the term 'status planning'-I draw on examples from Quebec and Singapore. It is true that in the first part of the chapter, where I discuss language standardization and nation-building, I focus on Europe, but this is for a straightforward historical reason, namely that the concept of the nation, the ideology of nationalism, and the foundational role assigned to language in the definition of the nation have peculiarly European roots going back to the early 19th century and the writings of German Romantics such as Fichte and Herder. As Kedourie (1960: 9) has remarked, 'Nationalism is a doctrine invented in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century.' At the same time, Haugen's (1959; 1966) early and seminal identification of the component processes of standardisation

Academia Letters, 2021

This paper aims at focusing on the foremost role played by the national and official language in language planning pursuits which methodically targets a language policy of any state/region or realm. It sets out by presenting and distinguishing the terms of national /official languages in the literature on language policy. Language policy which is broad and, while it covers multiple disciplines, is mainly associated with the field of sociolinguistics. However, Language policies are political. They have political and social consequences. Therefore, this short review keeps on connecting the people and media of instruction with national and official languages and concludes with the challenges of formulating and executing the policy decision of a national language and official language of a state/region or a country.

An introduction to language policy: Theory and …, 2006

The decade leading up to the turn of the millenium brought a resurgence of interest in the field of language policy and planning (LPP), fueled in large part by the imperious spread of English and other global languages and, reciprocally, the alarming loss and endangerment of indigenous and small language communities worldwide. Language teaching and language revitalization initiatives constitute pressing real world LPP concerns on an unprecedented scale. At the same time, critical and postmodern theoretical developments in the social sciences have found their way into LPP research, infusing new perspectives and emphases. The 1990s saw a lively output of LPP overview books and review articles, many of them calling for or proposing new theoretical directions. Cooper (1989) and Tollefson (1991) were among the first and most enduring contributions at that time. Cooper's accounting framework, organized around the question "What actors attempt to influence what behaviors of which people for what ends under what conditions by what means through what decision-making process with what effect?" (Cooper, 1989, p. 98), summarized the state of LPP as a descriptive endeavor, while he also clearly enunciated the need for a theory of social change in order to move LPP forward. Tollefson sought to "contribute to a theory of language planning that locates the field within social theory" (Tollefson, 1991, p.8).

The decade leading up to the turn of the millenium brought a resurgence of interest in the field of language policy and planning (LPP), fueled in large part by the imperious spread of English and other global languages and, reciprocally, the alarming loss and endangerment of indigenous and small language communities worldwide. Language teaching and language revitalization initiatives constitute pressing real world LPP concerns on an unprecedented scale. At the same time, critical and postmodern theoretical developments in the social sciences have found their way into LPP research, infusing new perspectives and emphases. The 1990s saw a lively output of LPP overview books and review articles, many of them calling for or proposing new theoretical directions. Cooper (1989) and Tollefson (1991) were among the first and most enduring contributions at that time. Cooper's accounting framework, organized around the question "What actors attempt to influence what behaviors of which people for what ends under what conditions by what means through what decision-making process with what effect?" (Cooper, 1989, p. 98), summarized the state of LPP as a descriptive endeavor, while he also clearly enunciated the need for a theory of social change in order to move LPP forward. Tollefson sought to "contribute to a theory of language planning that locates the field within social theory" (Tollefson, 1991, p.8).