Applied Sociolinguistics

Applied Sociolinguistics

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Language Policy

A course or principle of action

adopted or proposed by a

government regarding a given

language.

What do governments do with

languages either officially

through legislation or by court

decisions?

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Language Policy

o determine how languages are used

o develop language skills needed to meet

national priorities, or

o establish the rights of individuals or groups to

use and maintain languages

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Language Policy

Language policy is sometimes used as a

synonym for language planning. However,

more precisely, language policy refers to the

more general linguistic, political and social goals

underlying the actual language planning process.

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Language Policy

Language planning is actually part of a language

policy that a given government adopts regarding

one or more of the languages spoken in the

country.

e.g. Catalan forbidden during Franco's dictatorship 1937-

1976. Catalan not allowed in schools and no books or

newspapers could be published in that language - it was

considered of importance for the Catalan movement, which

was believed to threaten the union of Spain.

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What is Language Planning?

A deliberate effort to influence the function,

structure, or acquisition of a language or language

variety within a speech community.

In multilingual countries LP results from the need of

implementing a language policy regulating the

scope and use of the languages and/or language

varieties within their territories.

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Language Planning

A few decades ago, decisions concerning language

planning were characteristic of developing countries

which often needed to make decisions on whether

to use the former colonial language or other national

languages as a unifying code.

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Language Planning

More recently, LP has become an issue in western

societies - a social demand to preserve minority

languages or a political demand to expand the use

of international languages to promote intercultural

and supranational communication (e.g., the EU).

The factors affecting language planning (economic,

educational, historical, judicial, political, religious

and social) give an idea of its complexity.

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Factors motivating decision-making in language planning

Cobarrubias (1983)

Four typical ideologies

Language Planning

Linguistic Assimilation

Vernacularization Internationalism

Linguistic Pluralism

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Factors motivating decision-making in language planning

Linguistic Assimilation

The belief that everyone, regardless of origin,

should learn the dominant language of the society.

France applied this policy to various peoples within its borders.

The U.S. applied it both, internally with immigrants and externally (The Philippines and Puerto Rico)

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Factors motivating decision-making in language planning

This seems a reasonable decision for the

integration of minority groups, but it raises the

problem of conservation and respect for minority

group identities and cultural heritage, which are

often supposed to disappear under this motivation

for language planning.

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Factors motivating decision-making in language planning

Eg. The case of Russification in the former Soviet

Union where Soviet rulers tried to spread the

Russian language and culture throughout the

whore Soviet Union.

A different action could be simply lack of official

actions undertaken to preserve a language, which

can also lead to language assimilation.

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Factors motivating decision-making in language planning

In Australia, there were about 200 languages at the

time of the European conquest and only around 20

were still spoken by younger generations in the

1990s.

A major factor in Aboriginal language death in

Australia was the linguistic assimilation policy

undertaken up to the 1970s with their 'English only policy in schools.

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Factors motivating decision-making in language planning

Linguistic pluralism

The acceptance of various languages or varieties,

centered on individual or geographical criteria, i.e.,

an individual may be stimulated to maintain his/her

language in the case of a multilingual setting,

where his/her language represents a minority that

does not identify with a specific geographical area

(immigrants in a big city)

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Factors motivating decision-making in language planning

It can also be the case of a multilingual state that

adopts various official languages as they are

spoken in different geographical areas (e.g.,

French and English speaking Canada; French

and Dutch-speaking Belgium; and, English and

Afrikaans-speaking South Africa).

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Factors motivating decision-making in language planning

Vernacularization

Entails the reconstruction or renewal of an

indigenous language that is not used by a

wide group of speakers but after some

changes (the alphabet, pronunciation,

relexicalization, etc.) becomes widespread

and adopted as an official language

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Factors motivating decision-making in language planning

e.g., Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea,

Bahasa Indonesia in Indonesia, Tagalog

renamed Filipino in the Philippines and

Quechua in Peru.

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Factors motivating decision-making in language planning

Internationalism

It is reached when the motivation in language

planning is to adopt a non-vernacular language for

wider interethnic communication as a political

solution to an internal problem often arising from

equally powerful minorities, one of them aiming at

imposing their language as the official language,

or the language of education and trade, for all.

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Factors motivating decision-making in language planning

e.g. English in Singapore, India and the

Philippines.

English and French are the languages that have

been most internationalized.

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Factors affecting language planning

a) Socio-demographic factors

b) Linguistic factors

c) Socio-psychological factors

d) Political factors

e) Religious factors

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Aims of Language Planning

Eleven Language Planning Goals have been

recognized (Nahir 2003):

1. Language Purification

2. Language Revival

3. Language Reform

4. Language Standardization

5. Language Spread

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Aims of Language Planning

6. Lexical Modernization

7. Terminology Unification

8. Stylistic Simplification

9. Interlingual Communication

10.Language Maintenance

11.Auxiliary-Code Standardization

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Types of Language Planning

Heinz Kloss (1967), distinguished three basic

types of language planning:

Status planning - all efforts undertaken to change the use and function of a language or language variety within a given society.

Corpus planning - concerned with the internal structure of the language

Acquisition planning - aims to influence aspects of language, such as language status, distribution and literacy through

education.

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Status Planning

Refers to the allocation or relocation of new

functions to a language (such as using the

language as medium of instruction or as an

official language).

Status planning affects the role a language

plays within a given society.

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Status Planning

The decision to use Hebrew as a medium of

instruction in Jewish schools in Palestine from

the end of the nineteenth century is an example

of status planning.

Previously, classical Hebrew had not been used

in everyday communication, and its use had

been restricted to prayers and religious as well

as scholarly writings.

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Status Planning

Language-planners distinguish many possible

functions a language can occupy in society.

Official: the use of a language as legally appropriate language for all politically and

culturally representative purposes on a

nationwide basis. In many cases, the official

function of a language is specified

constitutionally. E.g. Irish and English have official status in Ireland.

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Status Planning

Provincial: the use of a language as a provincial or regional official language. In this

case, the official function of the language is not

nationwide, but is limited to a smaller

geographic area (Stewart 1968).

e.g In the Canadian province of Quebec,

French is the only official language (since

1974), while both English and French have

official status in the other provinces of Canada.

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Status