Language Policy
Language Policy
Language policy is an issue of critical importance in the world today. In this introduction, Bernard Spolsky explores many debates at the forefront of language policy: ideas of correctness and bad language; bilingualism and multilingualism; language death and efforts to preserve endangered languages; language choice as a human and civil right; and language education policy. Through looking at the language practices, beliefs and management of social groups from families to supra-national organizations, he develops a theory of modern national language policy and the major forces controlling it, such as the demands for efficient communication, the pressure for national identity, the attractions of (and resistance to) English as a global language, and the growing concern for human and civil rights as they impinge on language. Two central questions asked in this wide-ranging survey are of how to recognize language policies, and whether or not language can be managed at all.
- Proposes a theory of, and identifies the principal forces affecting, language policy
- Bases its theory on the analysis of a very wide range of national and local policies
- Deals with a wide range of issues, such as the complexity of US policy, the growth of human and civil rights, the movement to preserve endangered languages, and the call for linguistic purity
Reviews & endorsements
"It is one of the virtues of this book that what one author suggests or asserts may be supplemented or argued with by another. Reading these papers is therefore not unlike attending a thoughtful debate carried on by experts...it is a rigorous and well-referenced (there is a 32-page bibliography) exploration of style from a variety of perspectives. In addition, the work provides fascinating critiques of the many viewpoints presented during the workshop." Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
"Taking into account this gathering of refined versions of classical approaches to style with others completely new perspectives on the one hand, and the extensive reflections on each of these that other experts offer, the book constitutes an excellent up to date of research into the role of style in sociolinguistic variation and represents a serious attempt to solve the problems that its analysis poses. The collection is a fundamental reference, therefore, for students and academics whose works have to deal more or less directly with the complex but at the same time fascinating task of interpreting stylistic variation in speech." Estudios de Sociolinguistica Virginia Acuna Ferreira, Universidade de Vigo
Product details
January 2004Hardback
9780521804615
264 pages
216 × 140 × 20 mm
0.45kg
4 tables
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Language practices, ideology and beliefs, and management and planning
- 2. Driving out the bad
- 3. Pursuing the good and dealing with the new
- 4. The nature of language policy and its domains
- 5. Two monolingual polities - Iceland and France
- 6. How did English spread?
- 7. Does the US have a language policy or just civil rights?
- 8. Language rights
- 9. Monolingual polities under pressure
- 10. Monolingual polities with recognised linguistic minorities
- 11. Partitioning language space - two, three, many
- 12. Resisting language shift
- 13. Conclusions.
