Tutor: Rosa María Sotillo Martínez

AULA DE LEGANÉS
2021/22
 This chapter centres on language planning and policy as ways in which the social
dimension of language affects our lives. Special attention is paid to specific
sociolinguistic situations in different and distant parts of the world. The key issues
addressed in this chapter are:

▪ Bilingual education
▪ Language policiy
▪ Language planning: factors, actions and aims
▪ Individual language planning
▪ Minority languages and language shift
▪ Some interesting sociolinguistic situations: India, New Zealand, Cameroon and
Canada
▪ European Union language planning and policy
▪ The role of English
▪ The Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights
 Aboriginal languages  Language Academy
 Acculturation  Language attrition
 African American Vernacular  Language conflict
 Content-based ESL  Language election/selection
 Content and Language Integrated  Language loss
Learning (CLIL)  Language Policy Division
 Cultural Awareness  Language revitalisation
 Domain  Language spread
 English Corpus planning  Longitudinal study
 Endangered language  Lingua franca
 Family language planning  Linguistic competence
 Heritage language bilingual education  Language of Wider Communication:
 Heritage language LWC
 Hypercorrection  Sociolinguistic relativity
 International schools  Status planning
 Bilingual education entails the accomplishment of a number of actions and
decisions regarding multidisciplinary perspectives which can be:
◦ political,
◦ economic,
◦ social,
◦ cultural,
◦ pedagogical.
➢ Firstly, bilingual education involves both a given language policy and a pedagogic
realisation.
➢ Secondly, bilingual education deals with national or regional matters and b y
means of language planning it tries:
o to assimilate minorities,
o integrate minority groups,
o and/or spread intercultural understanding.
▪ Languages evolve over time as
a result of social, political and economic changes in societies. under certain circumstanc
es some languages may shrink in terms of speakers, while others may grow.
▪ It seems that for a
(MINORITY) LANGUAGE to survive it is necessary to meet certain conditions:

• Languages need to be used at home for interpersonal communication; that is

the way they become mother tongues of new member in family.
The best way to ensure the subsistence of (minority) languages is to raise
children in that language which will be reinforced later in schooling. This is the
case, for instance, of Basque in the Basque Country and of Welsh in Wales.

• Its presence in formal schooling. This provides speakers more linguistic tools
to interact outside a limited domestic setting, and help in the social and
psycholinguistic development of the individual.
 Bilingual education and language policy are fundamental from a social point of view, and
for the progress of nation-states and for social interethnic understanding or conflict.
 The adoption of a well-founded language-planning policy in bilingual education,
however, finds some dififculties in its implementation. Baker (2002) indentifies three
limitations of language planning:

• First, he identifies the temptation on the part of the language planner to give
prominence to the language rather than the child, but what is good for language is not
necessarily good for the child.

• Second, language planning in the form of bilingual education generally has a limited
view of the functions and purposes of education and it often focuses JUST on the
benefits and needs for the acquisition of a dual-linguistic system.

• Third, Baker points out that there is often unfounded optimism and high expectations
on bilingual education to revitalise a language.
➢ Recently there has been a general tendency to perceive bilingual education as
very advantageous for everybody. In this respect, Baker and Jones (1998)
suggest that bilingual education provide some advantages in modern
societies such as:
- Allowing the full development of the languages involved (often two languages
and sometimes three),
- Promoting among children deeper insights into the cultures each language
represents,
- Bilingual education often results in biliteracy, i.e. the possibility of reading and
writing in more than one language.
- Speaking two well-developed languages provides wider general cognitive
benefits.
- Bilingual education may raise the children’s self-steem, especially when the
language spoken at home is not the majority language in the society but is
studied at school.
 In contrast to the positives of bilingual education we must also take into account that
recent research has identified some drawbacks such as the following:

a) Bilingual education does not guarantee effective schooling, in spite of the fact
that it is often associated with academic success.

b) The language register used in formal education does not necessarily

correspond with the language register needed outside the classroom, i.e.,
the type of academic language used as the means for teaching often does
not correspond with the colloquial register that the students in a bilingual
program can find outside the classroom, and this may result in a degree of
exclusion by mother tongue speakers.

c) Productive skills (writing and speaking) are sometimes not fully developed if
the language of education is not present beyond school.
What does language policy mean?
 Language policy refers to a body of ideas, laws, regulations, rules and
practices intended to achieve the planned language change in the societies,
group or system. Language use and evolution often mirrors what is thought about
it and what actually happens in society. For example, migration, which is one of
the main reasons for the increase in people learning languages and for the
revival and current need for language policy and planning.

 Language planning is actually part of a language policy that a given goverment

adopts for one or more languages spoken in the country. In Spain, for instance,
Catalan, was forbbiden during Franco’s dictatorship (1937-1976). However, later,
with the advent of democracy, Catalan was officially reintroduced and was adopted
as one of the official languages in Catalonia.
What does language planning refers to?

 Language planning consists of a deliberate and institutionally organised

attempt to change the development of a language or a language variety, or

alter its functions in society, that is to say, to interfere with the natural

development of a language (Wardhaugh, 2002).

 Llanguage planning has become an issue in wenster societies as there has

been a social demand to preserve minority languages (e.g. Irish, Welsh,

Catalan, etc) or a political demand to expand the use of international

languages to promote intercultural and supranational communication (e.g.

English, French and German in the EU).

 Certain ideological trends lie behind language planning. Indeed, Cobarrubias (1983)
recognized four main types of ideology that typically prompt the rationale behind decisions
regarding language planning:

i. Linguistic assimilations considers that anyone forming part of a society should

learn the dominant language of that society.

ii. Linguistic pluralism implies the acceptance of various languages and varieties. It
can be centred on individual or geographical criteria.
i. i.e., an individual may be stimulated to maintain his language in the case of a
multilingual enviroment, where his language represents a minority that does not
identify with a specific geographical area (such as a group of immigrants in a big
city); or,

ii. more probably, in the case of a multilingual state that adopts various official
languages as they are spoken in differernt geographical areas (e.g., French and
Englis-speaking Canada).
▪ Vernacularisation entails the reconstruction or renewal of a la
nguage that is not used by a wide group of speakers but after so
me changes (the alphabet, pronunciation,
etc.) becomes widespread and adopted as an official language (e.
g.,Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea).

▪ Internationalism is reached when the motivation in language pl

anning is to adopt a non-
vernacular language for wider interethnic communication a
s
a political solution to an internal problem arising from equally po
werful minorities. For instance, English in India and Singapore.
4.1. ACTIONS IN LANGUAGE PLANNING

There are four starting points in language planning which describe the steps to follow:

a) Selection of a norm. Multilingual countries need to make important decisions regarding the

langauge(s) that will become official. Sometimes it is necessary to introduce a language

as a lingua franca, which is the case of English in India and Ghana.

b) Codification. If an indigenous language is chosen as the standard, it may be necessary to

make changes and adapt it to meet the requirements of a language for wider

communication within a multilingual country.

c) Modernisation. Language policies sometimes go beyond actual language evolution

because of the speedy technological development that clearly favour the adoption of loan

words.

d) Implementation. The chosen language needs to be officially implemented and used in all

sorts of official forums (education, parlamient, media, etc.). This will raise its social

consideration and will become a prestige language or variety used in literary and academic

circles.
4. 2. AIMS OF LANGUAGE PLANNING
 There is a close connection between language policy and language plannning and, as a matter of
fact, the former governs the latter. Nahir sets eleven planning functions which can be combined to
handle the language related problems and needs of speech communities. Here, there are indicated
six of those eleven functions:
1. Language purification can be divided into two types: external and internal purification.

• External purification consists of the development of prescriptions of usage in order to protect

the language from unwanted foreign influence by means, for example, of a Language Academy.
Some of the actions taken are the creation of prescriptive grammars and dictionaries.

• Internal purification refers to the acceptance of the code as it exists at a certain point in
history, protecting it from undersirable developments which are considered as non-normative
(incorrect) or simply as deviations from the standard.

2. Language revival consists of an attempt to revitalise a language with a small number of speakers
(e.g., Irish and Welsh) or a dead language (e.g., Hebrew, Cornish), and turn into means of
communication for a speech community.
3. Language reform involves the incorporation of specific changes in the language to facilitate its use. The
aim can be to facilitate the use of the language (spelling, grammar…), but always depending on political,
ideological, religious or economic factors.

4. Language standarisation implies an attempt to adopt a language, or variety of language, as the major
language or a region or nation for wider communication with official, educational or commercial functions.

5. Language spread involves an attempt to increase the number of speakers of a language, normally at
the expense of another language or languages. Some examples can be found in former colonial
territories that became independent states during the nineteenth century.

6. Lexical modernisation consists of the adaptation of existing vocabulary, or creation of new one, to
assist standard languages that may have borrowed foreign vocabulary too fast to accommodate it to the
ortography, pronunciation, etc. Lexical modernisation is applied in many countries and constitutes in itself
an effect of globalisation with the resulting increase in concept borrowing from leading international
languages such as English.
Policy makers in multilingual nations need to make important decisions regarding the status of the
languages in contact in a given territory:

a. The selection of an official or national language which can be problematic in the case of
devoloping nations composed of different ethnic groups.

b. Decisions regarding the language of instruction in schools that determine the general attitude
towards a language and the point of view of coming generations.

c. Need to decide on the standardisation procedures such as the choice of an alphabet or a given
variety.

The implementation of multilingual policies in multilingual states to regulate the interaction between
different language groups in a modern nation or state is a result of the sociolinguistic demands of
modern societies. It can have three possible outcomes that determine the degree of success or failure of a
specific language policy: a) language maintenance of the minority language; b) bilingualism where both
languages survive, and c) language shift.
7.1. INDIA

 INDIA gained independence in 1947 and the federal goverment established a

language policy in the country. English would be replaced by Hindi as the official
national language whilst each state could have its own regional official language.

 In 1950 the Constitution recognized fifteen major languages: four literary

languages belonging to the Dravidian group and eleven literary languages of the
Indo-Aryan group. Addittionally, a number of actions were undertaken in this
respect (translations, new dictionaries, new typewriters, etc) with the aim of
spreading the use of Hindi and of detaching it from the former colonial language
(English).

 However, this language planning did not succed and two decades later English
was reintroduced and adopted as the second official language.
 Nowadays, multilingualism is encouraged in India and many children learn:
◦ English and Hindi in the Devanagari script – the official language of the country-
in school,
◦ their mother tongue at home and
◦ the official language of their state.

 Today, there are still serious problems regarding the spread of Hind i
throughtout the country and that is caused by the literary nature of Hindi and its
differences from other local and regional varieties – all this resulting in
multilingualism.
 India is a good example of how government institutions sometimes need to
engage in the task of making far-reaching decisions. These, however, are
obviously easier to apply in smaller countries with less inhabitants and a smaller
number of languages involved.
7.2. NEW ZEALAND

 Almost all Maoris speak English and a large proportion of young people are bilingual.
However, Maori language is endangered for several reasons.
◦ First, English is the language of education;
◦ Second, Maori is spoken in rural areas and people prefer to live in cities where English is
spoken.

 In 1999 the population of fluent Maori speakers was around 8 per cent of the total Maori in
New Zealand (McCaffery, 1999).
 From the late 1960s, measures were taken to reintroduce Maori in primary schools and
universities, but had little success due to the low status given to the language in society and its
lack of recognition as a national official language.
 In late 1990s the bilingual population consisted mainly of an age group over 60, whose
descendants did not have Maori as a mother tongue.
7.2. NEW ZEALAND

 Maori seemed destined to dissapear in

New Zealand, but the situation started to change thanks to an innovative education movement which b
egan at the pre-school level in the early 1980s.
 The idea involved gradparents to teach their grandchildren the language, culture
and traditions of their communitiy.
In spite of these efforts to maintain the Maori culture and language, the lack of goverment support meant t
hat children were not able to maintain their Maori language.

 After that experience, there have been more initaitive to develop language skills on children, but what is clear
it is that the future of this language, like many others around the world, depends to a large extent on
government support and funding.
7.3. CAMEROON

 Cameroon’s language situation cannot be dissociated from its ethnic makeup and

rich history. According to various studies, there are around 250 ethnic groups (Echu, 2003;

Kouega, 2008), with most of them having a language of their own.

 Cameroon is an officially bilingual country where English and French are supposed to

enjoy the same status and use in all spheres of official life. There are two fully-fledged
education systems in the country, namely a French-inspired systems where French is

the medium of instruction and a British-inspired system whith English as the medium of

instruction. A hybrid or bilingual system of education was started being developed, but due
to the lack of resources and trained teachers drew it was dropped.
 Indigenous languages were absent from the education scene of Cameroon for many years
as their knowledge was thought to be detrimental to fluency in English and French. However,
there have recently been some governmental efforts to reintroduce them in education.
Nevertheless, given to the multiplicity of ethnic languages, difficulties for their standardisation
and the development of teaching and learning resources make their teaching limited to a few
pilot schools.

 It is impossible to discuss languages in Cameroon without mentioning Cameroon Pidgin

English and Camfranglais, which are the direct results of contact between the many
languages of the country. Cameroon Pidgin English came to life when British traders and
missionaries started interacting with indigenous tribes in Cameroon’s costal regions.
Nowadays, Cameroon Pidgin English is the most spoken language in Cameroon’s English
speaking regions and also enjoys some strength in contiguous French-speaking regions. This
situation is also true of Camfranglais, a variety which results from the coexistence between
French, English and indigenous languages. It is mostly spoken in Cameroon’s biggest urban
centres, namely Douala and Yaounde.
7.4. THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

 In 1982, Canada became a constitutionally bilingual country and bilingualism continues to be a

socio-political issue today. There are frequent social and political tensions in some parts of Canada and
language is perceived as a sign of identity and cultural heritage that unififes members of the French
origin.

 By means of the Constitution Act in 1982, the Canadian central goverment undertook the task of
protecting the French rights throughout the country, whereas the goverment of the province of Quebec
took measures against the use of English within the province claiming that bilingualism in Quebec led to
monolingualism in English. Nowadays, these actions have been banned but the English-French division
and debate is still present.

 Canada has also some aboriginal minorities with their own languages and is a country on inmigrants
and, especially, in big cities there are a considerable number of people with Spanish, Italian, German,
Portuguese, etc., as their mother tongue. Canada continues to be a hotspot as far as the sociolinguistic
and sociopolitical situation is concerned and the situation worsens because the French-English
controversy is becoming territorially based, but language planning actions are being undertaken to solve
the problem.
French immersion is a general term used to refer to the type of content-based instruction in
which French is used as the means of communication within the classroom. It began in Canada in
1965, as a experiment carried out at St. Lambert school, Montreal, where the English-speaking
community needed to attain a high proficiency in French to overcome their minority situation in
Quebec. The aim of the program was for children to reach a level of bilingualism and
biculturalism that allowed them to function well in French.
Three types of French inmersion programs can be found as far as the starting age is concerned:

1. Early immersion, which is offered from the ealir years of schooling (kindergatten, grade 1 or
2), represents the most frequent sort of immersion.
2. Delayed or intermediate immersion, is offered in the later of schooling beginning in grade 4.
3. Late immersion begins in grades 6,7, or later.

Immersion can be total (involving the instruction of all subjects in the second language) or
partial (requiring instruction in the second language for half the school day). The French
immersion programs have not found equivalent counterpart in English immersion in
Canada.
 There is a need to convert the rich heritage of diverse languages and cultures in Europe
from a barrier to communication into a source of mutual understanding. A better
knowledge of European modern languages will facilitate communication and interaction
among Europeans and will promote mobility and mutual understanding.

 The aim of a particular language planning and policy is to unify millions of speakers
under a political and economical administration, giving languages a common ground
for interaction without losing either cultural or linguistic identity.

 The EU comprises 28 countries with at least 23 different official languages, but only 3
working languages: English, French and German. Besides, all these countries include
considerable linguistic minorities.

 This multiplicity of circumstances exhibits the need to develop a common EU language

policy in order to promote interrelation among the different member states and the
common understanding of peoples.
 English has spread widely all over the world, first because of the influence of the British Empire
and, second due the preeminence of North American culture in the world. English has advanced
as an international language after World War II leaving behind other preeminent languages such
as French. English is now used by millions of speakers for a number of communicative
functions across Europe.

 English has become the preferred language in a number of spheres like international
business or EU institutions. English has also influenced other European languages at different
levels, but it is especially manifest in the field of technical terms.

 English seems to have been adopted as the language of globalisation. Proficiency in English
is seen as a desirable goal for youngsters and elderly people in all EU countries and in many
parts of the world, to the point of equating inability in the use of English to disability..
What is The Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights?

 In 1996, a world-wide representtation of non-governamental organizations with the support of the

UNESCO approved a document whose aim is to turn the world’s nation’s attention to the problems arising
from a globalised world and preserve everyone’s right to a language identity. The original document
contains 52 articles and some additional dispositions. Some of the General principles that this document
tries to establish are:

1. To safeguard the personal rights to adhere to a linguistic identity and develop one’s own culture.
2. All language communities are equal and therefore merit official recognition in all kinds of social, political
and economic respects (e.g., education, law, trade, public administration, etc.).
3. It is concerned about the role of education in the maintenance and spread of a language.
4. Right to use proper names and place names in the language specific to the territory, both orally and in
writting.
5. Right to decide the extent to which a minority language should be present in the media in a given territory.
6. To declare the right to preserve their linguistic and cultural heritage.