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Chapter 15 - Planning

The document discusses language planning and provides several examples. It defines language planning as deliberate attempts to change aspects of a language. There are two main types: status planning, which changes a language's social status and rights, and corpus planning, which changes a language's internal structures. The document then discusses language planning situations around the world, including in Papua New Guinea, which has designated three official languages, and in the United States, where English is dominant but Spanish is increasing. It closes by noting that while language planning may help some languages, it also has losers, and the overall effects are still debated.

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Yesicha Ryona
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213 views

Chapter 15 - Planning

The document discusses language planning and provides several examples. It defines language planning as deliberate attempts to change aspects of a language. There are two main types: status planning, which changes a language's social status and rights, and corpus planning, which changes a language's internal structures. The document then discusses language planning situations around the world, including in Papua New Guinea, which has designated three official languages, and in the United States, where English is dominant but Spanish is increasing. It closes by noting that while language planning may help some languages, it also has losers, and the overall effects are still debated.

Uploaded by

Yesicha Ryona
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Planning

Yesicha Ryona A1B011041

As a nal topic I want to turn attention to some of the numerous attempts that have been made to change a particular variety of a language, or a particular language, or some aspect of how either of these functions in society. Such changes are usually described as instances of language planning. According to Weinstein (1980, p. 56), Language planning is a government authorized, longterm, sustained, and conscious effort to alter a languages function in a society for the purpose of solving communication problems.

Planning

Planning
Issues A Variety of Situations Further Examples Winners and Losers
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Issues
Language planning is an attempt to interfere deliberately with a language or one of its varieties: it is human intervention into natural processes of language change, diffusion, and erosion. That attempt may focus on either its status with regard to some other language or variety or its internal condition with a view to changing that condition, or on both of these since they are not mutually exclusive. The rst focus results in status planning; the second results in corpus planning.

Issues
Status planning changes the function of a language or a variety of a language and the rights of those who use it. For example, when speakers of a minority language are denied the use of that language in educating their children, their language has no status. Alternatively, when a government declares that henceforth two languages rather than one of these alone will be ofcially recognized in all functions, the newly recognized one has gained status. Status itself is a relative concept; it may also be improved or reduced by degrees, and usually is. So far as languages and their varieties are concerned, status changes are nearly always very slow, are sometimes actively contested, and often leave strong residual feelings.

Issues
Two other issues are worthy of comment. The rst has to do with what language rights immigrants to a country should have in an era of widespread immigration motivated by a variety of concerns but within a system of states which often equates statehood or nationhood with language and sometimes with ethnicity. It is not surprising, therefore, that what language rights immigrants should have is a controversial issue almost everywhere. One view is that immigrants give up their rights to their languages and their cultures by migrating.

Issues
The second issue concerns the problem of identifying the right kinds of data that must go into planning decisions. Planning must be based on good information, but sometimes the kinds of information that go into planning decisions are not very reliable. The issues are complex, and gatherers of such information may have great difficulty in getting answers even to simple questions.

A Variety of Situations
In this section we will look at a variety of linguistic situations in the world to see some instances of planning. In the following section we will look at a number of countries chosen because they show some of the variety of issues that states engaged in planning face as they continue to make changes. An attempt is sometimes made to nd a neutral language, that is, a language which is not English and which gives no group an advantage.

A Variety of Situations
Finally, if we return to the English-speaking world, or rather to a country which is assumed to be thoroughly committed to English, we can observe how it too must confront a number of issues to do with language. Language planning has become a serious concern in the United States in recent years, particularly as a result of a recognition that there is a large indigenous Spanish-speaking population and because of continued immigration into the country (see Fishman, 1966, and Veltman, 1983).

A Variety of Situations
Not only is a language other than English the mother tongue of a great number of residents of the United States, but many do not speak English at all or speak it with difficulty. There is obviously a vast resource of languages in the United States, but the traditional policy of assimilation is still widely pursued. English is very much the language of the mainstream, and even though languages such as Spanish may be in widespread use in some areas and have certain ofcial approval there, this use is motivated by pragmatic concerns alone.

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Further Examples
Some further examples of kinds of planning decisions that have been made in a number of countries in different parts of the world will show how difficult at times planning can be. The first example is Papua New Guinea, a nation of 700 or more indigenous languages, some, possibly more than a third, with fewer than 500 speakers, and this in a total population of approximately 4 million. Papua New Guinea has three official languages which are all second languages to the vast majority of its people: Hiri Motu, Tok Pisin, and English. The first two are pidgin-based languages. Of the three, Tok Pisin is becoming more and more the first language of many young people, particularly city dwellers.

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Further Examples
We can see the similarities in the two languages from the following sentences (and their gloss) taken from Haugen (1968, pp. 6867):

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Winners and Losers


It seems fitting to close a chapter on language planning in various places in the world by indicating some of the facts about languages in general. There, English is spreading because it is an effective lingua franca and she says that this spread may actually strengthen local languages as people seek to maintain local identities.

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Winners and Losers


The European Union shows how such a compromise has occurred. Wright (2004, p. 14) comes to a similar conclusion but one not limited to the European Union: it is not inconceivable that as intergroup communication happens increasingly in English, speakers from the smaller language groups will move from being bilingual in their own language and the national language to being bilingual in their own language and English. This latter bilingualism might be more stable than the former.

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Winners and Losers


There is a paradox here: linguists are told that they save

languages best by not acting at all; certainly they should do


nothing to promote English in the world, or to standardize a

language, or possibly to help in any kind of language planning


anywhere.

Yet, there is no assurance that they will save a single language by


not acting.
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Winners and Losers


An alternative possibility is that intervention actually slows down decline and loss. However, there is really no hard evidence for either position. Each is essentially ideologically derived: if you believe this you do one thing and if you believe that you do another. We do well to remember that because we are involved in socio-linguistic matters, ideology is likely to be at least as potent a factor as science in determining which approach we ultimately adopt. Issues of identity and power will also never be far from the surface.

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