Author's personal copy Language Policy Ofelia Garcı´a, Graduate Center, The City University of New York, New York, NY, USA Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This article is a revision of the previous edition article by J.A. Fishman, volume 12, pp. 8351–8355, Ó 2001, Elsevier Ltd. Abstract This article reviews the field of language policy, and presents a historical overview of the theoretical perspectives. It reviews the activities of classical language planning from the mid-twentieth century to the more critical and post-structural perspective of the field today. By presenting a framework of motivations for language policy, the article also presents different cases of types of language policy. The field of language policy can be considered a branch of basis for the development of macro-sociolinguistics or sociology macro-sociolinguistics, also known as sociology of language. of language, which focuses on the social organization of Not only has the field of language policy evolved in relation to language behavior, “including not only language usage per se, changes in the social sciences, including sociolinguistics, and our but also language attitudes and overt behaviors toward epistemologies in the twenty-first century, but also the naming language and toward language users” (Fishman, 1972: 1). of the field itself has shifted. Originally scholars referred to the Fishman argued, and has continued to do so, that social action field as language planning, focusing on what could be done by the was needed on behalf of languages and its speakers, and that state to systematically promote linguistic change (Cooper, 1989; language could be planned just in the same way that there is Fishman et al., 1968; Fishman, 1971; Haugen, 1959, 1966; economic planning. Kaplan and Baldauf, 1997). Cooper (1989) defines language Around the same time, in a study of Modern Norwegian, planning as “deliberate efforts to influence the behaviour of Einar Haugen defined language planning as consisting of four others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional prongs: (1) norm selection, (2) codification, (3) implementa- allocations of their language codes” (p. 45, my italics). But post- tion of language functions by spread, and (4) elaboration of structuralist and critical scholarship has challenged the idea that functions to meet language needs (1966). Norm selection refers a community’s way of speaking could be planned and changed to the formal role that language was to have in society; for by authoritative agencies. There are beliefs, practices, and even example, as an official or national language. Codification regulations that impact the ways in which people use language. includes the choice of linguistic forms, including standardization Thus, the naming of the field itself has shifted to language policy, and graphization. Implementation has to do with whether the as it recognizes the multiple forces that influence behavior policy would be accepted and followed. Finally, elaboration toward language (LP)(Ricento, 2006; Shohamy, 2006; Spolsky, refers to continued linguistic reforms that have societal aims 2004, 2012). Some scholars, however, have preferred to speak such as modernization, purification, and other stylistic reforms. about language policy and planning (LPP)(Hornberger and In 1968, Fishman, Ferguson, and Das Gupta published Ricento, 1996; Hornberger, 2006) or language policy and Language Problems of Developing Nations, perhaps what could be language planning (LPLP) (Wright, 2004), suggesting that both considered the first formal text in the field of language policy. It terms are needed in order to capture their distinctive roles – one was the ‘problems’ of developing nations, and specifically the referring to language changes by the state or authoritative orga- fact that national identity and national language did not coin- nizations, the other communicating behaviors and beliefs or cide with either ethnic identity nor language use, that in many attitudes toward language that shape the way that language is ways fueled the development of the field (Jernudd and Das managed and used in society. Gupta, 1971). Language planning was put in the service of ‘solving’ the language ‘problems’ of the newly independent African and Asian states, by assessing the sociolinguistic situa- The Beginnings: Classic Language Planning tion and prescribing certain changes in how language was to be used (Das Gupta and Ferguson, 1977). Jernudd and Das Gupta Language planning became an important field of study during (1971: 211) summarize the charge of language planning by the 1960s and 1970s, in what Ricento (2000: 206) has called saying that it is “a political and administrative activity for solving classic language planning. Einar Haugen, a Scandinavian language language problems in society.” It is clear that these early specialist is credited with having used the term language planning language planners strongly believed in the social intervention of for the first time in 1959 to refer to “the activity of preparing the state on behalf of languages and their users. a normative orthography, grammar, and dictionary for the Language planning was originally studied as consisting of guidance of writers and speakers in a non-homogeneous speech two types: community” (p. 8). The term itself was first used by Uriel Weinreich in a 1957 seminar at Columbia University (Cooper, 1. Corpus planning refers to changes in the linguistic form of the 1989: 29). language itself through standardization (standardizing In 1965 Joshua Fishman published his now classic article language forms), graphization (developing a writing system), entitled “Who speaks what language to whom and when,” the and modernization (coining new words and terms). International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 13 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.52008-X 353 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Second Edition, 2015, 353–359 Author's personal copy 354 Language Policy 2. Status planning refers to changes in the functions of language others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional in order to elevate its prestige and increase the uses of a allocations of their language codes” (p. 45). Cooper’s definition language. talks about “influencing” linguistic ‘behavior,’ rather than changing it (since the activity may just modify or maintain These terms are attributed to the German sociolinguist, Heinz behaviors). The emphasis in Cooper’s work is on influencing Kloss (1969). behaviors and not on solving problems. Although described as two processes, Joshua A. Fishman At around the same time James Tollefson (1991) published insists that this distinction is clearer in theory than in practice, Planning Language, Planning Inequality. Interestingly enough, the and that it is only possible to engage both types jointly subtitle of the book was Language Policy in the Community. In this (Fishman, 2006). important book, Tollefson advances a central idea in the shift From the very beginning of language planning activities, from classical language planning to what we know today as there was questioning of whether language could indeed be language policy. He says: planned, as reflected in the title of Rubin and Jernudd’s influ- ential early book, Can Language be Planned? (1971). The ques- fi In this book language planning-policy means the institutionalization tioning of whether it was possible to de nitely plan the form of language as a basis for distinctions among social groups (classes). that a language takes, as well as its uses, emerged from the field That is, language policy is one mechanism for locating language itself. Einar Haugen had referred to the ecology of language; that is, within social structure so that language determines who has access to the “interactions between any given language and its envi- to political power and economic resources. Language policy is one ronment” (1972: 57). Haugen defines that environment as being mechanism by which dominant groups establish hegemony in language use. social and natural, in part psychological, and in part sociological. p. 16 And he states: “The ecology of language is determined by the people who learn it, use it, and transmit it to others” (p. 57). By putting language in the hands of people and in the interactions Tollefson points to the fact that language actions and choices between individual choices and socio-psychological possibilities are always constrained by ideological or structural (class) means, and restrictions, deliberate language planning by governments having to do with power, hegemony, and dominance. Structural and authoritative agencies takes a backward step, as the more constraints can block understanding of inequality, leading then flexible concept of language policy began to overtake the field. to ideology. And he signals that language is an arena for struggle, since social groups exercise power through it. Tollefson adds: “Language policy is a form of disciplinary power. Its success From Language Planning to Language Policy depends in part upon the ability of the state to structure into the institutions of society the differentiation of individuals into In 1989, Robert Cooper published his influential book, Language ‘insider’ and ‘outsiders’” (Tollefson, 1991: 207). Thus, Tollefson Planning and Social Change. With the now classic question, “What posits an alternative conception of language policy referring to actors attempt to influence what behaviors of which people for both