Ettien Koffi: Paradigm Shift in Language Planning and Policy: Game-Theoretic Solutions

Abstract

Koffi’s ambitious volume suggests that Game Theory can explain decisions that the colonials enacted regarding education language policies in Sub-Saharan Africa and that this theory can predict the best outcome in his case study of policy for Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). Also, such predictions would hold for policies in those African urban ‘‘megacities’’ that show an ethnolinguistic equilibrium (i.e., no single indigenous LWC (language of wider communication)). I admire him for his ambition in trying to provide language policy researchers with a set of theoretical propositions and for his ingenuity in proposing Game Theory as relevant to explaining policy decisions affecting education. Yes, some aspects of Game Theory seem applicable to informing policy choices in Africa. As in games, education policy planners pick a strategy (make a decision) that produces a clear outcome. But Game Theory generally involves a very limited number of players who must make quick and clear cut decisions that are based on what they know about the other players and their decisions, as in the famous Prisoner’s Dilemma that involves only two players. In Africa, the players are not so few; in fact, Koffi comes up with 42 players in most nations, from missionaries to colonial administrators to rural, uneducated Africans. Further, how much the different players know may vary considerably in the African setting. Still, as in Game Theory, they are presented with choices that not just depend on what they know, but more on their level of commitment to the positions they hold. But unlike players in Game Theory, few of the African players in the past—and even today—have participated in making decisions in ‘‘the language game’’ (or have been allowed to do so). Further, it is an open question whether objectively-based information about the knowledge and opinions of past or current players in Africa exists. Yet Kofi assigns numbers indicating players’ commitments to their positions and how they stand in comparison with other players. In this way, he arrives at