Language Policy Evaluation and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages by François Grin (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS Language Policy Evaluation and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan? guages. By Franc/OIS Grin. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2003. ?55. xii + 281 pp. ISBN 1-4039-0032-9. After an introductory section that considers the nature of language policy, the second part of Grin's book presents the history and main features ofthe European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the practical problems that the member states intending to sign it may encounter. The third part begins by discussing the nature of policy as distinct from political and legal issues. According to Grin, language policy needs to be linked to the practical results of the measures that are adopted to safeguard regional or minority languages. A good policy meets three main criteria: effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and democracy, in particular participatory democracy. These three principles are then applied to a 'walk-through example' (p. 17), that ofeducation, since this 'is arguably the single most important area ofintervention in language policies and one in which states must step in, in compliance with the undertakings to which they subscribe as parties to the Charter' (p. 164). The final part offersa general conclusion in which Grin underlines the importance of the link between policy measures on the one hand and their outcomes on the other. He urges language-planning bodies to assess whether a policy has achieved the positive results expected. Four appendices contain the text of the European Charter, the Explanatory Report on this charter, the Flensburg Recommendations on the Implementation ofPolicy Measures forRegional or Minority Languages, and a selection of Internet resources. Grin's study provides an innovative perspective since it creates a bridge between differentdisciplines: sociolinguistics, language law, policy analysis, and language eco? nomics or education economics. His goal is not to be exhaustive, but to guide readers to formulate their own model of language-policy implementation. Grin stresses the originality and flexibilityof the European Charter in comparison with other interna? tional instruments. Rather than suggesting specific measures for the safeguarding of regional or minority languages, he points out that a measure that is appropriate in one case may not be so in another. He also explores the commonalities in the problems faced by the formulators of language policies. Grin's book will thus be a very useful tool for those involved in designing language policy, since it enhances awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of differentoptions. University of Leeds Maria Chiara La Sala The Arrow of Love: Optics, Gender, and Subjectivity in Medieval Love Poetry. By Dana E. Stewart. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses. 2003. 186 pp. ?25.50. ISBN 0-8387-5480-5. This study considers how the human gaze is to be under stood, as employed in the love poetry of Chretien de Troyes, the poets of the Sicilian School, Cavalcanti, and Dante. The focus of interest is the way in which the gaze constructs subjectivity and gender roles and the use made by poets of contemporary optical theory for these purposes. In the realm of optical theory the relevant distinction is between theories of the Stoic/Galenic type, that regard sight as an activity of the eye, whose pneuma effectsvision by affectingthe pneuma of the air that lies between the eye and the ob? ject of vision, and those of the Aristotelian type, that consider the eye to be an organ forthe passive reception of the forms of objects that affectthe eye by actualizing the transparency ofthe intervening air. This choice oftheories provides poets with means ...