Language Policy Issues Research Articles

Sabiedrības zināšanu nozīme Latvijas valodas politikas īstenošanā

In the Guidelines of the State Language Policy of the Republic of Latvia (2021–2027), in addition to the legal, pedagogical and linguistic aspects of the language policy, a significant role is allocated to measures for public knowledge and awareness of languages and their coexistence. The level of knowledge of society plays an essential role in the process of formation of language attitudes, as it includes both factual information and the accumulated experience of the personality and understanding of how language is used and perceived in society. Society must understand the objectives of the language policy in order to be involved in its implementation and to ensure the compliance of the language policy with the interests of society. From the point of view of language policy, it would be particularly important to include questions of general linguistics in the curriculum at all levels of education. This would positively affect not only the individual’s language skills but also the understanding of language functions in society, the problems of language contacts and the basic principles of language policy. However, for the time being, the formal education system does not provide this, so systemic information about language policy guidelines and their scientific basis is an urgent task. A sufficient knowledge base will also ensure meaningful public involvement in the development and implementation of language policy, which is one of the basic principles of the functioning of a democratic society. The openness and responsibility of state institutions for the development and implementation of language policy is important, ensuring that the public is informed about the policy-making process and its results. State institutions must provide opportunities for the public to submit their proposals, reviews and comments on language policy issues. The mentioned questions are relevant for the entire Latvian society in a much wider context of language use, therefore opportunities have been identified to change the model of the linguistic behaviour of the society by strengthening the rational component of the language attitudes in order to ensure the priority use of the Latvian language.

Written Ladakhi and the Future of Ladakh’s Culture

This study explores Written Ladakhi and the future of Ladakh’s culture in the newly formed Union Territory of Ladakh, India. The Ladakhi language is at a critical pivotal period. Its survival in the next two generations depends directly on the introduction of the Ladakhi language in its written form in the educational system. Using written Ladakhi for real communication is the key to survival. Spoken Ladakhi is still widely used in the home and in public, as well as at formal events, All India Radio Leh, television, and millions of audio and video recordings on social media and internet sites. However, because Ladakhi is not used in schools, the next generation is likely to find other languages more suitable for daily use, and the language is on the verge of extinction. Historically, no doubt, Ladakh and several other regions of the Indian Himalayas have shared a common literary heritage with Tibet. The Ladakhi language and culture have immense potential for development: it is shared by Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and others; the culture is valued by many non-local Indians and tourists; and it houses a major monument of world literature, the Kesar Epic. Therefore, an effort is being made in the present article to highlight the existing written corpus in Ladakhi and provide some information about the differences between literary varieties present in the region, and some language policy issues facing the Ladakhi language, its survival and potential development.

Language policy and linguistic landscapes in the internationalization of a non-Anglophone university

PurposeInternationalization strategies that have been issued for a decade affect non-Anglophone higher education institutions (HEIs) in the clash of importance in preserving national language or using international languages. One of the observable objects of this dilemma is the inconsistent language display of universities’ public signages as a linguistic landscape (LL). To address these issues, the presence of language policy is urgent unless the preservation of the national language is no longer the responsibility of HEIs. However, rigorous discussion about language policy in non-Anglophone HEIs remains limited. This study aims to address the gap by providing a critical analysis of the existing language policy documents in an Indonesian higher education institution that has a multilingual environment and its effect on the LL.Design/methodology/approachThis case study used document analysis and LL analysis. The setting was an Islamic university in Indonesia that represents the trial importance of building religious identity, preserving the national language and engaging with international demands. The data were collected from National Law Enforcement websites, which provided various national policy documents and the institutional documents that were retrieved from the university website by using the document analysis method by Bowen (2009). The secondary data were 216 visual images of public signage in an Islamic university in Indonesia as the representation of multilingual phenomena. The additional data were gathered from a pilot interview with a lecturer and a student.FindingsThis study found that both the national government and institutional administration in Indonesia do not have a language policy that regulates LLs or language preferences in public places for HEIs. The university tends to solely refer to international accreditation policy by using either bilingual English-Indonesian or monolingual English in the public signage. However, the limited use of the Arabic language in specific venues such as mosques and musallas shows that Arabic serves neither as symbolic identity nor communicative functions.Research limitations/implicationsThis study sets a single case study in an Islamic university, and the policy documents were limited to the Indonesian Government and institutions as the representation of non-Anglophone countries. Further studies are expected to have a bigger and larger size of data and settings.Practical implicationsThis study implies that non-Anglophone countries’ governments should start to design and enforce a language policy that preserves national language and facilitates major national and international language communities, such as Thai, Arabic, Javanese and Malay, without being absent in international competitive labeling. A practical implication for religion-based and cultural-based universities is that the function of their Holy Book or local languages can be used as communicative functions to strengthen the religious and local identity.Social implicationsThis study implies that non-Anglophone countries’ governments should start to design and enforce a language policy that preserves their national language without being absent in international competitive labeling.Originality/valueGiven the fact that there is limited awareness to bring the discussion about LL patterns into language policy issues in non-Anglophone countries, this study was originally conducted as a case study to pilot the discussion about the absence of language policy as represented through LLs in Indonesia. This case study was brought up as a pilot discussion to urge non-Anglophone countries lawmakers to issue language policy at the university level. This message is meant to respond to internationalization programs that can potentially jeopardize the existence of the linguistic and cultural diversity of non-Anglophone countries.

Языковое планирование в Японии с середины XIX до начала XXI века

The article examines language planning in Japan from the second half of the XIX century to the beginning of the XXI century. It analyzes changes in the linguistic situation, identifies the key actors of language planning, as well as legislative acts of the Japanese government that turned various elements of language planning into an organized system of state policy. Special attention is focused on the Meiji era and language reforms after World War II, when changes to the Japanese language were stimulated by powerful popular movements. At other times, as well as at present, language planning has been under strict control of the Japanese government and has been primarily limited to its language policy. Additionally, the article provides a brief overview of language planning and policy issues in Japan on occupied territories during World War II. It also highlights the key features of the contemporary linguistic situation and the current tasks of language policy and planning in Japan in the XXI century.

English as a subtle technology of distraction in postcolonial contexts: undoing linguistic colonialism by linguistic coloniality

ABSTRACT This paper discusses how the political interplay between English-in-society and English-in-education policy in the Global South(s) facilitates what I term ‘English as a subtle technology of policy distraction’ in postcolonial spheres that were colonised by languages other than English. ‘English as a subtle technology of policy distraction’ is conceptualised and operationalised as a theoretical and analytical framework through which current issues in language planning and policy within postcolonial contexts where colonial languages such as French, Spanish, Russian and German, etc function as the first or second language are framed, justified, enacted, contested and critically examined. I unpack how the state, politicians, officials and stakeholders make use of the political instrumentalization of English to assign credibility to their discourses that overshadow the core issues and root causes of the crises in the Moroccan education sector such as contract teachers, lack of infrastructure, classroom crowdedness and successive unsuccessful reforms. Political instrumentalization enables scholars to deconstruct the process of gaining access to the political implications of a technical subject (language in education) and its intersection with wider social problems (coloniality, dependency, insufficient quality of education …) which previously had not been treated politically.

Ukraine, language policies and liberalism: a mixed second act

AbstractThis article analyses Ukraine’s language policies from 2002 to 2022 within a framework of liberalism, while avoiding making normative judgements or recommendations, updating the discussion raised in Kymlicka and Opalski’s Can Liberal Pluralism be Exported? The analysis takes into consideration Ukraine’s present and historic position, including the challenge that postcolonial nation building can pose for achieving liberalism and linguistic justice. The paper focuses on three main areas of language policy: education, businesses and media, and assesses if they can be described as liberal orthodox, pluralist or illiberal. The article begins by defining liberalism and illiberalism, discussing the context of Ukraine’s linguistic diversity and postcolonial context, before outlining the language situation until EuroMaidan. Then, the main issue of language policy in the areas of education, business and media is analysed, before considering whether Ukrainian language laws might be considered liberal or illiberal. Finally, potential future trajectories are outlined.

Comparative legal analysis of language use regulation in Ukraine and European countries

The article analyses the functioning of the State language in the public authorities and local self-government bodies of Ukraine, pays attention to the ensuring by the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, local and appellate courts of the rights of a person who does not know the State language or speaks sign language, considers the implementation of functions by civil servants to ensure fundamental human rights and freedoms, and also examines the issue of observance of the fundamental language rights of national minorities in Ukraine, in particular in the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, for review. A comparative analysis of the functioning of state languages in European countries was also carried out. The author examines the use of the state language when submitting appeals, emphasising that from now on, the Law of Ukraine «On Administrative Procedure» is the legal act regulating the language of citizens’ appeals, according to which a person may submit the necessary documents for the proceedings in the state or another language, but in this case, the person is obliged to translate the appeal into Ukrainian. Cases of conflicts between the old and new legislation in the field of filing appeals are identified. The author analyses the regulatory and legal ways to ensure the implementation of functions in such public spheres as education, science, culture, sports, labour relations, television and radio broadcasting, print media, book publishing and distribution, advertising, healthcare, office work, and document management.
 The author focuses on the legal framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in terms of protection of the rights of national and ethnic minorities. The author examines the issues of language policy in different countries, in particular in Spain, Switzerland and France, and in the context of protection of the rights of national and ethnic minorities, and concludes that the trend in most European countries is to try to balance the protection of minority rights and preserve linguistic diversity in the context of each country. The author emphasises that the State language plays a crucial role in the formation of the nation and the functioning of the State, primarily through its communicative, identification, ethnic and other functions.

До питання мовної політики та мовного планування на Закарпатті в період першої Чехословацької Республіки

Issues of language policy and language planning in Transcarpathia during the first Czechoslovak Republic The concepts of state language, official language, and minority language do not have a generally accepted definition in international law. In Central and Eastern Europe, the state language is usually the language of the majority of the population of a particular country, in which it also serves as the official language. In interwar Czechoslovakia, the 1920 Language Law allowed the use of the language of the Slavic population, which constituted the absolute majority in the territory of Transcarpathia, as the official language in administration, office work, culture and education, granting the region's Slavs a greater degree of political, cultural and linguistic autonomy than they had ever enjoyed. But this linguistic freedom also brought practical problems to the surface. First of all, during this period there were three standard versions of the language adopted as the official language of the region. This article analyses the attitudes of the state and local intellectuals towards these language variants. Keywords: language policy, language planning, official language, language variants, Transcarpathia, the period between the two world wars

Hungarian as a minority and majority language in different language policy contexts

ABSTRACT This study primarily focuses on the situation of Hungarians in minority situations in relation to language varieties, i.e. it interprets the various language policy issues primarily in the context of the Hungarian-speaking community, rather than in the context of Hungary, where the place, role and relationship between standard and non-standard language dialects play a prominent role. In most cases, the preservation of Hungarian identity is equivalent to the preservation of non-standard language varieties, in relation to which several language policy and language planning issues arise. The aim of the study is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to provide an up-to-date overview of the language policy situation of the Hungarian language and the Hungarian language community, especially with regard to the Hungarian autochthonous minority of about 3 million people who live in the countries neighbouring Hungary. On the other hand, the study describes the language policy role of dialects and the related attitudes from the perspective of the entire Hungarian language community, addressing the macro-, meso- and micro-level language planning possibilities.

Language legislation in the era of independence: sociolinguistic dimension

The objective of the paper is to examine the sociolinguistic dimension of language legislation in Ukraine. The study focuses on the impact of the “language issue” on Ukrainian society in the context of war as well as to analyse linguistic representations, ideologies, and attitudes and their impact on the linguistic behaviour of Ukrainians. A resource for activating interpersonal solidarity and resistance to the enemy, and for modulating the manifestation of individual positions in macrosociological and political relations that may arise in the process of interaction. With the help of a critical approach to the theoretical guidelines of the study the role of language legislation in shaping language policy and regulating the use of languages in various spheres of life is analysed. The issues of linguistic equality, diglossia, and language policy in relation to minority languages are considered. The most important issue of the paper is that the language legislation of the independence era in Ukraine is of great importance for the sociolinguistic development of society. In times of war, it affects language processes, language policy, and the total transition to the state language. Excluding the language of the enemy, however, does not mean levelling all languages. It is important to strike a balance between protecting the language rights of citizens and preserving linguistic diversity in the country.

Культурная политика тюркоязычных стран Центральной Азии

The paper presents the results of a study of the modern cultural policy of the Turkic-speaking countries of Central Asia. Having studied the regulatory framework of the countries of Central Asia regarding the issues of cultural construction and language policy, the author identifies the achievements and problem areas of the Turkic-speaking countries of Central Asia in the development of education, theatrical art, museum and library work. The study used interdisciplinary and cultural approaches and methods of content analysis of legal documents, official websites of various ministries of the countries under study, statistical and archival documents that are in the public domain. The theoretical basis of the study was the scientific works of domestic and foreign authors: Borishpolets K. P., Vakhtina N. B., Raikova G. A., Saparova N. D., Tsai I. K., Khalmuradov R. I., Tsyryapkina Yu. N., et al. The empirical basis of the study was personal observations obtained in Kazakhstan in connection with conducting master classes and working as a member of the jury of student competitions, interviews with students from Central Asian countries studying at the Adyghe State University, as well as materials from the Internet resources of the countries of Central Asia.

Multilingual COVID-19 linguistic landscape in Berehove

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought severe changes to people’s lives and has influenced all aspects of our being. The most common attribute of these changes is that we had to comply with regulations that we had not experienced before, use words and phrases that might have been previously unknown to us. Tour daily rhythm was radically transformed. The measures taken to stop the epidemic and the social effects of the pandemic have been examined in many forms. In our paper, we focus on a multilingual town in Transcarpathia, namely Berehove. The results of our longitudinal study, the trends that emerge from the data, can be projected not only on the city, but also on its agglomeration and other settlements that are inhabited by Hungarian speakers. In the linguistic landscape of Berehove, a multiethnic town in the westernmost part of Ukraine, a number of new signs have appeared after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which are an excellent reflection of the multilingual nature in the region and the municipality. In our study, we present the geosemiotic characteristics of the signs, announcements on epidemiological restrictions and warnings published in public places in Berehove. We also investigate whether the advertisements, inscriptions and symbols were made on the official or private level (top-down / bottom-up). The photographic data was collected in the course of two years (2020–2021) and clearly shows the ever-changing multilingual landscape of the territory, and the alternations of different waves of the pandemic. International literature finds it important to advocate for the appearance of multiple languages as regards to the linguistic landscape of the virus, precisely because linguistic tolerance towards minorities in a hard times like the previous years of constant lockdowns, financial and heath crises, is not only a language policy issue, but also related to health policy. Linguistic landscape, even in these times is not only a reflection of a territory’s ethnolinguistic and ethno-demographical composition but is shaped issues of language policy, cultural legacies, language dynamics and attitudes.

Young Scholars Conference “Slavic World: Community and Diversity”. Moscow, 23–24 May 2023. Section “Linguistics”

Young scholars from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Smolensk, Kazan, Minsk (Republic of Belarus), Budapest (Hungary) took part in the “Linguistics” section. A wide range of topical issues of Slavic linguistics were discussed in four thematic sessions. The first was devoted to contact linguistics and language policy issues. The results of field and corpus research were presented. The speakers paid special attention to issues of epigraphy in ethnically mixed regions. Language policy in Upper Silesia after World War II was also discussed. The analysis of the accent system of the Upper Sorbian language and the study of contact phenomena in the Czech language were based on corpus material. The next session brought together reports that developed the problems of ethnolinguistics and toponymy of Slavic areas. The features of the folk culture of the Macedonians, Bulgarians, and Eastern Slavs were highlighted. Chinese folk ideas about the crane were presented against the background of associations that arise in connection with this bird among modern Belarusians. On the second day of the conference, issues of grammar, lexicology and pragmatics were discussed. Borrowings in the Czech and Bulgarian languages were examined, the pragmatics of the headlines of the modern Polish press were analyzed, archaic and innovative phenomena in the system of Slovenian clitics were discussed, strategies were proposed to help the teacher of the Russian language in a Serbian-speaking audience explain the correspondences between Russian and Serbian verbs of speech. The final session was devoted to the language of written and printed documents, as well as the diachronic study of the semantics of some lexemes. The features of the Slavic translation of the life of St. Gregory of Sinai, the graphic and orthographic features of the Apostolus Christinopolitanus of the 12th century were discussed in detail, and a strategy for studying biblical quotations in Church Slavonic grammars of the 16th–17th centuries was proposed. Versions of the origin of the adjective “хороший” (“good”) and the adverb “зря” (“in vain”) were also analyzed. Active discussion of reports within the framework of discussions in the hall and during informal communication between sessions indicates the relevance of the scientific event.

ANALYSIS OF THE TOOLS USED IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EFFECTIVE LANGUAGE POLICY

Language and language policy exist in very complex, interacting and dynamic contexts, the change of any part of which can have correlating effects and reasons for changing any other part. In the conditions of language competition, great prospects will remain for those languages that can meet the challenges of the time and the modern development of science and technology, systematically improve machine translation and adapt teaching methods and methodology of language acquisition and that will be in demand by a modern linguistic personality - active, dynamic, expressive, pragmatic. Currently, the preservation and development of the language does not happen spontaneously: the success of any state largely depends on the consistent systematic language policy being developed and the roadmap developed on its basis for the preservation and development of the language and languages both in the external circuit and within the state itself. This article discusses the issues of Russian language policy, describes the features of the developing language situation and its impact on the processes of language modernization. The purpose of the study is to present some guidelines and proposals for a general analytical framework, an assessment of the relative effectiveness and various ways of managing the state language policy.

Language policy in the internationalisation of Higher Education in Anglophone countries: The interplay between language policy as ‘text’, ‘discourse’ and ‘practice’

Abstract In order to better compete in an increasing neoliberalised education system, many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have developed an internationalisation strategy that aims at incorporating an intercultural and global dimension into curricula and learning environments for all. This internationalisation agenda raises important language policy issues that are often side-lined in the UK and other Anglophone countries where an English monolingual ethos prevails. Centrally, the question arises indeed as to whether internationalisation processes have an impact on HEIs’ language policies in Anglophone countries. This paper takes the case of a Russell Group University in the UK and focuses on two masters programmes that attract annually a ‘multilingual elite’ (Barakos and Selleck 2019). It examines the institution’s language policy adopted at the levels of ‘texts’, ‘discourses’ and ‘practices’ (Bonacina-Pugh 2012), using a critical discourse analysis of policy documents and a conversation analysis of classroom interactions. We argue that language policy is at the core of HEIs’ internationalisation processes even in Anglophone countries and that, methodologically, the articulation of findings from critical discourse and conversational analyses represents a step forward in the field of language policy.

Introduction to the Special Issue

Recent years have seen increased attention to the need for promoting diversity and inclusion in language education. A recent special issue of ELT Journal, for example, was devoted to an exploration of the importance of creating educational environments that are inclusive of different identities that relate to gender and sexuality (Banegas & Evripidou, 2021). Around the same time, a special issue of the Forum of another leading journal of the field, TESOL Quarterly, focused on the notion of ableism. In the words of the guest editor Subtirelu (2021, p. 670), the issue was “intended to explore how concepts of what ‘normal’ abilities are or should be make English language teaching inaccessible, ineffective, or oppressive for many students”. In this special issue of TESL-EJ, we focus on Global Englishes and translanguaging, two areas that have attracted much recent interest and efforts as ways to advance the agenda of diversity and inclusion in language education. As expressed in the initial call for papers for this special issue, a major aim of the special issue is to engage in and promote exchanges which offer insights into how language learning and teaching based on the spirit of Global Englishes and translanguaging: 1. acknowledges the strengths and talents of all students; 2. promotes student engagement, agency, and voice; 3. contributes to the acceptance and celebration of different language backgrounds, cultures, beliefs, and values of students; 4. suggests a change of the teacher role in the classroom; and 5. encourages a rethink about issues of materials design, language assessment, curriculum development, teacher education, and language policy.

Csernicskó, István – Kornélia Hires-László – Zoltán Karmacsi – Anita Márku – Réka Máté – Enikő Tóth-Orosz 2020 Ukrainian language policy gone astray: The Law of Ukraine “On Supporting the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language” (analytical overview)

The review deals with current language policy issues, analysing the Law of Ukraine “On Supporting the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language” adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 2019(URL1). The volume, written by Transcarpathian Hungarian linguists, begins with a foreword by Petteri Laihonen, in which he notes that language policy in Ukraine is largely charged with emotions and passions, and that while the language legislation was being drafted, news of fist fights in the Kyiv parliament's chamber were spreading around the world.

Presidential Address

This presidential address raises issues in language policy of Nepal regarding multiple official languages in the government business. Implementation of this policy requires language of record and a group of government staff to work on different languages. By creating jobs for hundreds of linguists, this solution addresses the university officials' concern about decreasing number of students in linguistics.

Measuring Linguistic Diversity: A Multi-level Metric

This paper proposes a novel approach to the measurement of linguistic diversity. Drawing on the ecological literature, it proposes an adaptation to languages of the classic distinction between “alpha” (intra-setting), “beta” (inter-setting) and “gamma” (system-level) diversity. We begin by discussing some of the general challenges raised by the measurement of diversity. We review received approaches to the measurement of diversity resting on the concepts of richness and evenness, highlighting some limitations that come to the fore when comparing the respective diversity of different settings and systems. In order to overcome some of these limitations, we adapt the concept of “numbers equivalent” to linguistic diversity measurement indices. On this basis, we derive a multi-level approach to diversity measurement. We provide numerical examples to highlight the properties of this model before discussing its application to language policy issues.

Translanguaging and decolonizing LPP: a case study of translingual practice in Macau

AbstractThe present paper aims to explore how the critical lens of translanguaging can shed new light on the decolonizing language policy and planning (LPP) issues in Macau. As an illustration, we analyze the Chinese translation of a Portuguese poem,Viola Chinesa, in tandem with the visual art piece by the contemporary Chinese artist Xu Bing’s Square Word calligraphy tailored-made for Macau. In particular, we argue that the visual art piece by Xu Bing represents a visual and ideological turn of translanguaging that creates a hybrid piece of calligraphy to reverse the imagery orientalism reflected in the original Portuguese poem. By physically tracing the alphabets through the characters, viewers can gain an embodied translingual experience, which encompasses the ideological negotiation that transcends the Portuguese language dominance. In this boundary-breaking artwork, we can discern the deterritorialization of the unequal language and ideology dominance. Above all, it is concluded that the emerging translanguaging as a political and decolonizing stance provides new insights to renegotiate with fossilized values and beliefs, which in return, contribute to the decolonizing LPP of Macau.