Model Of Language Policy Research Articles

Language policy and language learning in Macedonia. Which lessons may be adopted from the Swiss model?

This paper also investigates Switzerland's multilingual and multicultural society, which serves as a successful and positive example of how a nation can deal with a multilingual population and the integration of its population. With this in mind, the question is raised here whether the model of Switzerland's language policy and national language instruction can perhaps also serve as an example for the Republic of Macedonia.

Decentralisation and language policy: local municipalities' role in language education policies. Insights from Denmark and Estonia

The present article contributes to attempts to re-conceptualise the top-down perspective on language policy, by analysing the role of local and city governments' agency in language education policy making. Only few studies analyse the role of lower administrative levels in language policy, other than in implementation of governmental policies, why their policy appropriations are seen as policy deviations. Language policy researchers have however recognised that local governments can, due to the regional or local character of some language education problems, also be given a more active role in policy making. My claim is that in order to do so, the analysis has to be based on a conceptual framework that sees language policy developments as part of the general democratisation and decentralisation processes in society. The article therefore also problematises attempts to analyse and make sense of language policy developments separately from political and economic transitions of society. Based on Giddens' structuration theory and language governance studies, I will analyse how two different language policy models in Estonia and Denmark – in terms of allocation of resources and authority – frame local municipalities' opportunity for agency in language education policy matters.

Family language policy and heritage language maintenance of Malacca Portuguese Creole

One of the key drivers for maintaining the use of a heritage language is its use in the family domain. Within this context, this paper examines the role of family language policy (FLP) in relation to an endangered language, Malacca Portuguese Creole (MPC). Five families in the Portuguese Settlement in Malacca were interviewed about their family language policies. Based on Spolsky’s (2004) language policy model, two areas of FLP were examined: language ideology and language practice. The results indicate that although there is a general sense of MPC being an ethnic and cultural identity marker for the Portuguese Eurasians, this is not directly translated into the transmission of the language in the family domain.

Family language policies among Albanian immigrants in Greece

This article reports on an investigation of family language policies among 37 Albanian immigrant families in Northern Greece within the framework of Spolsky's language policy model. Data collection was based on semi-directed interviews with parents which were analysed using both content and discourse analysis. According to our findings, three groups of families were observed in our sample. A small number of families (n=4) did not transmit the ethnic language to their children and showed no interest in maintaining ties with the homeland. In another group of families (n=12) positive attitudes towards ethnic language maintenance were accompanied by specific language management efforts and language practices in support of the ethnic language. However, the majority of our informants (n=21) did not engage in such efforts, even though they, too, expressed positive attitudes towards Albanian language maintenance. We argue that although most immigrant parents may share positive attitudes towards ethnic language maintenance, they may differ as to whether they embrace bilingualism as an asset or accept the dominant ideology according to which the simultaneous development of two languages may hinder the development of the majority language.

The Jacobin Republic and Language Rights. Ethnolinguistic Mobilizations in France

France is usually considered as the symbol of cultural unification and homogeneity. It is commonly (and, in part, correctly) assumed that the process of political centralization in France profoundly shaped the language preferences of citizens. Nevertheless, sociological surveys reveal a tension between the Jacobin Republican drive for uniformity and a more fine-grained empirical reality in the field of the governance of regional languages. Through the comparison of three case studies (Corsica, Brittany and Picardy), this paper reveals that the defence of lesser-used languages and regional dialects has produced an asymmetrical form of ethnolinguistic mobilization by social movements and political parties, which has been more or less credible depending on processes of institutionalization, actor-accommodation and the official recognition of the lesser-used language in question. Through focusing on the specific case of regional languages, the article leads us to examine not only the recent transformations of the French language policy model, but also to reconsider the nature of the contemporary French state.

El debate sobre la identidad o identidades en Marruecos: Estratificación vs. Dinámicas de cambio

This article examines the sociolinguistic dynamics of change and identity in Morocco and the debate that takes place on the issue of the construction and legitimacy of the Moroccan national identity. The analysis focuses on the importance of language and identity axis and its relationship to the unitary nation state model implemented in Morocco since independence until now. The article presents also a review of landscape identity from the sociolinguistic point of view and how that landscape has evolved over the last fifty years, creating a dynamic market of change in language and identity in Morocco. Finally, the article presents a critical evaluation of the model of language policy and identity of the Moroccan State, proposing a different model according to these dynamics of change currently taking place. The approach from which frames this analysis is the sociolinguistic critic and historical discourse.

Family Language Policy: A Case Study of a Russian-Hebrew Bilingual Family: Toward a Theoretical Framework

This article presents an in-depth, small-scale qualitative study of a Hebrew-Russian bilingual family with 8 children, and compares the parents' perspective on the family language policy with their children's evaluation of it. Spolsky's (2004, 2009) model of language policy enables tracing the development of the parents' language ideology and management, and unveils discrepancies between the parents' conscious efforts to transmit the heritage language and the actual language practice in the family. The study also refers to a structural contact-linguistic analysis (Myers-Scotton, 2002) of the child-parent bilingual discourse and its implications for family language policy. In the practical aspect, the results of the case study may be instructive to minority parents committed to maintenance of a heritage language in their families.

Exploring the Relationship between Family Language Policy and Heritage Language Knowledge Among Second Generation Russian–Jewish Immigrants in Israel

The family unit and home domain have been and remain important in heritage language maintenance efforts. There are complex relationships between parental language attitudes, their application in everyday language management activities and the children's knowledge of home language vocabulary. The present large-scale study examined the family policy factors affecting first language (L1) maintenance among second generation Russian–Jewish immigrants in Israel in light of Spolsky's (2004) model of language policy. Participants in the study were 70 Russian–Hebrew-speaking children with a mean age of 7,2 (years, months). After investigating the factors that influence Russian vocabulary knowledge, I constructed a composite measure of Russian lexical knowledge. In addition, structured questionnaires for parents and children were developed to collect data on language policy at home. The results attest to the crucial role of teaching literate L1 in both family and non-formal educational settings and to the children's positive approach toward home language acquisition. A range of non-linguistic factors (demographic, social and cultural) creates a favourable background for the survival of the heritage language among emigrants. At the same time, the data reveal inconsistencies in language policy at home and a tendency toward the co-existence of the first and second languages.

Standard English: Discordant Voices

Standard English, belonging as it does to the optimistic rationality of the Enlightenment, has reached the nadir of all grand meta‐narratives, of being quotation marked. This fate may rile liberal humanists such as Randolph Quirk (1985: 6: ‘I hold that the stated or implied orthodoxy of regarding the term “standard” as fit only for quotation marks is a trahison des clercs’). But of course liberal humanists do not (yet?) accept that it is time to surrender to post modernism. If they do, then the relativizing of Standard English (as of other languages) seems inevitable: Lyotard (1984) reminds us that the post‐modern age is characterised by a loss of faith in all grand meta‐narratives, while Hobsbawm (1994) epigrammatizes that all postmodernisms ‘tended to a radical relativism’. This relativizing push has four major sources:1. the general attack on all Enlightenment certainties;2. the political (Marxist and feminist) critique against hegemony (‘what passes for standard so‐called correct English is not what is spoken by millions of people, Black or white, but what a small group of often unprincipled people speak’ (Smitherman, cited in Kramarae and Treichler, 1985: 431);3. the argument from diffusion – with the global spread of English, how many standard Englishes are there? One consequence has been the claim that English language tests are unfair because they use Standard English or an inappropriate Standard English;4. linguists' claim that all languages are equal, the very trahison des clercs that Quirk refers to.Honey's (1997) defence of Standard English against its enemies turns the apophthegm ‘language is power’ on its head by arguing that Standard English does not disempower the weak, as its critics maintain, but rather empowers them. The status of the native speaker is examined in relation to the standardisation claims of the New Englishes and International English and it is then argued that in the institutional settings in which applied linguistics operates, the imperative to make decisions with regard to language policy, curriculum planning, text‐book and examination models etc. means that the lack of clarity about Standard English does not diminish its authority.

Can a Three-tier Language Policy Model Work in Tanzania? A New Perspective

Can a Three-tier Language Policy Model Work in Tanzania? A New Perspective