Top-down and bottom-up approaches to language planning.

Language Planning and Policy, BBI 5102, Take Home Exam- Bilal H. Yaseen
Topic/2: Top-down and bottom-up approaches to language planning.
Language planning is official, government-level activity concerning the selection and promotion of a
unified administrative language or languages. It represents a coherent effort by individuals, groups, or
organizations to influence language use or development. (Cobarrubias, J., and Fishman, J. (Eds.). (1983).
There are three aspects of policy: Context, text and consequences.
1- Context: Refers to the antecedents and pressures leading to the development of a specific policy. This
requires an analysis of the economic, social and political factors that give rise to an issue emerging on the
policy agenda. However, it goes beyond this and includes a study of the role played by pressure groups and
social movements that may have forced policy makers to respond to the issue in the first place. At this point it
is important to understand how the policy may relate to previous policy experience to what extent does it
build on, or break with, previous policy? Clearly, an analysis of context can take place at any level. Policies at
the state or institutional level (or indeed anywhere in between), will have their own context and including this
within the analysis is vital if the aim is to build up as full a picture as possible of the policy process.
2- Text: Broadly refers to the content of the policy itself. How is the policy articulated and framed? What
does the policy aim to do? What are the values contained within the policy? Are these explicit, or implicit?
Does the policy require action, if so what and by whom? It may be worth highlighting that analysis of the
policy text is not a simple and straightforward activity. There is considerable scope for interpretation, even in
the most explicit of policies, and it is as important to identify the ‘silences’ (what is not stated) as well as what
is clearly and openly articulated.
3- Consequences: If policy texts are open to differing interpretation by practitioners then this is also likely to
result in differences in implementation.
Such differences will then be magnified as the unique conditions prevailing in each institution further shape
the implementation of the policy. Distortions and gaps appear in the implementation process, resulting in what
is best described as ‘policy refraction’.
Taylor et al.’s (1997) analytical framework focusing the context, text and consequences of policy offers a
model for policy analysis, in order to understand more fully how educational policy shapes and is shaped by
the actions of those who have the responsibility for implementing it, further dimensions need to be added to
this analytical framework. These take account of both how the content of policy emerges from the economic,
social and political factors that give rise to an issue, explore more fully the consequences of policy and focus
in more on the processes of moving from policy formulation to policy in practice.
Models are summarized and subsumed in Hornberger’s (2006) six dimensional framework, which divides Language
Planning and Policy (LPP) into three types: Status (about the uses of language), Acquisition (about the users of
language), and Corpus (about language). Each of these types of L.P.P can take a formal focus (policy planning) or a
functional focus (cultivation planning).
1

 There are FOUR Ideologies that impact upon language behavior and motivate the language
planning in the society:
Cobarrubias (1983) described four typical ideologies that may motivate and impact upon language
behavior in Language Planning in a particular society:
1- Linguistic Assimilation, 2- Linguistic Pluralism, 3- Vernacularization, 4- Internationalism
 Linguistic Assimilation: The belief that everyone, regardless of origin, should learn the dominant
language of the society.
Examples
- France applied this policy to various peoples within its borders.
- Russification in the former Soviet Union.
 Linguistic Pluralism: The recognition of more than one language, also takes a variety of forms.
- It can be territorially or individually based or there may be some combination of the two.
- It can be complete or partial, so that all or only some aspects of life can be conducted in more than one language
in society.
Examples are countries like Belgium, Canada, Switzerland.
 Vernacularization: The restoration or elaboration of an indigenous language and its adoption as an
official language
Examples
Hebrew in Israel.
Tagalog(or Pilipino) in the Philippines.
 Internationalism: The adoption of a non-indigenous language of wider communication either as an
official language or for such purposes, as education or trade.
Example
English in Malaysia. India, the Philippines.
As a result of planning decisions, a language can achieve one of a variety of statuses; language may be
recognized as the sole official language, as Bahasa Malaysia is in Malaysia. Two or more languages may
share official status in some countries, e.g. English and French in Canada and Cameroon and language may
also have official status but only on a regional basis, e.g. German in Belgium.
Planning decisions will obviously play a very large role in determining what happens to any minority
language or languages in a country, they can result in deliberate attempts to eradicate such a language, as with
Franco’s attempt to eliminate Basque from Spain by banning it from public life.
2

There are a variety of linguistic situations in the world to see some instances of planning:
- France serves as a good example of a country which has a single national language and does little or nothing
for any other language.
-The bilingualism of Belgium. Today, French and Flemis (Dutch) co-exist in a somewhat uneasy truce in
Belgium. The struggle between the French and the Flemish has a long history.
- Papua New Guinea, a nation of 700 or more indigenous languages some, possibly more than a third, with
fewer than 500 speakers, and this in a total population of approximately 4 million.
 Policies that account for language rights and keep the norms for official in order to protect the language
from fail needs to make the language in practice with sense of development by choosing a single language
as a norm for official, educational, and other purposes and a particular variety of a language or to
construct a new variety, considering such factors as formality, social class, regional dialect, and previous
literary use. Language planning efforts typically include several stages. The first stage is a needs analysis,
involving a sociopolitical analysis of communication patterns within the society. The next stages in the
language planning process involve the selection of a language or language variety for planning purposes.
These stages are sometimes referred to as "status planning" and include:
 Codification: The chosen language needs to be developed to meet the demands placed upon it as a
medium of national or international communication.
If the language has previously existed only in spoken form, or in an unusual writing system, an alphabet will
have to be devised, along with rules of spelling and punctuation.
An early aim will be the codification of the pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary to provide a set of norms
for standard use, especially if there is a great deal of local variation.
 Standardization: A unified variety of the language is established, if necessary.
 Modernization: The vocabulary will need to be modernized to enable foreign material to be translated
consistently. Principles will have to be agreed for the introduction of new terms; for example, should they
be loan words or coinages based on native roots? New styles of discourse may need to be developed, for
use on radio or in the press. Decisions will need to be made about new or uncertain usages, especially in
technical contexts.
 Implementation: The chosen standard will need to be officially implemented by using it for government
publications, in the media, and in schools.
It will be viewed as the ‘best’ form of language in the speech community, because it will be associated with
educational progress and social status. It will also provide the norm for literary style, and may be associated
with factors of a nationalistic, cultural, or religious kind.
In due course, it is likely to be promulgated as a norm through an official body, such as an academy, or
through prescriptive grammars, dictionaries, and manuals of usage.
3

 Elaboration: Any of a variety of developments, including expansion of vocabulary, expansion of stylistic
repertoire, and creation of type fonts, allows the language to function in a greater range of circumstances.
 Cultivation: The establishment of arbiters, such as dictionaries or language academies, maintains and
advances the status of the language. In addition to the establishment and implementation of changes
through status and corpus planning, evaluation and feedback provide a mechanism for determining how
well the language planning efforts are progressing. (Florian Coulmas. (1998)
Policies that fail to account for language rights, the problem should be in implementation: the
‘Achilles Heel’ of Language Policy.
The question of language policy implementation is one that is typically thought of as problematical
in some way, sometimes referred to as the Achilles Heel of language policy. Since the failure of a language
policy to have the outcomes that language planner’s wish, can often be attributed to poor implementation of
the policy. Frequently, language policy makers are novices at language planning, and tend to view it as
something that can be, or should be, easily implemented, a few broad strokes to give the basic outlines of the
policy, and one is done. However tend to see implementation as the most problematical area of language
planning, since it involves many details, deciding on concrete steps, the allocation of financial resources,
devising timetables for completion, evaluation, enforcement, and cross-checking, and it may also involve a
'long view' of the process that may not outlast the impatience of politicians seeking quick fixes for a problem.
Maybe it depends on who decides on language policy, Language policy often set (decreed, determined,
ordained) by amateurs in which novices at language planning: Hand down a few decrees, make grandiloquent
statements, promulgations, decrees and Sit back and expect things to just happen. (Harold F. Schiffman. 2006)
· Deciding on concrete steps.
· Allocation of financial resources.
· Devising timetables for completion, evaluation, enforcement, and cross-checking.
· Taking the 'long view' of the process (may not outlast the impatience of politicians seeking quick fixes for
a problem).
Example: Implementation failure in Singapore: The Tamil case: what are the issues?
Singapore’s languages: 77% Chinese, 14% Malay, 7 % of Indian origin, of this, 60% speak Tamil, i.e. 4% of
the population Egalitarian’ policy, but is it really? Can egalitarianism exist at this level?
Singapore in general: ‘economic’ policy, all languages taught use external norms thus in Tamil: Focus on
‘pure’ Tamil (rather than communicative skills) use of ‘Indian Tamil’ purist norms rather than spoken.
Singapore variety children sees little economic value for this variety. Mother tongues’ are used for ‘moral
education’ to prevent spread of amoral western values, Science, technology, other subjects are taught in
4

English, students become compartmentalized bilinguals English has more economic value, so Tamils (and
others too) allegiance shifts to English, students feel they don’t ‘own’ Tamil, it is the preserve of purists who
are never satisfied. All Singaporeans acquire Singlish (local variety of English) before they acquire ‘standard’
English, which is based on BANA norms BANA: British-Australian-North American Singaporeans view
Singlish as a marker of Singapore identity So the Gov’t of Singapore now wants to annihilate, ban, extirpate
Singlish, Gov’t of Singapore now attempting to get Singaporeans to abandon Singlish and ‘speak proper
English’. The policy on Tamil makes Singapore Tamils want to shift to English, but the Gov’t of Singapore
now trying to ban Singlish. Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing here?
Failure of Tamil policy, policy on Tamil lacks clear goals shared by all Policy has no timetable, or schedules
Policy lacks evaluation and enforcement metrics: No checking to see if goals are being met, no evaluation
metrics other than exit testing, no carrots, only sticks.
Example: Nicaragua: Small minority of coastal Creole speakers with problematic conception &
implementation of language rights on ethnic grounds. (Harold F. Schiffman.( 2006)
 The Media facilitate changing the language use in the society.
Mediatization is an important concept in modern sociology as it relates to the overriding process of
modernization of society, culture and language. The discipline of sociology was founded in conjunction with
the study of the breakthrough of modern society. Through the nineteenth century ‘media’ were not visible in
their own right; they were specific technologies and separate cultural phenomena, books, newspapers, the
telegraph, etc, each of which were instruments in the hands of other institutions, such as literature, science,
politics, commerce, etc. Only with the expansion of mass media in the twentieth century did the media begin
to be perceived as media in their own right, viz., as forms of communication that shared certain constitutive
characteristics and were of some consequence. North American sociology emerged in the 1930s, and there the
study of mass media, films, radio and newspapers played a central role in language and society for some brief
decades. Central figures like Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Robert Merton applied sociological
perspectives to the media, but then abandoned media in favor of other objects of study. Instead, in North
America and elsewhere specialized disciplines arose, Communication Research and Mass Communication
Research or Media Studies that focused singularly on the media and their role in culture, language and
society. In recent years, however, we have seen some steps toward rapprochement between the two
disciplines. Manuel Castells’ (2001) discussion of internet and the network society is an attempt to integrate a
media perspective into sociological theory. Likewise, from the Media Studies point of view, studies of
globalization have aroused interest in sociological and cultural analysis (Silverstone, 2006). The theory of
mediatization is an attempt to bring this rapprochement a step further. Mediatization is at once a societal
process that calls for dialogue between media scholars and sociologists, and a theoretical concept that can
only be understood through a combination of Sociology and Media Studies. Mediatization should be viewed
5

as a modernization process on a par with urbanization and individualization, whereby the media, in a similar
manner, both contribute to disembedding social relations from existing contexts and re-embedding them in
new social contexts.
One general effect of mediatization is a virtualization of social institutions. Earlier, the institutions
were more bound to specific places: politics took place in the parliament, city hall and meeting halls;
education took place in the schools and universities; and art was presented on the stage and in museums and
galleries. As a consequence of the intervention of media, individuals can take part in and partake of many
different social institutions, irrespective of their physical location.
Contact with politics occurs by reading the paper at the breakfast table, listening to one’s car radio, or
via internet at the office.
Virtualization of social institutions goes hand in hand with a domestication of those institutions. Typically, the
home and family are increasingly the point around which access to other institutions revolves. Newspapers,
radio and television have brought politics and cultural expression into the home; home offices have brought
paid employment into family life, and internet has made it possible to interact with entities in both public and
private spheres from the comfort of one’s home. On the one hand, all this implies an enrichment of home and
family as an institution in that other institutions are now accessible. On the other hand, the new accessibility
also changes the home and family, as family members may be physically present in the home, yet be mentally
attuned to other institutions entirely. The virtualization of institutions implies that the home loses some of its
ability to regulate family members’ behavior, and it is left to the individual to decide in which institution he or
she is taking part, and adjust his/her behavior accordingly. Institutional contexts are no longer defined by their
locus, but are a matter of individual choice. Virtualization, however, is seldom total; most institutions still
maintain physical-geographical bases as an important framework for social praxis.
What is new is that these places and buildings now interplay with virtual places and spaces, and the reality
and forms of interaction that take place in the virtual world will also have consequences for social praxis in
the physical locality. Altheide, David L. & Snow, Robert P. (1988)
David Crystal has another special point of view toward the media and the Internet and its effect on the
language use inside our society. One of the most remarkable things human beings have ever made. In terms of
its impact on society, it ranks with print, the railways, the telegraph, the automobile, electric power and
television. Some would equate the print and television, the two earlier technologies which most transformed
the communications environment in which people live. Yet it is potentially more powerful than both because
it harnesses the intellectual leverage which print gave to mankind without being hobbled by the one-to-many
nature of broadcast television. On how people should seize the new technology to empower themselves; to
keep themselves informed about the truth of their own economic, political and cultural circumstances; and to
give themselves a voice that the entire world could hear. The dream of people-to-people communication
through shared knowledge must be possible for groups of all sizes, interacting electronically with as much
ease as they do now in person.
6

Around 400 years later, similar concerns about censorship and control were widespread when society began to
cope with the political consequences of the arrival of the telegraph, the telephone, and broadcasting
technology. The telegraph would destroy the family and promote crime. The telephone would undermine
society. Broadcasting would be the voice of propaganda. In each case, the anxiety generated specifically
linguistic controversy. Printing enabled vernacular translations of the Bible to be placed before thousands,
adding fuel to an argument about the use of local languages in religious settings which continues to resonate
today. And when broadcasting enabled selected voices to be heard by millions, there was an immediate debate
over which norms to use as correct pronunciation, how to achieve clarity and intelligibility, and whether to
permit local accents and dialects, which remains as lively a debate in the twenty-first century as it was in the
twentieth.
The Internet is an association of computer networks with common standards which enable messages to be sent
from any central.
Crystal's aim is to explore the ways in which the nature of the electronic medium as such, along with the
Internet’s global scale and intensity of use, is having an effect on language in general, and on individual
languages in particular. It seems likely that these effects will be as pervasive and momentous as in the case of
the previous communication technologies, mentioned above, which gave language printed and broadcast
dimensions that generated many new distinctive varieties and usages, from the telegrammed graphic
prominence of newspaper headlines to the hyper verbal sonic prominence of sports commentaries.
The electronic medium, to begin with, presents us with a channel which facilitates and constrains our ability
to communicate in ways that are fundamentally different from those found in other semiotic situations. The
first task is therefore to investigate the linguistic properties of the so called ‘electronic revolution’, and to take
a view on whether the way in which we use language on the Internet is becoming so different from our
previous linguistic behavior that it might genuinely be described as revolutionary.
The media and particularly the internet such as, e-mail, synchronous and asynchronous chat groups, virtual
worlds, and the World Wide Web (WWW), in each case, there was clear signs of the emergence of a
distinctive variety of language, with characteristics closely related to the properties of its technological
context as well as to the intentions, activities, and (to some extent) personalities of the users. But the Net is
only a part of the world of computer- edited language. Many new technologies are anticipated, which will
integrate the Internet with other communication situations, and these will provide the matrix within which
further language varieties will develop. We have already seen this happen with broadcasting technology: radio
brought a new kind of language, which quickly yielded several sub varieties (commentary, news, weather . .)
then television added a further dimension, which similarly evolved sub-varieties. How many computer-mediated
varieties of language will eventually emerge, it is difficult to say; but we can be sure of one thing it
will be far greater than the five tentatively identified above.
From a linguistic point of view, the developments are of two broad kinds: those which will affect the nature of
language use within an individual speech community; and those which bring different languages together.
7

Under the former heading, there will be linguistic implications when speech is added to already existing visual
modalities, as in Internet telephony, with the microphone and loudspeakers giving the Net the functionality of
a phone. In due course, we will be able to interact with systems through speech, already possible in a limited
way, with speech recognition (at the sender’s end) making it unnecessary to type messages into a system, and
speech synthesis (at the receiver’s end) providing an alternative to graphic communication.
Then there is the complementary effect, with vision being added to already existing speech modalities (both
synchronous and asynchronous), as in the case of the personal videophone, videoconferencing using mobile
phones, and video extensions to e-mail and chat situations.
The issue is, accordingly, only of theoretical interest, for now. AMori/Lycos UK survey
published in September 2000 showed that 81% of mobile phone users between the ages of 15 and
24 were using their phone for sending text messages, typically to co-ordinate their social lives, to
engage in language play, to flirt, or just to send a ‘thinking of you’ message. Apparently, 37% of
all messagers have used the service to tell someone they love them. At the same time, reports
suggest that the service is being used for other purposes, such as sexual harassment, school
bullying, political rumor-mongering, and interaction between drug dealers and clients. The
challenge of the small screen size and its limited character space (about 160 characters), as well
as the small keypad, has motivated the evolution of an even more abbreviated language than
emerged in chat groups and virtual worlds. Some of the same abbreviations appear, either
because of their ‘obvious’ rebus-like situations (e.g. Msg [‘message’], BRB [‘be right back’]),or
because the generally youthful population of users were familiar with Net speak shorthand in its
other Basic smiley are also used. Capital letters can be given syllabic values, as in thN [‘then’]
and nEd [‘need’]. But the medium has motivated some new forms (e.g. c%l [‘cool’]) and its own
range of direct address items, such as F2T [‘free to talk?’], Mob [‘mobile’], PCM [‘please call
me’], MMYT [‘Mail me your thoughts’], and RUOK [‘are you OK?’].Multi-word sentences and
sequences of response utterances, especially of a stereotyped kind, can be reduced to a sequence
of initial letters: SWDYT [‘So what do you think?’], YYSSW [‘Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, whatever’],
HHOJ [‘Ha, ha, only joking’]. Users seem to be aware of the information value of consonants as
the phenomenon of Net speak is going to ‘change the way we think’ about language in a
fundamental way, because it is a linguistic singularity a genuine new medium. (2000. Alphabet to email.
London: Routledge)
I see the arrival of Net speak as similarly enriching the range of communicative options available to us. And
the Internet is going to record this linguistic diversity more fully and accurately than was ever possible before.
What is truly remarkable is that so many people have learned so quickly to adapt their language to meet the
demands of the new situations, and to exploit the potential of the new medium so creatively to form new areas
of expression. (David Crystal. (1997)
8

References:
Altheide, David L. & Snow, Robert P. (1979) Media Logic. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Altheide, David L. & Snow, Robert P. (1988) ‘Toward a Theory of Mediation’, in J.A.
Anderson (red.) Communication
Yearbook 11: 194-223.
Amnå, Erik & Berglez, Peter (red.) (1999) Politikens medialisering [The mediatization of
politics]. Stockholm:
Liber. (SOU 1999: 126, Demokratiutredningens forskarvolym III).
Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined Communities. London: Verso.
Alphabet to email. London: Routledge.2000
Baron, Naomi S. 1984. Computer Mediated Communication as a force in
language change. Visible Language 18, 118–41.
1998a.Writing in the age of email: the impact of ideology versus technology.
Visible Language 32, 35–53.
1998b. Letters by phone or speech by other means: the linguistics of
email. Language and Communication 18, 133–70.
Cobarrubias, J., and Fishman, J. (Eds.). (1983). Progress in language planning: "International
perspectives." The Hague: Mouton.
David Crystal. (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Eastman, C. (1983). "Language planning: An introduction." San Francisco: Chandler and
Sharp Publishers, Inc.
Florian Coulmas. (1998). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Hoboken: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Grosjean, F. (1982). "Life with two languages: An introduction to bilingualism." Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Harold F. Schiffman.( 2006) .University of Pennsylvania.Stockholm.
Krotz, Friedrich (2007) Mediatisierung: Fallstudien zum Wandel von Kommunikation.
Wiesbaden:VS Verlagfur Socialwissenschaften.
Sirles, C. (1986). "Evaluating language planning: A procedural outline." Paper presented at
the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (New York, NY,
December 28, 1986). (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 285 391).
Taylor et al.’s (1997)
http://baike.baidu.com/view/677104.htm
http://dictionary.reference.c om/browse/language+planning5
http://www.immi.se/intercultural/nr3/bakmand.htm
http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j12/planning.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification .
9

Top-down and bottom-up approaches to language planning.

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked (19)

Similar to Top-down and bottom-up approaches to language planning. (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Top-down and bottom-up approaches to language planning.