MULTILINGUALI

SM AND
LANGUAGE
POLICY
(ENG ELT 2: LANGUAGE PROGRAMS AND
POLICIES IN MULTILINGUAL SOCIETIES)

Prepared by

ASKIN D. VILLARIAS
Faculty, Languages Department
 COURSE DESCRIPTION
Language Programs and Policies in Multilingual Societies is a three-unit specialization
course that allows pre-service English teachers to survey both local and international basic
education language programs and policies that account for issues and considerations
relevant to the engagement of teachers in school settings. As it encompasses research-based
content knowledge of various language policies and programs across countries, the course
also exhibits clear understanding of a language curriculum’s design, development and
dissemination of school policies that concern the extensive integration of principle-based
and pedagogical features of English as a glocal language in multicultural and multilingual
contexts as preparation for pre-service English teachers to become community-oriented
educators who are responsive to the learners’ diverse cultural, linguistic, socio-economic
and religious backgrounds both in language education research and praxis.

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LEARNING CONTENT
 Understanding
Multilingualism

 Linguistic Rights and

Philippine Language
Situation

 Language Choice as the Core

of Language Policy

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 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Recall concepts and factors that Articulate an informed stance on Demonstrate empirical
account multilingualism as a the issues of languages’ status in understanding of the implication
common phenomenon and the a multilingual society. of multilingual beliefs and
foundations of language policy..   attitudes in basic education.
 
ASSESSMENT
TASKS
KNOWLEDGE-BUILDING

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 REMINDERS
o For online students, secure pictures of your written answers or place
your answers in a separate document file to be uploaded in the
corresponding Classwork tab in our Google classroom.

o For BDO students, place your answers in a separate sheet of long-

sized bond paper.

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CRITICAL THINKING

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CREATING

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CREATING

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CREATING

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Do you have
any question?

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 TALE OF
LANGUAGES
The people of Babel once attempted to build a tower
that would reach the heaven. Displeased, God punished their
arrogance by creating multiple languages so that the people
building the tower will not understand one another, leading
to the impossibility of completing the tower.

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 Imagine living in a world where there is only

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one language used in different contexts,
domains or situations. Do you consider such
world a utopia or paradise? Why or why not?

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LESSON 1:
MULTILINGUALISM AND
LANGUAGE POLICY

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 Why is multilingualism a common
phenomenon?
• Because there are more languages in the world (almost 7,000) than countries. It follows
that a significant number of speakers have more than one language.

• Because languages are “unevenly distributed;” speakers of the minority language groups
need to learn and use the language of the majority groups.

• Because we have immigrants who speak their first language and who need to acquire and
speak the language of the host (or new) country.

• Because we learn additional languages, like English, for better social and economic
opportunities.

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 MULTILINGUALISM
According to Li (2008), a multilingual
individual is “anyone who can
communicate in more than one
language, be it active (through
speaking and writing) or passive
(through listening and reading).”
According to European Commission
(2007), multilingualism generally refers
to “the ability of societies, institutions,
groups and individuals to engage, on a
regular basis, with more than one
language in their day-to-day lives.”
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HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL FACTORS
CONTRIBUTING TO THE VISIBILITY
OF MULTILINGUALISM
1) GLOBALIZATION
 Mastering several languages enables people to open
their personal horizons, to think globally, and to
increase their own self-awareness and understanding
of their neighbors.

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HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL FACTORS
CONTRIBUTING TO THE VISIBILITY
OF MULTILINGUALISM
2) TRANSNATIONAL MOBILITY OF
POPULATION
 In most cases, the international spread of languages
are mainly driven by the simultaneous immigration of
individuals to other countries for better economic and
social opportunities.

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HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL FACTORS
CONTRIBUTING TO THE VISIBILITY
OF MULTILINGUALISM
3) SPREAD OF NEW
TECHNOLOGIES
 The rapid development of multimedia technology,
communication channels, and media has encouraged
more occurrences of multilingual communication.

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 KEY CONCEPTS OF
MULTILINGUALISM

1) INDIVIDUAL MULTILINGUALISM vs.

SOCIETAL MULTILINGUALISM

According to the Council of Europe (n. d.), individual

multilingualism is the “repertoire of varieties of
language which an individual uses” while societal
multilingualism is merely “the presence of more than
one variety of languages in a geographical area, large of
small.”

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 KEY CONCEPTS OF
MULTILINGUALISM

2) BALANCED MULTILINGUALISM vs
UNBALANCED MULTILINGUALISM

Under the classification of multilingualism according to

individual proficiency, balanced multilingualism refers
to the “individual’s equal fluency of two or more
languages,” while unbalanced multilingualism pertains
to the “varying levels of fluency in two or more
languages.”

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 KEY CONCEPTS OF
MULTILINGUALISM

3) RECEPTIVE MULTILINGUALISM vs
PRODUCTIVE MULTILINGUALISM

Under the classification of multilingualism according to

the use dimension, receptive multilingualism occurs when
“interlocutors utilize their respective mother tongues in
speaking to each other” while unbalanced
multilingualism is when “participants in a dialogue have
the ability to switch from one language to another without
any major difficulty.”

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LESSON 2: LINGUISTIC
RIGHTS AND THE PHILIPPINE
LANGUAGE SITUATION

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LINGUISTIC RIGHTS
According to Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson,
linguistic rights primarily refer to the basic rights to
cultivate ethnolinguistic groups’ mother tongues to
authentically identify with them, and to education
and public services through the medium of them.

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Studying the historical overview of

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linguistic rights make us empathize
with how minor ethnolinguistic
groups struggle in persistently
demanding recognition of their
rights.

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GENERALIZATION ON THE UNITED
NATIONS’ FRAMEWORK OF LINGUISTIC
RIGHTS PROVISIONS
▸ It is recognized that most minorities, not least linguistic ones, are in need of much
more substantial protection.

▸ The coverage of educational linguistic human rights in existing international

instruments reflects the relative neglect of minority rights during the 30-year period
after the Second World War.

▸ Language has not figured prominently as a concern. It has been thought until very
recently that the cultural characteristics of minorities, including language, were
adequately covered by general references to "ethnic, religious and linguistic
minorities.

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GENERALIZATION ON THE UNITED
NATIONS’ FRAMEWORK OF LINGUISTIC
RIGHTS PROVISIONS
▸ Immigrant minorities were deliberately excluded from consideration in the Capotorti
Report, hence from the main thrust of UN efforts to end discrimination against
minorities. Migrant workers, refugees, stateless persons and other non-nationals are
still "not true minorities"

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COVENANTS AND
DECLARATIONS COVERING
LINGUISTIC RIGHTS
1) The Charter of United Nations (1945)
2) Universal Declaration of Human Rights
3) The International Covenant on Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights (1966, Article 27)
4) The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
(1989)
5) The UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons
Belonging to National, Ethnic, Religious, and
Linguistic Minorities

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A BRIEF PROFILE OF THE
PHILIPPINE LANGUAGE SITUATION
1) NATIONAL LANGUAGE
 The present national language is Filipino.

2) OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
 The official languages of the Philippines and
English and Filipino.

3) INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
 At the present time, the sole international language
in the country is English.

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A BRIEF PROFILE OF THE
PHILIPPINE LANGUAGE SITUATION
4) STATUS OF THE REGIONAL LANGUAGES
 According to Ethnologue, the Philippines has 175 languages which are commonly used in
informal communication.

5) STATUS OF OTHER FOREIGN LANGUAGES

 According to Ethnologue, there are four foreign languages among the identified multitude of
languages, and they are Chinese Mandarin, Chinese Min Nan, Chinese Yue, and Spanish.

6) LANGUAGES IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

 The specific domains in the Philippine public sphere are national government, courts,
literature, local government, businesses and offices, factories, and marketplaces and home-
based industries.

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LESSON 3: LANGUAGE
CHOICE AS THE CORE OF
LANGUAGE POLICY

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 LANGUAGE CHOICE
Language choice is the individual selection of
language mainly dependent on the consensual
behaviors and beliefs of other individuals in a
speech community.

However, the term speech community is often

encountered with ambiguity, so the term
domain is a more defined unit

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 THE THREE MAJOR
CHARACTERISTICS OF A
(LANGUAGE) DOMAIN
1) PARTICIPANTS
 refers to the social roles and relationships of and
between individuals in a colloquium or dialogue

2) LOCATION
 typically pertains to the position or site occupied
by the domain’s participants

3) TOPIC
 determines what is appropriate to talk about in a
domain

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 EIGHT UNDERPINNING
MOTIVATIONS IN LANGUAGE
PLANNING
1) the government’s recognition of the articulated
desire of the people;

2) the cultivation of national identity;

3) the establishment of a medium for interethnic

group communication;

4) the maintenance of cultural differences;

5) the provision of affirmative support to some

disadvantaged groups;

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 EIGHT UNDERPINNING
MOTIVATIONS IN LANGUAGE
PLANNING
6) the restriction of some minority groups;

7) the infusion of power to the dominant group;

and

8) the establishment of a medium for international

communication

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 THREE TYPES OF COUNTRIES
ACCORDING TO THEIR
ETHNOLINGUISTIC COMPLEXITY
1) ETHNOLINGUISTICALLY
HOMOEGENEOUS COUNTRIES
 are countries which may contain linguistic
minorities, but they are perceived to be
small and insignificant and are
geographically and socially marginalized

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 THREE TYPES OF COUNTRIES
ACCORDING TO THEIR
ETHNOLINGUISTIC COMPLEXITY
2) DYADIC OR TRIADIC COUNTRIES
 are countries which include two or three
ethnolinguistic groups relatively equal in
number or power

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 THREE TYPES OF COUNTRIES
ACCORDING TO THEIR
ETHNOLINGUISTIC COMPLEXITY
3) MOSAIC SOCIETIES OR
MULTIETHNIC STATES
 are countries with five or more ethnic
groups

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LESSON 4: LANGUAGE
POLICY: WHAT IS IT AND
WHAT IT CAN DO?

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 LANGUAGE POLICY
According to Spolsky, language policy constitutes
“language practices, beliefs, and management
decisions of a community or polity.”

In short, language policy is a legislative piece on

practices on the use of languages in a society,
constituting the attempt of manipulating a
community’s linguistic behavior..

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SPOLSKY’S MODEL OF
LANGUAGE POLICY
LANGUAGE POLICY
Language Practices
(Ecology)

Language Beliefs
(Ideology)

Language Management
(Planning)

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 SPOLSKY’S MODEL OF LANGUAGE
POLICY
1) LANGUAGE PRACTICES
 are the speakers’ observable behaviors and
choices which include linguistic features
chosen and the variety of language used

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 SPOLSKY’S MODEL OF LANGUAGE
POLICY
2) LANGUAGE BELIEFS
 are values assigned to the linguistic varieties
and features

Beliefs about language are dependent on the

role played by language varieties in
identification.

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 SPOLSKY’S MODEL OF LANGUAGE
POLICY
3) LANGUAGE MANAGEMENT
 pertains to the explicit and observable effort
exerted by a community that claims to
practice authority over the participants in a
specific domain to modify their practices or
beliefs

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An interdisciplinary comprehension of a
language policy requires contextualized

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perspective. Thus, Spolsky (2004) proposes
four fundamental co-existing forces that
drive the implementation of language
policies in a national level.

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 THE FOUR COMMON AND CO-EXISTING
FORCES OF LANGUAGE POLICIES AT A
NATIONAL LEVEL
1) NATIONAL (OR ETHNIC) IDENTITY
OR CLAIMS OF IDEOLOGY
 generally refers to the infrastructure of
beliefs and principles relevant to a collective
psyche that may manifest in language policy

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 THE FOUR COMMON AND CO-EXISTING
FORCES OF LANGUAGE POLICIES AT A
NATIONAL LEVEL
2) THE ROLE OF ENGLISH AS A
GLOBAL LANGUAGE
 emphasizes the continuously growing
importance of English, which has been
widely invading in almost every
sociolinguistic repertoire

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 THE FOUR COMMON AND CO-EXISTING
FORCES OF LANGUAGE POLICIES AT A
NATIONAL LEVEL
3) A NATION’S SOCIOLINGUISTIC
SITUATION
 directly covers the number and kind of
living languages, the number and kind of
speakers of each, the communicative value
of each language, both inside and outside of
the concerned community

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 THE FOUR COMMON AND CO-EXISTING
FORCES OF LANGUAGE POLICIES AT A
NATIONAL LEVEL
4) AN INCREASING INTEREST IN
LINGUISTIC RIGHTS WITHIN THE
CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS
FRAMEWORK
 refers to the general, global interest in
linguistic pluralism and an acceptance of the
need to recognize the rights of individuals

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 LANGUAGE PLANNING
As a prerequisite to the creating of language
policies, language planning
is an express effort to influence the function,
structure or acquisition of a language within a
speech community

The goals of language planning differ depending

on the nation or organization, but generally
include making planning decisions and possibly
changes for the benefit of communication.

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As far as reforms in the linguistic reforms
are concerned, standardization is a vital

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process to be undergone by a language to
be assigned with a prestigious status.

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 LANGUAGE
STANDARDIZATION
Language standardization is a process which
often involves one variety of a language taking
precedence over other varieties of the same
language, concentrating on the identification of
regional or social dialects which form the
phonological, morphological and syntactic
basis of standard language.

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THE FOUR PHASES OF LANGUAGE
PLANNING (HOW LANGUAGE POLICIES
ARE DEVELOPED)
1) SELECTION
 refers to the process of choosing a language variety to be coded so it can be elevated to the
status of standard

2) CODIFICATION
 refers to the thorough formulation of grammar norms and rules of the selected linguistic variety
to be further formalized through the provision of a written grammar, dictionary and other related
linguistic manuals
.
3) ELABORATION
 pertains to the specification of the chosen language variety’s range of norms and functions

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THE FOUR PHASES OF LANGUAGE
PLANNING (HOW LANGUAGE POLICIES
ARE DEVELOPED)

4) ACCEPTANCE
 denotes the promotion, spread, establishment, and the enforcement of the codified norms and
rules through institutions, agencies, authorities, such as schools, ministries, the media, cultural
establishments, etc.

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Do you have
any question?

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REFERENCES
TEXTBOOKS AND E-BOOKS

Lim, J. M. (2021). A Course Module for Language Programs and Policies in Multilingual Societies. Rex Book Store
Spolsky, B. (2004). Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
 
WEBPAGES AND OTHER ONLINE REFERENCES

Albury, N. J. (2015). National Language Policy Theory: Exploring Spolsky’s Model in the Case of Iceland. Cross Mark. DOI
10.1007/s10993-015-9357-z
Cenoz, J. (2013). Defining Multilingualism. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259438531_Defining_Multilingualism. DOI: 10.1017/S026719051300007X
Demeterio, F. P. A and Liwanag, L. A. (2014) The Language Policies and Practices of the Philippines and Thailand: Insights and Lessons
for Language Planning. Silliman Journal, 55(2), pp. 19-59.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338829292_The_Language_Policies_and_Practices_of_the_Philippines_and_Thailand_Insight
s_and_Lessons_for_Language_Planning_co-author_Dr_FPA_Demeterio_III/link/5e2d54bc299bf152167e3bc9/download
Phillipson, R. & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2017). Linguistic Human Rights, Past and Present.
http://www.tove-skutnabb-kangas.org/dl/129-1994-308-2008-2017-Tove-Skutnabb-Kangas-Robert-Phillipson-Linguistic-Human-Rights-
Past-Present.pdf

Ramlan, K. (2018). Language Standardization in General Point of View. Budapest International Research and Critics Institute-Journal,
pp 27-33.

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