Defining Language

Policy

By: Amaquin, Jancel Ann B.

UI-FB2-BSED3-1
Lesson Objectives: At the end of
the lesson, you should be able to:

1.Define language policy; &

2.Explain the types of language
policy

Language Policy
Language Policy
• Language policy - Language policy has been defined in
varied angles. In order to help us arrive at an appropriate
synthesis, let’s look into these five definitions of language
policy.
Kaplan and Baldauf, 1997
A. A language policy is a body of ideas, laws, regulations,
rules and practices intended to achieve the planned
language change enacted by an authoritative body (like the
government in the societies, group or system.
Schiffman, 1996
• B. Language policy is primarily a social construct. It may consist
of various elements of an explicit nature (judicial, administrative,
constitutional) but whether or not a society has such explicit text,
policy as cultural construct rests primarily on other conceptual
elements (belief systems, attitudes, myths) the whole complex that
we are referring to as linguistic culture , which is the sum totality
of ideas, values, beliefs, attitudes, prejudices, religious strictures,
and all the other cultural “baggage” that speakers bring to their
dealings with language from their background.
Spolsky, 2004
• C. Language policy means all the language procedures, practices,
beliefs and organizational preferences of a society. A useful first
step is to distinguish between the three components of the
language policy of a speech community: (1) its language practices
– the habitual pattern of selecting among the varieties that make
up its linguistic repertoire; (2) its language beliefs or ideology –
beliefs about language and language use; and (3) any intervention,
planning, or management.
McCarty 2011
• D. Characterized language policy as a complex sociocultural
process and as modes of human interaction, negotiation, and
production mediated by relations of power. The ‘policy’ in these
processes resides in their language-regulating power; that is, the
ways in which they express normative claims about legitimate and
illegitimate language forms and uses, thereby governing language
statuses and uses. Also, she viewed language policy not simply as
“top-down” or “bottom-up” but multi-layered.
Tollefson 1991

• E. Views language policy as a mechanism of power, which

institutionalizes langauge hierarchies that privilege dominant
groups/ languages and denies equal access to political power and
economic reources.
Types of Language
Policies

By: Amaquin, Jancel Ann B.

UI-FB2-BSED3-1
Genesis(origin)

• Top-down
• Macro-level policy developed by some governing or authoritative
body or person.

• Bottom-up
• Micro-level or grassroots generated policy for and by the
community that it impacts.
Means and Goals
• Overt
• Openly expressed in written or spoken policy texts.

• Covert
• Intentionally concealed at the macro-level (collusive) or at the
micro-level (subversive)
• Policy with hidden agendas embedded by policy creators
(Shohamy, 2006)
Documentation
Twice TT