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Bernard Spolsky looks at the many debates at the forefront of language policy in this up-to-date introduction. The topics covered include ideas of correctness and bad language; bilingualism and multilingualism; language death and efforts to preserve endangered languages; language choice as a human and civil right; and language education policy. Spolsky develops a theory of modern national language policy and the major forces controlling it and explores questions that arise concerning the recognition of language policies and language management.
List of contents
1. Language practices, ideology and beliefs, and management and planning; 2. Driving out the bad; 3. Pursuing the good and dealing with the new; 4. The nature of language policy and its domains; 5. Two monolingual polities - Iceland and France; 6. How did English spread?; 7. Does the US have a language policy or just civil rights?; 8. Language rights; 9. Monolingual polities under pressure; 10. Monolingual polities with recognised linguistic minorities; 11. Partitioning language space - two, three, many; 12. Resisting language shift; 13. Conclusions.
About the author
Bernard Spolsky is Emeritus Professor at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and Senior Associate, the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland.
Summary
In this introduction, Bernard Spolsky explores many debates at the forefront of language policy. He develops a theory of modern national language policy and the major forces controlling it, and asks the central questions of how to recognize language policies, and whether language can actually be managed at all.
