Language Policy and Planning
Language policy and planning studies deliberate efforts by governments, institutions, and communities to influence which languages are used, for what functions, and in what form.
Definition
Language policy and planning is the area of sociolinguistics concerned with deliberate, organized intervention in language, encompassing the status, form, and acquisition of languages and the policies, beliefs, and management practices that govern their use.
Scope
This area covers the components of language planning, status planning (the functions and official roles of languages), corpus planning (their form, including standardization and codification), and acquisition planning (their teaching and spread), together with the broader notion of language policy as practices, beliefs, and management. It includes efforts to revitalize threatened languages and the politics of language in education. The social dynamics of shift that motivate such planning are treated under multilingualism.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- What are the main components of language planning, and how do they relate?
- How do states and institutions assign official functions to languages?
- How is language policy made, and by whom?
- How can planning support threatened languages or shape language in education?
Key concepts
- Status, corpus, and acquisition planning
- Language policy as practices, beliefs, and management
- Official and national languages
- Language rights
Key theories
- Components of language planning
- Building on Kloss's distinction between status and corpus planning, the field treats planning as coordinated intervention in the functions, form, and acquisition of languages within a society.
- Policy as practices, beliefs, and management
- Spolsky modeled language policy as comprising actual language practices, the beliefs and ideologies behind them, and explicit management efforts to influence them, widening the field beyond official planning.
History
Language planning emerged as a field in the 1960s amid post-colonial nation-building, with Kloss and others distinguishing status from corpus planning; Cooper added acquisition planning in 1989, and Spolsky reframed the field around policy as practices, beliefs, and management.
Debates
- Top-down planning versus grassroots policy
- Scholars debate how far language outcomes are shaped by official, top-down planning versus the everyday practices and beliefs of speakers and local institutions emphasized in management-oriented models.
Key figures
- Bernard Spolsky
- Robert Cooper
- Heinz Kloss
Related topics
Seminal works
- spolsky2021
- cooper1989
- kloss1969
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between status and corpus planning?
- Status planning concerns the social functions and official roles assigned to a language, such as making it an official language, while corpus planning concerns the form of the language itself, such as standardizing spelling, grammar, and vocabulary.