Language Problems and Language Planning - Volume 36, Issue 1, 2012

The literature of language policy and planning (LPP) focuses predominantly on the process of policy formulation and planning programs for implementation, i.e., to use Cooper’s terms, on ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how’. The question of the people (‘by whom’ and ‘to whom’) involved in the planning process — i.e. “Who are the actors?” and “What are their roles?” — remains largely unaddressed. Drawing upon experience in the modern history of Chinese script reform in the PRC, this paper extends Harrmann’s notion of the individual’s role in prestige language promotion by categorizing that role into three discrete groups (people with expertise, people with influence, people with power) and then examining their individual agency roles in relation to five stages on the LPP implementation continuum. The authors argue that, to meet the rapidly changing socio-political and technological environment in China today, greater participation of ‘experts’ and ‘influential actors’ — as opposed to those with power — is needed in order to institute effective LPP programs, given the increasing centrality of prestige planning frameworks to LPP implementation as suggested by Haarmann and Ager.

Timor-Leste is a nation where three exogenous languages (Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesia, English) and one of many endogenous languages (Tetun) compete to be heard in public spaces. The constitution names both Tetun and Portuguese as co-official languages, and English and Bahasa Indonesia as working languages in the civil service; but official and de facto language policy are not necessarily the same. One mechanism that can mediate between ideology and practice, both as a way of imposing and of resisting official policy, is language in the public space. This paper demonstrates the insights that examining language in the public space can provide on language policy debates. It reports on the investigation of a linguistic landscape in Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste, and finds considerable difference between official language policy and language practices.

En dépit de la Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen (1789, article 11), suivie de la Charte des Nations Unies (1945), de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme (1948 : article 2) et de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme (1950 : articles 4, 6, 10 11, et 14) dont plusieurs articles renvoient à la langue ou présentent une pertinence spécifique à ce propos, de nombreux pays africains, dont la Côte d’Ivoire, ont choisi la langue de l’ancien colonisateur comme langue officielle au moment de leur accès à l’indépendance. Toutes leurs institutions, tous leurs textes juridiques et tous les droits fondamentaux de leurs citoyens sont formulés uniquement et exclusivement dans une langue que la majorité de la population ne parle pas et ne comprend pas. Les droits de l’homme et du citoyen ne trouveraient-ils leur expression que dans la langue de l’ancienne puissance coloniale ? Nous nous proposons ici, après un bref aperçu historique, de répondre à cette question du point de vue de la sociolinguistique du développement : c’est-à-dire, du point de vue de l’impact de la politique des langues, ou de l’absence de celle-ci, sur le quotidien du citoyen, et tout particulièrement dans le cas de la Côte d’Ivoire et terminons cet article avec une réflexion plus générale sur le comportement et les attitudes linguistiques de l’État de Côte d’Ivoire et de ses citoyens.

Native speakers traditionally occupy a special position in foreign language teaching and learning because their language use is norm-providing. In linguistic studies they are crucial as informants because they decide whether an utterance is correct or incorrect. Although Esperanto as a planned language aims at facilitating international communication by means of a common second language, there are also people who speak this language as a mother tongue, a fact that has recently received growing attention both within and beyond the Esperanto-speaking community. The phenomenon deserves attention because it throws light on the character of the speech community, and especially on questions of language loyalty and speaker identity. In addition, the use of Esperanto as a family language stimulates the development of the language. However, the status of Esperanto native speakers cannot be equated with the status of native speakers of an ethnic language both because of their limited number and also because Esperanto is only one of their mother tongues among several. Above all, native Esperanto speakers do not decide on the standard of the planned language.