Language Problems and Language Planning - Volume 39, Issue 2, 2015

This paper uses a case study approach to understand how perceptions of language threat have worked to maintain local language practices on the islands of Aruba and Puerto Rico. Through document analysis, interviews with key players in language policy and planning efforts as well as participant observation, this paper explains the historical build-up of the perception that Papiamento and Spanish, respectively, are in some way threatened. In addition to documenting the language maintenance efforts, the author argues that differing colonization practices impacted islanders’ orientation toward language, such that in Aruba a language-as-a-resource orientation has resulted in societal multilingualism whereas a language-as-a-problem orientation has resulted in monolingualism on the island of Puerto Rico.

St’articol-sì a discut, al fin ëd na pì bona pianificassion, le doi ortografie che a esisto ancheuj për scrive ël piemonteis: la Pacòt-Viglongh e la Villata-Eandi. Le doe grafie a son giudicà scond soa validità për jë specialista ëd lenghistica, scond l’imagine identitaria e sòcio-lenghistica che a rapresento për ël piemonteis, e scond quant che a son belfé o malfé da dovré ansima al web e con ij neuv mojen dla comunicassion medià da la Rej. St’ultim parameter a sarà andicà coma ël pì cogent e ël pì amportant për ij travaj ëd progetassion e revision dl’ortografia dël piemonteis e dj’autre lenghe regionaj e minoritarie dl’Italia. Dòp d’avej armarcà, conforma a l’opinion ëd vaire autri autor, che ël model ëd pianificassion còrsa a l’é col che as peul dovré mej con ël piemonteis, as propon, come ortografia da serne për mostrela ant le scòle e për l’usage ansima a l’internet, ai giornaj, ai liber evf., na version un pò cangià dla Pacòt-Viglongh, visadì la grafia ch’a l’é staita dovrà për scrive ës sunt-sì.

Traditional top-down conceptions of language policy and planning have been questioned by recent perspectives that advocate more localized accounts of language policy concerns in real-life social contexts. Schiffman’s (1996) conception of linguistic culture is one of these bottom-up approaches, which focuses on covert language policies. This study investigates some aspects of such covert orientations of speakers of the Mazandarani language towards their local vernacular in the bilingual Mazandarani–Farsi context of northern Iran. It specifically attempts to explore the current linguistic culture atmosphere in terms of assumptions, prejudices, attitudes, and stereotypes with regard to Mazandarani. These aspects of public belief are particularly investigated as referring to language use in ‘social situations’, ‘professional contexts’, ‘education’, and ‘media’. A group of 106 participants responded to a questionnaire that was aimed at eliciting their views on these linguistic culture domains as well as their ‘attitude’ towards Mazandarani. The study indicates that although the participants show very positive emotional attitudes towards their local language, their actual linguistic culture appears to be strongly in favor of the official national language, i.e. Farsi. Some concerns are raised as to the implications of such a loving-but-not-living linguistic culture for a more realistic understanding of language policy and planning.

The role of language teacher agency in language policy and planning (LPP) enactment and implementation at the micro-level has received increasing treatment in the literature. Under-addressed in this context, however, is the role of the learner and the extent to which learner activity can be agentive. Seeking to redress this situation, this paper focusses on learner agency in LPP. After establishing a general ecology of language context, issues related to the problematic concept of ‘agency’ are addressed. This discussion draws upon poststructuralist critiques as well as the insights of sociocultural theory. A poststructuralist perspective provides a broad philosophical base for problematizing learner agency and supplies a critique of the limited structuralist approach characteristic of traditional LPP. A sociocultural lens supplies a more concrete conceptualization of how agentive learner activity operates interactively with teacher agency. The final section of the paper focusses on ethnography as a research methodology; ethnographic research yields qualitative data on learner agency that can be drawn upon in micro planning and policy-making. A relevant case study employing ethnographic methodology is discussed. The conclusion is that learner agency should be given more prominence in LPP research and literature.

Although a relatively minor project in terms of its impact on the broader international language movement, Basic English is interesting for the elaborate semiotic theory that underlies it. The creator of Basic English, Charles Kay Ogden (1889–1957), is today remembered chiefly as co-author of The Meaning of Meaning, a book widely regarded as a classic of early twentieth-century semiotics. In this article, I will engage in a critical examination of the design of Basic English and demonstrate how it essentially represents an implementation of the key doctrines set out in that book, tempered by the practical exigencies of language construction. I will focus on Ogden’s method of ‘panoptic conjugation’, which he used to select the Basic English core vocabulary of 850 words, as well as his conception of the grammar of Basic English as an outgrowth of its vocabulary. We observe additionally how Ogden’s approach does not result in a self-contained, independent international language, but rather a language that is subservient to Standard English idiom.