Language Planning and Policy in Europe

Language Planning and Policy in Europe
Author: Robert B. Kaplan
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2005
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1847690289

This volume covers the language situation in the Baltic States, Ireland and Italy explaining the linguistic diversity, the historical and political contexts and the current language situation - including language-in-education planning, the role of the media, the role of religion, and the roles of non-indigenous languages.

Multilingualism in the Baltic States

Multilingualism in the Baltic States
Author: Sanita Lazdiņa
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2018-11-03
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 113756914X

This edited collection provides an overview of linguistic diversity, societal discourses and interaction between majorities and minorities in the Baltic States. It presents a wide range of methods and research paradigms including folk linguistics, discourse analysis, narrative analyses, code alternation, ethnographic observations, language learning motivation, languages in education and language acquisition. Grouped thematically, its chapters examine regional varieties and minority languages (Latgalian, Võro, urban dialects in Lithuania, Polish in Lithuania); the integration of the Russian language and its speakers; and the role of international languages like English in Baltic societies. The editors’ introductory and concluding chapters provide a comparative perspective that situates these issues within the particular history of the region and broader debates on language and nationalism at a time of both increased globalization and ethno-regionalism. This book will appeal in particular to students and scholars of multilingualism, sociolinguistics, language discourses and language policy, and provide a valuable resource for researchers focusing on Baltic States, Northern Europe and the post-Soviet world in the related fields of history, political science, sociology and anthropology.

Survival and Development of Language Communities

Survival and Development of Language Communities
Author: F. Xavier Vila
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2012-11-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1847698352

Too small to be big, but also too big to be really small, medium-sized language communities (MSLCs) face their own challenges in a rapidly globalising world where multilingualism and mobility seem to be eroding the old securities that the monolingual nation states provided. The questions to be answered are numerous: What are the main areas in which the position of these languages is actually threatened? How do these societies manage their diversity (both old and new)? Has state machinery really become as irrelevant in terms of language policy as their portrayals often suggest? This book explores the responses to these and other challenges by seven relatively successful MSLCs, so that their lessons can be applied more generally to other languages striving for long term survival.

Survival and Development of Language Communities

Survival and Development of Language Communities
Author: F. Xavier Vila Moreno
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2012-11-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1847698379

Too small to be big, but also too big to be really small, medium-sized language communities (MSLCs) face their own challenges in a rapidly globalising world where multilingualism and mobility seem to be eroding the old securities that the monolingual nation states provided. The questions to be answered are numerous: What are the main areas in which the position of these languages is actually threatened? How do these societies manage their diversity (both old and new)? Has state machinery really become as irrelevant in terms of language policy as their portrayals often suggest? This book explores the responses to these and other challenges by seven relatively successful MSLCs, so that their lessons can be applied more generally to other languages striving for long term survival.

Language and Minority Rights

Language and Minority Rights
Author: Stephen May
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2013-06-17
Genre: Education
ISBN: 113683706X

The second edition addresses new theoretical and empirical developments since its initial publication, including the burgeoning influence of globalization and the relentless rise of English as the current world language. May’s broad position, however, remains largely unchanged. He argues that the causes of many of the language-based conflicts in the world today still lie with the nation-state and its preoccupation with establishing a 'common' language and culture via mass education. The solution, he suggests, is to rethink nation-states in more culturally and linguistically plural ways while avoiding, at the same time, essentializing the language-identity link. This edition, like the first, adopts a wide interdisciplinary framework, drawing on sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, sociology, political theory, education and law. It also includes new discussions of cosmopolitanism, globalization, the role of English, and language and mobility, highlighting the ongoing difficulties faced by minority language speakers in the world today.

Urban Diversities and Language Policies in Medium-Sized Linguistic Communities

Urban Diversities and Language Policies in Medium-Sized Linguistic Communities
Author: Emili Boix-Fuster
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2015-08-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1783093927

This book examines medium-sized linguistic communities in urban contexts against the backdrop of the language policies which have been implemented in these respective areas. The authors provide new data and reflections on these linguistic communities which have languages somewhere in between the majority and minority, and re-evaluate the opposition between ‘majority’ and ‘minority’. The book focuses on seven European cities, providing detailed information on their current situation and on the corresponding evolution of their linguistic repertoire. The book aims to improve our understanding of how and why languages live and decay, and of how intercultural cities, where communities show interest in each other’s culture and language, can be better developed and encouraged.

Prescription and Tradition in Language

Prescription and Tradition in Language
Author: Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2016-11-14
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1783096527

This book contextualises case studies across a wide variety of languages and cultures, crystallising key interrelationships between linguistic standardisation and prescriptivism, and between ideas and practices. It focuses on different traditions of standardisation and prescription throughout the world and addresses questions such as how nationalistic idealisations of ‘traditional’ language persist (or shift) amid language change, linguistic variation and multilingualism. The volume explores issues of standardisation and the sociolinguistic phenomenon of prescription as a formative influence on the notional standard language as well as the interconnections between these in a wide range of geographical contexts. It balances the otherwise strong emphasis on English in English language publications on prescriptivism and breaks new ground with its multilingual approach across languages and nations. The book will appeal to scholars working within different linguistic traditions interested in questions relating to all aspects of standardisation and prescriptivism.

Language Policy and the Internationalization of Universities

Language Policy and the Internationalization of Universities
Author: Josep Soler
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2019-01-14
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1501505890

Many universities around the world are actively engaged in the process of the internationalization of their higher education systems, trying to become more competitive in all possible respects, especially in the areas of research and teaching. Language, naturally, plays a central role in this process, but this is not always explicitly recognized as such. As a result, key sociolinguistic challenges emerge for both individuals and groups of people. Most prominently, the question of whether English constitutes an opportunity or a threat to other national languages in academic domains is a controversial one and remains unresolved. The analysis featured in this book aims at addressing this question by looking at language policy developments in the context of Estonian higher education. Adopting a discourse approach, the book emphasises the centrality of language not only as a site of struggle, but as a tool and a resource that agents in a give field utilize to orient themselves in certain positions. The book will be of interest to language policy scholars, linguistic anthropologists, and critical sociolinguists. Education scholars interested in discourse studies will also find it useful.