LING2022 Language Planning and Language Politics
Later Year Course
| Offered By | School of Language Studies |
|---|---|
| Academic Career | Undergraduate |
| Course Subject | Linguistics |
| Offered in | First Semester, 2009 and First Semester, 2010 |
| Unit Value | 6 units |
| Course Description |
Language management is going on all the time—from the more obvious institutional attempts to legislate linguistic behaviour and mandate and proscribe language use to the more subtle choices individuals make about which language(s) or language varieties to use when and with whom. This course introduces students to the main issues involved in language planning and language policy and will explore the social and political consequences of institutional attempts to manage language. The course considers how language policy is deeply embedded in beliefs or ideologies people have about language, and examines the sources of these ideologies. It addresses the central question of who has the ability or the authority to make choices where language and its use is concerned and whose will and whose choices will ultimately prevail. In a world where multilingualism and variation in language is the norm and monolingualism the exception, migration and technological advances have generated new challenges for language policy makers, causing new issues of language choice to emerge. The core issues to be addressed in this course are: How and why national and official languages are chosen and what this means politically in a society; How language education policy can affect members of a society; How the spread of English as a world language has affected the linguistic ecology of societies around the globe and how its spread is related to the proliferation of World Englishes; How societies treat indigenous languages; How minority language rights pose challenges for policy makers at the national and supranational level. Data from Australia as well as a variety of world contexts will be used to explore these core issues. |
| Learning Outcomes |
On successful completion of this course students should be able to: 1. identify who gets to make the decisions about which language to speak and which variety of language is good or bad, and who stands to benefit from these decisions; 2. discuss the degree to which linguistic behaviour can be legislated and language use proscribed or mandated; 3. assess whether national language policies can be said to be meaningful or successful; 4. explain the complex attitudes people have to language, multilingualism and national identity; 5. analyse and compare how language ideologies relate to language policies; 6. collaborate with other students to select and combine materials for a case study of a given nationâ??state; 7. research, present and justify the results of your collaboration with other students with respect to the case studies; 8. reflect on and articulate how your own views on language management have developed over the course of the semester. |
| Indicative Assessment |
Annotated bibliography (10%), wiki project: 1000-word wiki collaboration (5%), group progress oral report (10%), group case-study presentation (15%), final assessment of wiki (40%) and a take-home exam (20%) |
| Workload |
26 lectures and 7 tutorials |
| Areas of Interest | Linguistics and Applied Linguistics |
| Requisite Statement |
At least 12 units from the Faculty of Arts or the Faculty of Asian Studies, or with written permission of the lecturer. |
| Prescribed Texts |
Spolsky, B.,2004 Language Policy, Cambridge UP |
| Majors/Specialisations | Applied Linguistics, International Communication, and Linguistics |
| Academic Contact | Dr Jennifer Hendriks |
The information published on the Study at ANU 2009 website applies to the 2009 academic year only. All information provided on this website replaces the information contained in the Study at ANU 2008 website.
