Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- 1 Introduction: notions of language
- Part I Micro-choices
- Part II Macro-choices
- 7 Code-switching: linguistic choices across language boundaries
- 8 Diglossia and bilingualism: functional restrictions on language choice
- 9 Language spread, shift and maintenance: how groups choose their language
- 10 Language and identity: individual, social, national
- 11 Language planning: communication demands, public choice, utility
- 12 Select letters: a major divide
- 13 The language of choice
- Glossary of terms
- References
- Internet resources
- Index
- References
11 - Language planning: communication demands, public choice, utility
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- 1 Introduction: notions of language
- Part I Micro-choices
- Part II Macro-choices
- 7 Code-switching: linguistic choices across language boundaries
- 8 Diglossia and bilingualism: functional restrictions on language choice
- 9 Language spread, shift and maintenance: how groups choose their language
- 10 Language and identity: individual, social, national
- 11 Language planning: communication demands, public choice, utility
- 12 Select letters: a major divide
- 13 The language of choice
- Glossary of terms
- References
- Internet resources
- Index
- References
Summary
… once His Majesty has subdued people from various nations and languages, and being in need of transmitting the law of the conquerors in this language, I hereby present this Grammar to facilitate its learning …
Nebrija (1492)In order to carry out language planning, one needs a language to plan for.
Peter Mühlhäusler (1994)The Carolingian scholars did not merely become conscious that Romance and Latin were different … they invented the difference.
Roger Wright (1991)Political choices
The world's languages outnumber its independent states by a factor of thirty. They are characterized by internal diversity; and they are marked by gross disparities in terms of number of speakers and functional range. Taken together, these factors make languages an inescapable object of political choices. Political agents taking decisions designed to shape the linguistic behaviour of groups usually act through committees or language academies. The basic assumption underlying the work of some 200 language-planning agencies around the world is that it is possible to change people's behaviour and to adapt the linguistic resources of speech communities to changing communication needs by premeditated planning. Consider some examples.
When, after a protracted and bloody war, East Timor attained independent statehood, the new government of the shattered country lost no time in making provisions concerning its languages.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- SociolinguisticsThe Study of Speakers' Choices, pp. 184 - 203Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005