There is a special challenge in writing about a comparatively new field. Language policy has been studied for at least fifty years, with growing interest and publication over the last two decades, but no consensus has emerged about the scope and nature of the field, its theories or its terminology. I will therefore venture definitions, present first efforts at a theory, attempt to do justice to other opinions and develop, where it seems needed, my own terminology.

There are two matters that I want to mention at the outset. At least since Thomas Kuhn raised the matter, the problem of a scientist's personal point of view has been widely recognized. Especially in the social sciences, it is hard to conceive of a scholar who is strictly neutral. Can one write about economics without an opinion about the morality of the division of resources and the growing gap between rich and poor? Can one write about political structures without taking a stand on the value of democracy and the danger of totalitarianism? Can one write about language policy without a personal view about the desirability of linguistic diversity? In an introduction to the field, however, my assignment is not to advocate but to attempt to understand and explain.