Entr'acte: the model to-date

Having taken a first look at the domain of the nation-state in the last chapter, this is perhaps an appropriate place to summarize the theoretical model that has emerged so far. First, I see organized language management as an attempt by some person or body with or claiming authority to modify the language practices or beliefs of a group of speakers. It is a political act, arising out of a belief that the present practices or beliefs are inadequate or undesirable and need modification. It assumes the existence of choice, whether of language, variety, or variable, and depends on the existence or perception of a significant conflict between two or more languages, varieties, or salient variables, such that a different choice can be expected to remedy the conflict.

Secondly, I have demonstrated, as Calvet (1998) argued, that one must study language management not just at the level of the nation-state, but at the various levels of the recognizable domains that make up human society, starting with the family and including religion, the neighborhood, the workplace, health and legal services, and the military, each of which functions as interrelated parts of the sociolinguistic ecosystem. Language management then encompasses, as Nekvapil (2006: 100) remarked, both “macroplanning” at the level of the state and “microplanning” in lower level institutions, and in fact the two dimensions interact.