Dilemmatic aspects of language policies in a trilingual preschool group

Multilingua ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tünde Puskás ◽  
Polly Björk-Willén
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Preschool Curriculum ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
Micro Level

AbstractThis article explores dilemmatic aspects of language policies in a preschool group in which three languages (Swedish, Romani and Arabic) are spoken on an everyday basis. The article highlights the interplay between policy decisions on the societal level, the teachers’ interpretations of these policies, as well as language practices on the micro level. The preschool group is seen as a complex context for negotiating language policies and expectations regarding language use. The theoretical framework builds on Billig’s work on ideological and everyday dilemmas that we argue are detectable at both levels of the analysis. The analysis of the ethnographic material shows that the explicit language policy formulated in the Swedish preschool curriculum leads, in practice, to ideological, pedagogical and everyday dilemmas. Moreover, an unwillingness to set rules for children’s language choice combined with the central position of free play in Swedish preschool practice has led to a situation in which children fall short of their potential to develop bilingual competence.

scholarly journals Translinguistic apposition in a multilingual media blog in Rwanda: Towards an interpretive perspective in language policy research

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Gafaranga
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Interpretive Perspective

AbstractResearchers have called for studies that link the macro and the micro in language policy research. In turn, the notion of ‘micro’ has been theorised as referring either to the micro implementation of macro policies or to micro policies. In this article, a third way of thinking about the relationship between the macro and the micro in language policy—referred to as the interpretive perspective—is proposed. In this perspective, macro language policies and micro language choice practices are seen as interdependent, as shaping each other. The article substantiates this view drawing on a practice I call translinguistic apposition and that I have observed in a variety of ‘most highly regulated’ texts in Rwanda. However, for an in- depth understanding, the practice is described drawing on data from a single source, namely the Rwandan multilingual media blog www.igihe.com. The article demonstrates how this practice can be seen as shaped by the Rwandan macro language policy and, conversely, how the same macro policy can be seen as written into being through the same micro level practice. (Language policy, micro language policy, micro implementation of macro policy, translanguaging, translinguistic apposition, interpretive perspective)

Towards a fuller understanding of language use in Wales

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lowri Angharad Hughes Ahronson
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Language Policy And Planning ◽  
Planning Activity ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Policy And Planning

This article considers the importance of developing a holistic understanding of the factors that influence language choice and examines two periods of intense language policy and planning activity in Wales. Part 1 looks at the historical context of the interaction between Welsh and English, focusing on the pivotal years 1880–1920. Part 2 turns to the present day and to measures put in place to influence the use of Welsh. In both periods, language policy and planning has operated across many spheres with the aim of either maintaining the use of Welsh or triggering a switch to using Welsh. In light of these discussions, Part 3 considers the kind of research needed to further develop the field and suggests that long-term micro-level study of an individual’s language choice may help us better understand the nuances of this issue and thus better shape policies and initiatives that respond to these complexities.

Children’s agency in creating and maintaining language policy in practice in two “language profile” preschools in Sweden

Multilingua ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Boyd ◽  
Leena Huss ◽  
Cajsa Ottesjö
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Play Interactions ◽  
Children’S Agency ◽  
Everyday Interaction

AbstractThis paper presents results from an ethnographic study of language policy as it is enacted in everyday interaction in two language profile preschools in Sweden with explicit monolingual language policies: English and Finnish, respectively. However, in both preschools, children are free to choose language or code alternate. The study shows how children through their interactive choices create and modify language policy-in-practice. We analyze extracts from typical free play interactions in each setting. We show how children use code alternation as a contextualization cue in both settings, but with somewhat different interactional consequences. Children in both preschools tend to follow the lead of the preceding speaker’s language choice. Code alternation is also a means to manage conversational roles, for example, to show alignment. While the staff give priority to the profile language, the children show through their interaction that skills in both the preschool’s profile language and in Swedish are valuable.

University language policies and language choice among Ph.D. graduates in Estonia: The (unbalanced) interplay between English and Estonian

Multilingua ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 33 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josep Soler-Carbonell
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
National Language ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Discussion Section ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Global Language ◽  
A Site

AbstractThe role of English as a global language and its consequences for the internationalization of higher education are matters that have increasingly drawn the attention of researchers from different fields of language and communication. In this paper, an overview of the situation in Estonia is presented. The Estonian context has not previously been analyzed along these lines. The author suggests looking at Ph.D. dissertations as a site of tension between the need to effectively incorporate English as an academic language and the need to maintain Estonian as the national language. The article views this question in the context of some relevant language policy documents and other macro indicators. It then focuses on the number of Ph.D. dissertations defended at four main public universities in the last few years and the languages they have been written in. It appears that, although the language policy documents seem to correctly capture this tension between English and Estonian, the language most commonly used when writing dissertations is overwhelmingly English, with only the humanities providing some counterbalance to that trend. The current situation is different from that of past decades, when English was absent from Estonia’s scientific production and Estonian was significantly employed in that context, alongside Russian. In the discussion section, some lines for further inquiry are presented, together with a proposal for integrating complexity theory in such analyses.

The porous borders of language and nation

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren R. Zentz
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Linguistic Ideologies ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Central Java ◽  
Research Interviews

This analysis of language use and legislation in globalization highlights challenges to and crossings of the borders of Indonesian nationalist ideologies and local language ecologies. Through the specific workings of language and languaging in situ, here explored through three brief examples of language use and ideologies in Central Java, I analyze university English majors’ discussions of the local meaningfulness of English. The analysis demonstrates that institutional language policies are simultaneously subverted by and influential in local language hierarchies. The discussions analyzed come from the students’ written Sociolinguistics class assignments while I was their teacher and from research interviews that they participated in with me, both in which I ask participants about the borders of what can be defined as the English language, and the borders of linguistic ideologies and nationalism in contemporary Indonesia. With an intent stemming from the very origins of language policy research to generate ideas for how state apparatuses might better serve their constituents (Fishman, 1974), this information is essential for understanding the limitations and opportunities that states are instrumental in creating among their citizenries.

Macro-Level policy and Micro-Level planning

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3.1-3.18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Barkhuizen ◽  
Ute Knoch
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
South African ◽  
National Language ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
Language Practices ◽  
Micro Level

This article reports on a study which investigated the language lives of Afrikaans-speaking South African immigrants in New Zealand. Particularly, it focuses on their awareness of and attitudes to language policy in both South Africa and New Zealand, and how these influence their own and their family’s language practices. Narrative interviews with 28 participants living in towns and cities across New Zealand reveal that while living in South Africa they were generally aware of macro-level language policies in the country, and were able to articulate how these policies influenced language practices at work and within their families. The absence of an explicit national language policy in New Zealand means that these immigrants, on arrival in New Zealand, base their understanding of the linguistic context in the country on the language practices that they observe in their day-to-day lives. It is these observations which guide their decision-making with regard to their own and their family’s language practices.

Changing language policies and attitudes in autonomous Catalonia

1990 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn A. Woolard ◽  
Tae-Joong Gahng
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Public Language ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
The Status ◽  
Symbolic Value

ABSTRACTThe effects of language policies on the symbolic value of the linguistic repertoire merit consideration in needed studies of the consequences of language status planning. Since achieving political autonomy within Spain in 1979, Catalonia has instituted a number of policies, particularly in education, to enhance the status and use of Catalan. A matched guise test was conducted among students in Barcelona in 1980 and again in 1987 to gauge changes in attitudes toward Catalan and Castilian. Conflict between positive status and negative solidarity values of Catalan for nonnative speakers found in 1980 appears to be resolved in 1987. Three aspects of public language policy have attenuated ethnic constraints against nonnative use of Catalan, but further changes in social relations may be necessary to alter patterns of language choice. (Language attitudes, language policy, Catalonia)

Macro-Level policy and Micro-Level planning

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3.1-3.18
Author(s):  
Gary Barkhuizen ◽  
Ute Knoch
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
South African ◽  
National Language ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
Language Practices ◽  
Micro Level

This article reports on a study which investigated the language lives of Afrikaans-speaking South African immigrants in New Zealand. Particularly, it focuses on their awareness of and attitudes to language policy in both South Africa and New Zealand, and how these influence their own and their family’s language practices. Narrative interviews with 28 participants living in towns and cities across New Zealand reveal that while living in South Africa they were generally aware of macro-level language policies in the country, and were able to articulate how these policies influenced language practices at work and within their families. The absence of an explicit national language policy in New Zealand means that these immigrants, on arrival in New Zealand, base their understanding of the linguistic context in the country on the language practices that they observe in their day-to-day lives. It is these observations which guide their decision-making with regard to their own and their family’s language practices.

The Politics of Language Education in Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell H. Kaschula ◽  
Michael M. Kretzer
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Sub Saharan

Language policies in sub-Saharan African nations emerge out of specific political, historical, socioeconomic, and linguistic conditions. Education plays a crucial role for all spheres of language policy. Policies either upgrade or downgrade indigenous languages through their application at various educational institutions. The most significant example is the selection of the language(s) used as languages of learning and teaching at higher-education institutions. The region’s colonial history also influences the language policies of the independent African states. Language policy in Senegal is an example of a francophone country focusing on a linguistic assimilation policy in which minor reforms in favor of indigenous languages have taken place. Rwanda’s language policy is unique as the former francophone nation now uses English as an exoglossic language in a type of hybrid language policy. Botswana is an example of an anglophone country that follows a language policy that is dominated by a very close connection to the notion of nation-building through its concentration on a single language, Setswana, alongside English. Tanzania is an anglophone African country whose policy focuses on Kiswahili, which is one of the very few indigenous and endoglossic languages. Kiswahili is broadly used in Tanzanian educational institutions until the tertiary level, but its use as medium of instruction focuses on the primary level. South Africa demonstrates the very close relationship between general political decisions and language policy and vice versa. Language policy decisions are never neutral and are influenced by the politics of a specific country. As a result, individual and societal language attitudes influence language policies. In addition to this, the overt and official language policy on a macro level may differ from the implementation of such policies on a micro level. At the micro level, practice can include covert language practices by various stakeholders.

scholarly journals Bilingual children as policy agents: Language policy and education policy in minority language medium Early Childhood Education and Care

Multilingua ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mari Bergroth ◽  
Åsa Palviainen
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Free Play ◽  
National Language ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care

AbstractThe current study examines bilingual children as language policy agents in the interplay between official language policy and education policy at three Swedish-medium preschools in Finland. For this purpose we monitored nine Finnish-Swedish bilingual children aged 3 to 5 years for 18 months. The preschools were located in three different parts of Finland, in milieux with varying degrees of language dominance. The children were video recorded during their normal daytime routines in early childhood education and care. Three types of communicative situations were analyzed: an educator-led small group activity, free play with friends, and an activity in which one child was playing alone. Representative dialogs were selected to illustrate the children’s agency in constructing and enacting bilingual and/or monolingual language policies. Our analysis shows, firstly, that official national language policies can be enacted in different ways depending on the wider practice structures of the site; and, secondly, that each bilingual child has a unique agency and an active role in the construction of not only the monolingual policy but also a bilingual policy within the frames of early childhood education and care.

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