Bonacina-Pugh, F. 2012. Researching ‘practiced language policies’: insights from conversation analysis. Language Policy 11 (3): 213-234. (original) (raw)
Related papers
This paper revisits the notion of ‘legitimate language’ (e.g. Bourdieu 1977) as it relates to multilingualism in educational contexts. Since Heller (1996) developed the notion of ‘legitimate language’ to encompass issues of language choice, there has been a consensus that a legitimate language is a language that is appropriate in a given situation. However, a crucial issue remains to be addressed, namely that of knowing what benchmark do classroom participants use to know when a language is appropriate, that is, legitimate or not. To address this issue, this paper takes as an example the case of an induction classroom for newly-arrived immigrant children in France where multiple languages have been observed. A Conversation Analysis of a set of audio-recorded interactions reveals that whilst languages other than French are not legitimized by top-down language policies and ideologies held at the societal and institutional levels, they are nevertheless seen as legitimate according to the local “practiced language policy” (Bonacina-Pugh 2012). This paper thus argues for a multi-layered understanding of legitimacy and shows how in the classroom under study, and possibly in other multilingual classrooms, practiced language policies play a key role in the legitimization of multilingual language practices.
Language Policy
This paper explores the intersection of new speakers in conditions of globalisation led mobility and it investigates the implications the phenomena may have for language policy making. It first describes two historical phases in language policy development that are closely related to a sociolinguistics of stability. In this, it criticises how present-day language policy is attached to specific time and space constraints whose focus is a by now outdated concept of language and of speaker as its prescriptive objects-thus leading institutional language policies to not being 'in sync' with contemporary new speakers' socio-and geo-political movements and developments. This proposition is illustrated in two case studies, both located in the Netherlands and dealing with the language practices and connected policies of two types of new speakers. The first case deals with the experiences of asylum seekers being engaged with 'techno-literacies'. That is asylum seekers being part of ICT assisted classes for civic integration through the learning of Dutch (new speakers of a new language, learning through new means of language learning). The second case deals with Chinese students who are fully proficient in Dutch, attending language heritage classes for learning Mandarin through book based lessons (new speakers of an old language, learning through old means of language learning). In both cases, the observed language practices and meta-pragmatic judgements of the individual language users elect them as initiators of bottom-up sociolinguistic change that, while offering grassroots solutions for local challenges, also plays a role as local evidence for informing future top-down language policy development.
Introduction: The Practice of Language Policy Research
2015
Applied linguistics is an intellectual space – a transdiscipline – where theories and methods from multiple fields intersect around language issues (Halliday 2001). Language policy, as Spolsky has pointed out, is a “paradigmatic example of applied linguistics in that it must draw on a range of academic fields to develop practical plans to modify language practices and beliefs” as well as to investigate policy processes empirically (Spolsky 2005, 31). Theories and methods are not merely imported from this range of academic fields, but refined and strategically combined in order to conduct research that is problem‐centered, or issue‐focused (Hult 2010a). Specialists in language policy and planning (LPP) have drawn upon a broad constellation of research methods that have roots in diverse disciplines such as anthropology, law, linguistics, political science, social psychology, and sociology (of language), among others, in order to conduct inquiry on problems or issues related to policy ...
The practice of language policy research
Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning: A Practical Guide, 2015
Applied linguistics is an intellectual space—a transdiscipline—where theories and methods from multiple fields intersect around language issues (Halliday, 2001). Language policy, as Spolsky has pointed out, is a “paradigmatic example of applied linguistics in that it must draw on a range of academic fields to develop practical plans to modify language practices and beliefs” as well as to investigate policy processes empirically (Spolsky, 2005, p. 31. Theories and methods are not merely imported from this range of academic fields, but refined and strategically combined in order to conduct research that is problem-centered, or issue-focused (Hult, 2010). Specialists in language policy and planning (LPP) have drawn upon a broad constellation of research methods that have roots in diverse disciplines such as anthropology, law, linguistics, political science, social psychology, and sociology (of language), among others, in order to conduct inquiry on problems or issues related to policy formation, interpretation, implementation, resistance, and evaluation.
Ethnography of language policy
Language Policy, 2009
While theoretical conceptualizations of language policy have grown increasingly rich, empirical data that test these models are less common. Further, there is little methodological guidance for those who wish to do research on language policy interpretation and appropriation. The ethnography of language policy is proposed as a method which makes macro–micro connections by comparing critical discourse analyses of language policy with ethnographic data collection in some local context. A methodological heuristic is offered to guide data collection and sample data are presented from the School District of Philadelphia. It is argued that critical conceptualizations of educational language policy should be combined with empirical data collection of policy appropriation in educational settings.
Language in Society, 2014
A volume entitled Language policy risks promising more than can be delivered, even in a book like this of some 290 pages. The main reason is simply that the scope of language policy studies has extended over the years to include a very wide range of domains and levels: for example, family language policy, language policy in business and commerce, in the military, in religion, in local government, in schools, and in supranational organisations (such as the EU). And such studies take in a very wide range of locations and countries-from New Zealand to Nepal, from South Africa to Singapore. The term language policy also has an ambiguous denotation referring on the one hand to policy-making and planning activity, often but not only the province of politicians, and on the other to a relatively young academic discipline. Given this very wide scope, this book necessarily, and sensibly, has a narrower focus than the title might suggest in that it deals predominantly with language policies in education and in schools, with issues concerning multilingual education for minority groups in the United States featuring prominently. Also, as befits a volume in a series called 'Research and practice in applied linguistics', the book's main focus falls on the academic discipline of language policy studies, on its research methodologies and theoretical frameworks. It can be read, then, as a guide to doing research in the field of language policy in education. The book's overarching argument is that language policy (LP) takes place at a variety of levels-macro, meso, and micro (the onion layers of Ricento & Hornberger's (1996) metaphor), and that actors at these levels enjoy a degree of freedom or agency in creating, interpreting, appropriating, or implementing policy. Thus, language policies may emerge 'bottom-up' as well as 'top-down', with the former in particular often taking an implicit form and becoming manifest in micro-level practices, in classrooms for example. For this reason there is a fairly strong commitment to ethnography in the investigation of LP processes (e.g. those of creation and interpretation) alongside such established approaches as the discourse analysis of policy texts. Based on this foundation, the book is organised ISABELLE BUCHSTALLER, Quotatives: New trends and sociolinguistic implications.
Language policy and ‘new speakers’: an introduction to the thematic issue
Language Policy, 2019
In recent years, sociolinguistic research on minority languages in Europe, particu-larly in the Galician context, has chiefly contributed both theoretically and empiri-cally to the growing attention given to ‘new speakers’, as well as to the emergence of a European research network in 2013 entitled ‘New Speakers in a multilingual Europe: Opportunities and challenges’ (www.nspk.org.uk). As documented in spe-cial issues and edited volumes, the research activities in the network not only aimed at adding the term ‘new speaker’ to the growing pool of analytical terminology in critically oriented sociolinguistics. Employing ‘new speaker’ as a lens rather than as a clear-cut notion is what we—as editors—had in mind when giving shape to this volume, drawing on discussions during the final phases of the above-mentioned research network. This seemed especially useful because such a broad take on ‘new speakerness’ opens up avenues for comparative research under a common label. In sum, it is certainly worth the effort to continue delving deeper into the notion of ‘new speakers’, and particularly to do that from the perspective of language policy. The articles collected in this thematic issue aim at contributing into that direction.