Language planning
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
- This article is about the field of language planning and policy. See Constructed language for an article on the creation of planned or artificial languages.
Language planning refers to deliberate efforts to influence the behaviour of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of language. Typically it will involve the development of goals, objectives and strategies to change the way language is used in a community. At a governmental level, language planning takes the form of language policy.
Language planning can be divided into three sub-dimensions:
- Corpus planning refers to intervention in the forms of a language, e.g., by creating new forms, modifying old ones, or selecting from alternative forms. Corpus planning aims to develop the resources of a language so that it becomes an appropriate medium of communication for modern topics and forms of discourse, equipped with the terminology needed to function as the medium of administration, education, etc. Corpus planning is often related to the standardisation of a language, involving the preparation of a normative orthography, grammar, and dictionary for the guidance of writers and speakers in a non-homogeneous speech community. Efforts at linguistic purism and the exclusion of foreign words (see linguistic protectionism) also belong to corpus planning. For a previously unwritten language, the first step in corpus planning is the development of a writing system.
- Status planning refers to deliberate efforts to allocate the functions of languages and literacies within a given speech community. It involves status choices, making a particular language or variety an 'official language', 'national language', etc. Often it will involve elevating a language or dialect into a prestige variety. Status planning is part and parcel of creating a new writing system since a writing system can only be developed after a suitable dialect is chosen as the standard. Status planning tends to be the most controversial aspect of language planning (see article on Language policy).
- Acquisition planning concerns the teaching and learning of languages, whether national languages or second and foreign languages. It involves efforts to influence the number of users and the distribution of languages and literacies, by creating opportunities or incentives to learn them. Acquisition planning is directly related to language spread.
In a third world context, language planning has mainly been concerned with the establishment of standardised national languages as a part of modernisation and nation building.
Language planning is not necessarily conducted at the national level. It can also be carried out by ethnic, religious or occupational groups. One group that is responsible for considerable language planning around the world, especially for peoples with unwritten languages, is SIL International (originally the Summer Institute of Linguistics) in the US. Language planning can also go from the bottom up, such as the movement for non-sexist language in the U.S., which originated with grass-roots feminist groups.
See also
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