Current issues in LPP research and their impact on society

Abstract

After a very broad description of what language policy and planning is about this paper presents an overview of some of the current preoccupations of researchers focusing on language policy and planning as one of the blooming fields of applied linguistics. The current issues in language policy and planning research that are dealt with include ‘the history of the field’, ‘language practices in different domains of society’, ‘ideas and beliefs about language’, and ‘the practical side of language policy and planning’. The brief sketch of current issues in language policy and planning research is meant to serve as the background for a preliminary discussion of the impact of language policy and planning research on society. That discussion takes the different ‘roles’ of academics working at university departments and doing research on language policy and planning as a starting point.

Linguistic Landscapes and Minority Languages

“…It looks at how the LL works as "a mechanism of policy" (Shohamy 2006), how it shapes and is shaped by policy regulations and decrees (Gorter et al 2012a), and at instances of contestation, when people resist official policies whether in favour or against minority language use. Note that such an approach to research on minority languages aligns with recent trends in, for example, language policy and planning research, which has been characterized by a pragmatic turn (Darquennes 2013), focusing more explicitly on policy practices and the actual implementation of policies. On a methodological level, this has led to an increased interest in ethnographic methods (Johnson and Ricento 2013), a trend that is also reflected in LL research.…”

“…Language policy in a broad sense includes all major categories of language policy and planning: status planning, corpus planning, acquisition planning, usage planning, prestige planning, and discourse planning (cf. Hornberger 2006;Darquennes 2013;Jernudd and Nekvapil 2012;Marten 2016). According to Spolsky (2004Spolsky ( , 2009aSpolsky ( , b, 2012, language policy consists of three parts: language management (i.e.…”

A Panorama of Linguistic Landscape Studies

“…This can be illustrated by Finnish as a minority language in Sweden, where some communities of Finnish speakers settled centuries ago and others are more recent arrivals. While some regional minority languages have obtained official recognition and a degree of legal protection, many are lacking such protections and immigrant minority languages are hardly if ever subjected to positive legal measures (Darquennes, 2013;Extra & Gorter, 2008). An obvious major difference is that most 'unique' minority languages are struggling for their survival and many are at risk of disappearing, while migrant languages such as Arabic and Turkish would survive in the country of origin even if they were no longer spoken by migrants.…”

A Panorama of Linguistic Landscape Studies

“…This can be illustrated by Finnish as a minority language in Sweden, where some communities of Finnish speakers settled centuries ago and others are more recent arrivals. While some regional minority languages have obtained official recognition and a degree of legal protection, many are lacking such protections and immigrant minority languages are hardly if ever subjected to positive legal measures (Darquennes, 2013;Extra & Gorter, 2008). An obvious major difference is that most 'unique' minority languages are struggling for their survival and many are at risk of disappearing, while migrant languages such as Arabic and Turkish would survive in the country of origin even if they were no longer spoken by migrants.…”