Using language to help people, or using people to help language? A capabilities framework of language policy

Abstract

Language policy is a hugely diverse field, united only by the intent to influence language use in some way. Much early research in the field asserted that language policy had an emancipatory drive, to empower downtrodden minorities against the cruelty or indifference of majoritarian politics. But over the years, critical accounts have increasingly questioned who precisely benefits from promoting minoritized languages. Indeed, can the language itself, valorized as an emblem of heritage, sometimes become invested with its own separate value? Can that value even outweigh concerns over improving people's prospects and capabilities? In what follows, I compare that balance between people's capabilities and the language itself, across a range of cases. I show especially how a growing focus on “new speakers” affects that balance.

A Mutual Language Policy: Facilitating Shared Interests between Foreign and Indigenous Workers Regarding Language, Socio-culture, Ideology and Identity

“…It is not just two of them but also the language it self. So, the intersection among them should be clearly established to mutual help as what Sayers (2023) says "Using language to help people, or using people to help language?. Thus, we call this language policy concept as Mutual Language Policy.…”