BIL-60204 (SOCIOLINGUISTIC IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION)

An article review

Title: Terrence G.Wiley (2009). Language planning and policy (pp.103-149)

Citation:

The article “Language planning and policy”, was written by Terence G.Wiley, the President

and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, DC. His work is

mainly focused on educational and applied linguistics, engaged on educational language policies;

language diversity and immigrant integration; teaching English as a second and international

language; bilingualism, literacy and biliteracy studies; and bilingual, heritage and community

language education. This article is taken from Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching book which

was first publishes in 1996.

The article draws attention to the issues of Language planning and policy; in particular, the

author refers to the issues by dividing the topic into five segments. The article is rather descriptive

than analytical or expository, and mostly uses data external sources and research, which shows the

language planning and policy in education and society. Although there are good points in the article,

however, does not seem to have any significant background, which could be, for example, a rapid

decline of education problem influenced by language planning and policy; at least nothing like that is

mentioned in the text.

Particularly, the author appeals to research conducted by Leibowitz (1971,1974), which

shows that there is more issue than just language because decision about language often leads to

benefits for some and loss of privilege, status and right for others. He begins his arguments by stating

the basic issues and assumptions that influences the direction language planning and policy. He makes

extensive reference to Wolfran and Fasold (1974) and Labov (1982) by looking at the belief of how

we conceive the language as it is can determine the way of people study and analyze it, since language

is considered as a code and as social behavior. According to Crawford (1992a) and Weinstein (1983),
there are three conflicts arise over language such as language minority, new language policy barriers

and linguistic cleansing. The author also stresses the major assumption about language rights and

addressed the article of Macias (1979) regarding the rights which are right to freedom from

discrimination and activities of communal life.

The second segment discusses key definitions used within the field, describes diverse ranges

and kinds of language planning, and identifies who are officially and unofficially involves in it.

Particularly, the author cited the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics in terms of giving the

definition of language planning. According to the article there are two components in defining

language planning such as corpus planning and status planning. In particular, the corpus planning is

aimed to reform the format of speaking while status planning pointed out about the various languages

such as minority languages perspective. In fact, the author focused on the term of language planning

seems to facilitate the communication or language problems. The author also underlined two major

forces in determining social language; government planning and language strategist. According to the

data collected by the author, language policies need to be defined by differentiate between explicit and

(official policies) and implicit (even tacit policies). Moreover, in the article of Cooper (1989), the

author tried to show the language acquisition planning which involve language-policy making by

highlighting the teaching and use of language. However, the author rises the additional issue in

language planning such as language problems. In this case, he tried to bring up the cause of problem

from the roots whether the language plan can bring problems to the communication.

The third part contrasts influential scholarly orientations and strategies towards language

making plans and policy evaluation and in short opinions the work of several authorities in phrases of

their approaches. The article by Ruiz (1984) possesses interest first for important analysis of two

dominant orientations towards language planning such as language as problem and language as right

and proposes a third, language as resource. These two-resource orientations only resolved some of the

limitations and there are more problems and technical issues to investigate. Furthermore, he also

focused on neoclassical versus historical structure approach by addressing the article of Tollefson

(1991). The article shows the difference between the neoclassical approach and historical-structural
approach by considering the how language planning is being conducted. The author cited the four

major differences between these two approaches in terms of the influence of sociohistorical factors on

language and its role, the perspective of examining the plan and policies, and the role of the social

scientist. Apart from that, the author also discussed about Neoclassical-autonomous aspects of Einar

Haugen’s strategy toward language planning. There are four stages of language planning which

concern primarily in the process if systematizing and cultivating a standardized language code in a

way to solve the communication problem. Other scholars also discussed by the author such as Heinz

Kloss and Arnold Leibowitz. Both scholars contribute to the language policy formation. According to

article Kloss (1971, 1979), Heinz Kloss particularly creates policy towards immigrant language

minorities. However, Kloss pictured of language decimation as an individual problem which in

neoclassical approach and avoid the language policies in conjunction with institutional racism. Arnold

Leibowitz points out the language as an instrument of social control especially the immigrants and it

can understand the communication problem from the very core.

The next part, the author focuses on goals of language planning especially in education

planning and deals with two important challenges to enhance the policies and practices. He underlined

the goals involve in language planning includes language, political and economic goals. In this

contextual process, the author pointing out three major policies such as language shift policy,

language maintenance policy and language enrichment policy. According to Ruiz (1984), this policy

identified because of language diversity which is become a problem. He asserts that, there has been a

major role of language in the development of nation. In the article of Fishman (1966), the language

shift policies and intergenerational drifts toward dominant languages cause by many reasons. This

issue answering the question of why a lot of people or individuals who have minority language status

do not change but remain loyal to their mother tongue. This is because language is the fundamental

tools of solving communication problem and in building up nationalism. In terms of economic goals,

the author asserts that language strategy is correlated with economic development such as for those

who are dealing with communication and marketing international trade (Simon, 1988). According to

the article Kaplan (1991), the lack of language and literacy skills in the dominant language often cited
as the cause of poor economic performance, trade deficits and low productivity. He also emphasizes

the positive impact of language planning on the national economy.

Lastly, the author discussed the language in education planning, issues of professional

responsibility as well as language policies and practice in institutional contexts. Particularly, the

author emphasizes that the Language in education planning is the main structure acquisition planning

in international context based on article of Paulston and McLaughlin (1994). He also mentioned the

role of school in community based-language plan besides promoting national standard languages.

However, the author pointed out one issue involving African American parents who have been fight

for having equal opportunity towards quality of education. Furthermore, the author also talked about

the issues of professional responsibility when it comes to the social commitment in the society.

According to article by Labov (1982), there are four principles to guide professional involvement such

as principle of error correction, debt incurred, linguistic democracy, linguistic autonomy and the

principle of representation in the field. Subsequently, it is important to observe the institutional

context before taking Labov principle into practice.

STEP 6: CRITIQUE

The article “Language planning and policy”, by Terence G.Wiley seeks to address how

language is very essential to the society nowadays. The research problem being addressed is whether

language planning and policy are giving huge impact to education system and society. In fact, it is

clear from the article that this is not a simple issue. From the given information, the article is shows

clear explanation for the first couple of paragraphs. The author starts by pointing out the assumptions

and issues make it easier to hold individual understanding regarding the topic being discussed.

However, conflict emerges when the minorities face challenges such as difference in quality of

education. The author then explains on how the key elements in language planning and policy play

important roles to social context. Furthermore, the author has clear explained the strategy in language

plan and policy by quoting several studies and put them into practice. Then, the author also discussed

the policies and decision can give a positive or negative impact in any area. To such complicated
issue, the author sums the research up well by saying there are times when linguist and language

teacher as well as everyone to take part and play their role because by taking out the issue seriously it

will give an advantage to the economic, politic and social. This is a good concept for how the problem

or issues of Multilanguage especially those who are minorities should be handled. Last but not least,

the author well explained the professional responsibility in terms of language policy and strategy.

Overall this article is very straightforward in the beginning, but it is not until the third page

that you will realize where the article is headed. The term of sociolinguistic is quite confusing for

those who are not in the field of social science. Moreover, the article provides more than enough

information regarding the field. Thus, the concern is about how long the audience could spend their

time to read the entire article. Therefore, in order to have more people be engaged and read the whole

article it needs a new, more concise introduction and body part towards the end. Once the reader gets

to the good examples that are relevant to the everyday life of society, a good portion of the article has

already passed. Overall it is a good, well-written article with an important message for public

especially linguist and language teacher and organization and nation as a whole. The piece, when

taken as a whole, is relevant and very convincing in theory but starts slow and never lays out a

concrete way of approaching this complex problem. Meanwhile, there is no bias in this article as the

sample of study and research are in United States, therefore it only circulates the issue among their

citizen especially African American society.

The author concludes with varying degrees of promoting language change. From the very

beginning of the topic, he explained the introduction part by assessing the issues and assumption in

the related field. Then, he moves to the next section in finding the key definition and describe the

language of planning and policies in details. The author also discussed the third part of approaches in

depth. Meanwhile for the second last and last part, the focused of study are concern about the major

goals and important challenges in the field of language plan and policies. Apart from that, he surmises

that, “How we view issues related to language change, language preservation and language in

education planning which is influenced by the research of Ruiz (1984). The cases are seemed to have

a problem when language diversity is seen as a problem in the society. On the other hand, it can be a
reflection when it is seen as a resource. Therefore, linguist and language teacher or anyone must play

a role in order to promote such a view and equal education. The research explained the topics clearly

especially when it is involving the economic, politic and society. Meanwhile for the accuracy, the

author does not provide any concrete data or graphical data for the sample taken. The implication of

this study is giving the latest view of the essence of language strategy and policies in order to give an

equal quality of education to our generation.

1. Crawford, J. (1992). Hold your tongue: Bilingualism and the politics of "English only." Reading,

MA: Addison-Wesley.
2. Kaplan, R. B. (1991). Applied linguistics and language policy and planning. Introduction to

applied linguistics (pp.143-168). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

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4. Kloss, H. (1977). The American bilingual tradition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
5. Labov, W. (1982). Objectivity and commitment in linguistic science: The case of the Black English

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Ethnoperspectives in bilingual education research (Vol. 1, (pp. 39—75). Ypsilanti: Eastern

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8. Paulston, C. B., &c McLaughlin, S. (1994). Language-in-education policy and planning. In W.

Grabe (Ed.), Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 14,53—81. Cambridge University Press.
9. Simon, P. (1988). The tongue-tied American: Confronting the foreign language crisis (2nd ed.).

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New York: Longman.7 Ruiz (1984)

Longman.
12. Wolfram, W., & Fasold, R. W. (1974). The study of social dialects in American English.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.