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Language planning and policy formulation is a complex exercise. The purpose of this research was to explore and expose the challenges of language planning and policy formulation in Africa, with specific reference to Zimbabwe as the case study. To carry out the study, critical stages, approaches, theories and models of language planning were used. This analysis further established the attitudes of indigenous communities towards the use of indigenous languages in major domains of life. The study revealed the dilemma African Governments face in ‘officializing’ indigenous languages. The study proposes that in a multilingual nation like Zimbabwe, there is strong need to provide legal recognition to African languages as both official and national languages within Zimbabwe’s constitution. The research comprises six chapters. The conclusion restates the problem identified at the beginning and summarizes the findings. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

La réflexion proposée concerne les grandes lignes des politiques linguistiques et éducatives dans le contexte tatarstanais. Après un parcours des différents aspects de la configuration sociolinguistique ( les médias, l’enseignement, l’édition et la production littéraire) dans une perspective transdisciplinaire incluant les approches historiques et sociolinguistiques, on aborde un sujet particulier de l’aménagement linguistique – la sélection d’un système graphique. La deuxième partie s’attache à l’analyse de discours épilinguistiques médiatiques et ordinaires : en prenant appui sur un corpus d’entretiens et de questionnaires on explore le fonctionnement des représentations et des stéréotypes sociolinguistiques dans le contexte du bilinguisme officiel. / This work goes along the principal lines of language and educational policy in the context of Tatarstan. After a survey of various aspects of the given sociolinguistic situation ( including the media, educational system, literary activities) we’ll analyse a specific area of language planning – that of writing system options – from an interdisciplinary perspective associating historical and sociolinguistic approaches. The second part is dedicated to discourse analysis based on the body of interviews and questionnaires; it explores the sociolinguistic representations and stereotypes functioning in the officially bilingual context.

Based on four separate studies, this thesis deals with Swedish academia and its dwellers, with an eye toward accounting for matters of languages and linguistic exchanges. The perspectives and thinking-tools of Pierre Bourdieu form the basis of the main leitmotif, albeit extended with insights from linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics. Methods employed include historical analysis as well as ethnographic approaches. Study 1 analyzes the historical events and language ideological labor through which English has come to be seen as a sociolinguistic problem in Swedish language planning and policy (LPP). At the focus is the notion of ‘domain loss,’ which is interpreted as a resource in the struggle to safeguard the Swedish language. Study 2 deals with the increasing importance of English in academic publishing in two disciplinary fields of Swedish academia: history and psychology. In history, in particular, English and the transnational publishing markets it bargains currently seem to offer new ways of advancing in the competition of the field, which is encouraged by the will and ensuing managerial techniques of contemporary research policy. Study 3, however, shows that this fact does not entail that Swedish is not being used as a scientific language. In the research practices preceding finalized texts in English, Swedish-speaking researchers in physics and computer science use technical and discipline-specific Swedish both orally and in writing. The principle that upholds the logic of ‘Swedish among Swedish-speakers’ is crucial also with respect to the ability of Swedish researchers to write up scientific texts in Swedish. Exploring the writing practices of a computer scientist and his successful first-time performance of two scientific texts in Swedish, study 4 shows that texts in Swedish can be produced by assembling experiences from previous discursive encounters throughout a researcher’s biographically specific discursive history. In summary, the thesis argues that while English increasingly prevails in publishing, much knowledge previously produced and reproduced on these matters within the field of LPP has tended to overstate the dominance of English, and with that, the sociolinguistic implications of the current state of affairs. The thesis proposes that Bourdieu’s work offers some purchase in attempts to engender in-depth knowledge on the position of English vis-à-vis Swedish in the globalizing markets of Swedish academia, and that epistemic reflexivity, in particular, is a pivotal driver in such an agenda. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript.</p>

Segundo os principais representantes da atual política linguística espanhola, o español general é uma variedade transnacional da língua. Comum, neutra e globalizada, não se impõe a ninguém, mas faz parte do repertório linguístico de todo falante culto do mundo hispânico. Nas últimas décadas, e com diferentes nomes, ele habita os instrumentos normativos produzidos pelas academias de la lengua, protagoniza grandes eventos promovidos pelo Instituto Cervantes e é difundido mundo afora como língua estrangeira pela mesma instituição, carro chefe do atual projeto de planificação linguística do Estado espanhol. O presente estudo trata de situar o dito español general na política linguística espanhola da década de 90 do século XX até o final da primeira década do século XXI e tem como tese central que a invenção, promoção, defesa e difusão dessa variedade visam a comercialização da língua. A pesquisa se situa no campo teórico da glotopolítica e tem como objetivo analisar ações de política e planificação linguística esta última de acordo com o modelo de Robert Cooper e as ideologias que as acompanham. Para tanto se faz, por meio de revisão bibliográfica, uma análise da conformação do habitus linguístico espanhol desde sua instalação no Novo Mundo, a posição que ocupou nas jovens nações americanas no momento das independências, o surgimento e construção da autoridade linguística da Real Academia de la Lengua Española até sua atual política linguística panhispánica. Analisa-se também a criação e atuação do Instituto Cervantes (por meio da propaganda por ele veiculada, seus eventos e discursos de seus representantes), instituição espanhola responsável pela difusão e expansão mundial da língua. O presente estudo não poderia se realizar sem levar em conta o contexto político, social e econômico em que se elabora e executa o projeto de planificação linguística analisado, além de tratar de avaliar em que medida a ideia de língua enquanto activo económico (recurso e ativo econômico) serve de motor para tal projeto. Finalmente, são analisados os instrumentos linguísticos elaborados e adotados pelo Instituto Cervantes currículos, livros didáticos e manual de estilo com o objetivo de verificar de que maneira a planificação linguística espanhola chega à sala de aula e qual é a língua-produto adquirida pelo aluno de espanhol como língua estrangeira (mercado internacional). Toda a análise realizada ao longo deste estudo termina por revelar quem é e como soa o tão festejado español general. / According to the current main researchers on Spanish Language Policy Studies, the español general is a transnational variety of the language. As it is ordinary, neutral and globalized, it cannot be imposed on anybody, but it is part of the linguistic repertoire of every educated speaker in the Hispanic World. For the past decades, and bearing different names, it has been referred to in all normative documents written by the academias de la lengua, has been the theme of important events promoted by the Cervantes Institute and also spread around the world as a foreign language by the same institution, the flagship of the current linguistic planning project of the Spanish State. The objective of this study is to situate the so-called español general within the Spanish language policy from the 90s of the 20th century to the end of the first decade of the 21st century. The central thesis underpinning this research is that the invention, promotion, defense and propaganda of this variety aim at the commercialization of the language. Situated in the field of Glotopolitics, this piece of research aims to analyze actions of language policy and planning the latter by following Robert Coopers model and the ideologies that accompany them. In order to do so, a bibliographical study is carried out concerning an analysis of the conformation of the Spanish linguistic habitus since its installation in the Novo Mundo, the position it occupied in the new American nations at the moment of their independence, the beginning and construction of the linguistic authority of the Real Academia de la lengua española up to its current panhispánica linguistic policy. We also analyze the creation and actions of the Cervantes Institute (through its propaganda, events and representatives speeches), the Spanish institution responsible for the language diffusion and spread in the world. This present study could not have been carried out without taking into account the political, social and economic context in which the language planning analyzed is designed and implemented. It also evaluates to what extent the concept of language as activo económico (economic resource and asset) drives such a project. Lastly, the linguistic instruments designed and adopted by the Cervantes Institute such as curricula, books and style manuals - are analyzed aiming at verifying in what ways the Spanish language planning reaches the classrooms and which is the product-language learned by the student of Spanish as a foreign language (international market). The analysis carried out reveals what the much-feted español general is and what it sounds like.

Thesis (M.A. (Linguistics)) --University of Limpopo, 2015 / This study is a qualitative descriptive study which analyses the words that the respondents used to provide their answers. The study is on language policy which should be available in each institution and it must also be implemented. Questionnaire and interviews were used to collect data. The questionnaires were distributed to the officials of SASSA and the beneficiaries were interviewed in all six languages that are found in Limpopo province. Data was presented and interpreted in this study. The SPSS software has been used as it does not consume time in analysing data. The main issue was to get the opinions that the officials and beneficiaries has on the absence of language policy in SASSA. The importance of language policy is to control on how language should be used in a particular institution. Language unit are responsible for establishing language policy as they will find facts on how many languages are used by the beneficiaries, how many speakers of each language, within the particular geographical area. When language policy has been established, it has to be implemented to start working. Most institutions have language policy for submission to the government but it cannot be implemented as they mention impossible statements which cannot be implemented. When institutions establish language policy for submission they tend to make vague declarations which are impossible to implement. They are just statements which are kept in offices but are never used.

The aim of thesis is to analyze the relationship between language planning policies and nation building process in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. The language planning policies in Kazakhstan aim to raise the status and role of Kazakh language in political and social contexts (status planning), develop Kazakh language as the medium of administration, education, media and science (corpus planning), and spread the use of Kazakh language (acquisition planning). However, given the demographic conditions, heterogeneous and multilingual ethnic composition of Kazakhstan, the desired progress has not been achieved. The main argument of the thesis is that so long as Kazakhstan cannot develop comprehensive, well-integrated language planning policies with suitable short-, medium- and long-term targets it cannot be expected to have success in their desire to make Kazakh the state language. The reason lies in the fact that Kazakhstan consist of a sizeable Russian minority and an ethnic nation building process takes place in the country. Thus, the existing language planning policies cannot respond to the needs of the society. The thesis examines factors and reasons affecting this process. To this end, the thesis shall cover an analysis language policies and nation building policies within a historical context.

Thesis (D. Phil (Linguistics))--University of Pretoria, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation examines three phases in post-Cold War relations between Turkey and the ex-Soviet Turkic republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus, not from the macro-level perspective of political and economic protocols and accords agreed by state actors, which has been ably outlined by other scholars, but rather from the micro-level perspective of efforts pursued on a less formal plane to promote linguistic rapprochement among the disparate Turkic peoples. The actors in this unfolding drama were an shifting collective of interested individuals, composed predominantly of linguists and language professionals, who were readily classifiable neither as official representatives of their respective nations, nor solely as invested individuals acting in their own interests, but rather operated at the meso level and comprised, I would argue, a “community of practice” dedicated to uniting the Turkic peoples linguistically, socioculturally, and perhaps even geopolitically under the rubric of an emergent supranational “Turkic world.” In exploring the shifting sands of supranational relations in the post-Soviet Turkic world through the lens of linguistic rapprochement, I focus, in particular, on two ostensibly discrete language ideological debates--the first centered around a series of early Turkic linguistic congresses held during the initial phase of post-Soviet Turkic relations that focused on the creation of a common Turkic alphabet (ortak alfabe) and Turkic lingua franca (ortak dil), and the second emerging during the third phase of relations among the Turkic peoples that focused on defending the Turkish alphabet from pernicious “outside” influence, where “outside” was largely identified as “the West” yet intersected in interesting, ways with the “outside Turks” (dış Türkler) of Central Asia and the Caucasus. In addition, I reconstruct the transitional “bridge” between the first and third phases of Turkic relations by also examining the dimensions of ongoing discussion and debate over issues of language, orthography, and identity both in Turkey and in the emergent Turkic world that, although more diffuse and less formal by nature than the two debates described above nonetheless, I argue, constitute two additional language ideological debates which together define the second stage of relations among the Turkic peoples in the post-Cold War era. / text

published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts