Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

152 Part 2: Language and Society
defi nitions); felt needs (affected groups’ defi nitions); expressed needs (actioned
felt needs) and comparative needs (requiring contrasting processes).
These schemes are impressive but they mostly support research and
ultimately face the same limitations as all taxonomies: they tend towards
mechanistic accounts of what in reality are fl uid and dynamic realities. No
overarching classifi cation can refl ect the localised reality of most language
problems and debates and the fact that problems, as Dua notes, meet different
needs according to who is doing the defi ning. Ultimately LP is a
situated activity, whose specifi c history and local circumstances infl uence
what is regarded as a language problem, and whose political dynamics
determine which language problems are given policy treatment. An identical
language issue in one setting might not be regarded as a problem in
another. The effects of lobbying, mobilisation and political will might succeed
in converting language issues in one political system to policy attention
while failing to do so in another. The Swedish example indicates that
some language problems lend themselves to being tractable in policy (tame
problems), while others are wicked and lead to politicisation or dispute.
Language problems are not neutral of interests. Bilingualism resulting from
immigrant communities retaining their languages in host societies is often
more controversial than bilingualism resulting from mainstream learners
acquiring foreign languages. It is also clear that many societies with indigenous
minorities are more disposed to grant these minorities language
rights if there are no territorial or separatist connotations attached to their
claims. Language problems merge readily with socio-political realities.
Critical reactions to LP as an objective science
Writing about nationalism in the Middle East, historian Elie Kedourie
anticipated both the optimism of the policy sciences and the sharp reactions
of the 1990s, in a scathing 1961 assessment of LP: ‘It is absurd to
think that professors of linguistics . . . can do the work of statesmen and
soldiers . . . academic enquiries are used by confl icting interests to bolster
up their claims, and their results prevail only to the extent that somebody
has the power to make them prevail .... Academic research does not add
a jot or a tittle to the capacity for ruling . . .’ (Kedourie, 1961: 125).
This assessment is dismissive but also restrictive. While it is ultimately
true that LP is part of ‘ruling’, LP has never only been in the hands of soldiers
and statesmen. Poets, musicians, and teachers, as well as professional
sociolinguists, have a hand in directing the fortunes of language
change and evolution.
The archetypal ‘rational’ method of LP is the sociolinguistic survey
informing a sequence of steps: (1) Problem Identifi cation (fact-fi nding);
(2) Goal Specifi cation (policy); (3) Cost–Benefi t Analysis (costed demonstration
of alternatives); (4) Implementation; (5) Evaluation (comparing