Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

Language Policy and Planning 153
predicted to actual outcomes). The harshest critics of LP have argued that
such a scheme aims to transfer formal managerial public policy methods
to the messy, un-ordered ideology-based world of ever-changing communication.
Extending this criticism from the process of LP to its practitioners,
some critics have alleged that LP specialists ‘masquerade’ as neutral
information-collecting scholars who use ‘scientifi c’ instruments all the
while concealing or misunderstanding the essentially political manoeuvres
underlying government interest in LP in the fi rst place. Some critics
accuse LP professionals of being complicit in technocratic management
of the lives of vulnerable minority communities, such as when they gather
data about Indigenous peoples (Sommer, 1991) that really only serve the
interests of government bureaucracies.
The methods of LP were called a ‘pretence to science’ by Luke et al.
(1990), who argued that LP is ‘complicit’ with social repression in the
interests of state and class, and criticised LP for ‘professionalising’ decision
making. Professionalisation raises barriers to involvement of speaker
communities in making decisions about their own languages. The tension
between ‘ordinary language users’ and professional specialists is a recurring
theme in criticisms of LP. Alleging undemocratic practices, Moore
(1996) claims that LP specialists are not suffi ciently critical or even aware
of troubling issues regarding LP.
Mühlhäusler (1995) exposes how developed-country LP experts have
transferred assumptions of modernity and monolingual ‘effi ciency’ in
education, public administration and the economy to vastly different
Pacifi c island contexts. Taking for granted ideas about a single standardised
language and universal literacy can become a judgment against
multilingualism as ineffi cient rather than a natural feature of human existence,
and lead to moves towards uni-lingualism in intergenerationally
stable multilingual communities. This kind of LP leads to hierarchical
diglossia (one language reserved for high functions and others for low
functions) and eventual erosion or extinction of languages occupied
mostly with low function activities.
Some critics associate LP with the spread of English, Westernising
modernity and political ideologies of neo-liberal capitalism. Some critics
of LP draw on eco-linguistics to argue against language assimilation, in
defence of distinctive life-worlds and against depletion of minority worldviews
(Nettle & Romaine, 2000; Phillipson & Skutnabb-Kangas, 1996).
Another allegation has been that LP entrenches economic inequalities for
immigrants in fi rst world societies through language education schemes
tracking new arrivals into low-paid, marginal jobs (Tollefson, 1991).
In response, Fishman (1994) accepts some but rejects many of these
criticisms, and calls on LP scholars to adopt stances, conceding that LP is
neither ideology-free nor does it have an inbuilt moral code. It is a tool
used by ‘ethnicisers, nativisers and traditionalisers’ who ‘engage in