Gibson Ferguson Language Planning and Education Edinburgh ...

The discipline of language planning 7
language while tolerating the use of the minority language in private but not
public domains.
Historically, these assimilationist policies have been underpinned by sociolinguistic
patterns of language shift leading typically to the loss of the ethnic
minority language by the third generation, but recent developments give
reason to question whether this pattern will continue. One factor here is the
increased scale of recent migration, which – in amplifying the size of minority
residential communities – raises the possibility that many of their members
will be able to live out their lives using only, or predominantly, the minority
language. Another is the rise of a more assertive multicultural ideology, making
claims for the greater representation of minority languages and identities in the
public realm. A third factor is the emergent phenomenon of transnationalism,
referring – among other things – to the tendency of migrants to maintain
closer and more regular connections with their countries of origin.
For some, 8 these developments are experienced as a vexatious challenge
to national identities as traditionally conceived; for others they represent a
welcome break with the monoculturalism traditionally associated with nationstate
politics. Whichever analysis one prefers, there can be little doubt that
language policy, specifically language education policies (see Chapter 3), have
been close to the centre of debates over how best to manage contemporary
migration flows to Western countries, and that, again, LP discussion in this
area has intensified as a result.
Loss of indigenous languages: Of concern to many for its adverse impact on
global linguistic diversity is the predicted loss of up to 90 per cent of the world’s
‘small’ indigenous languages, most of which are unwritten and spoken by poor
marginalised communities (Nettle and Romaine 2000, Crystal 2000). Their
demise can be linked to globalisation in so far as they have been hitherto
sustained by geographical isolation, socio-economic marginalisation and the
perceived absence of opportunities for joining the mainstream, all of which
traits tend to be undone by the increased interconnectedness, urbanisation and
time-space compression associated with globalisation.
Our purpose here, however, is not to discuss causation (see Chapter 4 for
a fuller discussion) but simply to highlight the fact that this issue has acted
as a further stimulant to increased intellectual engagement with matters of
language policy and planning. So much so, in fact, that for those who adopt
an ecology of language perspective (see Mühlhäusler 1996, 2000; Phillipson
and Skuttnab-Kangas 1996) the preservation of linguistic diversity is a central,
even overriding, goal for language policy. At the same time, indigenous
language loss coupled with the migration mentioned above has added a
language dimension to political theorists’ preoccupation with issues of
pluralism, diversity and minority rights.
The global spread of English: Most obviously associated with globalisation is the
global spread of English, a phenomenon whose causes and effects continue