Gibson Ferguson Language Planning and Education Edinburgh ...

10 Language Planning and Education
and they too are therefore viewed as experiencing ‘language problems’, meriting the
attention of language policy/planning specialists as much as those of economically
less developed societies. Similarly, the emergence, or re-emergence, of successor states
to the Soviet Union in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Baltic, and the distinct
language policies they have embarked on, have attracted the attention of language
policy/planning specialists, providing ample scope for analysis and publication.
The overall trend, then, has been toward a geographical diversification in the
coverage of the literature, such that it is now difficult to find any region or country
omitted from consideration. The advantage of this trend is, as Spolsky (2003: xi)
observes, 10 that there is now a more extensive body of data on language policies at the
national level, creating the possibility thereby for better-founded generalisations.
1.4.2 Changing postures toward linguistic diversity
A more fundamental change, however, has been in the posture of language planning
towards linguistic diversity and multilingualism. Omitting nuance for the sake of
rough generalisation, one might argue that in the decolonisation era of the 1960s and
1970s those involved in LP – whether politicians or academics – tended, in the spirit
of earlier European nationalists, to see language diversity as predominantly a
problem, a centrifugal force, and thus an impediment to nation-building. The thrust
of policy, therefore, was to identify a limited set of languages for official uses, so
‘reducing sociolinguistic complexity’ (Blommaert 1996: 212) to manageable proportions
in what were felt to be the interests of efficiency and integration.
In the last decade or so, however, linguistic diversity has undergone revalorisation
in academic LP circles and beyond, being seen now as something to be cherished,
maintained and promoted – a public good even on a par with fresh, clean air. One
illustrative manifestation of this heightened regard is the enthusiastic reception given
to the 1996 post-apartheid South African constitution, which, in sharp contrast to
the practice of most African states attaining independence in the early 1960s, extends
official status to eleven languages and calls on the state to promote the status of
previously marginalised languages. Another, in a different context, is the qualified
welcome given to the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages,
which calls on signatory states to protect and promote these languages.
Explaining this change of orientation is not straightforward, for, as with many
intellectual paradigm shifts, a variety of contributory causes appear to have coalesced.
One factor may be the criticisms levelled at traditional LP by Marxists, poststructuralists
and critical social theorists to which we referred earlier. The effect has
been to alert language planners to the ineluctably ideological and political character
of their endeavours, which therefore become ever more appropriate objects for
sustained critical scrutiny. The accusation that LP serves the interests of dominant
elites may also have prompted greater interest in, and concern for, the languages
spoken by subordinate or marginalised speakers.
Another factor, one may venture to suggest, has been historical developments to
which we have already alluded – the spread of English as a dominant global lingua,