School: BUCAS GRANDE FOUNDATION COLLEGE

Department: College of Teacher Education

Yr & Section: BSEd – English 1
Subject: LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SOCIETY
Teacher: Ms. Blessy Grace R. Abacahin

LANGUAGE PLANNING AND POLICY

LANGUAGE PLANNING
Language planning is official, government-level activity concerning the selection and promotion of a
unified administrative language or languages. It represents a coherent effort by individuals, groups, or
organizations to influence language use or development.
 All conscious efforts that aim at changing the linguistic behavior of a speech community.
 Language planning occurs in most countries by their relevant governments wherein they have more
than one language within the community.
 deliberate efforts to influence the behavior of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or
functional allocation of their language codes

LANGUAGE POLICY
Official policies resulting from language planning and imposed in a deliberate attempt to influence
language behavior by means of official codes.

Types of Language Planning

1. Corpus planning: activities such as coining new terms, reforming spelling and adopting a new script;
• the creation of new forms,
• the modification of old ones, or
• the selection from alternative forms in a spoken or written code

2. Status Planning: the recognition by a national government of the importance or position of one
language in relation to others.
 The allocation of languages or language varieties to given functions
• Medium of instruction
• Official language
• Vehicle of mass communication
• Language of international communication

3. Acquisition Planning: planning directed toward increasing the number of users – speakers, writers,
listeners, readers – of a language
a. Literacy education
b. Second & foreign language education efforts

Elements involved in Language planning

 Macro level – (Government involved)
 Micro level- (Institutions- educational/libraries etc.)

According to Einar Haugen…

Language planning is a technocratic process concerned with systematizing and cultivating a standardized
language code to solve problems.
• Emphasized the importance of the written standard over the spoken.
• Dialects (regional or social) hamper communication.
• Concerned with equality among standard languages, non-standard languages are problematic.

PHASES OF LANGUAGE PLANNING (Haugen’s Framework)

1. Selection - is the term used to refer to the choice of a language variety to fulfill certain functions in a
given society.

2. Codification - The creation of a linguistic standard or norm for a selected linguistic code. It is divided
up into three stages:
1) Graphisation – developing a writing system.
2) Grammaticalization – deciding on rules/norms of grammar
3) Lexicalization – identifying the vocabulary

3. Implementation – Promoting of the decisions made in the stages of selection and codification which
can include marketing strategy, production of books, pamphlets, newspapers, and textbooks using the
new codified standard.
 4. Elaboration/ Modernization - Refers to the terminology and stylistic development of a codified
language to meet the communicative demands of modern life and technology. Its main area is the
production and dissemination of new terms.

Lexical Modernization
Three strategies:
1) Borrowing (Guru – Sanskrit, Wanderlust – German, Karaoke - Japan)
2) Extension of the meaning of a native term (etymology – study of meaning of words in w/c
meanings have changed throughout history)
3) Creation of the new terms (neologisms – a newly coined word or expression)

LANGUAGE PLANNING PRINCIPLES

1. Assimilation - This principle states that every person within society should be fluent in that
society’s dominant language.
For example: In the USA, the “Only-English Movement” maintains that everyone in the US should
speak English well, regardless of their first language.
Though, the United States never had a legislation that explicitly declares that English is the official
language, yet it is the language used in education, official setting... etc.

2. Linguistic Pluralism – It is the opposite of assimilation. This principle teaches that it is better to
have multiple languages within society.
For example: Switzerland with French, German, Italian and Romansh (all as official languages)
Singapore have English, Malay, Tamil and Chinese as official languages

3. Vernacularization – It is a principle that wants to restore a native language into a commonly

spoken language. For example: Jews from around the world gathered in the so-called “Israel” and
revived the Hebrew language with success!

4. Internationalization – This principle promotes adopting a non- indigenous language in order to

communicate easily with other nations. English now is considered to be global language, and is
taught world wide.

GOD BLESS YOU! 😊