This pioneer study goes well beyond the subject of linguistics to encompass economic, sociological, political, and educational approaches to language change. In the context of the development of national resources, the book focuses on language planning--the deliberate change and promotion of language structure and language use. It outlines a theoretical approach to the study of language planning and includes selected case studies which demonstrate the possibilities of broadening and improving national planning by taking linguistic and human resources into explicit account to enhance forecasting. The contributors to this volume include highly renowned experts in their respective academic fields as well as actual language planners. They were brought together on the instigation of a study group on language-planning processes sponsored by the East-West Center, University of Hawaii, with Ford Foundation support. Can Language Be Planned? is one result of their joint studies. An on-going cross-national research project on language-planning processes at Stanford University is another.

This revised second edition is a comprehensive overview of why we speak the languages that we do. It covers language learning imposed by political and economic agendas as well as language choices entered into willingly for reasons of social mobility, economic advantage and group identity.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

An examination of how an individual's native language can affect their lifestyle. Topics covered range from maintenance of the mother-tongue and second language learning, to the ideology of language planning theory, to education and language rights.

"The first edition of this Handbook is built on surveys by well-known figures from around the world and around the intellectual world, reflecting several different theoretical predilections, balancing coverage of enduring questions and important recent work. Those strengths are now enhanced by adding new chapters and thoroughly revising almost all other chapters, partly to reflect ways in which the field has changed in the intervening twenty years, in some places radically. The result is a magnificent volume that can be used for many purposes." David W. Lightfoot, Georgetown University "The Handbook of Linguistics, Second Edition is a stupendous achievement. Aronoff and Rees-Miller have provided overviews of 29 subfields of linguistics, each written by one of the leading researchers in that subfield and each impressively crafted in both style and content. I know of no finer resource for anyone who would wish to be better informed on recent developments in linguistics." Frederick J. Newmeyer, University of Washington, University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University "Linguists, their students, colleagues, family, and friends: anyone interested in the latest findings from a wide array of linguistic subfields will welcome this second updated and expanded edition of The Handbook of Linguistics. Leading scholars provide highly accessible yet substantive introductions to their fields: it's an even more valuable resource than its predecessor." Sally McConnell-Ginet, Cornell University "No handbook or text offers a more comprehensive, contemporary overview of the field of linguistics in the twenty-first century. New and thoroughly updated chapters by prominent scholars on each topic and subfield make this a unique, landmark publication."Walt Wolfram, North Carolina State University This second edition of The Handbook of Linguistics provides an updated and timely overview of the field of linguistics. The editor's broad definition of the field ensures that the book may be read by those seeking a comprehensive introduction to the subject, but with little or no prior knowledge of the area. Building on the popular first edition, The Handbook of Linguistics, Second Edition features new and revised content reflecting advances within the discipline. New chapters expand the already broad coverage of the Handbook to address and take account of key changes within the field in the intervening years. It explores: psycholinguistics, linguistic anthropology and ethnolinguistics, sociolinguistic theory, language variation and second language pedagogy. With contributions from a global team of leading linguists, this comprehensive and accessible volume is the ideal resource for those engaged in study and work within the dynamic field of linguistics.

In the third part some practical issues are raised by looking into the role of language and culture in teaching reading, foreign language policy in higher education, Hawaiian language regenesis, and gender neutralization in American English."--BOOK JACKET.

Comprehensive in scope and rich in detail, this book explores language planning, language education, and language policy for diverse Native American peoples across time, space, and place. Based on long-term collaborative and ethnographic work with Native American communities and schools, the book examines the imposition of colonial language policies against the fluorescence of contemporary community-driven efforts to revitalize threatened mother tongues. Here, readers will meet those who are on the frontlines of Native American language revitalization every day. As their efforts show, even languages whose last native speaker is gone can be reclaimed through family-, community-, and school-based language planning. Offering a critical-theory view of language policy, and emphasizing Indigenous sovereignties and the perspectives of revitalizers themselves, the book shows how language regenesis is undertaken in social practice, the role of youth in language reclamation, the challenges posed by dominant language policies, and the prospects for Indigenous language and culture continuance current revitalization efforts hold.

This book describes the ways in which politicians, church leaders, generals, leaders of national movements and others try to influence our use of language. Professor Cooper argues that language planning is never attempted for its own sake. Rather it is carried out for the attainment of nonlinguistic ends such as national integration, political control, economic development, the pacification of minority groups, and mass mobilization. Many examples are discussed, including the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, feminist campaigns to eliminate sexist bias in language, adult literacy campaigns, the plain language movement, efforts to distinguish American from British spelling, the American bilingual education movement, the creation of writing systems for unwritten languages, and campaigns to rid languages of foreign terms. Language Planning and Social Change is the first book to define the field of language planning and relate it to other aspects of social planning and to social change. The book is accessible and presupposes no special background in linguistics, sociology or political science. It will appeal to applied linguists and to those sociologists, economists and political scientists with an interest in language.

This book is a timely comparison of the divergent worlds of policy implementation and policy ambition, the messy, often contradictory here-and-now reality of languages in schools and the sharp-edged, shiny, future-oriented representation of languages in policy. Two deep rooted tendencies in Australian political and social life, multiculturalism and Asian regionalism, are represented as key phases in the country’s experimentation with language education planning. Presenting data from a five year ethnographic study combined with a 40 year span of policy analysis, this volume is a rare book length treatment of the chasm between imagined policy and its experienced delivery, and will provide insights that policymakers around the world can draw on.