Language policy and political reality

• Autores: Uldis Ozolins
• Localización: International journal of the sociology of language, ISSN 0165-2516, Nº. 118, 1996, págs. 181-200
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • It is difficult for political theory to understand the issue of language policy in contemporary societies; likewise, theoriesof language planning and policy struggle to come to grips with political issues.

    Many political theories are limited by two perspectives. For theories concerned with ethnicity, language is often reduced to ethnicity, which is often seen äs synonymous with ethnic conflict, while theories concerned with modernization appear to have such a strong attachment to its imperatives that aspects of language that appear to be retarding modernization present insuperable problems.

    A critique ofthese theories is advanced, based on the issue oflanguages in the former Soviet Union; the conflict between local and former colonial languages in third-world countries; and the searchfor appropriate language models in an increasingly integrated Europe.

    Three perspectives from contemporary social theory are suggested äs providing a better way of relating languages to politics: a sociological perspective that looks at actual language use and attitudes rather than officialpronouncements; a culturalperspective that analyzes the significance of language in cultural terms, particularly in relation to changing concepts of ethnicity; and a discourse perspective that takes seriously language and discourse on it, identifying the relative autonomy of language issues, rather than attempting to reduce language attitudes to supposedly more basic ethnic or structural factors.