Un(intended) Language Planning in a Globalising World: Multiple Levels of Players at Work [1 ed.] 9783110518238, 3110518236

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Phyllis Chew Ghim Lian, Catherine Chua, Kerry Taylor-Leech & Colin Williams (eds.) Un(intended) language planning in a globalising world: Mutliple levels of players at work

Phyllis Chew Ghim Lian, Catherine Chua, Kerry Taylor-Leech & Colin Williams (eds.)

Un(intended) language planning in a globalising world: Mutliple levels of players at work

Managing Editor: Katarzyna Grzegorek Language Editor: Qizhong Chang

ISBN 978-3-11-051823-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-051826-9 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-051845-0

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. © 2018 Catherine CHUA Siew Kheng Published by De Gruyter Poland Ltd, Warsaw/Berlin Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston The book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com. Managing Editor: Katarzyna Grzegorek Language Editor: Qizhong Chang www.degruyteropen.com Cover illustration: http://www.thinkstockphotos.com/

Contents Catherine Siew Kheng Chua 1 Introduction. Issues in language planning and policy: From global to local — 1 References — 13 Robert B. Kaplan 2 Is English global? — 15 Acknowledgement — 15 2.1 Introduction: A bit of history — 15 2.2 Where did English come from? — 17 2.3 English as a global language — 18 2.4 Attempts at internationalisation: Examples from Japan, Russia and North Korea — 20 2.4.1 Japan — 20 2.4.2 The Soviet Union, subsequently The Russian Federation — 23 2.4.3 North Korea — 26 2.5 Where are we — 33 References — 36 Jan Kruse, Ulrich Ammon 3 The language planning and policy for the European Union and its failures — 39 3.1 An overview of the official language planning and policy of the European Union (EU) and some of its consequences — 39 3.2 Appeals for the equal status of the official and working languages in the EU and the respective shortcomings of the EU language policy — 48 References — 54 James McMenamin, Christa van der Walt 4 Macro policies and meso language planning: The case of supranational policies in Europe — 57 4.1 Transnational, macro, meso and micro levels of policy development — 58 4.2 Background to policy-making in the European Union — 61 4.3 Promotion of multilingualism — 63 4.4 Language competence as a factor favouring employability and mobility — 64 4.5 The Bologna Declaration — 66 4.6 Other horizontal macro influences — 69 4.7 Language policy at meso (national and regional) level — 70 4.7.1 Switzerland — 70 4.7.2 Germany — 73 4.7.3 France — 75

4.7.4 4.8

Discussion: Contrasting language policies in Switzerland, Germany and France — 76 Conclusion — 77 References — 80

Ruanni Tupas 5 Inequalities of multilingualism: Outsourcing, neoliberalism and languagesin-education — 84 5.1 English and vernacular languages in the Philippines — 85 5.2 Outsourcing and neoliberal globalisation — 86 5.3 The outsourcing discourse of English and education — 88 5.4 The outsourcing discourse of MTB-MLE — 91 5.5 Conclusion — 93 References — 95 Mira Al Hussein, Christina Gitsaki 6 Foreign language learning policy in the United Arab Emirates: Local and global agents of change — 97 6.1 Introduction — 97 6.2 The establishment of formal education in the Arab Gulf — 98 6.3 The rise of English in the UAE — 101 6.4 English schooling: Private and exclusive — 102 6.5 English language policy in the UAE — 103 6.6 English: A tool for inclusion or exclusion? — 105 6.7 Perceptions towards bilingualism in the UAE — 106 6.8 Political forces shaping UAE educational policies — 107 6.9 English language teaching in the Arab Spring — 108 6.10 Conclusion — 109 References — 110 Anthony J. Liddicoat 7 National security in language-in-education policy — 113 7.1 Security and language — 114 7.2 Language and security in Turkish language policy — 115 7.3 Language and security in US language education policy — 118 7.4 Conclusion — 124 References — 126 Phyllis Chew Ghim Lian 8 A tale of two cities: Religion and language policy in Malaysia and Singapore — 129 8.1 Religion and language planning in early Singapore and Malaysia — 130 8.2 The perceptions of religious issues in Singapore and Malaysia during colonial period — 131

8.3 8.3.1 8.3.2 8.4 8.4.1 8.4.2 8.5 8.6

Malaysia: Islamisation and language policy — 132 The linguistic effects of religion and globalisation in Malaysia — 134 Religion and Malay as a medium of instruction (MOI) — 135 Singapore: Civil religion and language policy — 136 Religion, race and language policy in Singapore — 137 Globalisation: The response of civil religion — 138 Comparing Singaporean and Malaysian approaches to religion and language policy — 139 Conclusion — 141 References — 142

Karin van der Worp, Jasone Cenoz, Durk Gorter 9 Language policy in business and industry: Between local and global developments — 145 9.1 Globalisation in the region — 146 9.2 A framework for language policy and planning — 148 9.3 Sociolinguistic and economic context — 149 9.4 Language policy and planning for Basque in general — 151 9.5 Language policy and planning for Basque companies — 154 9.6 Policy and planning for multilingualism for Basque companies — 158 9.7 Discussion and conclusion — 160 References — 161 Daniel Perrin, Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow 10 Translation in journalism: Local practices in multilingual newsflows — 163 10.1 Research question: How does news translation work? — 163 10.2 Research plan: Mapping knowledge from large research projects — 165 10.3 Research framework: The multi-method approach — 167 10.4 Findings: Translating as tacit knowledge — 168 10.4.1 The TeleZüri case in a local Swiss television station: Shifting from agents to victims — 168 10.4.2 Some Idée suisse cases: Coping with foreign languages — 172 10.4.3 Translation matters in the news production process — 178 10.5 Conclusion: Knowledge transformation to organisations and domains — 179 References — 180 Munene Mwaniki 11 Chasing a phantom: Afrikaans in higher education in the globalisation era — 183 11.1 Addressing some myths around Afrikaans in relation to higher education — 185 11.1.1 Myth 1: “The Miracle of Afrikaans” — 186

11.1.2 11.1.3 11.1.4

11.1.5 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.5.1 11.5.2 11.5.3 11.6

11.7

Myth 2: Afrikaans “is a well developed language of academia and science” — 187 Myth 3: Not having Afrikaans in higher education “violates the Constitution” — 188 Myth 4: It was an act of benevolence on the part of Historically Afrikaans Medium Universities (HAUs) to grant access to non-Afrikaans speakers through parallel medium instruction — 190 Myth 5:English is still a colonial language — 191 Globalisation and higher education in emerging economies — 192 Language question in higher education in emerging economies in the globalisation era — 195 A note on research design and methodology used to derive the data sets — 197 The three data sets — 198 Sociolinguistics of social justice in South Africa’s higher education — 198 Sociolinguistics of knowledge production and dissemination — 202 Sociolinguistics of learning resources — 204 Revisiting the myths around Afrikaans in relation to higher education in light of data from Sociolinguistics of South Africa’s Higher Education Project — 208 Conclusion — 209 References — 210

Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen, Huong Thu Nguyen, Huy Van Nguyen, Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen 12 Local challenges to global needs in English language education in Vietnam: The perspective of language policy and planning — 214 12.1 Globalisation and global English education — 215 12.2 Current English language policy and planning in Vietnam — 216 12.2.1 Case study 1: English education for minority students — 218 12.2.2 Case study 2: English-medium instruction in Vietnamese universities — 220 12.2.3 Case study 3: The CEFR policy in Vietnam — 222 12.3 An overview of the effectiveness and sustainability of the reforms — 225 12.3.1 Access policy — 225 12.3.2 Personnel policy — 226 12.3.3 Methods and material policy — 227 12.3.4 Evaluation policy — 227 12.4 Conclusion — 228 Acknowledgement — 229 References — 229

Nor Liza Ali, Obaidul Hamid 13 English-medium instruction and teacher agency in higher education: A case study — 234 13.1 Agency in language policy and planning — 235 13.2 Micro-level engagement with macro policies as an expression of agency — 236 13.3 Research on the agency of content-area lecturers — 237 13.4 Context and methodology — 239 13.5 Findings — 240 13.5.1 Resistance to the EMI policy — 240 13.5.2 Accommodation of the policy to content teaching — 241 13.5.3 Dedication towards both content and language teaching — 243 13.6 Conclusion — 246 13.7 Ethical Statement — 248 References — 248 Minglin Li 14 English language education planning for Chinese schools – Multi-level actors at work — 251 14.1 Multi-level actors in LEP and micro language planning in local contexts — 252 14.2 The intended EFL curriculum — 254 14.3 Bridging the intended curriculum and enacted curriculum — 256 14.3.1 TRD as a platform — 256 14.3.2 Textbooks in EFL teaching — 257 14.3.3 Tests regulate practice — 258 14.4 Enacted curriculum in EFL classrooms — 260 14.4.1 The intended curriculum is not so practical — 260 14.4.2 Misalignment in what is tested and what is required to be taught — 261 14.5 Multi-level actors in English language education planning for Chinese schools — 262 14.6 Conclusion — 264 References — 264 Sandra Pinhui Wu 15 Translation of language policy from pre-school to primary school in Singapore: Multiplayers at work — 267 15.1 A Brief History of Singapore — 268 15.2 Singapore Education System — 270 15.3 Bilingual Policy: Conception and Implementation — 271 15.4 The Competitive Edge of Bilingualism — 274 15.5 Bilingual Acquisition in the Early Years — 274

15.6 15.7 15.8

Early Childhood Landscape — 276 Mother Tongue Language Teaching and Learning — 277 Bilingual Policy – Still a Competitive Edge? — 284 References — 286

Francisco Gomes de Matos 16 Planning uses of Peace Linguistics in second language education — 290 16.1 Before Peace Linguistics: Two precursory actions in Brazil — 291 16.2 Globalisation and the rise of Peace Linguistics in Brazil — 293 16.3 Different actors in Peace Linguistics — 295 16.4 Uses of Peace Linguistics in Second Language Education contexts — 296 16.5 Conclusion — 298 Appendix — 299 References — 299 Bernard Spolsky 17 Language policy: From planning to management — 301 References — 306 Index — 310

Catherine Siew Kheng Chua

1 Introduction. Issues in language planning and policy: From global to local

This book is published in memory of Richard (Dick) Birge Baldauf Jr. – My supervisor, mentor and friend. As a young postgraduate student in the University of Queensland (Australia), I worked as a university tutor for Dick for the course ‘Introduction to Teaching English as a Second Language’. When my then supervisor left the university, Dick did not hesitate to take me under his wing even though his supervision load was already over the quota. For that, I am eternally grateful to his kindness and generosity to ‘adopt’ me. In my study journey with him, he was always fatherly and nurturing. Basically, he wanted me to learn independently, and hence he never told me how to do my research. Instead I would often find myself sitting in his office, and he would be asking me a whole lot of questions until an idea, plan of action and solution occurred to me. Once, he jokingly described me as a ‘coffee brewer’ and explained that he needed to send me off to ponder upon problems because like a coffee brewer, I needed the time to ‘brew’ so that the results would be ‘aromatic’. Over that period of time, Dick had influenced

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 Introduction. Issues in language planning and policy: From global to local

me greatly in the way I work; he had shown me the importance of academic integrity, honesty, hard work and never to be afraid to ask questions. This book was a joint project between us but it was put on hold for three years. Therefore, I will like to thank all the authors in this book for their contributions to make this book a reality. Included in this book are some of Dick’s friends and colleagues, who are also some of the most influential figures in the contemporary field of language planning and policy – Ulrich Amon, Jasone Cenoz, Francisco Gomes de Matos, Durk Gorter, Robert B. Kaplan, Jan Kruse, Anthony J. Liddicoat, Daniel Perrin, Bernard Spolsky and Christa van der Walt. The ideas in this book were from Dick and they were drawn from our book chapter titled Global language: (De)Colonisation in the New Era published in 2011a1. Dick’s interest was to highlight how the different ‘glob-national’ (Global national) actors have been involved in intended and unintended language planning and policy (LPP) and their impact on multilingual language use. For a long time, LPP has been done mostly at the national or government level. However in this globalised world, Dick opined that LPP is also done at the global level. To him, the emergence of global actors has to a certain extent artificially directed the choices of language use in various parts of the world. He brought attention to the role of these global actors and how their policies have strengthened or weakened the status of both majority and minority languages in polities around the world. This idea is in line with the premise that the emergence of transnational corporations has led to the expansion of the global capitalist system (Sklair, 2000; 2002), as such trends eventually lead to global production, promotion of international outsourcing of labour and materials, as well as the emphasis on finance driven performance (Robinson, 2003; 2004). In the long run, the emergence of the integrated international economy has privileged certain advanced industrialised economies and emerging markets. Under these circumstances, LPP in this 21st century has taken new multiple structures that include global actors because external influences, such as economic demands play a significant role in influencing the types of languages and the standard that learners should attain. For example, there has been an increase in demand of learning English in many developing and emerging economies because English provides the learners a strong economic advantage in this globalised economy (The British Council, 2013). Currently, about more than 75 countries have English as their dominant or one of the foreign languages learned (Herther, 2009), and in the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN), English is the lingua franca throughout the ten countries (Kirkpatrick, 2010). Research has also found that English-medium instruction programmes and courses are increasingly offered in many European tertiary institutions (Jensen et al., 2013; Werther et al., 2014).

1 Chua, S. K. C., & Baldauf, R. B. Jr. (2011a). Global language: [De]colonization in the new era. In Hinkel, E (Ed.), Handbook of Research in Second Language Learning and Teaching (Vol 2). New York: Routledge: 952-969.



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Global languages, such as French, German, Japanese, Spanish and recently Mandarin, are popular languages to learn, and English has been by far the most favoured language to acquire. Supported by ‘The Rise of the Network Society’ (Castells, 1996; 1997; 1998), new communication technologies, particularly the invention of the telephone, radio, television, movies, records, press and presently the Internet, “any language [English] at the centre of such an explosion of international activity would suddenly have found itself with a global status” (Crystals, 2003: 10). Inevitably, English has become the “world language” (Brutt-Griffler, 2002). In view of such converging trend, some globalisation theorists believed that the world is becoming homogenised in this new global era and learning English is one such consequence (Phillipson, 1996; Johnson, 2009; The Economist, 2011). For instance, homogenisation theories such as Robertson (1992), pioneering in globlisation theory, stated that the process of globalisation has led to the compression and integration of the world, and for Giddens (1990), the universalisation of modernity, and such modern universalism has given rise to English as a powerful economic tool. Despite this general movement towards embracing English as the global language and the emergence of the global actors that seem to push for the learning of English, heterogeneous globalisation theorists argued that globalisation has also led to cultural autonomy, cultural clashes and polarisation (Robinson, 2008), and that is, the promotion of cultural diversity. Kellner (2002) explained that the process of globalisation is highly complex, contradictory and ambiguous. For example, global brands such as Facebook, Starbucks, and Coca Cola are seen and felt in many countries around the world; however, such perceived homogenisation does not necessary mean that there is a general loss of identity. On the contrary, globalisation has also enabled certain cultures and languages to shine on a global level, such as Bollywood from India, Anime from Japan and the Korean wave from South Korea. In view of this diverging trend, the important concept of ‘agency’ ‒ “who has the power to influence change in these micro language policy and planning situations” (Baldauf, 2006: 147) − has become important in LPP. Building on Ricento and Hornberger’s (1996) concept of “unpeeling the onion” whereby there are different English Language Teaching (ELT) professionals involved in LPP, Li (2008) proposed three distinct groups of actors in LPP ‒ the state at the macro/national level, the institutions at the meso level (eg. schools, the media, private and public organisations and business organisations) and teachers at the micro level. Baldauf (2006) emphasised that LPP should include both macro and micro planning. He highlighted that at the macro level, large scale and usually national planning that normally encompasses four aspects: status planning (about society), corpus planning (about language), language-in-education or “acquisition” planning, and prestige planning (about image). At the micro level, he stressed that ecological context has gained greater emphasis as different actors have aquired the power to determine how national policies are played out at the ground level. For example, businesses, institutions and organisations exert a strong influence on the types of

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 Introduction. Issues in language planning and policy: From global to local

language used. Therefore in his work, Baldauf posited that although the macro level plays an important role in setting out agenda and allocating resources in LPP, there are different levels of language planning whereby the context, roles and motivations of the different groups of actors play a critical role in the success or failure in LPP. In view of this claim, Chua and Baldauf’s (2011b)2 chapter on Micro Language Planning proposed that the policy translation process can be problematic due to the multiple layers of actors involved. Language policies made at the national level are subject to a number of contextual influences and not all micro language planning is related to macro policies since local players are also empowered to accept or reject national policies. With every negotiation in the policy implementation process by the different actors, there will be intended and unintended outcomes. In the chapter, Chua and Baldauf (2011b) suggested four stages of planning process. The first two stages – Supra Macro and Macro operational levels that usually produced standardised results. The next two stages – Micro and Infra Micro operational levels that usually produce diversified results (see Figure 1).

Fig. 1.1: The four stages and ten levels of macro and micro planning (Taken from Chua & Baldauf, 2011b: 940).

2 Chua, S. K. C., & Baldauf, R. B. Jr. (2011b). Micro Language Planning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of Research in Second Language Learning and Teaching (Vol 2). New York: Routledge: 936-951.



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Figure 1.1 illustrates that the multiple forces exhibited by different actors (explicit and hidden) at different levels that facilitate and shape language management in any countries and the languages that they use. An important point to note is that unlike the classical language planning perspective, Figure 1.1 shows that the translation process may not follow a linear pattern. Even with the inclusion of glo-national actors at the supra-macro planning level, (supra) macro planning needs to complemented with bottom-up processes for any language planning to be successful especially in this globalised world. Kaplan and Baldauf (2003) explained that ‘language planning’ and ‘language policy’ are different processes − language planning refers to the preparatory work that leads to the formulation of a language policy. According to Kaplan and Baldauf (1997: 3), “language planning is an attempt by someone to modify the linguistic behavior of some community”, and there has been literature talking about the different forms of language planning - i.e., namely macro, meso and micro language planning (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997), and the various actors involved in these processes of planning (Chua & Baldauf, 2011b). More importantly, although language policies exist in different forms in all societal domains (Ricento, 2006), it is in the domain of education that such policies are often most impactful (Liddicoat, 2013). In the domain of education, language policies are explicitly articulated in official documents, which reflect the societal beliefs and attitudes towards the value of the languages that the society has chosen or omitted. This language policy, according to Baldauf (2006: 149), (…) may be realised in very formal (overt) language planning documents and pro-nouncements (e.g. constitutions, legislation, policy statements, educational directives) which can be either symbolic or substantive in form, in informal statements of intent (i.e., in the discourse of language, politics and society), or may be left unstated (covert).

Therefore policies comprise “underlying assumptions and practices of language use and language learning in educational contexts”, but more importantly the idea of “what is valued in a society” as “language policies represent articulations of the beliefs and attitudes” of that society towards the chosen languages and their use (Liddicoat, 2013: 1). Basically, language-in-education is a powerful instrument in language change, and the teachers/educators play a critical role in educational language planning since the translation and success of the English curriculum and syllabus plans lie in the hands of the teachers (Baldauf, 1990). Drawing on Chua and Baldauf’s concepts of global players and the four stages of language planning, this book discusses the tension that surrounds the global and local demands on language choice, and evaluates the possible outcomes of the various intended and unintended policies and strategies adopted by global, national and local players. The following overview of the chapters attempt to cover the four stages of LPP. The broad range of papers contributed by the various scholars reflect Dick’s 21st century concept of LPP as illustrated in Figure 1.1. The 16 chapters comprise a range of topics

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 Introduction. Issues in language planning and policy: From global to local

that span across numerous countries, such as Basque country, Brazil, China, Europe, France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, North Korea, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, Vietnam, United Arab Emirates and the United States of America. The book starts with the chapter by Robert B Kaplan. It begins with a short history on the spread of English as an international language and a de facto dominant foreign language in many polities with an increasing number of non-native speakers of English. Following that, the chapter gives a brief overview of the evolution of English and how it was standardised by the invention of the printing press. Referring to specific examples from Japan, Russia and North Korea, Kaplan illustrates in detail how these countries have inherited and failed to enhance the status of English in their nation-states. Kaplan states that language planning is basically a political activity since language is associated with discrimination according to racial differences. The chapter concludes by highlighting the role of English in this global landscape. He explains that at present English will only enjoy its global status when it is linked to international economic activity and not when it is at the local level. The next chapter builds on the first chapter on how international activity has strengthened the status of English as the dominant language and introduces the first glob-national player at the supra macro planning level. As Figure 1.1 indicated, in the supra macro level planning level, countries, government bodies and international institutions can have a major impact on LPP. In this example, Jan Kruse and Ulrich Ammon look at the European Union (EU) and discuss how despite overt policy to protect Europe’s rich linguistic diversity, English has become the de facto working language in the majority of the EU documents. The chapter begins by providing an overview of how the EU has been advocating the protection of multilingualism and enforcing linguistic diversity. In principle, the EU has 28 member states with 20 languages, and languages of lesser use such as Danish, Dutch, Finnish and Swedish are acknowledged as official and working languages (Phillipson, 2003), and due to such linguistic diversity and to facilitate effective communication, English is preferred. The authors stress that this trend towards a monolingual structure of the EU is expected to continue, and has inevitably become a global force that standardises and privileges certain languages, in this case English over others. Expanding on Chapter 3, Chapter 4 extends the influence of EU’s language policy and includes the Bologna Agreement that has led to an increase in Englishmedium university courses in three countries – France, Germany and Switzerland. As France and Germany are EU member states, EU language policy has an influence over the language curricula of the graduate and postgraduate programmes in these two countries. While Switzerland is not a member of the EU, it shares national borders with these two countries. The chapter highlights how both vertical macro influences i.e., official EU language policy and horizontal macro influences (Bologna Declaration) have influenced language choice in these countries’ higher education landscape. According to James Mcmenamin and Christa van der Walt, although



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the Bologna Declaration, a joint declaration of the European Ministers of Education to mutually recognise academic qualifications has been silent on the question on language planning, it has become a de facto language policy i.e., the horizontal macro influences that has strengthened the position of English in higher education due to international economic advantage. Thus, despite the strong commitment to promote linguistic diversity, there is a move towards learning English so as to increase transnational mobility of higher education students. Besides global institutions such as the EU, in chapter 5, Tupas Ruanni shows how globalised business at the supra-macro level plays a part in influencing LPP in Philippines. Big multinational companies and big businesses located in countries across the world, such as those from Europe, Japan and United States have outsourced their labour to developing countries like India, Brazil and Turkey for low-cost workers. This business model is typically referred to Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) where companies source for the cheapest human labour costs so as to increase company productivity. In this chapter, he discusses how such outsourcing of labour has impacted the language-in-education policy in Philippines. One such successful BPO industries is the call centre industry, also known as the “sunshine industry” in Philippines whereby employees answer calls from customers of companies located overseas. As these BPO companies require competent English speakers, this has resulted in a push for English-only education at the expense of a multilingual education in Philippines so as to prepare the students for ‘life’ and that is to flourish in the global labour market. Consequently, the Filipino government responded by creating and introducing educational initiatives and programmes to ensure that the English-language skills remain competitive in the global market. The subsequent three chapters specifically look at the role of the country/ government in determining its language policy for its local needs. Chapter 6 brings the attention to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and discusses the complexity and ideological tension that surrounds its language policy. Although the UAE government empowers the nation through learning English to prepare the country to be a global player in business and tourism in this era of modernisation and globalisation, the status of English remains unclear. The chapter begins with a historical exploration of foreign language policies and the rise of English in formal education; it brings the attention to the tension and struggle in enforcing English in the local education system. Mira Al Hussein and Christina Gitsaki explain that in UAE the role of language is based on ‘cultural preservation’, that is, preserving the traditions, heritage, identity and culture of the Arab society. However for some, ELT is perceived to be a form of cultural imperialism and a threat to Islam. Although local teachers, parents and students perceive English to be an important skill to have for future survival, the role of English is still controversial due the serious concerns over the future of Arabic and local culture. This chapter shows the complexity that surrounds the position of English in the Gulf and how the government navigates the internal tensions that surround the language policy.

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 Introduction. Issues in language planning and policy: From global to local

Chapter 7 continues to reinforce the important role of government in determining the choice of language(s) learned. Here, Anthony Liddicoat shows how language education brings forth particular ideologies into the articulation of governmental policies since LPP is often an attempt to address perceived problems related to language. In this chapter, he posits that language has been a critical element of national security although it is not identical with language planning in military contexts, such as the communicative needs of the military. Instead, language itself has been perceived to be a problem that is related to the country’s national security. For example when language is perceived to pose a threat to the country and when language learning is used to address the threat. Using Turkey as an example where Kurdish is associated with terrorism and hence the justification to exterminate the language. Conversely, in the United States of America, language has been associated with its national defense strategy i.e., international activity where a lack of foreign language capacity has been identified as a security issue, which then justifies the critical need to develop the foreign language skills of American students. This chapter discusses how the government through its language education policies addresses national security. In Chapter 8, Phyllis Chew makes a comparison between Singapore and Malaysia to illustrate the interface between religion and language policy in these two countries. Since the colonial days, the population in these two countries have been segregated into three major ethnic groups – Chinese, Indians and Malays, and within each group, it is highly diversified. Therefore, both countries are multilingual, multiracial and multi-religious, and the only difference is that in Malaysia, the majority population is Malay whereas in Singapore the majority population is Chinese. This chapter examines how the governments in these two countries respond to globalisation with the Malaysian government gravitating towards “the halal connection” whereas the Singapore government prefers a secular and pragmatic approach in language planning. Although both countries adopt bilingualism, the Malaysian bilingual policy is infused with religious and cultural nationalism i.e., Malay as the national language whereas in Singapore, it is driven by a pragmatic economic reality, which justifies the implementation of English, a foreign language, as the country first language and the main medium of instruction in all government schools. The first seven chapters provide a broad overview on how actors at super-macro level i.e., glob-national actors and government influence LPP at the local level. As discussed in these chapters, policy makers have the power to select certain languages as the country first, national or dominant foreign language, and to put in place policies that stipulate certain processes and expected outcomes i.e., formal and overt planning with specific goals. However, such large-scale interventions are subject to multiple interpretations by different actors at the macro, micro and infra-micro levels. Consequently, the policy translation process may be problematic because in reality policies will be negotiated and modified by a range of contextual circumstances and actors found in the different levels. As Sommer (1991: 129-130) summarised such



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difficulty as policy reforms that “can be effected – by both political representatives and by administration responsible for implementation”, often due to the number of variable factors. The next section of the book shows how local government or regional state and local institutions play a critical role in LPP because they take into consideration the socio-political and educational contexts of that community. The first two chapters look at how the local government in Basque and the following chapter a local newsroom in Switzerland attempt to support their local languages despite English being the global language. Chapter 9 looks at how actors at the macro planning level influence the learning of languages in addition to English. In Karin van der Worp, Jasone Cenoz and Durk Gorter’s chapter, they show how in the Basque Country, global trade has led to the Basque government to put in place programmes and measures to revitalise the use of the Basque language in education, culture, media and private companies despite English being often used. The aim was to encourage the use of the local Basque language in Basque companies in their attempts to internationalise their companies i.e., local consumption but with an international outlook. The chapter provides an overview of the sociolinguistic and economic context of the Basque Country and the history of LPP for Basque. It explains how over the years the language has gained much popularity in the country as those students who are found to be proficient in Basque are performing well in school. Furthermore, in the country’s labour market, there has been an increasing demand for certain proficient level of Basque especially for jobs in the service industry. This chapter reinforces the importance of macro planning for the revitalisation of any language. Chapter 10 continues to expand on the importance of local actors in LPP, which in this case, how local newsrooms have facilitated in text production in Switzerland. Daniel Perrin and Maureen Ehrensberher-Dow discuss how journalists handle multilingual media sources and translate to the target language of the outgoing text. Although over the years, English as a head start on promulgating the language through traditional international networks, such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and Cable News Network (CNN), in recent years recordings or video bites by amateurs or local media from different part of the world provide alternative media sources. Consequently, journalists have been bombarded with different languages. The data in this chapter was taken from large transdisciplinary research projects that used Progressive Analysis, a multimethod approach that combines enthographic observation and interviews, computer recording, and cue-based retrospective verbal protocols to understand the writing processes of language works, such as local journalists. This chapter looks at how local Swiss journalists select, translate and produce news texts for their local audience, and illustrates how local media plays an important role in selecting and promoting their local varieties of languages. Unlike the previous two chapters that discuss the promotion of local languages in Basque and Switzerland, Chapter 11 provides a contrasting example whereby despite

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 Introduction. Issues in language planning and policy: From global to local

overt policy and programme initiatives at the micro level to promote Afrikaans at the University of the Free State (UFS) in South Africa, Munene Mwaniki observes that in the face of globalisation, the Afrikaners do not need to engage in pursuit of a phantom in an attempt to prop the status of Afrikaans in higher education. The chapter begins by addressing some myths surrounding Afrikaans in higher education. Following that, the chapter discusses how the key intersections between globalisation and higher education in emerging economies, and the role of language since the forces of globalisation have also led to a convergence of language used in higher education i.e., the spread of English. Using three sets of data, Munene Mwaniki points out that the continued use of Afrikaans in higher education will not be possible since it will not be able to position its economy within the global research, knowledge and networks, most importantly, its institution’s position in the international ranking lists of universities. As posited by Robert Kaplan in Chapter 2, English seems to have gained its status in the university due to the link to international academic activity. The next four chapters provides in-depth examples on how LPP has been translated at the micro and infra micro level where individuals, such as teachers play a critical role in the success or failure of LPP. In all the four chapters, English is the preferred dominant foreign language to learn in view of the economic advantage in learning the language. In Chapter 12, Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen, Huong Thu Nguyen, Huy Van Nguyen and Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen highlight the challenges in English education policy implementation in Vietnam despite the increase in the importance of English in Asia as it is a de facto working language in this modern world. The chapter provides an overview of the current English language policy and planning in Vietnam. Adopting the language-in-education theory posited by Kaplan and Balduaf (1997; 2005) in the three case studies, the authors highlight the challenges and implications, in particular, its Access policy, Personnel Policy, Methods and Material Policy, as well as Evaluation Policy. Specifically, the authors stress the importance of tertiary institutions such as the university to ensure that state policy is contextualised to meet the needs of the academics/teachers. At the same time, the university needs to provide the structure and platform for bottom up feedback for both teachers and students to voice their concerns. More importantly, the university needs to take into consideration the additional challenges the minority students will face since they have to learn English and Vietnamese at the same time. Chapter 13 continues to stress the importance of individual choice i.e., teachers in determining the success or failure of LPP. Liza Nor Ali and Obaidul Hamid show how content-area lecturers (CALs) in a public Malaysian university displayed various types of agency – resistance, accommodation and dedication when making sense of and translating the English-medium instruction (EMI) policy in class. Although the use of English as the medium of instruction in Malaysian public universities is not official, it is a de facto policy. Based on the research findings, the authors posit that the subjective exercise of the various types of agency will determine the outcomes of the



Introduction. Issues in language planning and policy: From global to local  

 11

policy. This is because the policy-makers assume that both students and CALs should have adequate English proficiency and the ‘natural’ environment of EMI class will create the ideal situation for English language development. However in reality, the success of EMI lies in the hands of these lecturers since some CALs insisted on using Bahasa Malaysia despite the fact that English is positioned as the de facto language at the university citing students’ inability to comprehend the content as the excuse. Similarly, Chapter 14 reinforces the role of teachers in LPP in China. In this chapter, Li Minglin discusses the important role of teachers in bridging the intended and enacted curriculum in China. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with members in the Teaching and Research Department (TRDs) and English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers, the author explains how despite support and help given by the TRDs in the form of teacher training programmes, the EFL teachers were still unable to fully understand the new syllabus, and not fully convinced to follow it. As the author explains, the assessment and high-stakes tests in China (Gaokao and Zhongkao) continue to drive the teachers to adopt traditional methods to ensure the students raise or maintain their test scores. To further complicate matter, the new textbooks are not user friendly and there has been a misalignment in what is tested and what is taught. Consequently, teachers preferred to take the safe method. Therefore, the translation of policy needs greater alignment in order to produce the intended outcomes. Chapter 15 highlights one of the key challenges of policy implementation (including LPP) since it is a continuous improvement process. Using Singapore as an example, although the government adopts a centralised approach in governing the country, policy implementation produces both intended and unintended outcomes. In this chapter, Sandra Wu discusses how globalisation has influenced Singapore to adopt English in the country’s language policy planning so as to stay competitive in the global economy. The Singapore’s bilingual policy i.e., English plus one official Mother Tongue Language (MTL) has been hailed as a cornerstone of its successful education system. However, although national curriculum frameworks are provided for preschools, the preschool landscape in Singapore is largely decentralised and this has resulted in varying language abilities and proficiencies among the pre-schoolers when they enter formal education in Primary school. This makes MTL learning difficult for young children in a society that privileges the use of English in home and school environments, with English being the first language and the medium of instruction. One of the unintended outcomes of this policy is that it has accorded English a prestige status at the expense of MTLs that are supposed to help Singaporeans preserve their ethnic identity. Chapter 16 sums up the role of English in the twenty-first century as the world is experiencing various stages of economic, social and demographic transition. According to Crystal (2003), English is rapidly becoming the first global lingua franca since many countries has either made English as an official language of the country (as seen in India and Singapore) or a priority in the country’s foreign-language

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 Introduction. Issues in language planning and policy: From global to local

teaching such as in China, Russia, Spain and Brazil. In chapter 16, Francisco Gomes de Matos argues that instead of seeing English as a threat to one’s language, identity and cultural heritage, English can be used as a peace promoting instrument since it is a ‘common’ language used in international activities – “communicating peacefully”. Francisco begins the chapter by providing an overview on the birth of Peace Linguistics – a recent effort with David Crystal that focuses on using English to communicate peacefully in varied settings. It was started by Francisco in Brazil and was taught in Portuguese. Subsequently, due to the process of globalisation in the 1980s, influenced by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) the author adopted English with the aim to better spread the peace-oriented language planning. Francisco stresses that in order for peace-oriented LPP to be recognised, actors at the different levels are critical, in particular, teachers at the micro level since they interact with students at the ground level. This chapter reinforces the importance of both top-down and bottom-up approaches in LPP, and that there are many actors at the four stages of LPP who play an important part in the outcomes of any LPP, in this case peace-oriented language planning. The book concludes with a chapter by Bernard Spolsky who addresses the complication of LPP in this globalised world. He posits that instead of using the term ‘language planning’, a term that was first used to address the linguistic problems of newly independent multilingual nations in the 1960s, the term ‘language management’ will be more appropriate in order to truly reflect the reality of this complex new world. Spolsky explains that in this volatile postmodern and neoliberal epoch, regular readjustments are needed. Consequently, the concept of language management is more encompassing since it includes indicators of ethnicity, race, nationality or territory and mirrors the changing economic and political conditions, such as the spread of major languages in particular English (Pennycook, 2006). The chapter suggests that the term will be able to truly reflect the dynamics of the complex social that surrounds LPP and the power of the different actors (as discussed in the previous chapters) at the various levels of that society in translating language policies and modifying language practices. The overall objective of this book, the first volume of the series, is to illustrate that in future, LPP will be more complicated. My aim is to provide examples from different countries to show how languages operate as a site of negotiation of class, race/ethnicity, religion, location, national security and economic standing in different ecological contexts, and how this tension creates both intended and unintended outcomes in view of the different actors interpreting and translating the policies into activities globally and locally. As Dick Baldauf once said, “the planned and ‘unplanned’ features often coexist in the same situation. As the unplanned aspects can interact with and change or pervert the planned, the language planner ignores the unplanned aspects of a situation at his/her risk” (1993/1994: 82).



References 

 13

References Baldauf, R. B. jr. 1990. Language planning and education. In R. B. Jr. Richard & A. Luke (Eds.), Language planning and education in Australasia and the South Pacific). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Ltd. 14-24. Baldauf, R, B. Jr. 1993/1994. “Unplanned” language policy and planning. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 14, 82-89. Baldauf, R. B. Jr. 2006. Rearticulating the case for micro language planning to a language ecology context. Current Issues in Language Planning, 7(2&3), 147-170. Brutt-Griffler, J. 2002. World English: A study of its development. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Castells, M. 1996. The rise of the network society. Vol. I of The information age: Economy, society, culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Castells, M. 1997. The power of identity. Vol. II of The information age: Economy, society, culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Castells, M. 1998. End of millennium. Vol. III of The Information age: Economy, society, culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Chua, S. K. C. & Baldauf, R. B. Jr. 2011a. Micro language planning. In Hinkel, E (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language learning and teaching (Vol 2). New York: Routledge. 936-951. Chua, S. K. C., & Baldauf, R. B. Jr. 2011b. Micro Language Planning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of Research in Second Language Learning and Teaching (Vol 2) . New York: Routledge. 936-951. Crystal, D. 2003. English as a global language (2nd ed). UK: Cambridge University Press. Giddens, A. 1990. The consequences of modernity. USA: Stanford University Press. Herther, N. K. 2009, February. The changing language of search. Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals, 42-50. Jensen, C., Denver, L., Mees, I. M., & Werther, C. 2013. Students’ attitudes to lecturers’ English in English-medium higher education in Denmark. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 12(1), 87-112. Johnson, A. 2009. The rise of English: The language of globalization in China and the European Union. Macalester International, 22, 131-168. [Electronic version]. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. Jr. 1997. Language planning from practice to theory. UK: Multilingual Matters. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. Jr. 2003. Language and language-in-education planning in the Pacific Basin. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. Jr. 2005. Language-in-education policy and planning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Assocaites. 1013-1034. Kirkpatrick, A. 2010. English as a lingua franca in ASEAN: A multilingual model. HK: Hong Kong University Press. Kellner, D. 2002. Theorizing globalization. Sociological Theory, 20(3): 285-305. Liddicoat, A. 2013. Language-in-education policies: The discursive construction of intercultural relations. UK: Multilingual Matters. Li, M. L. 2008. English language-in-education policy and learning in schools in the PRC: Teachers as actors or implementers. Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Queensland, Australia. Pennycook, A. 2006. Postmodernism in language policy. Malden, USA: Blackwell Publishing. Phillipson, R. 1996. English only worldwide, or language ecology. TESOL Quarterly 30, 429-452. Phillipson, R. 2003. English-only Europe? Changing language policy. London: Routledge. Ricento, T. K., & Hornberger, N. H. 1996. Unpeeling the onion: Language planning and policy and the ELT professional. Tesol Quarterly, 30(3), 401-427. Ricento, T. K. 2006. An introduction to language policy: Theory and method. Australia: Blackwell Publishing.

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Robertson, R. 1992. Globalization: Social theory and global culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Robinson, W.I. 2003. Transnational conflicts: Central America, social change, and globalization. London: Verso. Robinson, W.I. 2004. A Theory of global capitalism: Production, class and state in a transnational world. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Robsinson, W. I. 2008. Theories of globalization. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), The Blackwell companion to globalization. USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Sklair, L. 2000. The transnational capitalist class. London: Blackwell. 125-143. Sklair, L. 2002. Globalization: Capitalism and its alternatives. New York: Oxford. Sommer, B. A. 1991. Yesterday’s experts: The bureaucratic impact on language planning for Aboriginal bilingual education. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, S(8), 109-134. The British Council. 2013. The English effect: The impact of English, what it’s worth to the UK and why it matters to the world. Retrieved from https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/ english-effect-report-v2.pdf The Economist. (2011). Who speaks English. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/blogs/ johnson/2011/04/english Werther, C., Denver, L., Jensen, C., & Mees, I. M. 2014. Using English as a medium of instruction at university level in Denmark: The lecturer’s perspective. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 35(5), 443-462.

Robert B. Kaplan

2 Is English global?3 Acknowledgement This contribution is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Richard B. Baldauf, Jr. Dick and I met in 1983 at an academic activity at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, and we immediately entered into a comfortable relationship. We were close friends and colleagues for thirty years. Together, we founded the journal Current Issues in Language Planning, which is now in its fifteenth year, though for different reasons we each stopped contributing during its fourteenth year. In addition, we inaugurated a series of 15 separate volumes dealing with language planning in various global areas, partially reprinting articles from the journal but going beyond that constraint. In short, we complemented each other in ways that permitted us to make a contribution to the growing field of Language Policy and Planning. Dick was not only a brilliant scholar; he was a kind, gentle man who took endless pains with his students, and who tolerated my inclination to impatience. Our initial publishing activity was initiated with Multilingual Matters but, when the senior Grovers retired, the company went through reorganisation, and our journal was relocated to Taylor and Francis, our subsequent work being produced under the Routledge label. In short, we went from a small organisation in which we knew everyone on a first-name basis, to a huge corporation in which people frequently changed responsibilities. Admittedly, I tended to get annoyed with the impersonality of the large corporation and to be impatient with the somewhat slower pace of decision-making. Dick tolerated my outbursts and managed to keep us in good standing. When Dick passed away in June of 2014, our comfortable world disappeared with him. Given my advanced age and my general inclination to bring my own academic career finally to a close, Dick’s demise shut down a wonderful chapter of our lives. If you care to check the reference list at the end of this contribution, you will uncover evidence of the deep intellectual relationship we shared. It would be inappropriate to say I miss him; rather, a part of my consciousness went out of business with Dick’s departure.

2.1 Introduction: A bit of history As the result of some more or less recent events [including, for example, conflicts in the Asian region and elsewhere (e.g., Wright, 2002), the geopolitics of the cold 3 This chapter is an expanded version of Kaplan & Baldauf (2011) Robert B. Kaplan, Professor Emeritus of Applied Linguistics, University of Southern California

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 Is English global?

war, globalisation (e.g., Sheng, 2009), vast movements of people fleeing disaster (Nowakowski, 2015), the emerging world economic system (e.g., Brutt-Griffler, 2002) and easier access for everyone to mass media and the Internet (e.g., Kress & van Leeuwen, 2002)], English has become: –– the de facto dominant foreign (second) language in many polities; –– the international language of science and technology (e.g., Kaplan, 2001); and –– the world’s lingua franca. English has come to be perceived as a vital language in many polities (e.g., Alisjahbana, 1971; Choi & Spolsky, 2007; Crystal, 2003; Graddol, 1997; Gonzalez, 1989; Qi, 2009). These developments did not occur randomly; English had been spread through the world as the colonial language of the British Empire. As early as the mid-19th century, Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1835 had been sent to Calcutta in an official capacity as ‘advisor’ to the government, knowing nothing about any of the South Asian languages and apparently actually scorning them. Macaulay had played a role in introducing English and western concepts into education in India, supporting the replacement of vernacular languages with English, and using English as the medium of instruction in all schools4. Macaulay wrote a “Minute” (or message) to the government of British India, suggesting ways to deal with the complex mix of languages faced by the British rulers of India. His “Minute” dealt with the intent of education and of colonial language policy in India, especially concerning the use of English in the education of Indian people. His advice was widely accepted (not only in India but, subsequently, in British colonial Africa and Asia). Macaulay urged the introduction of the future leaders of India (and eventually those of the entire Commonwealth) to English literature and history, thereby providing a common language in multilingual India and laying the groundwork in the traditions of English law. More specifically, Macaulay’s advice was: … to form a class Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect; a class who could serve as interpreters between the government and the masses, and who, by refining the vernaculars, would supply the means of widespread dissemination of western knowledge (cited in Phillipson, 1992, 110).

Given Macaulay’s view of the world and his repeated assertion of the preeminence of British English, British culture and western social organisation, it may be easy 4 Macaulay—a British historian and politician, who had written extensive essays and reviews, whose books on British history were hailed as literary masterpieces, and who had held political office as Secretary of War (1839-1841) and as Paymaster General (1846-1848) – divided the world into civilised nations and barbarism, with Britain representing the high point of civilisation. He believed that it was “… no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgement used at preparatory schools in England”.



Where did English come from? 

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to understand why English has spread across the globe as a result of colonialist expansion. It is important to understand that England was not the only polity guilty of undertaking the annihilation—and subsequently the obliteration—of all other cultures and languages. The ascendancy of French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish has been well documented over the centuries-long outreach by European powers – at least from 1450 to 1950 (Stuchtey, 2010). Of course, cultural and linguistic expansion was not exclusively a European phenomenon; the equally lengthy expansion of Chinese influence is equally well documented (Mote, 1999), and in more recent times, Japan’s attempt to establish a greater East Asian co-prosperity sphere (Beasley, 1987; Dower, 1986) cannot be overlooked. To condense a protracted and complex issue, ethnic conflicts seem to be characteristic of human relations (Horowitz, 1985), and such conflicts may, as a rule, be reduced to linguistic differences.

2.2 Where did English come from? Since the topic under discussion here is the English language, what is it, and where did it come from? Not too surprisingly, English evolved in England; it arose from several West Germanic dialects spoken by the Angle and Saxon peoples who had arrived in what is known as the British Isles from continental Europe in the 5th century CE. The language they spoke was called Anglish [written as Englisc]—currently known as Old English (see, e.g., Beowulf)—but their territory was periodically invaded by the Vikings who occupied an area in the north and center of England known as the Danelaw and who spoke Norse, a variety from which there was extensive borrowing into Anglish. That linguistic seesaw ended with the Norman Conquest in 1066. In the following years, Anglish ceased to be used as the written language (see, e.g., Ormulum5); gradually, Anglo-Norman became the written language of England. During the Norman period (roughly 1066-1300), Norman French was the language of elite society, and French vocabulary was absorbed into the vestiges of Old English, resulting in the emergence of Middle English (see, e.g., Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales). King Henry V, (1387-1422) ordered the version of English in common use at the time to be used in all proceedings before the king as well as before all government bureaucracies, thus opening the way for the development of Chancery English, a widely used standardized form. Chancery English Standard was largely based on the dialects of London and the East Midlands. By the mid-15th century, Chancery English 5 The Ormulum is a twelfth-century work of biblical exegesis, written by a monk named Orm in fewer than 9,000 lines of early Middle English verse. Because of the unique phonetic orthography adopted by its author, the work preserves many details of English pronunciation existing at a time when the language was in flux after the Norman Conquest.

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 Is English global?

Standard was used for most official purposes (except by the Church, which continued to use Latin). Chancery English slowly gained prestige as it was disseminated around England by bureaucrats traveling about the country on official business. Richard Pynson (1448-1529), an early printer, favored Chancery English Standard in the works he printed, consequently pushing confusing spelling further towards standardisation. The further development of printing by William Caxton (1415-1492)— an English merchant, diplomat and printer, the first English person who worked as a printer and, in 1476 the first to introduce a printing press into England—accelerated the development of a standardised form of English, now designated Early Modern English (see, e.g., the works of Shakespeare). English, among other languages, became a language of Wales following its incorporation into England in 1535 (and more formally in 1542 when the Laws of Wales Acts were enacted, making Wales a full and equal part of the Kingdom of England) (Davies, 1990: 232).

2.3 English as a global language “From being seen as a language of a colonial power, English is now a language for modern science and business, and a new window to the world” (Hamid, 2014).

As already noted, the English language has spread across the world; consequently, the contemporary number of non-native speakers significantly exceeds by far the number of native speakers − according to the 2013 census figures (Ryan, 2013), c. 335 million L1 English-speakers as compared to c. 505 million L2 English-speakers6. The growth in the number of non-native speakers has produced changes in the language that are currently being investigated but still remain to be more extensively studied, because the existence of Englishes as opposed to a single standard variety constitutes a significant problem. Attempts have been made to describe the spread of the language using a variety of models, each reflecting different approaches attempting to define English as a global language, as well as to define the language’s relationship with different speakers, characterising diverse geographic, sociological, political and cultural backgrounds. Kachru (1992), in an attempt to discuss the spread of English, proposed a model consisting of three concentric circles with each circle reflecting the diversity of English, differentiating between native and non-native Englishes and legitimising various non-native Englishes as distinct varieties7. Nevertheless, a major problem

6 L1 refers to English as first language; L2 refers to English as second language 7 The inner circle is the traditional base of English including the varieties spoken in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and in the former British colonies [i.e., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States] as well as in various islands in the Caribbean, in the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific Ocean.



English as a global language 

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with Kachru’s model lies in the connotation of linguistic superiority of the Englishes at the model’s core as compared with the inferiority of outlying varieties, thus failing to reflect accurately the status of the varieties contained in each circle.

Fig. 2.1: The roles of English in the world as three concentric circles (Kachru, 1992).

Modiano (2009) developed an alternative model intended to fill some of the gaps in Kachru’s concentric circles. He posited that English usage “to be inclusive”, that is, “to accommodate as many interlocutors across the Inner, Outer, and Expanding Circles as possible” (Modiano 2009: 211). Nonetheless, Kachru’s model was a significant contribution to the sociolinguistic development of the English language because it succeeded in creating an awareness of the existence of other Englishes as distinct varieties instead of being merely products of unsuccessful language learning. However, while Modiano’s model is more egalitarian, offering clearer criteria for the placement of Englishes, important definitions of English as an International Language (EIL) and of core features of English are yet to be developed and clarified.  The outer circle consists of countries where English has official or historical importance, including most of the countries of the former British Empire (i.e., India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, etc.) under the sphere of influence of English-speaking countries. The expanding circle refers to those countries where English has no official role, but is nonetheless important for certain functions − e.g., international aviation, business and tourism, etc.

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 Is English global?

Global English—known by a variety of names—represents English as a global means of communication. In a sense, these notions really represent a need for a Standard English, but there has not been much progress in achieving consensus on a Standard variety. To some extent, some standardised versions have been developed by academic disciplines; there are standardised varieties of the English of chemistry, of physics, of geology, of Medicine (Maher, 1987) – in other words, of varieties representing sciences in which global communication has become essential, and in which the technical discipline defines the vocabulary (Kaplan, 2001).

2.4 Attempts at internationalisation: Examples from Japan, Russia and North Korea The notion of International English refers to English as a global means of communication in numerous dialects, but it also refers to the movement towards an international standard for English. There has been a great deal of discussion and a range of other terms has come into existence: e.g., Global English (Crystal, 1997), Globish (Grzega, 2006; Nerrière & Hon, 2009) Lingua Franca (House, 2002; Seidlhofer, 2004) or World English (Jenkins, 2003; McArthur, 2002), and others. The term International English, as well as the other related terms, refers to a desired standardisation (i.e., Standard English), but there has been no consensus among scholars concerning the emergence of this variety. There have been many proposals for making International English more accessible to people from different nationalities; e.g., Basic English (Ogden, 1934) is an example, and more recently ELF [English as a lingua franca; see, e.g., (House, 2002; Seidlhofer, 2004) and Globish (Grzega, 2006; Nerrière & Hon, 2009)] have been proposed, but none of these attempts has been successful. Given the widespread interest in, and commitment to, some kind of global lingua franca, it is interesting to see how the matter has been approached in a few nation-states.

2.4.1 Japan Interest in the English language in Japan has developed over a very long time (Ike, 1995). Apparently Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Government, accidentally met with an Englishman named William Adams (known as Anjin Miura in Japanese) who had made landfall on April 19, 1600, at Tada8. Adams was a British navigator who settled and remained in Japan for the rest of his life. After the death

8 The older geography is difficult to report in contemporary terms; presently the site may be near Usuki City (in Oita Prefecture), located in the inland sea of Japan near Tadanoumi a city close to Hiroshima on Honshu Island.



Attempts at internationalisation: Examples from Japan, Russia and North Korea 

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of Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1616, a change in the foreign policy of the Bakufu9 resulted in the closing of the English merchants’ office in 1623, prompting the remaining Englishmen to leave Japan. The English were refused permission to return in 1673. In 1808, the British ship, Phaeton, seized goods in Nagasaki; by 1825 the Bakufu ordered the Samuri to repel any and all foreign ships attempting to land in Japan, with the exception of Dutch and Chinese ships. Learning English was clearly not an important activity in early 19th century Japan; however, in 1841 Shibukawa Rokuzo, a high-ranking official of the Bakufu who had learned Dutch, translated Lindley Murray’s 1828 English Grammar from Dutch into Japanese. In 1848, Ronald MacDonald came to Japan, pretending to have been shipwrecked. In Nagasaki, under orders from the Bakufu, he taught English to fourteen official Japanese interpreters of Dutch. Subsequently, one of MacDonald’s students, Moriyama, served as interpreter between the Americans and Japanese in establishing trade relations. Having survived a shipwreck, and subsequently having studied in America for ten years, Nakahama Manjiro wrote Ei-Bei Taiwa Shokei (A Shortcut to Anglo-American Conversation); it employed mixed Japanese kana for pronunciation with kanbun10. This was a book that subsequently had a significant influence on the method of teaching English in Japan; the Yokohama Academy was one of the first English schools, founded in 1861 by the Bakufu and staffed by such U.S. missionaries as James C. Hepburn11. By 1874, 91 foreign language schools had been established in Japan, of which 82 taught English. In 1923, Harold E. Palmer12 was invited by Masataro Sawayanagi13 and Kojiro Matsukata14 to come to Japan; he served as ‘Linguistic Adviser’ to the Japanese Department of Education, and later founded the Institute for Research in English Teaching in Tokyo introducing the aural-oral approach to teaching English. However, beginning from the 1880s, when Japan was rapidly modernising, books such as Nihon Jin (The Japanese People) by Shiga Shigetaka (1863 – 1927) began to surface intended to alert the Japanese public to the dangers of Western influence. As a result, a growing tension emerged between Western ideology and Japanese national pride, a feeling that existed into the post-war period at the end of World War II. 9 The term originally referred to the dwelling of a shogun, but eventually it came to be used to refer to the government of a feudal military dictatorship, exercised in the name of the shogun. The term has been adopted into English in relation to the term shogunate. 10 A method of annotating Classical Chinese so that it can be read in Japanese. 11 James Curtis Hepburn (1815 – 1911) was a physician, translator, educator and lay Christian missionary. 12 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Harold E. Palmer (1877-1949) was a linguist, phonetician and pioneer in the field of English language learning and teaching, dedicated to Oral Method. (For greater information concerning his contribution to Applied Linguistics, see Kaplan, 2010.) 13 Masataro Sawayanagi, was a former Minister of Education and, in 1917, the founder of Seijo Gakuen. 14 Kojiro Matsukata (1865-1950) a wealthy Japanese businessman devoted to amassing a collection of Western art.

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 Is English global?

In modern Japan, conflicting perceptions of English by the Japanese people have emerged, arising partly out of a need to participate in the global economy and in the international community, while at the same time maintaining the perception of Japan as one of the most independent nations on earth due to its geographic isolation and its astonishing translation industry – an activity that was responsible for a vastly diminished need for English in daily life. Thus, despite declarations of bankruptcy by two very large English conversation school chains, the modern English-language industry has been experiencing an impressive boom. Learning English in modern Japan Due to fundamental differences in grammar and syntax, as well as important differences in pronunciation, Japanese students have experienced difficulty in learning English. Japanese word order, the frequent omission of sentence subjects, the absence of plural forms and of articles, as well as the well-known difficulty in distinguish between the sounds /r/ and /l/, all contribute to learner difficulty. Consequently, Japanese students have the tendency to score comparatively poorly on international tests of English (Blair, 1997). Furthermore, the common use of English in daily conversation was intended to impress Japanese hearers, rather than to communicate with English speakers. According to a budget office document produced by the U.S. Department of education (cited in Blair, 1997), …there is often no attempt to try to get it right, nor do the vast majority of the Japanese population … ever attempt to read … English…. There is, therefore, less emphasis on spell checking and grammatical accuracy.

As a result, the daily encounters with English in the community are not really helpful in language learning. Japan ranks 34th in the world in the UN Education Index but according to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Japanese students score highly in science. In 1998, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)15 had taken steps to allow a selected number of public primary schools to have mandatory English classes (McCurry, 2011). Traditionally, Japanese schools have used the kanbun Grammar-Translation Method. Changes made in April 2011 have made English a required subject from 5th grade. However, many parents had been sending their children to Eikaiwa gakko16 even before elementary school to get a head-start in English. The private school industry in Japan is not well regulated. However, haken17 have competed fiercely to get contracts

15 The Ministry of Education (Monbusho) had been created by the Meiji government in 1871, and recreated as in 2001). 16 Eikaiwa gakko, often abbreviated to only Eikaiwa, are normally privately operated English conversation schools. 17 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Agencies, or dispatch companies, specifically in the business of recruiting teachers with knowledge of English.



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from various Boards of Education for Primary, Junior and Senior High Schools to provide English-speaking teachers. At the same time, the haken also strive to place English-speaking teachers into private companies whose employees need to improve their English proficiency in order to enhance commercial activity. As a result, Japanese teachers’ wages have decreased steadily in recent years, currently averaging around 250,000 Yen (roughly, US$2,125) per month, depending on experience. In addition, English-teaching employees of The Japanese Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program are sponsored by the Japanese Government to assist language teachers in primary and high schools, especially in rural areas and smaller cities. When it comes to actually speaking English with a native speaker, Japanese generally become uncomfortable about sounding odd, failing to make sense, and being guilty of unintelligible pronunciation; consequently they avoid speaking English entirely. While English instructors can help students to acquire cognitive, affective, and behavioral strategies they can use to cope with anxiety, proficiency has not necessarily improved. In sum, there seems to be a conflict between the desires of parents on the one hand, and on the other, the steps taken by MEXT; despite substantial financial investment in English learning both by government and by individual parents, English proficiency does not seem to improve to the level projected by both parental desires and governmental objectives. To some extent, the unimpressive attainment is the result of the fact that English is rarely heard by Japanese students outside of the classroom. English remains a school subject rather than a real means of communication. In the absence of real-world motivation (among other means of support), English proficiency is not likely to improve (See, e.g. Kaplan & Baldauf, 2012).

2.4.2 The Soviet Union, subsequently The Russian Federation As the Soviet Union came to be regarded as a model to emulate for all other Communist states, understanding the history of language planning in the USSR is useful in understanding developments in other Communist states. In the latter years of the Soviet Union, Soviet authorities maintained that current Soviet policy was Leninist policy; others argued that current policy represented a major departure from Lenin’s original views, owing much more to Stalin than to Lenin. Prior to the collapse of the USSR, the aim of Soviet authorities was to promote a particular kind of bilingualism – i.e., ‘first language plus Russian,’ since Russian had been designated the language of “inter-nationality” communication. This Stalinist perspective was in fact contrary to Lenin’s contention that stressed the absolute equality of all languages in a multilingual state. Lenin opposed the imposition of any single mandatory state language because he believed that Communism would ultimately emerge as a global phenomenon, and it was important not to saddle socialist ideology with a single super-language. Lenin charged with chauvinism all

24 

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those who argued that Russian should be the sole official language of the state, urging and personally supporting an ambitious programme for the study of all the languages of the former Russian Empire as well as the creation of orthographies for those communities that lacked one (Isaev, 1977). At the same time, Lenin understood that literacy was essential in a newly emerging socialist state, because literacy was the vehicle to promote modernisation and to support the spread of socialism. During the long stretch between the 1917 Russian Revolution and the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, language planning in the Soviet Union may be described as having occurred in five phases (Kirkwood, 1990): 1. the Lenin period (1917-1929), 2. the Stalin period (1929-1953), 3. the Khrushchev period (1953-1964), 4. the Brezhnev period (1964-1982), 5. the post-Brezhnev period (1982-1991). Although no consistency in policy developed across these periods, the purposeful formation of national Russian bilingualism was the key element in the area of internal national communications, since it was unthinkable that there could be any administrative restriction of Russian: –– As its goal, the 1984 school reform proclaimed full mastery of Russian for every graduate of secondary school; and –– The Soviet language (Russian) could be used at all levels in all registers and for all purposes anywhere in the USSR (Comrie, 1981). Despite growing language demands among the nationalities in the latter years of the USSR, there was no official retreat from the basic principles as articulated in the 1958-59 education laws. In theory, education law gave parents the right to choose the language in which their children were to be instructed while at the same time maintaining the superiority of Russian as the language of the state; but dialect variation was deemed a violation of Soviet norms so varieties of Russian were absolutely proscribed. The education laws were, however, extremely complex; commenting further on the complexity at this point would not be productive. The basic purpose of language planning in the USSR changed with every change in the General Secretary of the Communist Party. Over the 75 years described, there were at least five different objectives for language planning. The objectives prescribed by Lenin—the earliest and the most reasonable in linguistic terms—were gradually redefined in the light of external developments: –– The huge costs needed to achieve the ambitious program supported by Lenin for the study of all the languages of the former Russian Empire could not be sustained in the face of the global economic catastrophe at the end of the 1920s; –– The agricultural disaster resulting from the forced collectivisation of farming in the early 1930;



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–– The huge costs of the Soviet military (including the space-exploration programme) and of the various campaigns in which the military was engaged worldwide; –– The complexity of trying to manage centrally speakers of the range of language spoken within the Soviet Union’s 15 Republics, 20 Autonomous Republics, 16 national areas and 8 autonomous regions; and –– The pragmatic need for one language to deal with the multilingual multicultural population. These reasons – in addition to: –– Cold War costs; –– The chaos in the early Soviet Union as a consequence of the revolution; –– The significant exodus of those who were able to flee collectively conspired to justify the constant drift in the language planning objectives; –– Lenin’s vision of a multilingual society, together with the total elimination of illiteracy; –– A vision of a kind of bilingualism – i.e., “first language plus Russian,” designated as the language of “internationality” communication; –– The articulation of the Japhetic theory of the common origin of Caucasian, Semitic-Hamitic and Basque languages, claiming further that all modern languages descended from a single proto-language and that all modern languages tended to fuse into the single language of communist society (See Marr & Abtecar, 1934); –– The education decree of 13 March 1938 requiring the introduction of universal compulsory elementary education, the introduction of Russian as a compulsory subject in schools, and the initiation of the ‘cultural-sanitary campaign’ to draw the ‘backward’ communities into the Soviet pattern of development; –– A glorification of the Russian people and their language; –– Perestroika aimed gradually to liberalise freedom of the press and to allow freedom of dissent; and –– The assertion of their sovereignty and their right to use their own languages by the Baltic republics (and other former participants in the Soviet Union) rejecting the long-standing central policy (Hogan-Brun, Ozolines, Ramonien & Rannut, 2007). Since there was no single constant objective, and since the objectives vacillated over time in response to internal and external pressures, it cannot be said that language planning was a complete success. To the extent that the policy supported the emergence of a Soviet state, it can be deemed successful, but the cost of that achievement mitigates any reasonable definition of success.

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At the present time, Russian is the only federally official language of the Federation18, but there are a number of other officially recognized languages within Russia’s various constituencies (Remington, 2010). Russian is the official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan and is widely spoken in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and to a lesser extent in the other countries that were once part of the Soviet Union. Article 68 of the Russian Constitution allows the various Republics (22 of them) to establish official languages other than Russian, and that language is regulated by the Russian Language Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The study of English was a relatively minor issue, more or less overlooked in the larger language issues of a hugely multilingual socialist society (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2011).

2.4.3 North Korea This brief summary of events in the USSR serves as an introduction to events in the time between 1950 and the present in North Korea. In 1945, when Japan was defeated in World War II, Korea was divided into two zones, with the north occupied by the Soviet Union and the south by the United States. Negotiations on unification failed, and in 1948 two separate governments were formed: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north, and the Republic of Korea in the south. The conflicting claims of sovereignty led to the Korean War beginning on 25 June 1950. The 1953 Armistice committed both to a cease-fire, but the two countries remain officially at war because no formal peace treaty has ever been entered into19. Over time North Korea has gradually distanced itself from the world Communist movement. Like language planning in the Soviet Union under Stalin, whom Kim Il Sung (North Korean Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death) greatly admired, undertook to remake North Korea’s language to fit its Communist ideology. The modern history of language planning in North Korea can be divided into three periods: the Preparation Period (1945-1953), the Transition Period (1954-1963), and the Munhwe 20 Period (1964 to the present) [Kaplan & Baldauf, 2011; Moon, 2000; for the parallel history of the language in the Republic of [South] Korea see Han, 2008]. These three periods were characterised by a series of activities: –– A literacy campaign (most active during the Preparation Period but gradually decreasing as the result of declining need); –– Language standardisation (marked primarily by the elimination of); 18 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ The Russian Federation consists of 85 constituent units: 22 Republics, 46 Oblasts plus 1 Autonomous Oblast, 9 Krals, 3 Federal Cities, 4 Autonomous Okrugs. For a more extensive review of developments in the Soviet Union, see Kaplan, 2011. 19 For a more extensive discussion of developments in North Korea, see Kaplan & Baldauf, 2011 20 See Munhwae, meaning Cultured Language (Moon, 2000).



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–– Revision of orthographic rules; –– Dictionary compilation; and –– Vocabulary management, involving: (i) The deletion of words of Chinese origin, other foreign words, and words conflicting with socialist ideology; and (ii) The coining of new words—e.g., place names, product names, technical terminology, and socio-political terminology, as well as appropriate ways of alluding to Kim Il Sung and his successors. Although it has often been suggested that language-in-education policy should arise from national language policy articulated at the highest level of government, and should have, as a primary objective, the implementation of such a national language policy (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997), this ideal condition does not often occur. Nonetheless, in North Korea, it does. The government of North Korea undertook official, sustained and conscious efforts to shape the Korean language to its political needs. From 1949, the government recognized the socio-political value of the national language as the means: –– for implementing socialist policy; –– for shaping the thinking and behavior of the populace, and –– for representing the will of the Communist Party to the citizenry. Language planning in North Korea, then, at the highest levels of government, was structured by the objectives of socialist state building (Kumatani, 1990).

2.4.3.1 The Preparation Period (1945-1953) The most important feature of the Preparation Period was the national literacy campaign, seen as an urgent national task to establish the foundation for the construction of the socialist state. Given that there were c. 14,250,000 illiterates in 1945—about thirty per cent of the population, most in the rural sector—this enormous task was accomplished in three stages: –– The increase in literacy in Korean script; –– The officialisation and standardisation of the Korean script (Hangul); and –– The elimination of Chinese characters (Hanja) in the written language. The elimination of Chinese words was essential because Korean words had been perceived to be less cultured and polite than their Chinese counterparts, preventing common people from controlling their own language and depriving them of national pride; consequently, an H variety was to be eliminated in favor of an L variety. Increase in literacy was conceived exclusively as the eradication of illiteracy. The movement was strongly based on Marxist/Leninist principles. In November 1946, the Preliminary Peoples’ Committee (later the North Korean Peoples’ Committee) adopted what was called the “Winter Illiteracy Eradication Movement in Rural Areas” –

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 Is English global?

a four month long program, running from December 1947 to March 1948. All persons between the ages of 12 and 50 were required to participate. A second campaign was adopted immediately on the close of the first. The entire population was involved, participating either as teachers or as learners: –– College students and teachers became literacy teachers through adult schools21 organised at night and during vacation periods in every workplace; –– The Youth Organisation, the Women’s League and the Peasant’s League were involved; and –– Enrollments in the Sengin hakkyo jumped from 8,000 in 1945 to 40,000 by 1947. While literacy education was the central feature of these activities, ideological education was also an important objective. Simultaneous with the literacy program, a second program was implemented – “The Movement for Total Ideological Mobilisation for Founding the Nation”. The government claimed that it had achieved 100 per cent literacy by 1949, in less than 4 years after independence. Additionally, in December 1946, the Preliminary Peoples’ Committee also mandated the creation of Russian language schools in major cities, and by 1948 the study of Russian was compulsory at middle school; all upper-level officials of the Party were required to be fluent in Russian. Until 1964, Russian was the only foreign language taught in secondary schools, but from that time until the early 1970s, Russian and English were taught in approximately even distribution. As relations with the Soviet Union decayed in the mid-1970s, by 2004, English had emerged as the main foreign language taught in secondary schools. The mandatory exclusive use as the language of government, education and cultural activities necessitated the standardisation of Hangul. Standardisation was achieved by revising the grammar of Hangul, by creating new terminologies, by writing new dictionaries, and by language purification -- Chinese terms as well as Japanised Chinese terms were either expunged or nativised. In 1949, the Academic Terms Decision Committee was created in the Department of Education, and the implementation of the Committee’s work was made mandatory. This activity was not so easily accomplished; indeed, it went on well beyond the Preparatory period.

2.4.3.2 The Transition Period (1954-1963) The ‘transition’ designated in the title of the period was a transition from ‘old’ Korean i.e., the Korean of the colonial period (that is, the Korean of the Japanese occupation and the Korean used in the South) to ‘new’ Korean (i.e., a variety permitting the language to function as a cultural weapon). There was another spate of publication activity, the objective of which was to standardise the language, an activity seen to require a

21 Specially organised Sengin hakkyo



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 29

grammar and a dictionary and to promulgate standard rules for Romanisation. All of this activity was based on the principles laid out earlier in the Korean Orthography, intended to codify words that had been introduced over a decade of socialist state development (e.g., workers’ party, people’s army, people’s front, people’s economy, people’s liberation war, Soviet, etc.) and to alter the meanings of other words (e.g., capitalist, which took on all the negative semantic connotations common in socialist literature), all based on Marxist/Leninist principles. The Concise Dictionary was the first work to adopt North Korea’s language rules as distinct from the language rules prevalent in the South as well as to provide textual comments limiting meaning (e.g., “…in the Southern part under the puppet government…”). Thus, Kim Il Sung defined the enormous language planning activity conducted in the North in the two decades between 1945 and 1965, involving both corpus planning and status planning, all coming to fruition in the third period. The Concise Dictionary captures the gradual migration of the standard: –– from modern speech of the middle class in Seoul, –– to modern speech most commonly spoken by Koreans, –– to language of workers and revolutionaries in Pyongyang. The realities of North Korean language planning exemplify the absolutely political nature of language planning decisions, as well as the impact that an individual can have on the development of the image and prestige of a language (Haarmann, 1998).

2.4.3.3 Summary List of Publications –– The Korean Orthographic Dictionary (Cosenechelcapepsacen) in 1956 –– The Concise Korean Dictionary (Cosene sosacen) in 1957 –– Writing Loan Words (Oylaye phyokipep) in 1956/1958 –– Korean Dictionary (Cosenmal sacen) in 1960/1962 –– Standard rules for Romanisation of Korean in 1962 –– Standard rules for the Koreanisation of Foreign Words in 1962 –– A multi-volume Korean Dictionary (Cosenma lsacen) between 1960 and 1962 –– The Korean Language Grammar 1 (Cosene munpep) in 1960 –– The New Dictionary of Chinese Characters (Sayokphyen) in 1963 –– A Russian Phrasal Dictionary (Loeswukesacen) in 1963

2.4.3.4 The Munhwae Period (1964-The Present) In 1963, the term munhwaseng, meaning “cultured nature and attitude”—quickly simplified to Munhwae—was introduced as the most important element of the new Korean standard, a variety based essentially on that spoken in Pyongyang, because the ‘dialect of Pyongyang’ meant the speech of persons at the central point of revolutionary ideas. The term assigned to the new standard was announced by Kim

30 

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Il Sung himself in 1966 to mark the fruition of all the corpus and status planning undertaken in the preceding twenty years. Kim explicitly stated his thoughts about language, thereby providing the ultimate rationale for all subsequent language planning activity in North Korea: –– The promotion of a Socialist state; and –– The adulation of its leader Kim Il-Sung, subsequently his son Kim Jong-Il, and his grandson, Kim Jong-un. Kim’s kyosi22 also covered these language-related issues: –– People of the same racial make-up, the same culture, living in the same territory, could not be considered a nation if they spoke different languages; thus, the need for a “nationalistic,” pure standard; –– People speaking the same language but living under different political systems can be seen as belonging to the same nation ‒ thus leaving open an opportunity for reunification of the two Koreas; –– The earlier total proscription of Chinese characters was reversed on the grounds that the characters continued to be used in the South, so that banning them would remove one of the common bonds between the two Koreas – thereby leaving open the possibility for reunification; –– The teaching of Chinese characters was defined as foreign language education, proscribing their use in national language classes and in school textbooks; –– South Korean language practices were deemed unacceptable on the grounds that influences from Chinese, Japanese and English, if allowed to co-exist with Korean, would threaten the eventual extinction of Korean; –– South Korean language practices result in the perpetuation of the undemocratic gap between spoken and written language that is the outcome of a skewed distribution of power; and –– South Korean language practices are deemed to be sexist since they retain features marking women as subordinate to men. Based on these views, Kim steered Korean language planning, insisting that the first principle of developing Munhwae is that it must be nationalistic, including words deriving from rural dialects which constitute a rich source of pure lexicon. While dialects were used as a source of native terms, it seems to have escaped notice that some dialects might be ‘purer’ Korean in the sense that they might have escaped contamination by invaders and capitalists. Regarding Words of Chinese origin; –– Those fully assimilated into Korean could be retained (though determination of full assimilation remained unclear);

22 The term kyosi means “leader’s words” – literally, “enlightening teaching”.



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–– Those that had not been assimilated should be considered foreign and consequently eliminated; –– Those that had not been assimilated but were widely used in scientific, technical and political contexts could be retained, but the numbers should be kept to an absolute minimum; –– Words of other foreign origins should generally be eliminated, but –– Words of foreign origin fully assimilated into Korean could be retained; –– Words of foreign origin not assimilated into Korean could either be eliminated or be translated into Korean; and –– Unassimilated words of foreign origin that are widely used in scientific, technical or political contexts (as well as new words that might enter Korean resulting from future contacts with other languages) should be replaced with Korean equivalents. In short, vocabulary management played a major role in Kim’s linguistic revolution; such management should be achieved through the creation of the National Language Screening Committee for controlling technical terms ‒ consisting of eighteen subcommittees (one for each of the seventeen technical fields, and one for general terms): –– Loan words were to be replaced with indigenous Korean words; –– Chinese words that have no Korean equivalents, should be purged depending on their “degree of nativisation”. (Unfortunately, no standard measure for degree of nativisation existed; consequently, considerable confusion was created.) –– Loan words of non-Chinese origin fell into three groups: (i) Words needed for science and technology and for communication with other countries could be retained; (ii) Words introduced by bourgeois intelligentsia or by Japanese colonialists should be purged and replaced by native or nativised words, helping to establish linguistic self-reliance (juche)23. (Since the criteria were not clear, the determination of these words was fairly arbitrary.) (iii) Words not in accord with socialist ideology should also be purged; e.g., such words as all personal titles and words that expressed sexist ideology. Native Korean words were deemed appropriate sources for personal names despite the traditional custom of assigning such names only to lower class children (i.e., Puekhnye meaning kitchen woman). Place names could be chosen to mark peoples’ admiration for the Leader, to commemorate the Leader’s visits, to reflect the development of North Korean society under the Leader’s guidance, or to honor revolutionary heroes,

23 Juche, an ideology of national self-reliance, was introduced into the constitution as a “creative application of Marxism–Leninism” in 1972.

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including members of Kim’s family. Agricultural products could be named for the place in which they were produced. Manufactured products, words describing the leader’s political ideology, words describing the Party’s method of administration, and words relating to socialist doctrines were modified to reflect socialist spirit. Kim Il Sung was the driving force for language planning. The plan varied as Kim changed his mind over the 46 years of his control of political power. Nevertheless, Kim consistently held that the language needed to be corrected to support the emergence of a socialist state. To serve its political objective, the language had to be cleansed of foreign influences, notably Chinese characters, especially so since Chinese characters obstructed the rapid development of total literacy. Over the years between 1947 and 1964, under Kim’s direction, a vast publishing activity was set in motion employing the population of Korean linguists and philologists to produce dictionaries, grammars, and phonological materials to: –– assure universal literacy, –– assure correct pronunciation, –– assure correct grammar, –– assure correct translation into and out of Korean, and –– increase the vocabulary New vocabulary was required in three sectors: –– Party and government organisations were directed to take the initiative in using the new vocabulary; –– Education bodies were seen as strategic centers for the circulation of the new words (Kim said “To spread our indigenous words, primary school is a springboard”); and –– The mass media were required to assume responsibility for the rapid and successful dissemination of the new vocabulary. Successful implementation of these reforms was intended to lead the Korean people to use their language in an intelligent and cultured way. This process would not be limited only to the coining of new words but also to the semantic reorientation of existing words; e.g., swuyang, originally meaning to cultivate one’s mind (thus, a function of the privileged class) was reoriented to mean ideological struggle. Despite the tight control in ensuring that only the ‘right version’ of the Korean language is used, recently, the North Korean government has launched a new initiative to change the linguistic trend by spreading English to serve a specific function – i.e., to improve the country’s tour guides’ grasp of English as part of the country’s plan to expand its tourism industry. English speaking foreigners are invited to apply to teach English language or tourism management at the Pyongyang Tourism College (Phillips, 2015). Thus, in part at least, the English language was a sort of after-thought following the reorganisation of Korean for use in a socialist state (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2011).



Where are we 

 33

2.5 Where are we The one thing that the preceding discussion demonstrates beyond doubt is that language planning is first and foremost a political activity, no matter what more democratic meanings may be imposed on the practice during various periods of development. It is important to remember that neither Lenin, nor Stalin, nor Kim Il Sung, nor any of the officers of Monbusho in Japan had had any academic training to prepare them for their roles in language planning; on the contrary, their justification for doing what they do may be simply stated as “because I think so!”. When language policy was undertaken in Socialist states (i.e., the former Soviet Union or North Korea), the purpose of language planning was entirely designed to develop and sustain the socialist state, and the process was adjusted to serve particular incarnations of the socialist state. For example, when the Soviet Union collapsed and was replaced by the Russian Federation, the objective of building a socialist state disappeared, but it was replaced by an approach, yet unnamed, which still was intended to impose a national language on a group of linguistically disparate states. The situation in Japan illustrates a different approach; it was simply true that the majority of the population in the geographic area all spoke the same language. Japan was one of the most independent nations on earth due to its geographic isolation and its astonishing translation industry. Japan imposed its language on minorities— on speakers of Ainu and on speakers of Ryukyuan languages by the populations in Okinawa—and in its military conquests in Korea and in Southeast Asia during its attempt to establish The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere during World War II. Simply stated, the Japanese language was (and still is) completely aligned with the Japanese national identity; the intrusion of English (or for that matter any other language) was perceived to be a departure from the Japanese identity, from Japanese culture, from the mythology of Japanese monoethnicity, and ultimately from Nihonjinrom24. The United States is, perhaps, a polity in which a single language (English) has served as a national language for a multilingual population without the benefit of language planning; there is no mention of language in the national Constitution. At present, 337 languages are spoken in the United States, even though some 50 languages formerly spoken across the geography are now extinct. Language has been an issue throughout the history of the nation, marked by ugly occasions of discrimination, both racial and linguistic. English is the language spoken by most people in the United States. The official language of many individual states is English, and English is the language used in nearly all government functions. Despite this predominance, many people in the United States speak languages other than English, and there has

24 A body of writing concerning Japaneseness whose objectiveness if to define the unique qualities of the Japanese people.

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 Is English global?

long been an inclination to study these groups and to determine how well they are able to participate in English civic life and interact with the English-speaking majority (Ryan, 2013). Chinese were discriminated as both “yellow” and as speaking an Asian language (Hooper & Batalova, 2015); speakers of Spanish have been discriminated, but they also happen to be “brown”. It is perhaps inevitable that those discriminated against for reasons of race will also be speakers of another language. Between 1849 and 1852, the Irish, who came to escape the potato famine, were discriminated, though largely they spoke English, as were the Russians who came to escape the 1917 Russian revolution, though they did not generally speak English. In summary, whenever large numbers of people migrate from some polity to another polity, disrupting employment and residential patterns, the interlopers are discriminated; such discrimination may be expressed racially simply because racial differences are more easily perceived. Once in motion, such discrimination is often simultaneously linked with language discrimination. English in the United States has not been imposed in the way national languages have been imposed in the Soviet Union, North Korea and Japan, nor has language imposition been so clearly linked with political objectives. In the United States, distinguished citizens have spoken in favor of making English the official language of the nation, while equally distinguished citizens have championed choosing other languages to serve as the national language – German at the time the nation was initially organized, French when the Louisiana Purchase was added to the nation, and Spanish when the southwestern States were annexed to the nation. The argument that a national language is essential to the existence of a polity is contradicted by the long survival of a multilingual United States as well as many other polities, particularly in Europe. No doubt, national unity may be enhanced by the existence of a common language, but a common language is not essential to national survival. By the same token, a universal (or global) variety raises a large number of new questions. Pennycook (2004) perceives the continuous growth of English as a type of cultural imperialism. Phillipson (1992) argues against the possible neutrality of English. Crystal (2003) defends the notion of the neutrality of English. Furthermore, learners who wish to use purportedly correct English encounter the problem created by the dual standard of American English and British English as well as of other standard Englishes (i.e., Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, South African, Scottish). Trimnell (2005) argues that the international version of English is only adequate for communicating basic ideas. For complex discussions and business/technical situations, English is not an adequate communication tool for non-native speakers of the language. Consequently, native English-speakers have become “dependent on the language skills of others” by placing their faith in international English. Some scholars reject the notion of linguistic imperialism as well as Crystal’s theory of the neutrality of English; they argue that the phenomenon of the global spread of English



Where are we 

 35

is better understood in the framework of appropriation (e.g., Spichtinger, 2000), that is, English used for local purposes around the world (for example on TV one frequently sees signs written in English in the hands of demonstrators in countries in which English plays no particular role). Given the means by which English was distributed across the globe, and given the disruption that migration of multitudes evokes, discrimination does occur. At present, the global role of English is simply denied by some polities. Whether English will ever be recognised as a global language remains undetermined. At present, –– Where the language is tied to international enterprises—e.g., international travel and tourism (especially involving aviation), international commerce (e.g., banking, etc.) and international science and technology—English enjoys a global role, though the vocabulary and rhetoric of the several enterprises is determined by discourse in the enterprises. –– Where the activity is largely local—e.g., involving education, consumption at the regional level—English may have no role. The question of the global role of English is complicated because some parents want their children to be able to participate in the more lucrative international activities. Those parents and their children press against governmental functions that determine the content of education and training, those functions largely managed by officials who are constrained by fiscal limitations and by a significant lack of understanding of the scope of the problem. As a result, local governmental functionaries undertake to install obvious and simple solutions – e.g., the teaching of English through the schools starting at early ages, taking limited time, and employing inadequately trained personnel and inappropriate resources (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2012). During a social gathering in Tokyo in 1998, the author encountered a professional economist who had for many years worked for the Japanese Ministry of Economics and who had, in the course of his duties, negotiated on behalf of Japan in a wide variety of multilingual settings. He reported that such negotiation was commonly carried on in English, even though English was not the native language of either side in the negotiations. He complained that the teaching of ‘standard’ English to Japanese was ineffective and urged that what he designated as ‘broken’ English be taught, since that was the variety most commonly used in the spheres of activity in which he had been engaged. Such efforts are not likely to succeed, but the blame for failure is loaded on the language, not on the local practices that are really responsible for limited success. Some polities will respond by abandoning English in Educaton. Tanzania is about to become the first sub-Saharan African country to use an African language as the medium of instruction throughout the schooling years; education in Tanzania  will have Kiswahili as  the sole language of instruction. Consequently, English in the broadest sense of internationality may not be global; in that it may never achieve global status. That is probably especially true in education, given that instruction is normally conducted in languages that children understand and are motivated to learn

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 Is English global?

in, to mature in, and to develop in. But English is indeed global in limited activities. Its universality is likely to endure until changes in technology, in international cooperation, in the advancement of science, in international economic activity give rise to some new more effective mechanism of international activity.

References Alisjahbana, S.T. 1971. Language policy, language engineering and literacy in Indonesia and Malaysia. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Current Trends in Linguistics (vol. 8). The Hague: Mouton. 1087–1109. Beasley, J. S. 1987. Japanese imperialism, 1894-1945. Oxford: Clarenden Press Blair, R. J. 1997. The role of English and other foreign languages in Japanese society: The Internet. TESL Journal 3(7), 74-86. Retrieved from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Blair-EngJpn.html Brutt-Griffler, J. 2002. World English: A study of its development. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Choi, Y. H., & Spolsky, B. (2007). English education in Asia: History and politics. Seoul: Asia TEFL. Comrie, B. 1981. The languages of the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crystal, D. 1997. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crystal, D. 2003. English as a global language (2nd ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, J. 1990. A history of Wales. London: Penguin 1994 ISBN 0-14-014581-8, p. 232. Dower, J. W. 1986. War without mercy: Race and power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon Books. Gonzalez, A. 1989. Sociolinguistics in the Philippines. Philippine Journal of Linguistics, 20(1), 57–58. Graddol, D. 1997. The future of English. London: British Council. Grzega, J. 2006. Globish and basic global English (BGE): Two alternatives for a rapid acquisition of communicative competence in a globalized world?. Journal for EuroLinguisti X3, 1–13. Haarmann, H. 1998. Multilingual Russia and its Soviet Heritage. In C. B. Paulston & D. Peckham (Eds.), Linguistic minorities In Central and Eastern Europe. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. 224-254. Hamid, A. J. 2014. New Straits Times online, 14 December. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Retrieved 28 December 2014. Han, Y.-W. 2008. History of the Republic of Korea: A Review of causes and effects. Korea Focus, 16(3), 98-109. Hogan-Brun, G., Ozolins, U., Ramonien, M., & Rannut, M. 2007. Language politics and practices in the Baltic States. Current Issues in Language Planning, 8(4), 469-631. Hooper, K., & Batalova, J. 2015. Chinese Immigrants in the United States, January 28, 2015. Migration Policy Institute, Online Journal. Retrieved from http://www.migrationpolicy.org/ article/chinese-immigrants-united-states/ Horowitz, D. L. 1985. Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. House, J. 2002. Pragmatic competence in lingua franca English. In K. Knapp & C. Meierkord (Eds), Lingua franca communication. Frankfurt (Main): Peter Lang. 245-267. Ike, M. 1995. A historical review of English in Japan (1600-1880). World Englishes. London: Routledge. Isaev, M. I. 1977. National languages in the USSR: Problems and solutions. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Jenkins, J. 2003. World Englishes. London: Routledge. Kachru, B. 1992. The Other Tongue: English across cultures. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.



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Kaplan, R. B. 2011. Macro Language planning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.) Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (Vol II). New York & London: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group). 924-935. Kaplan, R. B. (2010). Whence Applied Linguistics: The twentieth century. In R. B. Kaplan (Ed)., The Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2nd ed). NY: Oxford University Press, 3-33. Kaplan, R. B. 2001. English—the Accidental Language of Science? In U. Ammon. (Ed.), The dominance of English as a language of science: Effects on other language communities. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 3-260. Kaplan, R. B., & R. B. Baldauf, Jr. 1997. Language planning from practice to theory. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. B., Jr. 2011. North Korea’s language revision and some unforeseen consequences. In O. Garcia & J.A. Fishman (Eds.), Handbook of language and ethnic-identity: The success-failure continuum in language and ethnic identity efforts (vol. 2). New York: Oxford University Press. 153-167. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. B., Jr. 2012. Why educational language plans sometime fail. In R. B. Baldauf, Jr., R. B. Kaplan, N. M. Kamwangamalu & P. Bryant (Eds.), Language planning in primary schools in Asia. New York & London: Routledge. 1-20. Kirkwood, M. 1990. Language planning in the Soviet Union. UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Kress, G. R., & van Leeuwen, T. 2002. Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication. London: Edward Arnold. Kumatani, A. 1990. Language policies in North Korea. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 82, 87-108. Maher, J. 1987. The role of English as the international language of medicine. Applied Linguistics, 7, 206-218. Marr, N. Y., & Aptekar, V. B. 1934. Language and society. Moscow: State Academy of Historical Material. McArthur, T. 2002. Oxford guide to world English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McCurry, J. 2011. Japan launches primary push to teach English. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/mar/08/japan-launches-primary-english-push Modiano, M. 2009. Inclusive/exclusive? English as a lingua franca in the European Union. World Englishes, 28(2), 208-223. Moon, H.-H. 2000. Language and ideology in North Korean language planning. Unpublished MA Thesis, Department of Linguistics. Canberra: Australian National University. Mote, F. W. 1999. Imperial China, 900–1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nerrière, J.-P., & Hon, D. 2009. Globish the world over. Paris: IGI. Nowakowski, K. 2015. Fleeing disaster. Planet Earth: By the numbers. National Geographic. 227(3). Ogden, C. K. 1934. The system of basic English. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. Pennycook, A. 2004. Language policy and the ecological turn. Language Policy, 3(3), 213-239. Phillips, C. 2015. North Korea seeks English teachers to train tour guides. Newsweek. Retrieved from http://www.newsweek.com/north-korea-inviting-english-speaking-foreigners-teach-their-tourguides-301595 Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Qi, S. 2009. Globalisation of English and English language policies in East Asia: A comparative perspective. Canadian Social Science, 5(3), 111-120. Remington, T. F. 2010. Politics in Russia (6th ed). Boston: Pearson Education. Ryan, C. 2013. Language use in the United States: 2011. American Community Survey Reports. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-22.pdf Seidlhofer, B. 2004. Research perspectives on teaching English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 209-239.

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Sheng, A. 2009. From Asian to global financial crisis: An Asian regulator’s view of unfettered finance in the 1990s and 2000s. New York: Cambridge University Press. Spichtinger, D. 2000. The spread of English and its appropriation. Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des Magistergrades der Philosophie eingereicht an der Geisteswissenschaftlichen der Universität Wien. Retrieved March 14 2015. Stuchtey, B. 2010. Die europäische Expansion und ihre Feinde: Kolonialismuskritik vom 18. bis in das 20. Jahrhundert. Mainz: EGO-Redaktion. [Original in German; also available in English]. Trimnell, E. 2005. Why you need a foreign language & how to learn one. Cincinnati OH: Beechmont Crest. Wright, S. 2002. Language education and foreign relations in Vietnam. In J. W. Tollefson (Ed.), Language Policies in Education: Critical Issues. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.225-244.

Jan Kruse, Ulrich Ammon25

3 The language planning and policy for the European Union and its failures26 3.1 An overview of the official language planning and policy of the European Union (EU) and some of its consequences An overview of the official language planning and policy of the European Union (EU) and ...

The following outline of the EU language planning and policy focuses on the most fundamental and best known components; more detailed descriptions have been published elsewhere (e.g. Coulmas, 1991; de Swaan, 1998; Philippson, 2003; Haselhuber, 2012; Kruse, 2012; Ammon, 2012; 2015: 730-805). The EU was founded in the wake of World War II with the essential goal of preventing future wars between member states once and for all, together with other related goals such as stabilising and furthering democracy in all member states (and if possible beyond). It started under the name of European Economic Community in 1957 and adopted its present name in 1993, with the Treaty of Maastricht. It began with six member states, whose number increased step by step to the present complement of 28, with the accession of Croatia in 2013 and with more aspirants and applicants in limbo. All member states were previously autonomous but ceded part of their autonomy upon accession. The state functions of the EU gradually increased, especially with the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009, but they may be reduced again in the future following the recent criticism from various sides and, especially, “Brexit”, i.e. the future British exit from the EU. The member states have retained essential rights and state functions including cultural autonomy. This limits the power of the EU government or its institutions especially in language policy, since language is seen as an essential part of culture, a view which calls for the particular protection of other indigenous languages, which can have national official, regional official or minority status. Therefore the ‘principle

25 This chapter has been written in memory of Richard B. Baldauf by whom one of the authors has been inspired and with whom he has collaborated in various ways which the following two titles, for example, document: Baldauf, R. 2001. Speaking of Science: The Use by Australian University Science Staff of Language Skills. In U. Ammon (Ed.), The Dominance of English as a Languge of Science. Effects on Other Languages and Language Communities. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 139-165. Ulrich Ammon 2002. [Review of] Robert Kaplan and Richard B. Baldauf. Language Planning: From Practice to Theory. Multilingual Matters. 1997. 403. Language Problems & Language Planning, 26, 315-319. 26 Chapter 1 has been written by Ulrich Ammon, Chapter 2 by Jan Kruse, and both feel responsible for the entire text. Jan Kruse, Universität Leipzig, Germany Ulrich Ammon, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany

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 The language planning and policy for the European Union and its failures

of multilingualism’ has always governed EU language policy. It entails keeping in place a multilingual regime for the EU government, to which Article 217 of the founding Treaty “provides that the rules governing the languages of the institutions of the Community shall […] be determined by the Council, acting unanimously”, i.e., that changes can be vetoed by any single member state. Various other regulations oblige the EU to ‘respect linguistic diversity’, especially The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU which became part of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 (Article 22). Protection of multilingualism is thought to guarantee maintenance of member states’ national identity, as their languages have acquired symbolic value through their role in the formation of ‘nation states’. The founding states of the EU count among the epitomes of this type of state, toward which they developed from opposite ends, but arrived at essentially the same result of: one state – one nation – one (national) language (though this scheme ignores some details). While France, for example, started from a single state comprising linguistically divergent populations on which a common language was imposed, Germany or Italy began from a single language extending over several states which were then united. France, accordingly, appears to be founded on its state constitution (civic state), and Germany or Italy on their national language, taken as symbolic of ethnic commonality (ethnic state); but they now likewise perceive themselves as nation states based on both their constitution and their national language, which has come to be widely perceived as the symbol of ethnic commonality. It would, however, contribute to clarity to speak only of the commonality of citizens (a common demos) which would be compatible with ethnic variety, which has never been eliminated completely and has increased again lately with the influx of immigrants in practically all member states. Most of the member states of the EU followed these or similar lines of development with their national language now expressing national identity (cf. e.g. Coulmas, 1991; Wright, 2000), with the few exceptions of the officially multilingual states, which have more than one national official language, such as Belgium and Finland. It seems clear enough that the EU itself cannot become one single nation state but will stay a long way off ethnic commonality and have to be content with a common demos (common citizenship) at best in the foreseeable future. Maintenance of multilingualism seems to be symbolic of, and essential for, such a structure, and the EU’s language policy has been aware of it and voiced it through numerous eulogies of linguistic diversity, accompanied by the mantra of the intricate relationship of linguistic diversity with cultural wealth. There is, however, also the need for efficient communication across the EU which has worked in favour of the use of a single language or lingua franca, namely English, for various purposes. The need to heed two basic needs and values at the same time has often been voiced as the need to balance (national) “identity” of member states with “efficiency” of EU-wide communication. The prevalence of English over all the other languages has gained momentum after the accession of the UK and Ireland (1973) and the Scandinavian countries (Denmark 1973; Sweden and Finland 1995),

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 41

i.e., the English-speaking and the English-favoring member states. France seems to be a driving force behind attempts at stopping such a development, supported by Germany, with both hoping to save the standing of their own languages against English and, in the course of time, developing a genuine inclination towards multilingualism for the EU. Views from other member states, especially unofficial views, have however been less enthusiastic, and skeptical observers have even deemed linguistic diversity to be the EU’s ‘predicament’ (de Swaan, 2007). Whether by wealth or predicament, linguistic diversity is one of the EU’s hallmarks, and thus it makes language policy as unavoidable since linguistic diversity is and will remain difficult. Protecting multilingualism as the symbol of continued cultural autonomy of the member states and, at the same time, guaranteeing EU-wide communication has also been the major challenge of the EU’s language policy. It has been enshrined and codified in the EU’s Regulation No 1 as early as 1958, which has been expanded continuously by adding the national languages of new member states until the latest accession, Croatia, with its national language Croatian. Thus Regulation No 1 tries to integrate (national) identity with (communicative) efficiency, in the following wording (valid in 2016 – with my own comments and references to democratic rights and values relating to the respective article added in square brackets): “REGULATION No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Community [originally the ‘European Economic Community’] (Article 217 of the Treaty governing the languages of the institutions of the Community)

Article 1 The official languages and the working languages of the institutions of the Community shall be Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. [“Official languages” ≠ “working languages” – see Article 6]

Article 2 Documents which a Member State or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a Member State sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply shall be drafted in the same language. [Right of petition and complaints – responsiveness of institutions]

Article 3 Documents which an institution of the Community sends to a Member State or to a person subject to the jurisdiction of a Member State shall be drafted in the language of such State. [Information, output of institutions]

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 The language planning and policy for the European Union and its failures

Article 4 Regulations and other documents of general application shall be drafted in the 24 official languages. [Information, output of institutions]

Article 5 The Official Journal of the Community shall be published in the 24 official languages. [Information from institutions]

Article 6 The institutions of the Community may stipulate in their rules of procedure which of the languages are to be used in specific cases [“Working (procedural) languages” ≠ “official (and working) languages” (Article 1)]

Article 7 The languages to be used in the proceedings of the Court of Justice shall be laid down in its rules of procedure. [French for internal consultation of judges]

Article 8 If a Member State has more than one official language, the language to be used shall, at the request of such State, be governed by the general rules of its law. [Only national, not regional official languages can be EU official languages – to the chagrin of, for example, the Catalans]

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States. “Done at Brussels, 15 April 1958; revised 2013” (see http://eur-lex.europa.eu/ legalcontent/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32013R0216). There are various other recommendations on language planning and policy recognised by the EU, a particularly weighty one which is the European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages, issued by the Council of Europe in 1992 (http:// www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/minlang/default_en.asp). Its purpose is to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe, especially those with no official status: The Council of Europe […], founded in 1949, is a regional intergovernmental organisation whose stated goal is to promote human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in its 47 member states [in 2016], covering 820 million citizens. The organisation is separate from the 28-nation European flag. Unlike the European Union, the Council of Europe cannot make binding laws. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Europe)

The EU adopted the European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages as a general recommendation to its 28 member states. The Charter is valid only for indigenous languages, of which there are around 70 without official status in their respective countries, some being non-official in one country but official in another, and does not

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extend to the much greater number of the several hundred immigrant languages (see e.g. Gadet, 2008, for France, and Edwards, 2008, for Britain). The latter’s protection has, however, also been recommended repeatedly in various, less conspicuous EU declarations. It should be kept in mind though that all such declarations—other than Regulation No 1—are under the sole sovereignty of the single member states i.e., complying with them cannot be enforced on the member states from above. The European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages has been ratified by 17 EU member states so far (in January, 2016), i.e., a majority of them, whilst in contrast both France and Greece remain two conspicuous exceptions which seem to be concerned, for various reasons, that ratifying the Charter could undermine the standing of their national official languages. The various regulations and recommendations, combined with actual linguistic practice, have had the effect of establishing a rank order of all the EU languages, i.e., bringing them into a (though perhaps not strict) hierarchy of more to less powerful functions and speakers’ language rights. These functional language types are not disjunctive with regard to entire single languages, but intersect heavily, in that the same language can belong to several types at the same time in different EU member states. Also, the allocation of some languages to the types remains sometimes questionable because of fuzziness of definitions, lack of clarity in regulations or missing data. Specifically, 1. ‘Working languages of the EU institutions’ (see Table 3.1 below) internally mostly called the EU’s “procedural languages”, which are on top of the hierarchy. They number up to 5, varying according to EU institutions, with their delimitation not always exactly clear-cut. 2. ‘Official languages of the EU’ (see Table 3.1 below), of which the working languages of the EU institutions are a subset. While the latter serve internal institutional communication (therefore my terminological reference to the ‘institutions’), the 24 official EU languages are used for communication between the EU government or EU institutions and member states. They are also used for the authentic version of the act of accession, i.e. the treaty between an acceding member state and the EU together with all the binding EU laws (Acquis communautaire). ��������������� For some institutions the official languages are at the same time the working languages, so that the above ‘working languages’ are defined with respect to only the institutions with a limited language regime. The number of official languages of the EU is smaller than that of the member states (i.e., 24 versus 28), because, firstly, 6 of these languages serve a total of 12 states, namely – in alphabetical order: Dutch (Belgium, The Netherlands), English (Britain, Ireland), French (France, Belgium, Luxemburg), German (Germany, Austria, Luxemburg), Greek (Greece, Cyprus) and Swedish (Sweden, Finland), and, secondly, two of these states have additional, specific languages: Ireland (Irish) and Finland (Finnish). There are therefore 8 languages for 12 states + 16 languages for 16 states = 24 languages for 28 states.

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 The language planning and policy for the European Union and its failures

3. ‘National-official languages of EU member states’ (see Table 3.1 below), of which again the official languages of the EU are a subset. Of the national-official languages there is one without official EU status: Luxembourgish (Lëtzebuergesch) of Luxemburg. Every member state has at least one national-official language with a few having more than one, and some languages having national-official status in more than one state. Some national-official languages are also, 4. ‘Regional-official languages (of EU member states)’ in other EU member states (e.g. German in Belgium and Italy – being national-official in three other member states). There are, however, some languages which have regional-official status in an EU member state, but nowhere national-official status like Catalan, Basque and Galician in Spain, Welsh and Gaelic—and depending on definitions, some recognition of Scots as a minority language—within the UK, West Frisian in The Netherlands or Sorbian in Germany. It is difficult to count the total number of regional-official languages in the EU, since definitions are not always clear, especially not for delimitation from the next type down our hierarchy, of which the regional-official languages are, again, a subset, namely the, 5. ‘Indigenous (or autochthonous) minority languages of EU member states under the protection of the European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages’. It seems reasonable to specify the indigenous minority languages under the protection of the Charter as a separate type which ranks above the next below (see 6). The Charter protects the regional-official languages too, yet there are also ‘indigenous minority languages under the protection of the Charter in EU member states’, which do not have official language status anywhere. A language is under the protection of the Charter, if its member state has ratified the Charter and, in addition, listed it as meeting the Charter’s criteria, e.g. in Poland: Kashub, Yiddish, Karaim, Lemko, Romani and Tatar, or in Germany: Danish, and Frisian (Sater and North Frisian), Low German, Romani and Sorbian, with the latter belonging also to category (4). The total number of these languages is hard to determine to any precision, because neither is there a comprehensive list of them nor have all member states which ratified the Charter explicitly listed the languages they acknowledge. The next type down the hierarchy is that of the, 6. ‘Indigenous minority languages in EU member states not under the protection of the European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages.’ It comprises only those languages which meet the criteria for protection of the Charter, but whose state has not ratified the Charter or has otherwise decided against protection. The numbers of such languages are particularly difficult to pin down because of the vagueness of the Charter’s criteria, especially ‘indigenousness’ but also ‘size’ (number of speakers), which unavoidably plays a role and which can change over time – not to speak of the lack of reliable data. 7. For languages without a territory (i.e., of nomads), which the Charter explicitly includes, relevant data can be particularly evasive.

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8. The type at the bottom of our hierarchy is, finally, the����������������������� ���������������������� ‘Exogenous (or ������� allochthonous) minority languages’. They have no protection under any covenant of the EU. Nevertheless, the EU government has issued recommendations to EU member states to provide opportunities for native speakers to learn and use them. Language numbers have been estimated to run into the hundreds in some member states, but are impossible to pin down because of fluctuation of speakers, especially if they are divided further into languages of immigrants, migrants and asylum seekers (cf. e.g. for Britain Edwards, 2008; for France Gadet, 2008). Other types of language, at which EU language policy is aimed, are the ‘sign languages’ for communication with mute people, classical languages like Latin, classical Greek or classical Arabic, and modern foreign languages (foreign in the respective member state) like French for example in Sweden, German for example in Greece, English in all EU member states but Britain and also Ireland (where it is native to at least some of the citizens or inhabitants), Chinese or Japanese in all EU member states. The EU institutions with the highest authority are the Council, the Parliament (both legislative) and the Commission (executive). For formal Council Meetings and Parliamentary Debates full interpretation is guaranteed (no language restrictions for politicians of member states or members of parliament and full accessibility via media for citizens). Full interpretation means 552 language pairs (24 x 23), i.e., in the ideal case, 1 foreign tongue → native tongue: 552 interpreters. Reductions are made possible by: 2 or 3 foreign tongues → native tongue, native tongue → foreign tongue, interpretation via pivot languages, asymmetric interpretation: 23 → 3, which can bring down the number of required interpreters to about 50, with possible losses in translation quality. Still, the EU‘s language services are the most elaborate worldwide, amounting to costs of well over € 1 billion annually, which is about a third of the EU‘s administrative costs but below 1% of the entire EU budget. Most institutions have a reduced language regime of between 1 and 5 working languages (permitted by Regulation No 1, article 6), e.g. the European Central Bank (Frankfurt, Germany): only English, the Commission (Brussels, Belgium): English, French, German; the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Alicante, Spain): English, French, German, Italian, Spanish. The Netherlands struggled to get Dutch into the Office for Harmonization too but without success. The numerous informal committees, which—among other tasks—prepare the formal institutional meetings, have mostly no generally defined language regime and have no or only a limited number of interpreters made available from the EU coffers. They therefore often have to make do—more or less spontaneously—with a language which all the participants understand or for which the own member states are willing to pay for interpretation, which only the big countries can afford regularly (Germany, France, the UK, Italy, and Spain).

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 The language planning and policy for the European Union and its failures

Tab. 3.1: EU member states and their national-official languages (first column in alphabetical order, and second column related to it), and EU official and EU working languages (third and fourth column, both in alphabetical order). EU member states

National-official languages of EU member states

EU official languages

EU working Languages

Austria

German

Bulgarian

English

Belgium

Dutch, French

Czech

French

Britain

English

Danish

German

Bulgaria

Bulgarian

Dutch

Italian

Croatia

Croatian

Croatian

Spanish

Cyprus (Greek part)

Greek

English

Czech Republic

Czech

Estonian

Denmark

Danish

Finnish

Estonia

Estonian

French

Finland

Finnish, Swedish

German

France

French

Greek

Germany

German

Hungarian

Greece

Greek

Irish

Hungary

Hungarian

Italian

Ireland

English, Irish

Latvian

Italy

Italian

Lithuanian

Latvia

Latvian

Maltese

Lithuania

Lithuanian

Polish

Luxemburg

French, German, Luxembourgish

Portuguese

Malta

Maltese

Rumanian

Netherlands

Dutch

Slovakian

Poland

Polish

Slovenian

Portugal

Portuguese

Swedish

Rumania

Rumanian

Spanish

Slovakia

Slovakian

Slovenia

Slovenian

Spain

Spanish

Sweden

Swedish

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It seems obvious that each member state would enjoy its own national language to be high up in the rank order given above, best of all in the category of EU working languages. It would strengthen the prestige of the language and of its speakers, enhance its attractiveness for studying it as a foreign language and save time and effort for learning other languages. It would, in other words, strengthen their own national identity and communicative skills. If, however, member states see no chance of achieving a working function for their own language or paying for interpretation in the committees, they would mostly prefer to have as few working languages as possible, best of all only one, and then the one which most of them already know, which is English. These preferences can be modelled in the form of a “preference table” (my preferred term); the idea I have, however, borrowed from Abram de Swaan (unpublished paper), who however called it “voting cycle”, since it would also picture the voting priorities of participants (see Table 3.2).

Tab. 3.2: Preference table for working languages in the EU. EU Member States Britain, Ireland France, Belgium (40%) Germany, Austria Italy, Spain Luxemburg Others (19) Totals of 1

Regimes of EU Working Languages E 1

E&F 2

E&F&G 3

E&F&G&I&S 4

4

1

2

3

3

4

1

2

2

3

4

1

4 1 21

3 2 2

1 3 3

2 4 2 (Σ pro >1: 7)

G = German, E = English, F = French, I = Italian, S = Spanish. 1 = highest preference, 2 = second highest preference, etc. Underlying assumptions: 1) Repertoires including the own language enjoy highest preference; 2) repertoires of fewer languages are preferred to those of more languages.

It follows from what has been said above, that those barely excluded are most frustrated, so that one could even postulate the “law of fiercest opposition by the barely excluded” (next in rank order to the still included). The barely excluded will tend to put up the fiercest fight against any multilingual or even bilingual language regime. This explains partially why the Dutch for example, sometimes seem to favour ‘English only’ even more than the British – though serious studies of this and other questions seem to be still missing. There has been and is, however, a hindrance against

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that law becoming thoroughly effective in the EU, namely that any formal proposal of a definite solution could be vetoed by any single member state, for Regulation No 1 rules: “The rules governing the languages of the institutions of the Community shall, without prejudice to the provisions contained in the Statute of the Court of Justice, be determined by the Council, acting unanimously”. Though the preferences displayed in Table 2 work towards ‘English only’, France would veto English only, Germany would veto English + French, etc. Presently France, Germany, Italy and Spain would veto‚ English only – as long as they see a chance for their own language to remain included. There seems to be the conflicting interest of the majority of the big member states, with their own “international languages” which are—still—studied around the world as foreign languages, against Britain and the great majority of smaller member states, in which the former are supported by the idea of multilingualism with its implications of national identity and cultural wealth and the latter with the—perhaps less enchanting—demand for communicative efficiency.

3.2 Appeals for the equal status of the official and working languages in the EU and the respective shortcomings of the EU language policy Appeals for the equal status of the official and working languages in the EU and ...

The EU is founded on a number of basic principles, and the equal status of the official and working languages is one of them, albeit this equality is expressed in a multifaceted manner, as shown above. Basic symbols are the flag, the anthem, the European Day, and the EU motto “United in diversity”. The latter is described as follows: It signifies how Europeans have come together, in the form of the EU, to work for peace and prosperity, while at the same time being enriched by the continent’s many different cultures, traditions and languages. (European Union, 2015b)

Furthermore, the European Commission reasoned its motivation towards a conceded multilingualism portfolio as follows: Linguistic diversity is a daily reality of the European Union. The European Commission is committed to preserving and promoting this key feature. The Commissioner’s mandate will have as main objectives defining the contribution of multilingualism to: Economic competitiveness, growth and better jobs; Lifelong learning and intercultural dialogue; and Nurturing a space for European political dialogue through multilingual communication with the citizens (European Commission, 2007)



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Therefore, the commitment to protection and promotion of the language diversity has been transferred over to an overt language policy of the EU. This policy comprises three main areas: support of the minority languages, promotion of individual plurilingualism (mother tongue + 2) and maintenance of multilingualism, in other words, safeguarding of the equal status of all official languages. All three areas are understood as the implementation of the main goals of the language policy, namely: “striving to protect Europe’s rich linguistic diversity, and promoting language learning” (European Union, 2015a). Today we see that all these policy issues have failed to meet their initial goals. For example, the report by Lebsanft and Wingender (2012) evaluates the situation with the minority languages of type 5 and presents deficits and progress of policies in various EU member states, including the incomplete ratification status in some countries. Furthermore, the goals set by the plurilingualism policy (mother tongue + 2) have not been reached, and it seems unlikely that they will ever be. An indepth analysis of this plurilingualism policy can be found in Kruse (2012). Finally, the basic multilingualism principle, which declares all official languages as being equal in their status, has suffered a lot by the factual language choice of the EU institutions, especially of the EU commission. I will explain this development on the example of the communication between the EU commission and the German parliament (Bundestag). First, I will present some major arguments of the EU Commission that endorse multilingualism and record the language ideology of the EU. Here, language ideology is understood as a category of international language policy (Kruse, 2016; Spolsky, 2012). Subsequently, I will present some of the major complaints by the German Bundestag concerning the commission’s translation policy not being in line with the Regulation No 1 (EEC Council, 1958). With the treaty of Maastricht, the EU included the cultural dimension of the Union into its treaties. The respect for the language diversity had been formulated much earlier, as shown above. However, with the treaty of Maastricht, the cultural dimension of language diversity gained more attention. The question of multilingualism was given larger political weight when Ján Figeľ served as a Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism from 2004 to 2007. In the Commissioner’s portfolio, multilingualism was seen as a field of active policy rather than just a solid statement. Multilingualism was part of the name of the Commission for the first time. The year 2001 was declared European Year of Languages, and many institutions dealt with the question of multilingualism. The European Day of Languages, officially introduced on 26th September 2001, is celebrated annually ever since. When the Barroso I commission was set up after Bulgaria and Romania became members of the EU, the leverage of the last Culture Commission and the growing number of member states led to the designation of the first and only Commissioner for Multilingualism. Leonard Orban, the former coordinator for Romania’s policies and positions in the EU affairs, was designated as the Commissioner. The main tasks of the Commissioner were understood as follows:

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 The language planning and policy for the European Union and its failures Multilingualism has been, from the very beginning, part of the genetic code of the Union. […] With the Commission under President Barroso, multilingualism has come of age. Now it should make a real difference to the European Union, in economic, social and cultural terms, and I am determined to put all my energy into bringing multilingualism’s contribution to the development of community policies. (Orban, 2007a)

At that time it became obvious that in terms of language diversity the motto of the EU “Unity in Diversity” had taught us a different lesson. As primus inter pares, the English language (as language of type 2) has long gained the status of the most important language within the EU institutions. This development has been documented, among others, by Michael Schlossmacher (1996). Similar tendencies can be observed in the work of the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) on the European Commission documents. The regularly collected statistics is very precise and illustrates the change in status of the languages within the EU Commission. According to this statistics, in 1997 45% of all source documents sent out for translation were in English. Today, 81% of all source documents are in English. But even at the time when Orban took over the position as Commissioner for Multilingualism in 2007, the GD Translation counted around 70% of all source documents being in English (Europäische Kommission, 2014). The development towards the unequal status of the Official and Working Languages of the EU including the internal ‘procedural languages’ (type 1) English, French and German (Delors, 1993; Kruse & Ammon, 2013) was well known and recognised. It was the result of the institutionally underrepresented language policy of the EU and of the different perspectives how the member states, described in Chapter One as civic or ethnic states, see multilingualism (Kruse, 2014). Despite the different preferences of the EU member states regarding a working language, the EU Commission demonstrated a general strong commitment to the value of language diversity. In line with the mainly economic orientation of the EU and its economic “instrumentalisation of language” (Krzyzanowski & Wodak, 2011: 124), Commissioner Orban said in 2007: “From the moment I took up this portfolio, the interface between business and languages has been one of my priorities” (Orban, 2007b). In the following years, many more appeals for a multilingual Europe have been made. In his Bundestag address, held in Romanian (Orban, 2007c), Orban stressed that “equality of languages as defined in regulation 1/58 [Author’s note: Regulation No 1] remains a cornerstone of European values.” Anyhow, he clarified that due to staff considerations, documents “not be considered to be of a decisive nature in legal terms or in defining policy orientation” will not be translated. On the other hand, documents “defining our legal obligations or flow from the agreed political priorities” will. Since then, there have been manifold disagreements between the Commission and the Bundestag about the definition of the documents that have to be translated. While the Commission often refers to the Article 6 of the Regulation No. 1, the Bundestag (Deutscher Bundestag, 2012a) refers to the Article 4 of the above regulation: “Regulations and other documents of general application shall be drafted in the 23 [today 24] official languages”. At



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the dawn of his service as a Commissioner, Orban focussed more on the apparently innocuous issues of language learning, but along with it he stated: Any realistic international vision for the future of our world has to be founded on acceptance and appreciation of different cultures - and languages are at the heart of any culture. In the Commission’s strategy on multilingualism I emphasise that multilingualism can play a key role in intercultural dialogue; in creating more cohesive and more sustainable societies. (Orban, 2009)

A little later the Barroso II commission weakened its language policy by transferring the multilingualism portfolio back to the Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth. The commissioner Androulla Vassiliou was not particularly committed to language policy issues. Nevertheless, she stated in a speech in 2014: Nothing encapsulates the EU motto “United in diversity” better than the EU’s 24 official languages […] The highly specialised professionals [translators and interpreters] also contribute to strengthening the EU democratic process, for they enable citizens to participate and be informed in their own language. (Vassiliou, 2014)

Later, the recent Juncker commission discontinued any visible language policy, except for the Erasmus+ programme. It was, however, obvious that the most active part of the European language policy was about language learning and plurilingualism. Although all these activities have had the goal that every European citizen should learn and master at least two foreign languages, many contributions to this issue did not focus on the diversity of the languages learnt. Instead, they focussed on the positive effects of a second language acquisition in general, especially on the five objectives of the mother tongue plus two policy, which gave the expected positive effects for the EU economy, mobility, identity, language learning, and language diversity (Kruse, 2012). All these objectives can very well be reached by learning and speaking English as the only foreign language although this was never intended. Accordingly, other research results show that communication between citizens or organisations and the EU institutions is certainly possible in English only. Any other language of type 2 does not necessarily guarantee successful communication (Schlossmacher, 1996; Ammon & Kruse, 2013; Kruse & Ammon, 2013). Therefore, national and international organisations switch to English for the communication with each other as well as with the EU institutions. Basically, the Regulation No. 1 includes this permanent conflict, because the Article 6 says that “the institutions of the Community may stipulate in their rules of procedure which of the languages are to be used in specific cases” (EEC Council, 1958). The European Court of Justice acknowledges this regulation as the only relevant regulation of the EU for the communication between the citizens and the EU institutions. Every institution has to explicitly make use of the Article 6 to legally reduce the number of possible languages for communication (Gericht der Europäischen Union, 2015). The EU Commission regulates the use of languages for

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translation by a relevant Communication (Commission of the European Communities, 2006) described in detail by the authors in an earlier publication (Ammon & Kruse, 2013). To date, this Communication has not been updated. From the perspective of a national parliament, the Scientific Service of the German Bundestag came to the following general conclusion regarding the European language policy: The question of an efficient language policy also arises within the European Union. Although the respect for multilingualism is constantly mentioned as an objective, there is in fact a general tendency towards an increased use of English as a sort of lingua franca. The European language policy is less an overall approach but is selectively based on mostly voluntary national initiatives. (Fell & Handwerk, 2007)27

As a result, the German Bundestag receives the EU communications in English rather than being translated into German as a type 2 language. Among these communications there are “documents having been marked for being especially relevant for discussion in the Bundestag” (Deutscher Bundestag, 2008,  S.  3). Although this quote is some years old and has already been reported earlier (Ammon & Kruse, 2013), the basic circumstances prevail. This was confirmed by a Member of Parliament, who wrote in a personal email on December, 14th 2015: “Actually, there is no new current stage of proceedings in this matter”. As guaranteed by the Lisbon treaty on participation rights of national parliaments, the German parliament has to work with the documentation in English as basis for legislative procedures. The Article 8c of the Lisbon treaty says: “National Parliaments contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union” (European Union, 2007). Since foreign language knowledge is not a competence required for being an elected member of the German parliament, active contribution cannot necessarily be provided in any other language than German. This right to have relevant documentation in German has been confirmed by the Scientific Services of the Bundestag in 2013 and repeatedly in 2015. In the 2015 report the Scientific Services come to the conclusion that due to the Article 22 of the German constitution (“Grundgesetz”) the parliament has an interest in translations, which is more relevant than other interests like the working order of the government or the careful handling of fiscal budgets (Deutscher Bundestag, 2015a). As a result, the German Bundestag regularly complains about the English documentation that remains not translated. Most of them are oral contributions, for instance, by the President of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert or by other politicians in the EU committee meetings. Some are set out in writing. The President analysed the current situation in an interview in 2006: [One has to consider] that Brussels was just quietly removing from the present language regime, by the way benefited by the negligence and indifference of German officials and representatives who in conferences like to flaunt their own limited knowledge of English, and therefore accom-

27 All quotes of original German sources have been translated by Jan Kruse



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modate the natural dominance of English as well as the ostentatious presence of French. (Pieper, Schreiber & Lammert, 2006)

In 2007, the Bundestag considered that “the full translation of all political relevant EU submissions into German is a basic requirement for an effective management of participation rights of the German Bundestag in EU matters […]” (Deutscher Bundestag, 2007a). The parliament therefore demanded of the German government to ensure that until there is no agreement of a new translation regime all documents which are submitted to the German Bundestag for participation, have to be available in the working language German” (Deutscher Bundestag, 2007b). In 2012 the Parliament asked the government “to ensure that the EU bodies, especially the Commission and the Council, enhance the translation services which are necessary for the participation of national parliaments” (Deutscher Bundestag, 2012a). The president of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert stressed again in 2013 to the Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth Maros Sefcovic that important EU documentation was not translated into German (Deutscher Bundestag, 2013b). In the same year the Bundestag claims of the German government “to ensure that the European Institutions accept and practice the equal rights of German as working language” (Deutscher Bundestag, 2013a). With regards to the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the German government reports that “documents of the European Commission are not generally translated into all official languages. The negotiation papers are so far only transmitted in English” (Deutscher Bundestag, 2014). In 2015 the MP Johannes Singhammer appeals to the EU commission: “The German Bundestag asks the EU Commission to submit all relevant texts simultaneously and in an authorized German version” (Singhammer, 2015). Finally, the President of the Bundestag asks the EU commission again to review the language policy towards its communication with national parliaments (Deutscher Bundestag, 2015b). Apparently, all these appeals and complaints have not changed the language policy of the EU so far. Nevertheless, they have had a significant impact on the work of a parliament, as the following empirical data show. The results of a questionnaire survey among the members of the Bundestag show that the parliamentarians have significant difficulties to cope with not translated documents of the EU commission. The survey was conducted in the committees representing 526 of all 622 MP of the 17th German parliament (for more details see Ammon & Kruse, 2013; Kruse, 2013; Kruse & Ammon, 2013). A total of 80 questionnaires were filled in and returned, which is a response rate of 15.2%. The survey showed that the parliamentarians did not know the exact number of EU submissions they receive in English, or how many of them they send to be translated. Meanwhile this amount has been clarified by a report of the Scientific Services of the Bundestag (Deutscher Bundestag, 2012b): between 2011 and 2012, 43% of all EU submissions received by the Committee for European affairs were not translated; the total of 412 submissions

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included 1411 supporting and further documents mainly in English. Moreover, the Bundestag´s Committee for Economic Affairs reports that more than 90% of all submissions were in English (Deutscher Bundestag, 2011). The respondents claim that they would need good to very good language knowledge to be able to understand these English submissions. None of them said that less or little knowledge would be sufficient. Furthermore, the parliamentarians were asked about the way they handle non-German submissions. The majority of the respondents said that they did not read them at all or read them seldom (59.7%), while one third of the respondents said that they read these documents regularly, albeit not all of them. Of the respondents who said that they did not read or scarcely ever read English language submissions, 23 (29.9% n = 77), said that they always or often missed the important content. Since these submissions contain information relevant for the discussion, which is part of the process of the national law making, we can assume that the obligation to co-operate in the democratic process of legislation suffers from the fact that the legislator does not always read the preliminary texts. Answering the question “How often are you able to fulfil your duties fully working only with English EU submissions?”, 46.75% of the respondents say that they can fulfil their duties “often”; 18.18 % say that they are always able to do so. Still, there are 35.07% who say that they able to fulfil their duties only to some extent — 23.38% who say that they “seldom” able to fulfil their duties, and 11.69% who say that they “never” able to fulfil their duties. The analysis shows that the parliamentarians do work with the English language submissions, even though many of them cannot fulfil their tasks completely. They are also convinced that having English as the only EU working language would put the status of German at a disadvantage in Europe (Ammon, 2010; Ammon, 2015). The research study shows that despite all pleas on the importance of a multilingual EU and despite all protest activities of the German parliament, the development towards a monolingual structure of the EU institutions is continuing. Since the EU commission discontinued its overt language policy, one must assume that according to the EU´s basic considerations such a policy has not been successful and it will not be a success in the foreseeable future.

References Ammon, U. 2010. Why accepting one common language plus preserving all the other languages as national or minority languages would not solve the European language conflicts. In R. Cillia , H. Gruber, M. Krzyżanowski & F. Menz (Eds.), Diskurs – Politik – Identität/ Discourse – Politics – Identity. Festschrift für Ruth Wodak. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. 229–234. Ammon, U. 2012. Language policy in the European Union (EU). In B. Spolsky (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of language policy. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. 570-591. Ammon, U. 2015. Die Stellung der deutschen Sprache in der Welt. Berlin, München, & Boston: Walter de Gruyter.



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Ammon, U., & Kruse, J. 2013. Does translation support multilingualism in the EU? Promises and reality - the example of German. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 23(1), 15-30. Commission of the European Communities. 2006. Translation in the commission. (SEC 1489 final). Brussels. Coulmas, F. (Ed.). 1991. A Language policy for the European Community. Prospects and Quanderies. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. Delors, J. 1993. EG-Nachrichten 34. (Delors-Erlass 6/9/1993) Deutscher Bundestag. 2007a. Schlussbericht der Enquete-Kommission Kultur in Deutschland. (Drucksache 16/7000). Berlin. Deutscher Bundestag. 2007b. Beschlussempfehlung und Bericht des Haushaltsausschusses (8. Ausschuss). (Drucksache 16/5766). Berlin. Deutscher Bundestag. 2008. EU-Übersetzungsstrategie überarbeiten - Nationalen Parlamenten die umfassende Mitwirkung in EU-Angelegenheiten ermöglichen. (Drucksache 16/9596) (Drucksache 16/10556). Berlin. Deutscher Bundestag. 2011. Brief an den Präsidenten der Europäischen Kommission Herrn José Manuel Barroso. Ausschuss für Wirtschaft und Technologie, 09. Juni 2011. Berlin. Deutscher Bundestag. 2012a. Übersetzungserfordernisse der nationalen Parlamente in der mehrjährigen EU-Finanzplanung 2014–2020 berücksichtigen – Übersetzung auch im intergouvernementalen Rahmen sicherstellen. (Drucksache 17/9736). Berlin. Deutscher Bundestag. 2012b. Nicht übersetzte Unionsdokumente, die den Ausschuss für die Angelegenheiten der Europäischen Union im Zeitraum 01. Januar 2011 - 15. November 2012 erreicht haben. Anforderung von Thomas Dörflinger, MdB, vom 22. Oktober 2012. (Geschäftszeichen: PA 1-0000-7). Berlin. Deutscher Bundestag. 2013a. Deutsche Sprache fördern und sichern. (Drucksache 17/14114). Berlin. Deutscher Bundestag. 2013b. Lammert pocht auf schnelle und präzise Übersetzung von EUDokumenten in deutscher Sprache. (Press release 26.04.2013). Berlin. Deutscher Bundestag. 2014. Verhandlungen zum EU-USA-Freihandelsabkommen. (Drucksache 18/351). Berlin. Deutscher Bundestag. 2015a. Verfassungsrechtlicher Anspruch des Bundestages auf deutschsprachige Informationen nach Art. 23 Abs. 2 und Abs. 3 GG. (WD 3 - 3000 - 051/15). Berlin. Deutscher Bundestag. 2015b. Pressemitteilungen. Retrieved from https://www.Bundestag.de/ presse/pressemitteilungen/2015/pm_1503057/363960, date 07. 01 2016/01/07 de Swaan, A. 1998. The European language constellation. In N. Bos, O. Chenal & A. Van Beugen (Eds.), Report of the conference “Which Languages for Europe?”. Oegstgeest NL: Oud-Poelgeest Conference Centre. 13-23. de Swaan, A. 2007. The language predicament of the EU since the enlargements. In U. Ammon, K. J. Mattheier & P. H. Nelde (Eds.), Sociolinguistica: International yearbook of sociolinguistics. Vol. 21: Linguistic Consequences of the EU-Enlargement. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 1-21. Edwards, V. 2008. Immigrant languages in the UK. In U. Ammon & H. Haarmann (Eds.), Wieser encyclopedia Western European languages. Vol. I. Klagenfurt: Wieser Verlag. 471-487. EEC Council 1958. REGULATION No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community. Retreived from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=C ELEX:31958R0001:EL:HTML, date 2012/01/03 Europäische Kommission. 2014. Übersetzung und Mehrsprachigkeit Luxemburg: Amt für Veröffentlichungen. European Commission. 2007. A political agenda for multilingualism (Memo). Brussels. European Union. 2007. Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, signed at Lisbon, 13 December 2007. (2007/C 306/01), Brussels: Official Journal of the European Union.

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European Union. 2015a. Multilingualism. Retrieved from http://europa.eu/pol/mult/index_en.htm, date 2015/12/17 European Union. 2015b. EU Symbols. Retrieved from http://europa.eu/about-eu/basic-information/ symbols/index_en.htm Fell, G., & Handwerk, L. 2007. Sprachwandel und Sprachpolitik. Deutscher Bundestag, Wissenschaftliche Dienste: Berlin. Gadet, F. 2008. Immigrant languages in France. In U. Ammon, & H. Haarmann (Eds.), Wieser Encyclopedia Western European Languages (Vol. I). Klagenfurt: Wieser Verlag. 459-469. Gericht der Europäischen Union 2015. Pressemitteilung Nr. 107/15 Haselhuber, J. 2012. Mehrsprachigkeit in der Europäischen Union. Eine Analyse der EUSprachenpolitik, mit besonderem Fokus auf Deutschland. Umfassende Dokumentation und Perspektiven für die Zukunft. Frankfurt a.M. etc.: Peter Lang. Kruse, J. 2012. Das Barcelona-Prinzip. Die Dreisprachigkeit aller Europaer als sprachenpolitisches Ziel der EU. Frankfurt a.M. etc.: Peter Lang. Kruse, J. 2013. I don’t understand the EU-Vorlage. Die Folgen der sprachenpolitischen Praxis in den Institutionen der EU für den Deutschen Bundestag. Ergebnisse einer quantitativen Untersuchung. In Wiejowski, Karina/Kellermeier-Rehbein, Birte/Haselhuber, Jakob: Vielfalt, Variation und Stellung der deutschen Sprache. Amsterdam: de Gruyter. 309-324. Kruse, J. 2014. Dichotomies in European language history and possible effects on EU language policy. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies, 5, 25-40. Kruse, J. 2016. Deutsch in der EU-Sprachenpolitik. Sprachreport 1/2016. Institut für deutsche Sprache, 1-9. Kruse, J., & Ammon, U. 2013. Language competence and language choice within EU institutions and the effects for national legislative authorities. In F. Grin, A.-C. Berthoud & G. Lüdi. (Eds.), Exploring the dynamics of multilingualism: The DYLAN project . Amsterdam: Benjamins.157-178. Krzyzanowski, M., & Wodak, R. 2011. Political strategies and language policies: The European Union Lisbon strategy and its implications for the EU’s language and multilingualism policy. Language Policy, 10, 115-136. Lebsanft, F., & Wingender, M. (Eds.) 2012. Europäische Charta der Regional- und Minderheitensprachen. Ein Handbuch zur Sprachpolitik des Europarats. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. Orban, L. 2007a. Multilingualism is in the genetic code (Speech). Brussels. Orban, L. 2007b. Multilingualism is a plus-factor for European integration, competitiveness, growth and betterjobs (Speech). Brüssel. Orban, L. 2007c. Speech at the Bundestag (Speech). Berlin. Orban, L. 2009. The benefits and challenges of linguistic diversity in Europe (SPEECH/09/495). Brussels. Phillipson, R. 2003. English-only Europe? Challenging Language Policy. London: Routledge. Pieper, D., Schreiber, M., & Lammert, N. 2006. Apokalyptische Erfahrungen. Der Spiegel 40. Schlossmacher, M. 1996. Die Amtssprachen in den Organen der Europäischen Gemeinschaft: Status und Funktion Frankfurt a. M.: Lang. Singhammer, J. 2015. Singhammer fordert mehr amtliche deutsche Übersetzungen von der EUKommission (Pressemitteilung). Berlin. Spolsky, B. 2012. What is language policy? In B. Spolsky (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of language policy. Cambridge: CUP. 1-15. Vassiliou, A. 2014. Why languages matter: European and national perspectives on multilingualism (Speech, 25 October 2014). Florence. Wright, S. 2000. Community and communication. The role of language in nation state building and European integration. Clevedon etc.: Multilingual Matters.

James McMenamin, Christa van der Walt

4 Macro policies and meso language planning: The case of supranational policies in Europe The growing use of English in higher education can be linked to the desire for increased transnational mobility of students and the view that English programmes, particularly at postgraduate level, would accommodate such mobility. Against the background of European agreements and treaties, this chapter considers language policy at macro or supranational level in the form of European Union (EU) language policy statements but also take factors such as the Bologna Agreement into account, which we argue has a significant de facto influence on language policy in higher education. Taking as its context a trilingual programme that is shared by three universities in neighbouring countries, this chapter will attempt to establish to what extent the language policies of the participating countries are in harmony with each other and with supra-national treaties and trends, referring to Baldauf’s (2006) distinction between policy formation at macro, meso and micro levels. In this process the chapter also distinguishes policies and processes that may have an unofficial, but nonetheless significant impact, ‘from the side’ as it were. For many students, English has become closely associated with transnational mobility due to its perceived economic strength (Graddol, 1997), and the perception is that the ‘internationalisation’ of an institution is directly linked to the number of English-medium courses it offers. In Europe, this phenomenon has arisen in a specific policy landscape derived from the Bologna Declaration28 (among others) founded on a political ideology that is market-driven and that favours competition between institutions for international students (van der Walt, 2004). However, as pointed out by Erling and Hilgendorf (2006), the Bologna Declaration is noticeably silent on the question of language planning, despite its emphasis on increased mobility and the need for foreign language competencies that would in all likelihood be required. What has happened in practice is that the post-Bologna requirement for student and staff mobility has led to an increase in English-medium courses, (e.g. Coleman, 2006; Phillipson, 2006; Erling & Hilgendorf, 2006; Studer et al., 2009; Schomburg & Teichler, 2011). Therefore, the situation arises that the Bologna Declaration has become a de facto language policy, since it has led to the outcome of increased English language learning at micro level, even if this was not directly intended by the authors of the Declaration.

28 �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� A joint declaration of the European Ministers of Education to mutually recognise academic qualifications, which intends to promote student mobility among European higher education institutions. James McMenamin, University of Applied Sciences, North-West Switzerland Christa van der Walt, Department Curriculum Studies, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

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Much emphasis has been placed recently on micro-level language policy and planning because of the view that this is where policy is “implemented” or rather, interpreted, re-imagined, revised and even subverted (van der Walt, 2013: 127). However, in the case of supra-national agreements and treaties, the process of ‘implementation’ can in theory also take place at national and regional levels. Against the background of a broader research project (McMenamin, 2015) this chapter focuses on meso level as a similarly contested area of implementation, where (language) policies are interpreted and construed in contexts where competing national agendas and (trans)national priorities influence the meaning-making process.

4.1 Transnational, macro, meso and micro levels of policy development Inspired by Baldauf’s (2006) distinction between macro, meso and micro levels of policy development, this chapter presents an analysis of a variety of policy documents at transnational, national and regional level. Yet where Baldauf (2006) describes macro as governmental or national level, in order to make sense of the European context, this chapter redefines macro level as transnational level, and meso level as national and regional level. The exclusive focus on macro and meso levels in this chapter is not intended to deny the possibility of further interpretation of language policy at micro level, but seeks to emphasise the clear differences of approach to language policy at transnational, national and regional level in the immediate (tri-national) European context. As we will argue in this chapter, these distinctions are so stark that they deserve attention in their own right. Baldauf (2006: 148) explains, “many of the same issues that can be found in the macro policy and planning frameworks and literature are relevant to the micro”. In our view, the interpretation of language policy that Baldauf (2006) identifies at micro level can also take place at meso level. A discussion that restricts its focus to language policy at transnational, national and regional level is therefore merited. In the process of moving the focus from supra-national to national and regional level, the chapter sets out to give a broad overview of language policy as it relates to study programmes organised trinationally, or in this context, where the borders of France, Germany and Switzerland meet. The specific context is that of a Bachelor programme at a University of Applied Sciences (UAS) in Switzerland. The Bachelor programme is in fact one of ten Bachelor’s or Master’s programmes organised trinationally, in which students complete their studies by commuting between French, German and Swiss university campuses (TMO, 2014), normally spending one or two semesters in each country. Such cross-border cooperation is facilitated by the trinational nature of the area concerned, illustrated in Figure 1 where the borders of the three countries meet.



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Fig. 4.1: A simplified view of the tri-national region (FHNW, 2016).

As France and Germany are EU member states, supranational EU language policy should in theory inform the language curricula of the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes offered in these two countries. At meso level, the curricula might also be influenced by the language policy of the three participating countries. Using Baldauf’s (2006) distinction between macro, meso and micro levels of policy development, and extending this framework to include policy and other influences that may exert pressure on local contexts in other ways, an attempt is made to analyse the way in which policies ‘cascade down’ from macro (international) to meso (national) level. A brief comment on the way in which Baldauf’s terminology will be made before the discussion becomes more detailed. As has been mentioned above, the term ‘macro’ is used to denote the supranational level, while ‘meso’ will apply to national and regional policy levels, for example, of the German states, and micro refers to institutional level. This classification is not self-evident ‒ in classical language

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 Macro policies and meso language planning: The case of supranational policies in Europe

planning, (Baldauf & Chua, 2012) national level is normally regarded as macro level ‒ but the distinction as used in this chapter is necessary, since in this context the highest policy-making level is supranational i.e., at EU level. Baldauf (2006: 149) states that while language policy is the “plan”, language planning is the “plan implementation”. For Kaplan (2013), the distinction between policy and planning is significant, and he argues that implementation of language planning can only proceed on the basis of pre-existing policy. However, a further element of language policy needs to be considered in the local context: as we will see, de facto language policy (as in the case of the Bologna Agreement) can also play a role in the local context. For the purposes of this chapter, the distinction between explicit/ official language policy and de facto language policy is a meaningful one, since in the local context higher level language policy could be obscured by factors that influence language planning, such as it is, at lower levels. In this situation official and de facto policies exist side by side. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between ‘official’ policies or policy influences that exert pressure from the top and those that have a more indirect influence. Since official policy is made at exert state level, or in thethe casetop of and the EU at that ‘official’ policieslanguage or policy influences that pressure from those have a more indirect supranational level, it influence. will be described as a vertical influence in this chapter. On the Since official language policycan is be made at state aslevel, or that in the of thethe EU at other hand, horizontal influences understood factors maycase influence supranational it will be described as the a vertical influence in this chapter. curriculum in alevel, de facto sense, for example Bologna Declaration (1999), evenOn if the other hand, horizontal influences can be understood as factors that may influence the they are not part of formal language policy (see Figure 4.2).

curriculum in a de facto sense, for example the Bologna Declaration (1999), even if they are not part of formal language policy (see Figure 4.2). Vertical macro influences, including Official EU Language Policy Horizontal macro Influences (Bologna Declaration) French, German, Swiss

(meso) language policy

Figure 4.2: Vertical and horizontal language policies’ sphere of influence

Fig. 4.2: Vertical and horizontal language policies’ sphere of influence.

Figure 4.2 is a depiction of the possible vertical and horizontal spheres of influence. In order to clearly separate meso level from macro (international level) and micro (institutional), I have chosen to interpret national and regional policy as meso level, since they are both country-specific (below macro level) but above micro (institutional) level. Regional policy-making in Germany and Switzerland will be considered but, as will be discussed below, policy-making in France is more central in nature. Only the macro and meso level influences will be discussed in this chapter to investigate their possible effect, if any, on the higher education institutions that are involved in the trinational programme. As will be discussed, the interpretation of policies from macro to



Background to policy-making in the European Union 

 61

Figure 4.2 is a depiction of the possible vertical and horizontal spheres of influence. In order to clearly separate meso level from macro (international level) and micro (institutional), we have chosen to interpret national and regional policy as meso level, since they are both country-specific (below macro level) but above micro (institutional) level. Regional policy-making in Germany and Switzerland will be considered but, as will be discussed below, policy-making in France is more central in nature. Only the macro and meso level influences will be discussed in this chapter to investigate their possible effect, if any, on the higher education institutions that are involved in the tri-national programme. As will be discussed, the interpretation of policies from macro to meso level is as contested as the interpretation from meso to micro (classroom) level.

4.2 Background to policy-making in the European Union A review of EU language policy should firstly consider the conditions under which policy in the European Union is made. Borchardt (2010) describes the EU as states which have, …ceded some of their sovereign rights to the EU and have conferred on the Union powers to act independently. In exercising these powers, the EU is able to issue sovereign acts which have the same force as laws in individual states. (Borchardt, 2010: 11)

The idea that nations can delegate their sovereign rights to the EU is not uncontested, and the United Kingdom (UK) and Poland have yet to accept the EU’s constitution (Borchardt, 2010). All other EU members are bound by the current version of EU constitution which was ratified in the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. The first source of EU language policy can therefore be traced to this treaty. The Treaty which represents the EU Constitution, the Lisbon Treaty (2009), is divided into two sections, each of which are treaties themselves, the Treaty on Functioning of European Union (TFEU) and the Treaty on European Union (TEU) (EURLex, 2012a). The TEU (Article 3) and the TFEU (Article 165) sets out to respect Europe’s “rich cultural and linguistic diversity” (TEU, Article.3), while the TFEU, (Article 165, p. 1) specifies that EU member states are responsible for the “content of teaching and the organisation of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity”. Furthermore, the TFEU (Article 165) states that this should be supported by: –– developing the European dimension in education, particularly through the teaching and dissemination of the languages of the Member States; –– encouraging mobility of students and teachers, by encouraging inter alia, the academic recognition of diplomas and periods of study; and –– promoting cooperation between educational establishments [...]. (p.2)

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 Macro policies and meso language planning: The case of supranational policies in Europe

In essence, it appears that promoting linguistic diversity is seen as the task of the member states. This in effect allows EU member states some discretion as to how linguistic diversity should be promoted. Later in this study, we will explore some of the differing interpretations apparent at meso (national/regional) level. The TFEU (Article 165) also seeks to promote mobility of students and teachers. The duty to promote linguistic diversity and student and staff mobility, is therefore a basic element of EU language policy. The EU Constitution makes no secret of the fact that member states are entrusted with certain responsibilities: the task of determining teaching content and the organisation of educational systems rests with the member states. Therefore, it appears that member states have the legal right to control content of education on a national basis, which casts doubt on the ability of EU institutions to directly influence curriculum content at universities. The Lisbon Treaty, as the EU constitution, effectively outlines the most important EU policies in respect to language, which can be summarised as follows (see Table 1): –– promotion of multilingualism, particularly the ‘mother tongue plus two’ policies –– a view of language competence as a facilitator of student mobility and employability The other EU policy documents considered here were found at EUR-Lex (2015), the online repository of EU law, and include those explicitly referring to language and which were seen to have implicit relevance. In the sections below, an overview of the legislation/official documents outlining the various language policies is firstly provided in a table, and followed by a brief discussion. A brief note of introduction may be useful before EU policy is further discussed. Three EU bodies are allocated legislative powers: the Parliament, the Council (heads of EU states), and the Commission, which proposes new laws to the Parliament and the Council, who approve their applications (EU, 2013). The European Commission seems to be the dominant policy-making body of the EU, as it implements laws and policies and also proposes new ones (EU, 2013). Voting actually takes place in the Council or the Parliament, so that either the Council or the Parliament can elect to block the passage of legislation. Due to the complex policy-making environment, the review below categorises policies according to topic, rather than the EU organisation that produced them. The discussion will now return to the points identified as main topics of EU language policy, for example, the promotion of mobility or employability through language learning. These can be seen as ‘vertical policy’ in terms of Figure 2 above, where official ‘vertical’ policy was contrasted to de facto ‘horizontal’ factors. Since various EU bodies customarily produce a great deal of legislation on one topic, the review of legislation below should be seen as non-exhaustive, but still serves to confirm the EU’s commitment to the basic tenets of language policy laid out in its constitution.



Promotion of multilingualism 

 63

4.3 Promotion of multilingualism In addition to the explicit promotion of multilingualism, the teaching and learning of foreign languages can clearly be seen as priorities in the documents summarised in Table 4.1. Tab. 4.1: A Summary of the EU foreign language policy. Origin

Date

Summary of policy

Council (EUR-Lex, 1995) Council (EUR-Lex, 1998)

1995

The Council suggests ways to improve teaching and learning of foreign languages, and to increase the number of languages taught.

1998

Council (EUR-Lex, 2002, 2008)

2002, 2008

Commission (EUR-Lex, 2003)

2003

Commission (EUR-Lex, 2005a)

2005

Parliament (EUR-Lex, 2006a)

2006

Council Resolution on the Early Learning of Languages; it promotes learning of at least one foreign language at an early age, in order to preserve the Union’s linguistic diversity, and two foreign languages at secondary level. Resolution supporting linguistic diversity and language learning; it requires EU school pupils to learn two foreign languages, and refers to CEFR (Common European Framework of Languages)1 as a benchmark for competence. The Council repeats its commitment to ‘mother tongue plus two’ in 2008. An action plan is adopted from 2004 - 2006 to promote language learning and linguistic diversity; it is noted that foreign language of EU citizens is mostly limited to English, French, German and Spanish. It states that English as sole foreign language is not sufficient and reiterates that member states bear responsibility for promoting language learning. Proposes new ‘framework for multilingualism’; Multilingualism is defined as the co-existence of languages in a particular area, but also as individual foreign language competence; the goal of ‚mother tongue plus two‘ is repeated, and it is repeated that learning English only cannot be a substitute for true multilingualism. Resolution on measures to promote multilingualism and language learning; made a commitment to multilingualism and the ‘mother tongue plus two’ policy.

Commission (EUR-Lex, 2007a)

2007

Commission (EUR-Lex, 2012) Parliament ‘Fact Sheet’ (European Parliament, 2013),

2012

2013

The Commission requires a survey to establish the level of foreign language competence in EU member states, focusing on the first and second ‘most taught official languages’ of the EU i.e., Spanish, Italian, German, French, and English. The survey proposed in 2007 was carried out in 14 EU countries and found that of 54,000 respondents, 42 per cent were found to be ‘competent’ in the first foreign language and only 25 per cent in the second. In a document entitled ‘Language Policy’ the commitment to learning two foreign languages from an early age is reiterated. Where financial support for the learning of foreign languages is concerned, the Parliament refers to EUfunded mobility programmes, for example: Erasmus (higher education), and Comenius (school education). Language Policy refers to steps being taken to protect minority languages through the founding of an NGO with this goal.

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 Macro policies and meso language planning: The case of supranational policies in Europe

As shown in Table 4.1, there has been consistent support for multilingualism in the policy documents, which repeats a concern with promoting multilingualism in the EU’s constitution (Lisbon Treaty, 2009), discussed above. It can be seen from the short overview in Table 1 that the EU’s policy-making organs consistently emphasise the importance of second and third language learning. The overview also makes clear (EUR-Lex, 2005a) that knowledge of English is no substitute for learning other languages.

4.4 Language competence as a factor favouring employability and mobility As noted above, the other key facet of EU language policy is a view that language learning facilitates mobility and employability (see Table 4.2).

Tab. 4.2: Language skills as a factor facilitating mobility and employability. Origin

Date

Summary of Policy

Commission (Eur-Lex, 2005)

2005

Europe 2010 sets out the general plan for EU economic growth till 2010, focusing on the need for job creation and economic growth. It sees student mobility as developing a helpful ‘skills set’ (2005, p. 7) and regards skills as a driver of economic growth.

Council, Parliament (EUR-Lex, 2006b)

2006

The learning of foreign languages is viewed a key competence required for ‘lifelong learning’, which in turn is seen as necessary for active citizenship, personal fulfilment, social cohesion and employability.

Commission (EUR-Lex, 2007b)

2007

Council recommends that member states should promote multilingualism to facilitate competitiveness, mobility, employability and intercultural dialogue

Commission EUR-Lex, 2009)

2009

ET 2020 sets out to develop education and training systems in Member States to not only promote personal, social and professional fulfilment but also sustainable economic prosperity and employability. It succeeds Europe 2010 in policy terms. It intends to reduce unemployment and describes mobility as a factor favouring employment.

Commission (EUR-Lex, 2011, 2012)

2011 2012

In the context of ET 2020, the Commission issues two reports dealing with demand for, and the state of, language skills in the labour market.

Commission (EU, 2013b)

2013

Returning to the goals set out in 2000, that the EU should become the ‘most competitive and knowledge-based economy’ worldwide by 2020, the Commission notes that language learning should help achieve this aim.

Council (EU, 2000)

2000

In the Lisbon Strategy (distinct from the Treaty of Lisbon) the EU sets itself the target of ‘becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2020’; [This informs later language policy].



Language competence as a factor favouring employability and mobility 

 65

As shown in Table 4.2, student mobility is emphasised as a driver of economic growth and job creation, since it develops a helpful “skills set” (EUR-Lex, 2005: 7). As pointed out in the Europe 2010: A Partnership for European Renewal, the “… most urgent issue facing Europe today is the lack of growth and job creation that safeguards the standard of living and social protection Europeans have grown used to” (EUR-Lex, 2005: 6). EU policy appears to subscribe to the view that language learning will allow Europeans to remain competitive and “better skilled and better adapted to change” (2005: 7). The Lisbon Strategy and the policies that succeeded it, Europe 2010 and Europe 2020, were primarily documents concerned with economic themes. However, it is evident from a compilation (European Commission, 2013) of the so-called “main policy initiatives and outputs in education and training since 2000” that language learning is included as a facet of the kind of education that should lead to economic benefits. This link is made plain by the nature of the reports that have been commissioned (European Commission, 2013); for instance, a publication entitled “Recommendations on how to achieve a better match between the demand and the supply of language skills on the labour market” (ibid.) and “Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes – Communication” (ibid.). The link reappears in a later document included in the review above, known as Education and Training 2020, or ET 2020 (2009). The aim of ET 2020 is to, … support the further development of education and training systems in the Member States aimed at ensuring the personal, social and professional fulfilment of all citizens, as well as sustainable economic prosperity and employability, whilst promoting democratic values, social cohesion, creativity and innovation, active citizenship, and intercultural dialogue.

It seems clear that the document links education, professional fulfilment, prosperity and employability. However, it has been argued (Shore & Wright, 2000; Hursh, 2005; Lorenz, 2006; Lynch, 2006) that a view of education to achieve economic goals in general reflects a neo-liberal agenda. We would argue that the above review demonstrates fairly clearly that education is seen as a means to an economic end by EU policy makers. The appropriateness of this view of education is questionable because its key focus on economic concerns could undermine the EU’s commitment to a policy of multilingualism, and by extension to cultural diversity. Where a concern with employment becomes an overriding concern, the result can be that languages associated with commerce, for example English, might take the place of others in language planning. ET 2020 also undertakes to safeguard intercultural dialogue and democratic values, but this undertaking appears to be added as an afterthought which clearly has to co-exist with economic goals. In this context, global competitiveness and cultural diversity are uneasy bedfellows, or even potentially competing aims.

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 Macro policies and meso language planning: The case of supranational policies in Europe

4.5 The Bologna Declaration The following section discusses the horizontal forces e.g. the Bologna Declaration discussed in Figure 1 above. These so-called horizontal forces do not reflect official EU language policy, but we will argue that they can exert a profound de facto influence on language policy nevertheless. The Bologna Declaration should in any case be treated separately from EU policy because although many of the 28 EU member states are among its signatories, the Declaration had a total of 47 signatories by 2012 (Vögtle & Martens, 2014), making it of more general application. Switzerland, for instance, is both a signatory and a non-EU country. While it seems safe to say that few policies have had a more marked effect on HEIs than the Bologna Declaration (1999), the Declaration does not specifically refer to language issues, as noted by Erling and Hilgendorf (2006). The Declaration’s objectives can be summarised in the following terms (1999): –– Easily comparable degrees; –– Adoption of two qualification levels (Bachelor and Master), where a Bachelor’s degree should be sufficient for the purposes of the labour market; –– A common system of credits (ECTS) should be established to facilitate comparability and promote student mobility; and –– Quality assurance should be undertaken in order to develop comparable criteria and methodologies. (p. 3) Originally signed by 29 states (Bologna Declaration, 1999), the Declaration was recognised by 46 states less than ten years later (Saarinen, 2008). Vögtle and Martens (2014) argue that the Declaration’s influence can now be felt beyond Europe, in the Asia-Pacific area, South America and parts of Africa. This growing acceptance is all the more remarkable since the structural reform imposed by the Declaration threatens long-standing traditional structures in some countries, for instance in Holland (Dittrich et al., 2004), Spain (Räisänen & Fortenet-Gomez, 2008) and Germany (Witte et al., 2008). Witte et al. (2008: 218) claim that due to the Declaration “tension” is created between traditional universities and centres of tertiary learning with an applied focus, such as hogescholen in the Netherlands, Fachhochschulen in Germany, and grand écoles in France. This tension was a result of the fact that both types of institution are able to offer Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees (2008) in terms of the Bologna declaration. It is therefore remarkable that the Declaration has enjoyed wide acceptance (Hedberg, 2003) despite such tension, and the potential threat posed to university structures which do not follow the Bachelor-Master model is ignored. Hedberg (2003) explains that this acceptance was driven by the need of continental European universities to retain their attractiveness for non-European students, which made the document’s emphasis on mobility and quality standards easy to accept. Erling and Hilgendorf (2006) argue that in Germany, there was a concern that skilled graduates in the life sciences prefer to continue their studies in the United States of



The Bologna Declaration 

 67

America (USA), which may have been a motive for the Declaration’s supposed intent to make Europe more attractive as a study destination. Lorenz (2006) explains that the Bologna Declaration should be understood in terms of attracting internationally mobile students: The competition on the ever growing and promising Asian student market is being lost by Europe ‒ with the UK as the only exception. ‘The Chinese are coming!’ is nowadays not meant as a warning in education contexts, but as something (educational) policy makers welcome and want to stimulate ‒ as long as the Chinese are willing to pay, of course. The ‘exceptional’ success of UK higher education probably explains why the Anglo-Saxon structure [Bachelor, Master] of higher education was accepted in Bologna as the general European model without much discussion. (p. 6)

Lorenz’s comments go some way towards explaining why many continental universities chose to restructure their degree programmes and do things the ‘English way’. If one assumes that acceptance of the Bologna Declaration is fueled by a desire to attract foreign students, it is perhaps not entirely co-incidental that European higher education institutions have been offering more courses in English. It is not clear whether this situation was anticipated by the Bologna Declaration; this is puzzling that the Declaration makes no reference to language learning, because students travelling to unfamiliar language environments will be in need of improved language skills (Erling & Hilgendorf, 2006). HEIs in the EU seem to be responding to this gap in the Declaration by preferring English as language of instruction. There is a broad consensus (Coleman, 2006; Phillipson, 2006; Studer et al., 2009; Schomburg & Teichler, 2011) that the Bologna Declaration has brought about an increase in the number of English-medium courses at European universities. Wächter and Maiworm (2008) note that there were 700 full programmes offered in English at around 400 higher education institutes in 2002, a figure which had tripled by 2006. Crosier et al. (2007: 36-48) even link the extent to which universities are internationally oriented with the degree to which they offer courses in English, an assumption questioned by van der Walt (2013). Coleman (2006) points out although plurilingualism is enshrined in the EU’s constitution, English as teaching language is threatening the status of local languages of instruction at HEIs. Phillipson (2006, p. 13) argues that Bologna has led to “diglossic domain loss”, and calls for language policy reform on a European scale. For the purposes of this study, therefore, it appears clear that the EU’s constitutional policy of multilingualism is under pressure from both vertical (official) and horizontal (de facto) policies. It remains to be seen whether this seeming lack of policy coherence at macro level will have any effects at meso (country) level. Before we consider language policy at meso level, it seems worthwhile investigating whether the English-medium programmes introduced at continental universities really have led to the arrival of greater numbers of foreign students. OECD data does not clearly confirm this. Figure 4.3 (OECD, 2012: 24-25) suggests that among the USA,

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 Macro policies and meso language planning: The case of supranational policies in Europe

Australia, and UK they attracted at least 30% of the 4.1 million visiting students in 2010, and nearly 40 per cent in 2000. However, the figure also shows that while Italy and Spain show a slight increase in the number of visiting students, in this period Germany, France and Belgium show minor decreases.

Figure 4.3: Student mobility - destinations by country (OECD, 2012) Fig. 4.3: Student mobility - destinations by country (OECD, 2012).

Reviewing English-medium programmes in continental (non-Anglophone) Europe, Studer et al. (2009) deduce that Italy, Spain and Portugal offer the fewest Englishmedium courses of the Bologna signatories, while Germany, Finland and the Reviewing English-medium programmes in continental (non-Anglophone) Europe, Netherlands offer the most (Wächter & Maiworm, 2008). In general, it seems that Studer et al. (2009) deduceinthat Italy, Spain and Portugal offer the EnglishEnglish-medium courses a non-Anglophone environment do fewest not attract as many medium courses of the Bologna signatories, while Germany, Finland and the does visitors as equivalent programmes in English-speaking countries. Secondly, there Netherlands most correlation (Wächter &between Maiworm, 2008). In general, it seems that not appear tooffer be athe marked English-medium courses and increasing English-medium courses in a non-Anglophone environment dofrom not attract many numbers of visiting students. A possible lesson to be learnt this isasthat Englishvisitors equivalent programmes in guarantee English-speaking countries. Secondly, there mediumas courses in themselves do not larger numbers of visiting students. As not noted above, European education institutions have been offering does appear to be a markedhigher correlation between English-medium courses and more courses in English. However, the desire to attract greater number of students increasing numbers of visiting students. A possible lesson to be learnt from thishas is to be balanced with ethical considerations. The drive towards English-medium courses that English-medium courses in themselves do not guarantee larger numbers of needs to remain compatible with “The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union” visiting students. (2010: 3), inabove, whichEuropean the EU undertakes to protect “the indivisible, values of As noted higher education institutions have been universal offering more human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity” and to “respecting the diversity of the courses in English. However, the desire to attract greater number of students has to cultures and traditions of the peoples of Europe” (2010: 3). This commitment to be balanced with ethical considerations. The drive towards English-medium courses equality and diversity of languages (among others) appears to echo the concerns of the needs to remain compatible with “The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European EU Constitution (Lisbon Treaty, 2009). However, the Charter is predated by the Union” 3), in which thewas EU therefore undertakes “the Bologna(2010: Declaration, which settoupprotect without theindivisible, guidance universal of the Charter, values of human and solidarity” and to let “respecting which could havedignity, led to freedom, its failureequality to mention language issues, alone thethe issue of equality of languages. Other horizontal macro influences It is beyond the scope of this chapter to consider horizontal policy influences besides the Bologna Declaration in any detail, although this is not to say that Bologna is the



Other horizontal macro influences 

 69

diversity of the cultures and traditions of the peoples of Europe” (2010: 3). This commitment to equality and diversity of languages (among others) appears to echo the concerns of the EU Constitution (Lisbon Treaty, 2009). However, the Charter is predated by the Bologna Declaration, which was therefore set up without the guidance of the Charter, which could have led to its failure to mention language issues, let alone the issue of equality of languages.

4.6 Other horizontal macro influences It is beyond the scope of this chapter to consider horizontal policy influences besides the Bologna Declaration in any detail, although this is not to say that Bologna is the only influence of this kind. Since English-medium courses have become more common in Europe due to the Declaration’s influence, however, it might be worthwhile to briefly consider common standards in English Language Teaching (ELT) practice, specifically Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). CLT is currently the foremost pedagogy in English language teaching (Jacobs & Farrell, 2003; Richards, 2006; Magnan, 2007, Kramsch, 2014). The decision to mention it here can be justified because of the potentially strong overlap of CLT’s goals with those of European language policy where employability is concerned. We would argue that there is a definite overlap between the focus of CLT on practical, ‘real world’ tasks and European language policy in respect of the requirement for students to have the language skills that make them mobile and employable. There is in our opinion a link with these concerns and the goals of CLT which—specifically in the form of ESP (English for specific purposes)—attempts to anticipate the workplace needs of students. Kramsch (2014) argues that CLT can even lead to the conceptualisation of language courses as a commodity. In her view, CLT has: … brought language learning yet closer to the real world of work and the economy. It has not abandoned the teaching of national cultural information and literary samples, but it has made them into goods that can be exchanged for greater symbolic distinction. Knowledge of a FL has become… an ‘added value’… It is no coincidence that beginning FL textbooks have become more and more like tourist brochures… . (p. 301)

According to this line of argument, CLT can in its various forms transform students into service providers whose language competencies provide them with an ‘added value’ in the labour market. CLT has been criticised for its narrow focus on students’ perceived needs (e.g. Wallace, 2002; Magnan, 2007; Kramsch, 2014). In the context of this chapter, it is worth noting that the policy concern with preparation for employment is also reflected in terms of language pedagogy. A new development in language teaching, called Content and Language Integrated Learning or CLIL, is increasingly being introduced in Europe. Although the ideal is to

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 Macro policies and meso language planning: The case of supranational policies in Europe

focus language learning by teaching so-called content subjects in a foreign language, Coleman (2006: 5) points out that although CLIL may appear to be “firmly harnessed to European ideals of multilingualism and the MT + 2 formula … in reality the target language adopted as the medium of teaching can often be English”. The focus of CLT, which is to become communicatively competent, changes with the introduction of CLIL, where academic literacy becomes the main target of language learning. In schools where CLIL is introduced, it is conceivable that the language of everyday communication will not be the same as the language of learning and teaching. This implies a change in the focus of CLT: where oral communication and familiarisation with the culture of the target language formed a very important part of the curriculum, academic language proficiency and the use of the language for instrumental (rather than integrative) purposes become the main aim. The introduction of CLIL at school level can be seen as a direct result of the increase in English language programmes at higher education level. The widely-held perception that the sooner a student starts in a language, the better their mastery, means that the expectations for English language proficiency at higher education levels cascade down to secondary and primary school levels. To a certain extent then, this can be seen as one of the possible unintended consequences of the Bologna Declaration.

4.7 Language policy at meso (national and regional) level This section discusses language policy at national and regional level, to determine what links (if any) exist between macro and meso policy. It should be said at the outset that there are profound differences in the political organisation of France, Germany and Switzerland. While Switzerland and Germany devolve some powers to regional law-makers, policy-making in France is organised centrally (Malan, 2004; Pilkington, 2012). Furthermore, while Switzerland shares national borders with France and Germany, it is distinct from them in that it is not a member of the EU. The translations in the review of national language policy that follows are our own.

4.7.1 Switzerland Switzerland is divided into 26 cantons (regions) which have law-making competencies, but laws applying to education are primarily made at federal level. Despite the harmonisation supposedly brought about by Bologna, Rege-Colet and Durand (2004: 169) note “…the Swiss higher education system remains extremely heterogeneous with marked differences and distinct academic cultures between the linguistic regions”.



Language policy at meso (national and regional) level 

 71

Since 2004, the teaching of the ‘first foreign language’ (in de facto terms, English) in some cantons has begun at primary level. The Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education decided in 2004 that teaching of a first (foreign) language and second (national) language should begin in the third and fifth school year respectively (a process known in Switzerland as the Harmos Reform). Some evidence of cantonal political independence is provided by the Conference’s admission in 2013 that only 12 of 26 cantons had implemented the reform (SDE, 2015). Switzerland has four official languages (French, German, Italian and Romansch), and the Swiss Languages Act, 2007 (Sprachengesetz) views competence in four national languages [Viersprachigkeit] as something that characterises Switzerland (Art. 2a). The government seeks to preserve this Viersprachigkeit and requires the four national languages to be given equal status (Art. 3a). However, even within the content of the act itself, this egalitarian position becomes at times unsustainable, since Article 10 generally permits publication of official documents in French, German and Italian, with Romansh only considered in one canton (Art.11). Article 15 states that ‘Teaching’ [Unterricht] requires the following: [Bund und Kantone] setzen sich im Rahmen ihrer Zuständigkeit für einen Fremdsprachenunterricht ein, der gewährleistet, dass die Schülerinnen und Schüler am Ende der obligatorischen Schulzeit über Kompetenzen in mindestens einer zweiten Landessprache und einer weiteren Fremdsprache verfügen. In the context of their responsibility for foreign language instruction, the state and cantons promote a model of foreign language teaching that ensures that pupils have developed competencies in at least a second national language and a further foreign language at the end of obligatory schooling.

At first glance, this policy appears to be similar to the EU policy of ‘mother tongue plus two’. The Act intends that the first two languages taught are Swiss national languages, whereas it does not require that the third language taught in schools be a national language. It has been claimed that this effectively opens the doors to the teaching of English at primary and secondary level (NZZ, 2007), although there is no obligation for Swiss schools to choose English as third language. French seems to have lost ground in one Swiss city. Stolz (2006) notes that English has overtaken French as the second language of choice at primary schools in the canton of Zurich. This appears to be part of wider development in Switzerland; in 2009, nine German-speaking cantons (including Zürich) agreed on a language syllabus for primary school in which English is introduced earlier than French, as can be seen from the extract represented in Table 4.3.

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 Macro policies and meso language planning: The case of supranational policies in Europe

Tab. 4.3: Foreign Language Syllabus of Eastern and Central Swiss Cantons. Klasse

Lektionen Englisch

Lektionen Französisch

2.

0-2

-

3.

2-3

-

4.

2-3

-

5.

2

2-3

6.

2

2-3

Primarschule insgesamt

8-11

4-6

7.

3

4

8.

3

3

9.

3

3

Sekundarschule 1. insgesamt

9

10

Obligatorische Schule

19

14-16

It can be seen from Table 4.3 that in primary school years 2-4, English replaces French as second language, and for primary school as a whole (Primarschule insgesamt), more English lessons are offered (Lehrplan Englisch, 2009). The number of lessons per language evens out in middle school (years 7-9). Although English seems to have acquired preferred status, however, lessons are offered in two foreign languages, reflecting the EU policy of ‘mother tongue plus two’, although Switzerland is not a member of the EU. According to Stolz (2006), the Swiss constitution requires that harmony be preserved between the four official languages (German, French, Italian, and Romansh). So much weight is given to the peaceful co-existence of Swiss national languages that Article 70.2 of the Swiss constitution prescribes that, … the Cantons shall designate their official languages. In order to preserve harmony between linguistic communities, they shall respect the traditional territorial distribution of languages, and take into account the indigenous linguistic minorities.

Stolz (2006: 248) states that languages are thereby assigned territorial rights, having theoretically been given the right to “defend” their territory. This devolution of language policy to regional (cantonal) level in effect means that the Swiss Federation is willing to allow regions the freedom to choose their official language, which can be seen as federal support for multilingualism. There is evidence, however, of federal co-ordination in terms of the language level required for university entrance, CEFR B229 (EBMP, 2010). 29 Generally speaking, B2 represents an intermediate to upper intermediate level of language learning.



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At tertiary level, there was little evidence of explicit language policy until 2014. The Fachhochschulgesetz (1995), which provided the legal basis for the creation of Swiss UASs, made no reference to language policy. It has now been succeeded by the Hochschulförderungs-und Koordinationsgesetz (SBFI, 2015), or ‘Higher Education Development and Coordination Law’ in English. This law has generally more to do with accreditation and coordination among Swiss HEIs, it does state that federal funds are available for any projects that aim to improve multilingualism in respect of the national languages (Article 59).

4.7.2 Germany Where language policy for Germany as a whole is concerned, the German constitution (German Bundestag, 2013) firstly stipulates that, nobody be discriminated against, or receive preferential treatment, on the basis of his or her sex, descent, race, language, country of origin, beliefs, religious or political views.

There is therefore some provision for diversity of languages in the German Constitution. In the tertiary context, the Hochschulrahmengesetz (German Higher Education Framework Law, 2006) defines the duties and responsibilities of German higher education institutions. It requires that suitably qualified Germans should theoretically be guaranteed entry to higher education ‒ the rights of other nationalities are not specified, although students from other EU countries will need to possess the ‘necessary’ language competence for admission (German Higher Education Framework Law (2006), paragraph 27). The German Higher Education Law has been the target of some criticism within Germany, largely because it is perceived as limiting the freedom of the German states too severely in matters of tertiary education (German Bundesrat, 2007). This criticism is typical of the German policy landscape, where there seems to be a long-standing tension between central policy-making and the desire of the German states for political self-determination. Ash (2006) explains that the traditional political independence of the German states has increased the speed of Bologna reforms at regional level, because states are given the power to introduce the reforms autonomously. At regional level, Article 58 of the Landeshochschulgesetz (Higher Education Law of Baden-Württemberg/ German LGH, 2005) stipulates that foreign students should have sufficient language competencies as required by the course of study; no mention is made of language competence in another context. One requirement at federal level has not been challenged, it appears: for students to achieve the Fachhochschulreife, or entrance certificate to UASs, they should reach CEFR level B2 in a foreign language (Leitfaden für Berufschulen, 2013).

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Erling and Hilgendorf (2006) note that English is growing in importance as a medium of instruction at HEIs, which they attribute to the influence of the Bologna Declaration. While Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (GFME, 2012, p. 92) views English as ‘erste Fremdsprache’ or first foreign language for secondary school students, the question of which foreign language should be studied first is not federally defined. Nevertheless, language practice, as Spolsky (2004) might term it, reveals certain trends. According to Erling and Hilgendorf (2006), 77% of German pupils are learning English, with French, as the second most popular being learnt by 15 per cent. This development seems to be more spontaneous than centrally organised. The seeming lack of a centrally-formulated language policy in Germany is in our view connected with the strong political autonomy of the German states. The age at which children start learning a second language, for instance, is dependent on the policy of the state where they live (Goethe Institute, 2013). Where the German language policy landscape is concerned, it is therefore useful to refer to Spolsky’s (2004, p. 8) use of the term “language practices”. It is difficult to detect a consolidated language policy at national level and so it seems more appropriate to refer to language practices than to language planning. In the context of the German state bordering on France and Switzerland, BadenWürttemberg (BW), there does not seem to be any particular language policy at tertiary level, although language policy at secondary level has recently been fiercely contested. In 2007, Helmut Rau, the regional minister of education, reportedly sought to require the teaching of French as first foreign language at secondary schools in the part of BW adjacent to France. Nevertheless, this move was legally challenged, and stopped, by parents (Der Spiegel, 2013). In BW (2009), policy has since 2004 made English and French lessons obligatory from the first year of primary school. In 2011, it was announced (BW, 2011) that from 2009 onwards all secondary school pupils in the state would be obliged to learn English; it was noted that 75 per cent learnt French, 32 per cent Latin and 22 per cent Spanish. No reference is made, however, to desired exit levels in these languages, but this is regulated at national level (Fachhochschulreife). The picture that therefore emerges from this brief review of German language policy is that it is more relevant in the local context to refer to the language policy of German states, rather than central language policy. It is for this reason that the concept of ‘regional’ language policy was included in the definition of meso level; in the German political landscape, the ‘regions’ or states have real policy making power, as seen in the example the German region/state Baden-Württemberg (BW). Even within BW, there does not appear to be a specific language policy where tertiary level is concerned although on a de facto basis, there seems to be fairly strong tradition of instruction in two foreign languages (English and French).



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4.7.3 France As previously mentioned, France’s political organisation, and its education system, are centrally administered and implemented to a degree that would be unusual in both Switzerland and Germany. In this regard Gauthier and Le Gouvello (2010: 75) report that “[w]hat is taught in schools is not decided in schools by the actors. Rather, it is fixed and dictated to all education agents at the national level”. Pilkington (2012) claims that universities only gained complete control of their budgets in 2007; prior to that, university departments received their funding directly from the state. In the same vein, Malan (2004) notes the powerful role of the Ministry of Education. In France, the adaptation of qualifications to a Bologna degree structure is subsequently subject to evaluation by the Ministry of Education; non-compliance with Ministry requirements can lead to a loss of funding. Arguing that central policy-making in France can lead to problems at tertiary level, Derouet and Normand (2008) explain that the policy in which 80% of school leavers are ‘pushed through’ to university leads to high dropout rates. The Loi Toubon (1994) is the dominant expression of language policy in France. This law‘s apparent purpose is to defend the French language as ‘a key element in the heritage and personality of France’ (Loi Toubon, 1994). In general, it stipulates wherever possible, the French language must be used on French territory. Its requirements are wide-ranging: Article 6, for example, stipulates that documentation in French must be provided for any event, seminar or convention taking place on French territory where French is not the dominant language, and texts that are presented should include a summary in French. An exception is made in the case of events organised primarily for ‘foreigners’. On the other hand, the law recognises that regional languages exist in France, and is seemingly not against their use, although it seems plain that it does not encourage the use of regional languages in the absence of French. Article 11.1 stipulates that, The language of instruction, examinations and competitive examinations, as well as dissertations in State and private educational institutions shall be French, except for cases justified by the need to teach foreign and regional languages and cultures or where the teachers are associate teachers or guest teachers. Foreign schools or schools specially set up to teach foreign nationals as well as institutions providing instruction of an international nature are not bound by this obligation.

Co-operation between HEIs would seem to fall under this article. Nevertheless, Young (1997) reports that legal action was taken against the Georgia Institute of Technology on the grounds that its campus in Metz, France, was advertised on an Englishlanguage website. The case was ultimately dismissed on a “technicality” (1997: A26). Moreover, the increasing number of Bachelor degrees taught wholly or partly in English at French universities (Campusfrance, 2013) suggests that legal action of this kind would be improbable in the future.

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Where secondary level education is concerned, the learning of a foreign language is required, though it is not specified which should be taught (Bonnet, 2007). Bonnet (2007) notes that in 2005 the French Ministry of Education required that CEFR level B2 in a foreign language should be reached at the end of the tenth school year. Level C1 should furthermore be achieved by those who have continuously attended language classes until the end of upper secondary school. He reports that this standardization creates problems of its own with regard to quality assurance, in other words ensuring that a test claiming to be at B2 level really is at that level. In tri-national programmes, French partners of German and Swiss UASs are often IUTs (Instituts Universitaires de Technologie), which are institutes integrated in French universities offering training for specific occupations. Examples of these are business administration, civil engineering, electrical engineering (Malan, 2004; Pilkington, 2012). The role of IUTs is described by federal law. Article 2 of the Decret IUT (2015) stipulates that [translation of the authors]: Les instituts universitaires de technologie dispensent en formation initiale et continue un enseignement supérieur destiné à préparer aux fonctions d’encadrement technique et professionnel dans certains secteurs de la production, de la recherche appliquée et des services. The university institutes of technology provide initial and on-going training in higher education designed to prepare [students] for skilled employment in technical and vocational fields in certain sectors of production, applied research and services.

IUTs should therefore prepare their students for skilled employment; however, no mention is made of language policy. Academic freedom is guaranteed in French law (French Education Code, 2000), but this is no guarantee that a multilingual language policy is evident at French IUTs or universities. De facto evidence (TMO, 2014) suggests, however, that several degree programmes are offered bilingually in the trinational area.

4.7.4 Discussion: Contrasting language policies in Switzerland, Germany and France The review of language policy has revealed noticeable inconsistency between policy-making at macro and its interpretation, if it can be viewed as such, as meso level. As is clear from the meso-level policy landscapes in the different countries, national priorities compete with supra-national policies, whether they are language policies or broader supranational treaties. While EU language policy makes a strong commitment to multilingualism at macro (supranational) level, promoting linguistic diversity is seen as the task of the member states. In fact, this chapter has showed that this policy has received the most support in Switzerland, a non-EU state, whereas France’s language policy appears to be largely protectionist in nature (Loi Toubon) and Germany’s strongly federal nature makes the emergence of a unitary language



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policy doubtful, though its constitution does respect the rights of other population groups and languages. At the same time, de facto policies seem to promote a move towards learning English, particularly at higher education level. Because of the desirability of a higher education qualification, the move to English has an effect at secondary and primary school levels, where English is increasingly the first foreign language. In terms of the introduction of language teaching models like Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) at school level, English is not only the first foreign language that is taught; it becomes the language of instruction. This means that a de facto policy (such as the Bologna Declaration) that aimed to increase transnational mobility of higher education students, not only influences the teaching of languages at primary and secondary school level but also replaces home languages as languages of learning and teaching (in the CLIL model). In our view, this development should be questioned if it goes against the promotion of multilingualism. Therefore, HEIs offering more courses in English should not do so at the expense of instruction in other languages. The ideal of transnational mobility as accelerator for competitiveness in the European higher education sector also has the unintended consequence that students are seen as internationally marketable. Coleman (2006) points out that “[a]n opportunity to study abroad is at the same time seen as better preparing domestic students for international careers” (p. 5). This means that English is seen not only as an instrument to enable transnational mobility of higher education students, but also as entry point for careers. At meso level the tradition of vocational education at tertiary level (UASs in Switzerland and Germany, and IUTs in France) suggests a strong concern with preparation for employment in the trinational context. Teaching English for specific, professional purposes becomes an indispensable ingredient of English language courses.

4.8 Conclusion This chapter has discussed how formal language policies are re-interpreted at meso level when language planning is influenced by national priorities, unrelated supranational policies and neo-liberal market forces. Baldauf (2006: 149) states that, Language policy may be realised in very formal (overt) language planning documents and pronouncements (e.g. constitutions, legislation, policy statements, educational directives) which can be either symbolic or substantive in form, in informal statements of intent (i.e. in the discourse of language, politics and society), or may be left unstated (covert).

As has been noted, the overt EU policy of multilingualism has not been clearly reflected in German or French language policy, to the extent that there is also overt policy support for multilingualism at meso level (except for Switzerland). Language

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policy in France is overtly protectionist; in Germany, policy is so decentralised that it is not clear whether it can be viewed as covert, since covert seems to suggest an identifiable, if hidden, language policy. The Loi Toubon wishes to safeguard the position of French within France, whereas in Germany the relative independence of the German states seems to prevent the easy passage of federal regulations on language policy. Nevertheless, we have also pointed out that in terms of its official language policy, the non-EU member Switzerland is probably closest to the EU target of multilingualism (mother tongue plus two additional languages). Applying Baldauf’s notion of covert language policy, one might say that the unstated status quo is apparently that member nations can interpret EU policy as they see fit. As we have seen, this can lead to markedly different language policies even among geographical neighbours. The Bologna Declaration, as it is silent on language issues (Erling & Hilgendorf, 2006), can be seen as a ‘sideways’ influence that encourages autonomous language planning at national level; as has been noted, the Bologna declaration has in general contributed towards a growth in English-medium courses, a development which can be seen as going against the supranational EU policy of multilingualism. The Declaration’s other focus, that of preparation of employment, can also be seen to work against the ideal of multilingualism, since English is deemed to make institutions more attractive to international students (e.g. Chinese) and secondly is seen to be more beneficial to students’ future careers, perhaps, than other languages with a less global representation. This chapter has taken as its primary focus on the discrepancies between official EU language policy and the Bologna Declaration, but has also noted the recognition of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference), at supranational level (see Table 1) and also at meso level (all three countries require students to have mastered CEFR B2 level before entering tertiary education). An in-depth discussion of the CEFR would be beyond the scope of this chapter, but it is worth noting that although EU officially endorses its use as a benchmark (EUR-Lex, 2005b, 2007a, 2012, 2014), it was produced by a separate body, the Council of Europe30 (CoE, 2015). As described above, the CEFR is an influential framework which aims to describe levels of competence in foreign language learning. A question which can be raised in this regard is whether the CEFR can be seen as official language policy exerted pressure ‘downwards’ in a vertical sense, or whether its presence in meso-level policy is due to its unofficial and spontaneous adoption in a horizontal or ‘sideways’ fashion. Nevertheless, the Council of Europe is an organisation of a cultural nature whose membership is voluntary, so it does not have the power to make official policy. As Little (2007) states,

30  The Council of Europe is an international body made up by the Ministers of Education of participating countries, including but not limited to EU members (CoE, 2015).



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(…) the Council of Europe can only propose, advise, and encourage; it cannot intervene directly in the educational policy and practice of its member states. Thus, it is the member states themselves that decide to what extent, if at all, the CEFR should help to shape language education policy, language teaching and learning, and language testing. (Little, 2007: 647)

In this sense, it not clear whether the CEFR can be seen as ‘vertical’ or official policy due to the Council of Europe’s status as described above by Little, but the fact remains that it has greater influence in the three countries discussed here than official language policy originating from the EU particularly regarding the goal of multilingualism. While it is also officially endorsed as a frame of reference by EU language policy (EURLex, 2005b, 2007a, 2012, 2014) the EU has not obliged member states to refer to it in meso-level language planning. This in turn leaves considerable room for autonomous language policy at state level. If we accept that the Bologna Declaration and the CEFR are examples of ‘unofficial’ influences on policy, it seems safe to conclude that mesolevel language policy is impacted upon to a greater extent by unofficial horizontal forces, than it is by vertical, supranational policy making. This chapter has set out to deal with policy making at higher levels, defining macro as supranational, and meso as national or regional and has intentionally neglected micro level. At first glance this may seem incomplete, since it is at micro or institutional level that ‘the real learning gets done’, as it were, and surely the ultimate test of policy making is to ascertain whether it is implemented where it really matters, at school or university level. While not seeking to deny the importance of micro level, this chapter has focused on national and regional level to show that transnational policy making can be frustrated even at the next highest policy (national/regional level). In short, when policy initiatives can go astray at national level, it is by no means clear that supranational policy making will have any effect on micro-level/ institutional language practices. Clearly, this is not a desirable situation. Baldauf (2006: 165) explains that, (…) micro-level planning initiatives are essential complementary elements of macro-level language planning and neither macro-level nor micro-level planning is sufficient on its own.

Therefore, without some kind of co-ordination at higher level, micro level practices are lacking guidance; on the other hand, macro level policy is rather meaningless without micro level implementation, since micro level is presumably the appropriate sphere for macro/meso-level policy to be applied. This chapter has therefore raised some doubts whether policy-making at supranational level can have a meaningful effect on micro-level language planning, at least in the trinational border context of Germany, France and Switzerland.

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Räisänen, C., & Fortanet-Gomez, I. 2008. The state of ESP teaching and learning in Western European higher education after the Bäologna. In I. Foätanet-Gomez & C. Raisanen (Eds.), ESP in European Higher Education. Integrating Language and Content. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.11-51. Rege-Colet, N., & Durand, N. (2004). Working on the Bologna Declaration: Promoting integrated curriculum development and fostering conceptual change. International Journal for Academic Development, 9(2), 167-179. Richards, J.C. 2006. Communicative language teaching today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Saarinen, T. 2008. Whose quality? Social actors in the interface of transnational and national higher education policy. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 29(2), 179-193. SBFI. 2015. Retrieved from https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/20070429/index. html Schomburg, H., & Teichler, U. 2011. Employability and the Mobility of Bachelor Graduates in Europe: Key Results of the Bologna Process. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. SDE (Swiss Department of Education). 2015. Retrieved from http://www.edudoc.ch/static/web/ arbeiten/sprach_unterr/fktbl_sprachen_d.pdf Shore, C., & Wright, S. 2000. Coercive accountability: The rise of audit culture in higher education audit cultures: Anthropological Studies. In M. Strathern (Ed.), Audit cultures: Anthropological studies in accountability, ethics and the academy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 57-90. Spolsky, B. 2004. ‘Language policy failures - why won’t they listen?’, Series A: General and Theoretical Papers (584), Essen, LAUD Stolz, D. 2006. Breaching the peace: Struggles around Multilingualism in Switzerland. Language Policy, 5, 247–265. Studer, P., Pelli-Ehrensperger, A., & Kelly, P. 2009. Mehrsprachigkeit an universitären Bildungsinstitutionen: Arbeitssprache Englisch im Hochschulfachunterricht. Zurich, Switzerland: Zurich Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. Swiss Languages Act (Sprachengesetz). 2007. Retrieved from http://www.bak.admin.ch/kulturschaf fen/04245/04246/?lang=de TMO. 2014. Trinationale Metropolregion Oberrhein / Trinational Metropolitan Region Upper-Rhine. Retrieved from http://www.rmtmo.eu/de/wissenschaft.html van der Walt, C. 2004. Globalisation speak in higher education: How we talk about life-long learning. In M. Pütz, J. Neff-Von Aertselaer & T. A. van Dijk (Eds.), Communicating ideologies. Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang. 327-352. van der Walt, C. 2013. Multilingual higher education: Beyond English medium orientations. UK: Multilingual Matters. Vögtle, E.M., & Martens, K. 2014. The Bologna process as a template for transnational policy coordination. Policy Studies, 25(3), 246-263. Wallace, C. 2002. Local literacies and global literacy: Globalisation and English teaching. London: Routledge. Wächter, B., & Maiworm, F. 2008. English-taught programmes in European higher education: The picture in 2007. Bonn: Lemmens (ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education). Witte, J., van der Wende, M., & Huisman, J. 2008. Blurring boundaries: How the Bologna process changes the relationship between university and non‐university higher education in Germany, the Netherlands and France. Studies in Higher Education, 33(3), 217-231. Young, R. 1997. French court dismisses suit over web site of Georgia Tech’s campus in Metz. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 43(41), A26.

Ruanni Tupas

5 Inequalities of multilingualism: Outsourcing, neoliberalism and languages-in-education To remain competitive in the global market, companies around the world contract the services of third-party providers which are typically located in countries such as India, China and the Philippines where labour costs are very low. This business model is usually referred to as Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO), where companies look for the cheapest sources of human labour to save costs and increase company productivity. One of the most active and successful BPO industries is the call centre industry where staff or employees answer calls from customers of companies located overseas. In the Philippines, it is called the country’s “sunshine industry” because of its significant contributions to the economy. Much has been written about the sociological and economic impact of BPO organisations, and call centres in particular, on the lives of employees and their families, but in this chapter, I will track the relationship between outsourcing, English-only policies in education and ideologies of pragmatism, with the Philippines as the main context of discussion. In recent years, the need to supply BPO with competent English speakers has had massive impact on the way language-in-education policies in the country have been shaped and debated. While its economic contributions to nation-building are recognised, outsourcing in general has narrowed the scope of education, with much curricular content in schools revised to cater to the needs of BPO industries. Schools advertise themselves as English-only zones, despite the multilingual ethos of the student population and the communities in which they are located, and defend these policies on pragmatist grounds. The lethal combination of outsourcing, English-Only practices and pragmatism has, in fact, curtailed progress in multilingual education which has recently been enacted into law. Instead of using mother tongues as medium of instruction in the first six years of formal education (the minimum number years which research has shown to have significant impact on learning), the political compromise has been to cut it down to the first three years of school. One of the main arguments presented has been the need to teach pupils English at the earliest possible time to prepare them for life in BPO industries, even if the very reason why multilingual education in primary years has been enacted into law is because of the argument that effective learning among children is best facilitated through their mother tongues. In other words, the education system is slowly and subtly preparing students to serve the needs of a particular group of industries, and thus also (and perhaps most especially) the interests of companies and corporations least concerned about the total well-being of local populations.

Ruanni Tupas, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore



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5.1 English and vernacular languages in the Philippines In a recent conference in Manila, a participant approached me after my talk about mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) in the Philippines. The country is now deep into the implementation of MTB-MLE after it became part of a revised Basic Education law in 2012, supplanting the decades-old bilingual education policy in the primary level which privileged English and the national language (Tagalog-based Filipino) and basically marginalised the rest of the country’s mother tongues. With MTB-MLE, 19 mother tongues so far have been designated as languages of instruction around the country, at least in the first three years of primary school. The succeeding years, including high school, would see a gradual transition to English and the national language purportedly with the aid of the mother tongues. The participant, who was a teacher, confided to me that the reason why she and her colleagues have vehemently resisted MTB-MLE and called for the reinstallation of English as the main medium of instruction is because “lalo pa kaming nabobo sa mga klase namin” (“the dumber we have become in our classes”), so she would rather that English be kept as a language of instruction in all levels of education. For this teacher, the use of the mother tongue in class is equated with low intellectual ability, and also implying that the ability to use English makes one smart. The teacher’s remark was actually not an isolated one as it can easily be linked back discursively to colonially-induced ideologies about English and vernacular languages (Pennycook, 2002; Tupas, 2008; Ramanathan, 2005). Such ideologies elevated English to the status of a superior language which was supposedly to extricate the subjugated natives from perpetual darkness and backwardness, and usher them into the so-called modern and enlightened world. Consequently, the local languages—conveniently described as ‘dialects’ to reaffirm their subordinate status—became the object of the natives’ hatred because of the perceived role of the vernacular languages in perpetuating poverty, hopelessness and ignorance. “We have already seen”, according to Nabea (2009: 127), (…)what any colonial system does: impose its tongue on the subject races, and then downgrade the vernacular tongues of the people. By so doing, they make the acquisition of their tongue a status symbol; anyone who learns it begins to despise the peasant majority and their barbaric tongues.

Thus, such a seemingly routine remark about MTB-MLE actually incriminates a complex network of historically-shaped discourses and practices which revolve around issues of language and education. While the teacher’s remark crucially betrays discernible imprints of colonialism on the so-called ‘postcolonial’ mind, it must also be critically understood within the context of the colonial present (Gregory, 2004). That is, while the present is historically shaped, and that colonialism is (still) alive today, the present is also entangled in new forms of

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political and socioeconomic control “which are now making advances” (Hamilakis, 2005: 96). Such advances engender and are engendered by intense competition for new capital (thus the emergence of new sites of capital accumulation), the renationalisation of global politics (partly instigated by “essentialist, nationalist, and xenophobic--if not racist—attitudes” [Hamilakis, 2005: 99]), as well as the rapid and radical advance of technology and communication. It is important to describe and expose recent nexuses of power and social relations which embed—but at the same time, are constituted by— historically traceable ideologies of teaching and learning today. In the more specific context of MTB-MLE in the Philippines, this is in fact an ethical and political imperative because of the continuing marginalisation of Filipino learners within the new (multilingual) framework of education: the inroads gained in the institutionalisation of the mother tongues as effective languages of instruction are severely undermined by the (still) unexamined power of English and the discourses that undergird it. And, as will hopefully become clear later in the chapter, the problem is not English per se, but specific discourses that frame the current language-in-education debate. For example, the teacher’s belief about the dumbing effect of the use of the mother tongues in the classroom should be seen in the light of anxieties about job security in the country which allegedly could be addressed by reconfiguring one’s bodily disposition towards the needs of newer sites of capital accumulation, foremost of which is the global phenomenon of outsourcing. According to Tabb (2003), even the mere “threat of runaway relocation” can already “frighten workers” (p. 151). The material and symbolic language of outsourcing is English—despite the multilingual nature of international business (Piekkari, Welch, & Welch, 2014)—and for a country like the Philippines which has served globalisation mainly as a cheap source of labour, this creates ‘confusion’ among policy-makers, teachers, parents and pupils: why MTB-MLE in the context of a brighter future promised by outsourcing? Why MTB-MLE in the midst of “preparing and improving the job prospects of university graduates in the global labour market” (Chan, 2008: 28)? It is these questions which this chapter attempts to unpack by exploring how outsourcing and English-perpetuating discourses and policies work together to undermine progress in multilingual education. Thus, this chapter contributes to an appraisal of what I call elsewhere as inequalities of multilingualism (Tupas, 2015), the idea that what we describe as multilingual landscapes or ecologies (e.g., ‘multilingual’ society, ‘multilingual’ workforce, ‘multilingual’ classroom, ‘multilingual’ workplace) are, in fact, constituted and sustained by various kinds of inequalities.

5.2 Outsourcing and neoliberal globalisation Because of pressures of globalisation and technology, firms all over the world perpetually and aggressively look for ways to cut down costs and improve productivity “in the interests of self-preservation” (Clott, 2004: 154), and it is for this reason that global outsourcing for at least two decades now has become one of the defining



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features of the global economy. In its simplest business sense, outsourcing means that “if a firm does not specialize in a certain function it will be beneficial to transfer control of the function to a specialist organization that will be able to offer better cost and quality” (Clott, 2004: 154). In the sense of political economy, this does not simply mean the globalisation of capital but, more precisely, the maximisation of capital going global (Kiefer & Rada, 2013), thus resulting in the triumph of profit over labor (Tabb, 2003). To destroy the competition, companies (sited mainly in developed economies) downsize their workforce and look elsewhere in the world for similar or better-skilled but cheaper labour, essentially altering the nature of work, by expanding communication networks in performing work, pulling a plug on job security, and becoming “increasingly placeless” (Clott, 2004: 161), among many other things. There are pros and cons for global outsourcing but, to a large extent, these views depend on the political lenses used. There are, for example, five main arguments which favor global outsourcing: focus on core business development, cost control, access to state of the art technology, market discipline through greater transparency, and more flexibility to respond to changes in demand (Clott, 2004). But these arguments are generally couched in an essentially business or economic perspective (see Bhagwati, Panagariya & Srinivasan, 2004) which focuses on maximising efficiency and profitability in the first place. However, if we expand the lenses through which we unpack the nature of global outsourcing, we see a more complex picture because it now implicates labor and ethical issues. The macroeconomic benefits of outsourcing, for example, usually gloss over the fact that individual workers are overworked and, more crucially, work in extremely challenging workplace conditions (Tabb, 2003). Workers not only fill up temporary or contracted positions but they also lose health, retirement and other benefits. Nevertheless, the logic of outsourcing is the logic of market-driven neoliberal globalisation which underpins much of socioeconomic policy-making in the world today: it is the so-called invisible hand of the market (Evensky, 1993), not of governments and huge transnational corporations, which dictates how the economy behaves. The fundamental ideology that works here is neoliberal, or the idea that our general well-being is best safeguarded and ameliorated by letting our institutions be driven by the logic—and the “elegant and smooth functioning” (Evensky, 1993: 197)—of the market through private ownership, free competition and trade, deregulation and individual freedom (Harvey, 2007: 22). A fundamental neoliberal view of the global market is that the market adjusts itself to price fluctuations, changing demands, and so on, thus state economic institutions should not intervene or alter how it works because intervention presumably means allowing the ruling or dominant group or class to dictate the market according to its own needs and desires. The market, by implication, is devoid of ideology and bias, and works simply towards the maximisation of profit which may consequently benefit all. Thus, through the process of creative destruction (Aghion & Howitt, 1990)—skills, products, markets and manufacturing processes are built for obsolescence—global outsourcing continues its

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“natural progression” (Clott, 2004: 167) as firms close down and/or radically reinvent themselves to respond to changing business environments and competition. It is “the very essence of comparative advantage” (Clott, 2004: 167): innovative firms survive by enhancing their core competencies but look offshore for cheaper (and recently, better quality) work, products and services (Lee, Vári-Kovács, Yu, & Lall, 2014). The ethical and labour issues of outsourcing may be recognised as legitimate concerns, but in the larger neoliberal scheme of things, they are overshadowed by pervasive reverence for the logic of the market. Consequently, global outsourcing is hailed by governments, neoliberal think-tank organisations and multinational institutions, and transnational firms as an “inevitable” (Clott, 2004: 166) economic solution to depleting capital and profit in the developed world. As one specific example, this would thus mean deploying “large numbers of skilled English-speaking workers willing to work for a fraction of the cost of their U.S. counterparts” (Clott, 2004: 158). The choice of English, in this sense, is supposedly devoid of politics and ideology; it is for the benefit of all. This is how outsourcing discourse frames recent neoliberal views of English and education.

5.3 The outsourcing discourse of English and education Any job that is English language based in markets such as the U.S., the U.K., and Australia can be done in India. Scott Bayman, CEO of GE India (in Clott, 2004: 166)

The political economy of outsourcing31 is a highly discussed and debated issue (Levy, 2005; Agrawal & Farrell, 2003; Stefanova, 2006) but what the chapter wants to argue thus far is quite straightforward: the logic of present-day globalisation, the neoliberal market and outsourcing has dramatically shaped educational and language policymaking in the world today. It is not the main concern of the chapter to accurately define what outsourcing is, and whether or not it truly benefits national economies; there are some who argue through economic data and theorising that outsourcing is, in the end, beneficial (at least to some countries such as the United States) (Bhagwati, Panagariya & Srinivasan, 2004). On the other hand, views exemplified by the quote from Scott Bayman above are, for some, “too simplistic” (Metters, 2008: 31 There are fine differences between outsourcing and offshoring, but this chapter does not deal with them. In principle, their fundamental economic logic is the same: it involves the decoupling of economic activity and geographical location for the purpose of price reduction and profit-taking. The main difference simply is that outsourcing involves subcontracting with independent firms but this is not typically so with offshoring (Levy, 2005: 692).



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198). What is more important to note, however, is that outsourcing operates within a particular broader logic of the market and neoliberal thinking, and this is what is pervasive in socioeconomic policy-making (which thus includes educational policy work) and ‘commonsense’ everyday decision-making among all of us. Moreover, while the argument about how education incriminates itself in neoliberal discourses and practices does not surprise anymore, it is important to highlight that even alternative visions of language in education are increasingly becoming implicated in the same neoliberal framework as well. Political projects with well-meaning aims to advance multilingual education (Tupas, 2015), bilingual education (Petrovic, 2005), translingual classroom practices and/or plurilingualism (Flores, 2013) are perilously courting neoliberal discourses and practices as well, for example in the way advocates of bilingual education in the United States deploy the notion of language as resource against English-Only policies but which betrays market-driven proclivities towards training people as resources for profit (Petrovic, 2005). Struggles over languages of instruction implicate struggles over (neo)colonial relations, social inequalities and injustice, poverty, and human rights. Much has been written about these language-in-education issues, even much more so with education becoming marketised or corporatised, but more recently some scholars have also begun to expose the complicities of pluralist and multilingual visions of education with market-driven ideologies and practices. Petrovic (2005) clearly articulates this emerging logic of otherwise well-meaning pluralist education: “the language of instruction may change, but the curriculum and pedagogy will still be directed to narrow economic purposes of schooling, schooling not to challenge the status quo but to provide students with skills to find their place in what I believe is an unjust capitalist system” (Petrovic, 2005: 407-408). Thus, recent remarks about the dumbing impact of mother tongues or local languages on teaching and learning are ironic in the sense that they are articulated at the time the usefulness of the mother tongues in education is extolled and legitimised, but are nevertheless completely understandable if viewed through the lens of the neoliberal global market as essentially a “race for profit” (Tabb, 2003: 152). Neocolonial discourses are entangled with the logic of the market: the mother tongues do not deserve any place in the educational system because they have no obvious economic value in linguistic markets. In this sense, the redemptive nature of MTB-MLE has been reframed in neoliberal terms and has been blamed for the decline of English language proficiency; the global market demands English, and so do parents, students, and other stakeholders. For the Philippines, the impact of outsourcing on the politics of English and education can be clearly seen through the rapid growth of one important type of outsourcing, the Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO), “one of the fastest growing industries in Asia” (Forey & Lockwood, 2007: 309). BPO as an economic minefield is undeniable: “The Philippine economy is gradually on the rise, largely driven by its business process outsourcing, industry and construction sectors” (Oxford Business Group, 2015b). The industry covers a wide range of services such as back

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office functions, support services, and customer services, with the Philippines taking a fair share of the call center work of banks, outbound sales and travel agencies and other English-using firms. Called the “newest sunshine industry in the country” (Alava, 2006, p. 1) because of its contributions to the economy, its success has been “attributed to qualities of its workforce, government support and strong industry associations” (Lee, Vári-Kovács, Yu, & Lall, 2014: 9). Thus, BPO has made significant impact on the direction of educational planning in the country, such as curricular content and language-in-education policy and practice. We see this across all levels of educational provision. For example, we see this in the day-to-day practical complexities in the use of languages in education, such as the expulsion in 2013 of three high school Ilokano students for violating their school’s English-Only policy by speaking their own local language in the school premises (Tupas, 2015). This highlights more concretely the daunting challenges of redemptive language policymaking which attempts to address colonially-induced educational inequalities due to the imposition of non-local languages as languages of instruction. This recent case of expulsion is justified on grounds that the school has an English-Only policy to which the students and their parents agreed to respect and obey, but a closer analysis of the broader discourse surrounding the policy would show subtle hatred towards the mother tongues. Speaking the vernacular, in the school’s handbook, lands in a list of misbehaviours which include littering and men wearing rings (Tupas, 2015). The point of interest here is not so much that local languages are devalued as languages of teaching and learning, but that this happened at a time when the entire nation was supposedly moving towards addressing age-old educational and social inequalities through the mother tongues. Dawe (2014) insightfully claims that while MTB-MLE is indeed a laudable social project, it really “should not be considered a concerted effort to place local languages on the same level as English and Filipino” (Dawe, 2014: 62). The BPO industry itself, with its profit-driven and neoliberal economic discourses and practices, has been immensely responsible for the perpetuation of enduring policies and ideologies about English in the schools, thus helping undermine the inroads made in MTB-MLE. This was the context of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s speech in 2002 when she urged “our school system to produce and produce” workers for the global market (in Lorente, 2012: 194, italics supplied). After all, “[t] he development of human capital and production of job-ready graduates is crucial to the growth of the Philippines” (Oxford Business Group, 2015a). Faced with acute shortage of a skilled talent pool, the BPO industry has in fact been recently actively turning to the academe (Tuazon, 2011) and the education ministry (McGeown, 2011) to expand the talent pool, for example to “incorporate hands-on call centre training into the curricula, to ensure that there are enough skilled applicants entering the job market” (McGeown, 2011). The recurring rhetoric in the BPO sector for the past decade or so has been that the English proficiency of Filipinos is perpetually declining, and the easy culprit has been the “growing importance of local languages and Tagalog”



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(Lee, Vári-Kovács, Yu, & Lall, 2014: 10). Thus, the government has responded to it by creating and institutionalising educational initiatives and programs that would supposedly reverse the decline in English language skills, such as the National English Proficiency Programme (NEPP) which specifically targets the teachers’ ‘subpar’ English language competence (Lee, Vári-Kovács, Yu, & Lall, 2014: 10). Since 2006, the government through the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) has spent over 1.3 billion pesos (or USD 30.6 million) mainly to train BPO ‘near-hires’ (or those failed in the recruitment process but were deemed trainable), most of whom are now employed in the industry. Another government-funded programme was launched in 2012, this time demonstrating the vulnerability of the educational curriculum to the desires of the market through the close relationship between the formal education sector and the BPO industry players themselves. This is the collaboration between the Commission on Higher Education and the Information Technology & Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) which introduces 15-unit electives in 17 state institutions of higher learning “tailored for…competencies” (p. 11) in information technology and business processing management (IT-BPM) to be reinforced by internship in an IT-BPM company. With the BPO industry actively working with the government and its relevant institutions to make school learning increasingly more targeted towards enhancing BPO-specific business and communication skills, “the Philippines can easily reassure investors and companies that rely on these BPOs, that they are getting their money’s worth” (MyVirtualWorkforce, 2015). Therefore, framing English and education in purely economistic and profit-driven terms can help explain not only the strong resistance to the increased and legitimised use of the mother tongues in education but, most especially, the purportedly ideologically neutral stand of those who oppose MTB-MLE while campaigning for the so-called (re)strengthening of English in the schools. On the contrary, what we have seen is that the outsourcing neoliberal discourse of English and education is a silent killer of MTB-MLE: it literally and figuratively silences pupils who speak their mother tongues in school without showing open hatred towards these local languages. The core argument of MTBMLE – that learners learn most effectively if taught in their mother tongues or in the languages they are most comfortable in – is glossed over in favour of the more enticing and reassuring discourse of English as ‘market English’ (Narkunas, 2005: 29): “English as disinterested capital—a form of value, knowledge, or ‘human skill’ that merely responds to the ‘call of the market’”.

5.4 The outsourcing discourse of MTB-MLE The preceding section hopefully has helped unpack the broad context of questions about the relevance and desirability of MTB-MLE in the midst of the recent upsurge of outsourcing demands around the world, and most specifically in the Philippines. At

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the start of the chapter, we noted how many people, including teachers, question the utility of MTB-MLE in the context of intensifying pursuits of capital and profit through ‘new’ sites and sources of capital accumulation such as the global phenomenon of outsourcing. Outsourcing has taken on a network of discourses and ideologies which reaffirm the neutrality of English and repackage it as a kind of market English which brings about economic prosperity to both the nation and to individual Filipinos. In other words, while the argument that learning is most effectively acquired through the use of the mother tongues as languages of instruction has remained uncontested, this same argument has been overwhelmed by market-driven discourses of English. However, in this section we expand this proposition further by highlighting the fact that MTB-MLE itself has also been caught up in the same web of market-driven, outsourcing discourses and ideologies such that the mother tongues are also viewed, just like English, as some kind of ‘market languages’ necessary in producing multilingual Filipinos equipped with specialised skills for the global market. MTBMLE’s fundamental argument that multilingualism or linguistic diversity is not a problem but a resource, to use the words of Petrovic (2005) who writes about a similar problem with bilingual education discourses in the United States, “holds not so hidden dangers to the extent that it helps to further the neoliberal mindset” (Petrovic, 2005: 396). To put it in another way, the language-as-resource discursive strategy deployed by many proponents of MTB-MLE, perhaps partly as a way to allay fears that this mother tongue-based educational project does not produce globally competitive citizens, “appeals to neoliberal economic forces to promote cultural pluralism and prop up language diversity” (Petrovic, 2005: 400). In other words, while English reasserts itself in MTB-MLE through market-driven discourses which subtly aid the perpetuation of people’s hatred towards the mother tongues, MTB-MLE itself has also been responsible in confining the role of the mother tongues to being economic or pragmatic resources necessary for the re-skilling of Filipinos towards market profitability and utility. MTB-MLE, in this sense, serves as an ideological accomplice to the remaking of young people as neoliberal subjects who are not just “units of economic productivity” (McMillin, 2006: 236) but also “people who alter their routines and rhythms to partake of the benefits of the global market” (McMillin, 2006: 236) through the country’s educational infrastructures. In its current form, for example, MTB-MLE in the country is limited to Kindergarten and the first three years of primary education, even if both national and international literature convincingly argues that mother tongue-based instruction will yield significant results if implemented in at least the first six years of formal education. A mother tongue transition programme is envisioned (although still vaguely implemented) for Primary 4 through Primary 6 to prepare students for English and Tagalog-based Filipino (the national language) as languages of instruction in the secondary level. This has led to what Nolasco (2013) describes as a ‘castration’ of MTBMLE, where many legal loopholes are introduced through insertions of a word of a phrase to give MTB-MLE critics enough space to displace the mother tongues from their



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legally protected place in basic education and reinsert the two dominant languages as and when there is an opportunity to do so. Thus, government-initiated languagein-education policy, despite broad pronouncements of it being transformative and learner-focused, is only “MTB-MLE in name” (Nolasco, 2013). Justifying MTB-MLE as transitional makes the mother tongues essentially subservient to the narrower needs of education. Critics of MTB-MLE have pretty much given up on the use of mother tongues as the primary languages of education in lower primary education, but that is because they have recast firmly the discursive terms of the debate: yes, mother tongues are the most effective languages of learning, but their ultimate role is to scaffold young students towards education and training in English and the national language. The MTB-MLE, and the law that accompanies it, is not “designed to elevate the regional languages to an equal level as much as it is to increase the proficiency of English and Filipino” (Dawe, 2014: 73). However, it should be enough to produce marketable Filipino workers who are “multi-lingual, skilled, valuable, effective, sought-after, successful and the country’s pride” (TESDA in Lorente, 2012: 194) as envisioned by the government’s Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA in Lorente, 2012: 194). MTB-MLE, in other words, is very much implicated in the building of English-speaking but multilingual workers to serve the demands of the global market (Heller, 2010).

5.5 Conclusion In essence, this chapter is about “worldviews of languages in societies and their effects on language planning and policies” (Petrovic, 2005: 396). The ‘worldviews’ here refer to market-driven and neoliberal ideologies which underpin people and institutions’ views of languages and which, in the context of the Philippines at least, have framed language-in-education policies and practices. In this sense, outsourcing as one of the country’s key economic engines today incriminates language and education in the country, most especially the most recent experiment with the use of mother tongues as languages of education. The vision of MTB-MLE is no doubt profound and transformative – to provide more young Filipinos access to quality education because of data-driven arguments about the superiority of the mother tongues as languages of learning. However, such a vision is increasingly undermined by inequalities of multilingualism which embed the official use of mother tongues in schools. First, neocolonial hatred towards local languages connives with neoliberal discourses about the necessity of English as the language of the global market. English may have been displaced as a primary language of instruction in basic education but its symbolic and material power is persistently perpetuated through the narrow view of language as a mere tool for the marketisation of education and, for that matter, for the Filipino body ready for global consumption. Second, MTB-MLE has somehow been hijacked by the outsourcing discourses as well, resulting in the propagation of

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the view of mother tongues as pragmatically useful languages in education because they pave the way for the “making” of English-using but ‘multilingual’ “Workers of the World” (Lorente, 2012: 183). What we see in this second point is what is typically ignored in language-in-education work: the problem with particular discourses that surround even the most visionary educational projects. Most of the time, scholars point to languages themselves – such as English – as the problem which needs to be addressed sidestepping the fundamental issue of thinking – or worldviews -- about languages. Transforming inequalities of multilingualism is extremely difficult, especially now that we have seen that deep-rooted neoliberal and market-driven discourses and practices infiltrate practically all of social life today. Neoliberalism, according to Harvey (2007: 23), has “become hegemonic as a mode of discourse and has pervasive effects on ways of thought and political-economic practices to the point where it has become incorporated into the commonsense way we interpret, live in, and understand the world”. Thus, it is not difficult to understand why MTB-MLE is held hostage by the same hegemonic thinking about how the world works – or should work. In the words of Lorente, writing specifically about the Philippines as a “labor brokerage state” (Lorente, 2012: 185), the country has wholeheartedly embraced the logic of the market and the neoliberal thinking that goes with it, and this can be seen in “how language has been and is being mobilized as a resource” (Lorente, 2012: 185, italics supplied) in order to make Filipinos globally competitive. However, the endemic and crushing inequalities of multilingualism are not good reason to ignore them; in fact, MTB-MLE must confront these inequalities squarely if it is to succeed in ameliorating the lives of many disadvantaged Filipinos through literacy development in the local languages. One way to do this is to reconceptualise teacher education: instead of merely focusing on day-to-day pedagogies in MTB-MLE classrooms where some teachers, like the one in the beginning of this chapter, harbor subtle hatred towards the mother tongues, we should also strive towards articulating and clarifying teacher education, especially in teacher education. Trueba and Bartolomé, for example, strongly contend that “the need for clarity of political beliefs, practices, and commitments is as important as the actual pedagogical strategies used in instruction” (Trueba & Bartolomé, 2000: 278). We should “‘name’ ideology for what it is” (Trueba & Bartolomé, 2000: 280) which, in the case of our chapter, means unpacking our worldviews about languages as framed by contemporary discourses drawn from dominant political and economic thinking and practices. More often than not, we delink our views about languages from broader issues and discourses that circulate in society, thus the role of teacher ideology is to draw the link and make us all critically aware of how these issues and discourses do in fact shape our daily work as teachers. The success of redemptive or visionary language-in-education projects which aim to address social inequalities and cultural marginalisation depends on how well these projects are able to confront head-on “fundamental concepts that become so deeply embedded in commonsense understandings that they are taken



References 

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for granted and beyond question” (Harvey, 2007: 24). The teacher’s remark about the dumbing effect of the use of the mother tongues as languages of learning does, indeed, rest on so many fundamental beliefs which have remained unquestioned and, thus, dangerous.

References Aghion, P., & Howitt, P. 1990. A model of growth through creative destruction. Working Paper No. 3223. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Agrawal, V., & Farrell, D. 2003. Who wins in offshoring. McKinsey Quarterly, 36-53. Alava, A. S. 2006. Industry report: The problem of sustainable competitive advantage in Philippine call centers. Philippine Management Review, 13, 1-20. Bhagwati, J., Panagariya, A., & Srinivasan, T.N. 2004. The muddles over outsourcing. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(4), 93-114. Chan, D.K.K. 2008. Revisiting post-colonial education development: 21 reflections on some critical issues. Comparative Education Bulletin, 11, 21-36. Clott, C.B. 2004. Perspectives on global outsourcing and the changing nature of work. Business and Society Review, 109(2), 153-170. Dawe, C. J. 2014. Language governmentality in Philippine education policy. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 29(1), 61-77. Evensky, J. 1993. Retrospectives: Ethics and the invisible hand. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 7(2), 197-205. Flores, N. 2013. The unexamined relationship between neoliberalism and plurilingualism: A cautionary tale. TESOL Quarterly, 43(3), 500-520. Forey, G., & Lockwood, J. 2007. “I’d love to put someone in jail for this”: An initial investigation of English in the business processing outsourcing (BPO) industry. English for Specific Purposes, 26, 308-326. Gregory, D. 2004. The colonial present. Blackwell, Oxford, United Kingdom. Hamilakis, Y. 2005. Whose world and whose archaeology? The colonial present and the return of the political. Archaeologies, 1(2), 94-101. Harvey, D. 2007. Neoliberalism as creative destruction. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 610(1), 21-44. Heller, M. 2010. The commodification of language. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39, 101-114. Kiefer, D., & Rada, C. 2013. Profit maximising goes global: the race to the bottom. Working Paper, University of Utah, Department of Economics, No. 2013-05. Lee, A., Vári-Kovács, Z., Yu, S. Q., & Lall, A. 2014. Business process outsourcing in the Philippines. Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy – Microsoft Case Studies Series on Information Technology, Public Policy and Society. Singapore: Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Levy, D. L. 2005. Offshoring in the new global political economy. Journal of Management Studies, 42(3), 685-693. Lorente, B. 2012. The making of “Workers of the World”: Language and labor brokerage state. In A. Duchene & M. Heller (Eds.), Language in late capitalism: Pride and profit. New York: Routledge. 183-206. McGeown, K. 2011. The Philippines: The world’s hotline. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc. com/news/business-14149615.

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McMillin, D. C. 2006. Outsourcing identities: Call centres and cultural transformation in India. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(3), 235-241. Metters, R. 2008. A typology of offshoring and outsourcing in electronically transmitted services. Journal of Operations Management, 26, 198-211. MyVirtualWorkforce. 2015. BPOs and the importance of English communication skills in the Philippines. Retrieved from http://www.myvirtualworkforce.com/au/bpos-importance-englishcommunication-skills-philippines/ Nabea, W. 2009. Language policy in Kenya: Negotiation with hegemony. The Journal of Pan African Studies, 3(1), 121-137. Narkunas, J. P. 2005. Capital flows through language: Market English, biopower, and the World Bank. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 28-55. Nolasco, R. M. D. 2013. ‘Castrated’ MTB-MLE. Retrieved from http://opinion.inquirer.net/61025/ castrated-mtb-mle?PageSpeed=noscript. Oxford Business Group. 2015a. The Philippine government works to implement its K-12 programme while raising educational standards. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup. com/overview/philippine-government-works-implement-its-k-12-programme-while-raisingeducational-standards Oxford Business Group. 2015b. The report: The Philippines 2015. Retrieved from http://www. oxfordbusinessgroup.com/philippines-2015 Pennycook, A. 2002. English and the discourses of colonialism. London and New York: Routledge. Petrovic, J. E. 2005. The conservative restoration and neoliberal defenses of bilingual education. Language Policy, 4, 395-416. Piekkari, R., Welch, D. E., & Welch, L. S. 2014. Language in international business. Gloucestershire & Massachusetts: Edward Elgar. Ramanathan, V. 2005. The English-vernacular divide: Postcolonial language politics and practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Stefanova, B. M. 2006. The political economy of outsourcing in the European Union and the EastEuropean enlargement. Business and Politics, 8(2), 1-45. Tabb, W. K. 2003. Race to the bottom. In S. Aronowitz & H. Gautney (Eds.), Implicating Empire: Globalization and resistance in the 21st century world order. New York: Basic Books. 151-158. Trueba, E., & Bartolomé, L. 2000. Beyond the politics of schools and the rhetoric of fashionable pedagogies: the significance of teacher ideology. In E. Trueba & L. Bartolomé (Eds.), Immigrant voices: In search of educational equity. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 277-292. Tupas, R. 2008. Bourdieu, historical forgetting, and the problem of English in the Philippines. Philippine Studies, 56(1), 47-68. Tupas, R. 2015. Inequalities of multilingualism: Challenges to mother tongue-based multilingual education. Language and Education, 29(2), 112-124. Tuazon, J.M. 2011, July 20. BPO industry turns to academe to fill talent pool. GMA News. Retrieved from http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/226892/economy/bpo-industry-turns-toacademe-to-fill-talent-pool.

Mira Al Hussein, Christina Gitsaki

6 Foreign language learning policy in the United Arab Emirates: Local and global agents of change In an effort to highlight the multitude of local and global forces that can facilitate and shape foreign Language Learning Policy, this chapter provides a historical exploration of foreign language policies in a rather idiosyncratic context, that of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country where the indigenous locals are the minority and where the rulers of the country have embraced the global as a means to empower the local and usher the country in the era of modernisation and globalisation. English language teachers/experts and institutions have long been welcomed to the UAE to empower the nation in its quest of constructing a knowledge-based economy and becoming a regional and world leader in education, although recently with the advent of the Arab Spring, a discontent with the English language and its hegemony at the expense of the Arabic language has been evident in the region. This chapter looks into the agents, processes and causes of the rise of English in formal education in the UAE and its struggle to survive the current political climate.

6.1. Introduction The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the Gulf Arab countries. The UAE comprises seven Emirates (i.e., Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujeirah, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah, and Um Al Quain) and as a country it has witnessed an incredible transformation from being primarily a pearl-trading economy to being an oil-producing economy, and now a global player in business and tourism over the past three decades. This development to an economic giant in the region has witnessed an influx of migrants in the country where a recent census (2010) found that Emiratis comprise only 11.5% of the estimated 8.25 million people living in the UAE (see www.dubaifaqs.com/ population-of-uae.php). In order to meet the demands of this rapid modernisation and globalisation, the UAE has long implemented educational policies that actively promote bilingualism among its citizens. Today, the ability to speak English is critical for all Emiratis and expatriates alike in the UAE as the country is home to over 200 nationalities from across the globe. The proliferation of English as a second language in the UAE has undergone a number of phases of growth and suppression fuelled by explicit but also hidden societal, political and cultural agendas. This chapter delves into the past and present of educational policies in the Arab Gulf and the UAE and provides a critical perspective of the endogenous and exogenous forces that helped shape the current foreign language policy in the UAE. Mira Al Hussein, Christina Gitsaki, Zayed University, United Arab Emirates

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6.2 The establishment of formal education in the Arab Gulf Formal education and the teaching of foreign languages are not new, post-colonial phenomena in the Arab Gulf. The traditional institutions of the kuttabs “were the precursors of the modern elementary schools” (El-Sanabary, 1991: 12) in the Gulf, wherein students memorised the Qur’an and were taught basic arithmetic and literacy by men who were known as mutaw’as; men of religion (lit. “men who were made to submit to God”). Formal schooling as we know it today, and contrary to what is commonly known, was introduced to the then integrated geographical region of the Arab Gulf between 1875 and 1920 by the Ottoman Turks in the western region of modern day Saudi Arabia (El-Sanabary, 1991). These schools instructed students in Turkish, and catered mainly to the male children of Turkish civil servants posted in the area, as well as the children of the local wealthy Arabs (El-Sanabary, 1991). Turkish was viewed as a foreign language, despite being the language of the governing dynasty that ruled over the Arab world. As such, the restrictive nature of the Turkish schools that opened up in the area, admitting pupils based on criteria of ethnicity and wealth lingered in the psyche of the Arab masses, who may have regarded these schools as vehicles of discrimination and exclusivity as they catered to the privileged fractions of society. In attempting to contextualise the history of formal education in the UAE, it is important to examine the relationship between the British Empire and its former protectorates, and the diffusion of knowledge, systems and policies from the ‘centre’ to the ‘periphery’. Given the absent interest of the British to invest in the development of its protectorates along the Arabian coastline, much of the capital poured into the development of education came from local merchants (Davidson, 2008), who imported models of formal schooling along with their staff from other Arab countries that were directly or indirectly colonised by the British, such as Palestine, Egypt, and Jordan. The relationship between the empire (centre) and its formal colonies (periphery) reflected political and economic interests that did not stretch farther to encompass the Trucial States, whose economic importance until the 1960’s laid merely in its strategic geographical location along the trade routes, connecting Britain to India. Enamoured by the scientific advancement of Britain, its political supremacy and economic dominance, the Arab populace may have conceived specific images of British systems of inculcation that were able to produce the successful agents of the empire. As Whitehead (1988: 215) stated: Most colonial schooling certainly mirrored schooling in Britain, but there is ample evidence to suggest that this was more a reflection of local demand on part of the indigenous peoples themselves, than an indication of any deliberate British policy to colonise the indigenous intellect.

A similar argument is put forth by Strinati (1995) (cited in Sweeting & Vickers, 2007) who suggested that dominated groups tend to accept the ideas, values and authority



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of the dominant group due to the widespread belief that knowledge produced in the West is superior, and the only way towards advancement is to emulate Western systems of knowledge-production. Therefore, a comparison between the particular centre (i.e., Britain) and the outlier-periphery (i.e., the UAE) is prevalent in the following sections of this chapter, often highlighting the nature of the cultural influence of Britain on the UAE. It is also worth noting that knowledge consumption from the centre was not limited to the English language, nor was it confined to the replication of systems, models and policies of education, as more officers from the UAE were trained at the prestigious Sandhurst Military Academy than from any other country outside of Britain (BBC, 2014). Historically speaking, formal schooling is an evolutionary by-product of formal exclusivity that has appealed to the masses in the West, where it originated in its current form. A wealth of literature that seeks to explain the expansion of mass schooling in the developed countries often links the phenomenon of mass schooling to the evolution of social needs and problems. It is thought that formal schooling expanded in society either to solve problems of social integration or to maintain the dominance of the privileged class in society (Meyer, Ramirez, & Soysal, 1992). Despite the existence of forms of mass schooling prior to the industrial revolution in Western Europe (Boli, Ramirez, & Meyer, 1985; Sosyal & Strang, 1989), it is likely that the economic benefit in the function of mass schooling as an instrument of socialisation was conceived during the period of mass industrialisation. Formal schooling may have gained wide acceptance due to it serving as a preparatory ground for factory work, as it was believed that “the social relations of the school would replicate the social relations of the workplace, and thus help young people adapt to the social division of labour” (Bowels, 1971: 129). Industrialisation, it can be argued, has contributed to deexclusifying schooling, such that it created a link between education and individual economic growth. The correlation between economic activity and the rise of mass education and literacy rates in 18th century Britain is evident as the dissemination of practical and literary skills in schools seemed to have propelled the wheel of industrialisation and economic growth (West, 1978). Davidson (2008) examined a similar correlation between the growth of economic activities in the Arab Gulf—namely the pearling industry that brought certain merchants to prominence, thus enabling them to exercise considerable political power and influence through the financing of public projects— and the establishment by wealthy patrons of schools that were mainly staffed by Arab expatriates, offering subjects such as basic mathematics, geography and history. In addition to the economic catalyst, mass education was fostered by religious groups, who had provided the ideological and organisational foundation for a national mass education system in Europe, insofar as their existence legitimised the authority of governments and emphasised a national identity for the members of these religious groups (Sosyal & Strang, 1989). Analogously, the transition from the kuttabs to formal schooling in the UAE was aided by the acknowledged bearing of these religious schools,

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whose formality and relevance were recognised by the local population. Hence, formal schooling may have appeared to be a natural transitory process through which the kuttabs were modified and reformed to respond to the changing socioeconomic conditions at that time, as opposed to being foreign, transplanted models. Thus, a number of formal, post-kuttab schools started operating in the UAE in the first few decades of the 20th century, the earliest of which were the Al-Tatweerya School (1907) in Sharjah, and Al-Ahmadiya School (1912) in Dubai. These schools, along with a few others, were the institutions under which most of the “UAE’s first generation of postBritish rulers” were educated (Davidson, 2008: 636). However, Boyle (2012) states that the 1940’s were characterised by what Schneider (2003), (cited in Boyle, 2012), refers to as “marginal bilingualism” between the elite merchant and ruling classes, whereby functional skills in English were picked up through professional contact, in addition to the growing trend of sending male children of wealthy merchants to India for an education (Boyle, 2012). Davidson (2008) discussed the establishment of an Education Department by the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid, in 1958 upon his succession; a venture that served to shift the power of knowledge-dissemination from the hands of the wealthy merchants, whose endowments financed the earlier schools, to a state-sponsored apparatus of legitimation and grounding nationalism. Sosyal and Strang view the consolidation of schooling into nationally controlled schools as a political shift towards the establishment of a nation-state: The creation of educational systems has often been described as central to the state’s nation building. Its mass character brings the entire population under the aegis of the state as members of the national polity and prepares them to undertake the roles necessary to enhance the external power of the state. In this context, education becomes a duty as much as a right. (Sosyal & Strang, 1989: 279)

According to Davidson (2008), that is when English was first introduced in the national curriculum, and with the discovery of oil and the diversification of occupational needs, the importance of formal schooling increased. The expansion of education and the establishment of various institutions in the UAE were certainly aided by foreign investment in the education sector, often to cater to specific groups. The Shah of Iran, for instance, had established an Iranian school in Dubai to provide education to a large number of children belonging to the city’s well-established Iranian merchant community. A number of wealthy Indians had also invested in local education by establishing schools that catered to the Indian population of Dubai (Davidson, 2008). The discovery of oil in Dubai in 1966 brought in many foreign workers, prompting Varkey to open the first private school that catered to the growing Indian community (Davidson, 2008). Today GEMS have 46 schools in the UAE offering a range of curricula such as British, American, and Indian. Boyle suggested that “the arrival of large numbers of English speakers coincided with the coming of wealth and an improved standard of living for the indigenous



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people,” which created a positive attitude towards the English language (Boyle, 2012: 320). Thus, English Language Teaching (ELT) gained a foothold in the region as a service industry created to respond to the increasing global demand for English. When the present day Ministry of Education in the UAE was formed in the 1970’s, English was initially introduced in Grade 7. English instruction was introduced in Grade 4 in the 1980’s and in Grade 1 in the 1990’s (Layman, 2011). Furthermore, English was established as the language of instruction in federal institutions of tertiary education in the UAE. In the late 1980’s, the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) were established as the second set of federal institutions providing post-secondary education to UAE nationals in English, which diverged from the existing model of the UAE University that had initially taught almost exclusively in Arabic, but has since revised its policy on the language of instruction (Findlow, 2006).

6.3 The rise of English in the UAE The history of taught foreign languages in the Arab Gulf intersected with the cultural and political encounters in the region that had come under the rule of the non-Arab Ottoman Empire, eventually transitioning to British protectorship. However, English as a taught language did not set foot in the region with the coming of the British; rather it was the missionary schools that were sanctioned by the Ottoman Empire. The mission schools secured permission to operate schools in areas with Christian populations, gradually extending their outreach by establishing schools that were not exclusive to any religious groups. The first one in the Gulf was a school for girls founded in Bahrain in 1892 by the “Arabian Mission, an affiliate of the Protestant American missionaries” (El-Sanabary, 1991: 14) followed by other schools in the region for boys and girls. The non-exclusivity of these schools could have flourished had it not been for their emphasis on teaching Bible studies which resulted in the local people viewing these schools as surreptitious offshoots of colonialism, despite their English-language offerings that had appealed to the elites (ibid.). The proliferation of English in the Arab Gulf had for a lengthy period of time been wrought by the shifting political interests, and dominated by economic needs. ELT policies and the mushrooming of ELT centres in the region can perhaps be traced back to the change in the political direction of ELT-providing countries, particularly Britain, following the independence of the Arab Gulf States from British protectorate rule. Prior to that, contact between Britain and the populations of the Arabian Gulf was negligible, and no British officials were stationed in the area until the early 1930s, following the construction of a landing strip for the Imperial Airways in Sharjah (Boyle, 2012). Although incidents of contact between British officials and indigenous populations increased, communication often took place in Arabic; a language the British ensured their appointed officials to the Gulf were fluent in (ibid.). The growing geopolitical interests of the British in the Arab world, particularly the Arabian Gulf,

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and the need to maintain their monopoly on the trade routes, created a need for Britain to reach out and ‘converse’ with the populations of the Arab world through its BBC Arabic broadcast, which was inaugurated in 1938 (BBC, 2007). The first direct penetration of the British Council in the Gulf had started with the establishment of the English Language Centre at the King Abdul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia in 1975, expanding later to other Gulf States. The opening of the first British Council office in Dubai was not all that well-received by the federal government of Abu Dhabi, which may have been influenced by the prevailing negative sentiments towards the perceived “cultural imperialism” flagshipped by the British Council at the time. In an attempt to appease the leadership, the British Council started offering Arabic courses to expatriate communities in the UAE (see British Council website). In recent years, the influx of migrant workers to the UAE, with South Asians constituting the majority of the migrant population, has brought a varying set of languages and cultures to the region (Boyle, 2012). Consequently, this has created a hindrance to communication between the growing communities of expatriates from different backgrounds. Thus, the federal government of the UAE took the initiative to cater to the growing non-Arab communities by establishing the first English-language radio station, Dubai FM 92, in 1972 (Hilotin, 2002). This was followed by the launching of Channel 33, a Dubaibased TV station that aired foreign programmes, mostly in English, along with Abu Dhabi’s 2nd Channel (Ayish, 2013), and the publishing of Khaleej Times in 1978, the first English language daily newspaper in the country. The move towards regulating media through provision may have stemmed from a post-colonial mistrust, and a pressing need to control the content of information produced and disseminated in English. Nonetheless, the demand for English in the UAE has profited greatly from the agency of government and its role in propagating the idea that in order for the country to reap the benefits of globalisation and fully participate in the global market economy, it is essential to train the populace to speak the language of international business. Clarke (2007), drawing from the literature of Findlow (2006) states that the UAE has “accommodated globalisation” by incorporating English within its policy of linguistic dualism that views English as the language of “business, modernity, and internationalism,” thus relegating Arabic to the constrained domain of “religion, tradition, and localism” (Clarke, 2007: 584).

6.4 English schooling: Private and exclusive If integration was the purpose of mass schooling and formal education, differentiation was the principle behind private schooling worldwide. In Britain, exclusivity in its different forms continued to appeal to the social elite, whose orientation toward private education may have sustained the idea of the availability of better education that can accelerate upward social mobility and the accumulation of wealth. In the Gulf, private schooling is synonymous to more English and, in turn, more English



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entails better career prospects and social status. Such views are indicative of the widely spread perception that private schools attract students from affluent families and provide the breeding round for networking with the elites. Unequal access to ELT programmes through differentiation in private offerings that are only affordable to a certain fraction of society, argues Gaffey (2005), plays a major role in the reproduction of existing social structures and facilitates the maintenance of social inequalities. Therefore, English has been marketed throughout the Arab Gulf region, and perhaps globally, as a branded commodity, which has increased the demand for it, transforming the language into a marker of status and class within certain societies. Although this phenomenon has not been adequately examined in the many studies focusing on the status of ELT in the Gulf region, many reports have alluded to the evident preference of many parents in the UAE to sending their children to private schools where the level of English taught is relatively stronger (KHDA, 2011; Kenaid, 2011; Nazzal, 2014; Pennington, 2015a). Perhaps one of the many reasons why parents prefer private English schools has to do with the perceived prestige that the English “brand” bestows on its consumers. Schneider (2003: 246) stated that: For the indigenous population a command of English gradually turns into an asset, opening roads to higher status or specific commercial options. Thus, knowing English becomes an ability, which sets off an indigenous elite; and, therefore, a process leading to a positive attitude towards the use of English is stimulated. The identity of the English-knowing locals is enriched in a fashion not unsimilar to that of the English immigrants they associate with: certainly their selfperception at this stage remains that of members of the local community, but at the same time their ability to communicate with the Europeans opens their eyes to aspects of another worldview and gives them an extra edge of experience and competitiveness within their own group.

6.5 English language policy in the UAE Today the UAE education system is regulated by both local (i.e., Educational Zones, Educational Councils) and federal (i.e., Ministry of Education) entities. Public K-12 schools accept only local Emirati students and the curriculum is delivered in Arabic while English is taught as a foreign language. Once Emirati students graduate from high school, they have to participate in a federal English exam, the Common Education Proficiency Assessment (CEPA), coordinated by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR). Students who score 180+ on their CEPA examination (equivalent to the B2 level of proficiency on the Common European Framework of Reference ‒ CEFR) can enter directly into the undergraduate programmes of one of the Federal Higher Education Institutions where Emiratis receive free education and the curriculum is delivered in English. Students who score less than 180 on their English CEPA examination are required to attend an intensive English language course in order to improve their English language proficiency. This academic bridge course is

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delivered by the Federal Higher Education Institutions and Emirati students can exit the course by scoring 180+ CEPA or a Band 5+ on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Apart from the Federal Higher Education Institutions, the UAE has 76 Private Institutions of higher education were the medium of instruction is English. According to the Bureau of Statistics, in 2013-2014, there were 35,692 Emiratis studying in private universities in the UAE (see uaestatistics.gov.ae), while every year over 15,000 Emirati students across the country take the IELTS test in an effort to meet the requirements for entering one of the higher education institutions (federal or private) in their home country. In present day UAE, English language proficiency has become for Emiratis a pre-requisite to pursuing higher education in their own country. Despite the increasing emphasis on English language teaching and learning across all educational sectors, Emirati students’ performance on standardised exams (both local and international) has been poor. In 2013, only 20% of Emirati high school graduates achieved the required English proficiency threshold for entry into undergraduate degree programmes (Gjovic & Lange, 2013). This was an improvement from the previous year where only 16 per cent scored 180+ on the CEPA exam. In fact, during the first ten years of the administration of the English CEPA exam, scores have steadily increased (see Table 6.1).

Tab. 6.1: Average CEPA-English score, by gender and overall (source: Gjovic & Lange, 2013: 4). Year

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Female

152.7

156.0

154.1

159.4

160.3

162.5

162.3

161.6

161.9

162.6

165.5

Male

147.4

149.1

147.5

154.3

155.8

157.9

158.3

157.5

157.5

158.1

161.0

Overall

150.8

153.4

151.6

157.3

158.5

160.5

160.6

159.9

160.0

160.7

163.5

However, Table 6.1 also shows that the average English language proficiency of Emirati high school graduates remains low (e.g., the descriptor for CEPA 160-169 is: emerging proficiency, conversational) and the CEPA administrators recommend a further 3-4 semesters of English study to reach the minimal level required for academic study. In an effort to cater not only for the growing expatriate community, but also for the English language needs of the Emirati students, private English medium schools have flourished. According to the Dubai Statistics Centre, in 2010 nearly 55% of Emirati students attended private schools in Dubai (Layman, 2011), while Lewis (2009) reported 29% of Emirati families chose private education in Abu Dhabi. In 2012-2013 there were 225,659 Emirati students attending public schools across the UAE and a further 107,702 attending private schools and with each year the number of Emiratis in private schools is increasing (see uaestatistics.gov.ae). What was initially a state



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policy to introduce and emphasise English in the K-12 system through to the tertiary level soon became a national choice for the financially able. KHDA released a report in 2011 that examined the reasons why Emirati parents are increasingly opting to send their children to private schools. The report surveyed 75 parents in 10 different private schools in Dubai. Half of the surveyed parents indicated that private schools offered better quality learning, while 22 per cent pointed out that better English language instruction was a determining factor (KHDA, 2011).

6.6 English: A tool for inclusion or exclusion? English in present day UAE has the ability to resolutely admit or deny Emirati students access to college degrees through language admission tests, such as the IELTS. Despite the lowering of the admission scores required to enter university, many students continue to struggle with English throughout their years of study. A quick scan of the entry requirements of the three prominent federal institutions in the UAE (United Arab Emirates University, Higher Colleges of Technology, and Zayed University) clearly demonstrates that English proficiency, not Arabic, is listed as a necessary criterion to gain admission to a national, state-sponsored tertiary institution. However, the scores required for IELTS at the federal institutions (IELTS band 5.0) are generally lower than the scores accepted at other foreign universities in the country (American University in Dubai accepts an IELTS band 6.5, while New York University in Abu Dhabi requires an IELTS band 7.5). The discrepancy in the English proficiency requirements at the tertiary level is an extension of the public/private school question that was addressed above. On a federal level, this discrepancy has meant that an additional budget would be set annually to fund the English foundation programmes, which aim to develop and improve English language skills before students can commence their undergraduate degree studies. In addition to being a challenging requirement, the extra year or two spent in these pre-degree programmes cause students to feel indignant towards English. In an attempt to bridge the gap between the K-12 system, particularly in public schools, and higher education, national initiatives were launched to reform what was perceived to be an outdated model of learning in schools that depended on rote memorisation and uni-directional instructions. In 2007, the Madares Al-Ghad (Schools of the Future) were established as a response to a lengthy examination of the TIMMS and PISA results in which the UAE scored below international levels (Layman, 2011). The ensuing discussions at the decision-making level concluded that the problem lies within the inability of public schools to equip students with a functional level of English proficiency, disabling them from accessing a great deal of the world’s knowledge in science and technology. In an effort to raise the standards in Mathematics, Science and English the Madares Al-Ghad (MAG) were put into operation in 2007. The initiative aimed to promote “the use of English as the medium of instruction in the core subjects of mathematics and

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science, as well as in English” (Dubai School Inspections Bureau, 2009: 96). Initially a group of 47 schools from around the country were selected to participate in the MAG program and the Ministry of Education envisioned that the programme will be expanded to more schools. However after years in operation with moderate results, the program has remained largely stagnant. Another significant step towards establishing a school program to facilitate the acquisition of English took place in 2010, when the Abu Dhabi Educational Council (ADEC), the regulatory body responsible for public and private schools in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, launched the New School Model initiative to reform public schools in the UAE. Hundreds of native English-speakers were recruited to teach subjects of English, Mathematics and Science to students of Grade 1 through Grade 3, while Arabic-speakers would teach the subjects of Arabic, Islamic Studies and Social Studies (Ahmed, 2010). The programme is currently in its seventh year of operation but only in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Both these programmes represent a significant investment towards modernisation in schools and the provision of teaching approaches and resources that can enhance not just the acquisition of English but also education in general. However, to date there have not been any systematic evaluations of these programmes at the federal level and the Emirati students attending public schools continue to struggle with English language examinations. Small-scale studies (see Layman, 2011) show that the benefits of these bilingual immersion programmes have been limited in the few years of their operation.

6.7 Perceptions towards bilingualism in the UAE On a linguistic spectrum, the case of the UAE remains a unique one as observed by Moore-Jones (2015), who alluded to the interesting dichotomy between the professed linguistic identity of the country and the demographic reality that imposes a different linguistic dependency on and increases the demand for the use of English as a second language. It is often unclear whether the status of English in the UAE is one of an official second language or that of a foreign language whose learners could easily do without. In a 2008 poll published online by ArabianBusiness.com asking whether English should be adopted as an official language in the Gulf, an overwhelming 93% of the 1,021 respondents stated that English does have some place in the Gulf, while two-thirds felt it should be adopted as an official language (Bowman, 2008). The poll results are consistent with the results of a recent study conducted by O’Neill (2014) wherein 712 Emirati students at a federal university were asked, among other questions, to state their preference for a study language. The respondents were divided into sub-groups of those who came from an “Arabic-Medium” Public School (AMPuS) background, and those who have studied at “English-Medium” Private Schools (EMPrS). Although the majority of students (60.22%) stated a preference of



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being taught in both English and Arabic, an interesting sub-group figure shows that 68.65% of AMPuS preferred to be taught in both languages over 41.09% of EMPrs. That is, students who had been educated in the “Arabic-medium” public schools showed an overwhelming preference to be taught in both languages instead of just Arabic. While there were no EMPrS who chose to study ‘Only in Arabic’, 0.33% of AMPuS expressed interest in studying ‘Only in Arabic’, which is a starkly lower percentage in comparison to the 2.64% of AMPuS who wanted to study ‘Only in English’. Likewise, the percentage of students who chose ‘Mostly in English’ was higher in comparison to those who opted for ‘Mostly in Arabic’ (O’Neill, 2014). In an earlier study conducted in 2006, Findlow (2006) analysed 340 surveys of students from across the three federal higher education institutions in the UAE. The study reports similar attitudes towards learning in Arabic and English, where only 22% of students stated they preferred to be taught in Arabic, while 50% chose English, and a further 28% indicated their preference to be taught in both languages. Despite the evident preference of Emirati students towards learning in English, the national policy towards ELT has shifted from being receptive and welcoming to being cautious and often accusatory. This shift may be attributed to the constantly changing political landscape in the Arab world, which seems to directly impact policies in education. The significant rise in the number of Emirati students enrolling in private schools has curiously corresponded with growing sentiments that Arabic and national identity are at risk of being diluted by English, as English now seems to represent more than just a language that offers access to the global market. Pennycook (1994) examined the existence of a tension between two exogenous groups, which he referred to as the ‘Orientalists’, who celebrated the culture and languages of the natives while resisting local or ‘Anglicist’ demands for more English, because the former group viewed that access to the elitist English-speaking world would breed discontent and political disorder in the ‘colonies’. By extension, this view seems to be held by the political elite – native orientalists – who are attempting to limit access to English because of its perceived political overtones.

6.8 Political forces shaping UAE educational policies The political influence on educational policy and reform in the Gulf has had its precedent in 1938, when around 400 prominent merchants tried to reverse their economic decline following the collapse of the pearling industry by imposing reforms on the ruler (Davidson, 2008). The most significant reform to have come out of this wave of political disorder was the injection of government funds to support the education system and contribute to the re-opening of Dubai’s schools, many of which had to close down following the collapse of the pearling industry (Davidson, 2008). Despite its short-lived success, it could be argued that the said incident may have informed future government responses to political unrest, wherein education would

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become the first sector to be impacted, both negatively and positively, as a result of the need to restructure society. In the Arabian Gulf, however, political repression was used in conjunction with social reform. A better case to illustrate the impact of the political environment on education is the post-9/11 pressure under which many Arab countries, particularly in the Gulf, had come to address the issue of public schools that were blamed for cultivating a violent worldview that may have motivated the terrorist attacks (Chughtai, 2004). Suhail Karmani, an ELT professional and founder of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Islamia, stated that: After 9/11, there emerged a troubling view that teaching Arabic and Islam encouraged militant tendencies, whereas English was seen as promoting the values of freedom, tolerance, and democracy. Some Muslims will naturally feel that there is a conspiracy to destroy Arabic because of its obvious proximity to Islam. (Chughtai, 2004; Al Jazeera; Karmani, 2005)

Karmani was right in his predictions, as English was met with increased hostility following the Arab Spring.

6.9 English language teaching in the Arab Spring A recent surge in scepticism towards ELT, which has been blamed for usurping the position of Arabic as the official language in the UAE, has incidentally coincided with the changing political climate in the region. Although a scattered number of scholars had alerted to the regression of Arabic in the early years of the turn of the millennium (Al Jazeera, 2004; Al Bahill, 2007), the collective lamenting of the ailing state of Arabic has witnessed a strong recurrence in the UAE media in the recent years, particularly in the years following the Arab Spring which started in 2010. Headlines were worded in a way to explicitly incriminate English, or implicitly hint to an existing form of cultural imperialism that threatens to erode Arabic: “English proficiency comes at a cost,” (Naidoo, Gulf News, 2011); “English language threatens Arabic,” (Al Lawati, Gulf News, 2011); “Lessons in English in UAE schools ‘violation of constitution’, FNC told,” (Issa, The National, 2013); “English language ‘seducing’ UAE pupils” (Pennington, 2015b; The National, 2014). The topic of ELT took centre-stage in the UAE Federal National Council (FNC) agendas and discussions, as well as the recommendations made to the government. The help of the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment was enlisted in campaigning to preserve the Arabic language. Friday sermons appealed to the public by glorifying Arabic and linking its preservation to piety: “Preserve Arabic to achieve piety,” (Dajani, The National, 2013); “Arabic is the language of the Quran,” (Dajani, The National, 2014). Reports on the onslaught faced by Arabic due to the ‘infiltration’ of English has been lengthily reported and discussed in the print media, as well as



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the hashtag social media that chose to bring English to the forefront as one of the important reasons contributing to the potential loss of national identity and culture. An alarm-inducing report was recently published in the The National warning that Arabic is now at risk of becoming a second language in the UAE (Pennington, 2015b). The report quotes Dr. Muhamed Al Khalil, Director of Arabic Studies at New York University in Abu Dhabi, cautioning that by being taught in English, students essentially learn to internalise and subsequently reproduce acquired knowledge in its language of instruction, which will ultimately reduce Arabic to a foreign language (ibid.). The same idea was advocated by Anwaruddin (2011) in his article questioning what he perceives to be a hidden agenda in teaching English as a second language, whereby he states that “second language learners develop an empathy and fondness for the culture of the people who speak their target language (English) and that English teaching methods encourage learners to think like the native speakers” (p. 53), thus, hinting to the impending and eventual loss of culture and identity. The intertwined relationship between language and culture, and the embedded ‘cultural imperialism’ that transpires through language learning have been discussed at length in the works of Canagarajah (1999) and Phillipson, the latter of whom observes that this relationship “dates from a time when language teaching was indistinguishable from culture teaching, and when all learners of English were assumed to be familiarising themselves with the culture that English originates from and for contact with that culture” (Phillipson, 1992: 195). The hostility with which English has come to be viewed in the post-Arab Spring days is not unique to the UAE. McBeath (2013) remarks that the post-Arab Spring environment in neighbouring Oman has been characterised by a subtle form of defiance against symbols of cultural imperialism, namely the university’s English Language Centre that witnessed an unprecedented increase in absenteeism during the tumultuous political period following the Arab Spring. Canagarajah (1999) had theorised this phenomenon in stating that it is not possible, in fact, to isolate the classroom from the society, because the classroom is a nucleus, representative sample of the larger society. The swelling discontent with the perceived cultural imperialism and its linguistic extension in the post-Arab Spring period culminated in the introduction of a mandatory Emirati Studies course, taught in Arabic, to all students of public and private higher education institutions (The National, 2012).

6.10 Conclusion The history and current status of English Language Teaching in the UAE conflates exogenous and endogenous factors that continue to shape language policy in the country. The economic forces of globalisation have hastened the evolution of the relatively young country, positioning it as a major commercial hub in an otherwise chaotic region. In order to sustain its economic growth, the UAE leadership has

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focused on empowering nationals through providing them with tools of bilingualism by which to access global and regional markets. On the other hand, no language is ever skimmed of its cultural and political associations, and in the case of English, its not too distant link to its colonial patrons has lingered in the minds of periphery communities. The contested status of English in the UAE today is due to its complex ability— perceived or real—to alter the cognitive environment and behaviour of its speakers, who are constantly reminded that in speaking a language other than their native tongue, they are contributing to the loss of their national identity. Navigating the linguistic minefield of political identity has hampered the ability of decision-makers to adopt a consistent policy towards language learning, such that a quantifiable linguistic dualism has not been functionally and effectively achieved on a national level. It is not always possible to predict the direction to which language policy is geared in the country due to the constantly changing political environment in the region that continues to impact educational policies meant to cultivate a specific type of ‘good citizenship’.

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Anthony J. Liddicoat

7 National security in language-in-education policy Foreign language education has often been associated with questions of preserving national security and, when this happens, the inclusion of security as part of the agenda for language education brings particular ideologies into the articulation of policies. One argument found commonly in language policy focused on security is the idea that ensuring security requires that a society as a whole has an understanding and knowledge of those nations or other groups which pose possible security threats and language education is seen as a way to develop such understanding and knowledge. However, what is meant by knowledge and understanding of another can be constructed in different ways. This chapter will examine both general issues relating to language education policies relating to national security and also specific policy initiatives at particular historical moments during which security has been a key government concern. It will do this by examining two cases where language has been constructed as an issue for national security: Turkey, where Kurdish has been identified with terrorism, and the USA, where a lack of foreign language capability has been identified as a security problem. Language planning and policy is an attempt by nations or other actors to address perceived problems related to language and so national security is one possible domain for language planning and policy work. However, security itself has not commonly become the main focus of language planning and policy, although as Baldauf (2012) notes, language planning can be claimed to originate with Napoleon I’s need for a single language to manage his complex multilingual army. Thus, there can be seen to be an established military dimension for language planning. However, language planning for security intersects with, but is not identical with language planning in military contexts as such language planning often has a wider scope than security itself. For example, military language planning can be related to operational efficiency, as when language planning seeks to address problems of communication in multilingual forces or communicative needs of the military (e.g. Breugnot, 2014; Crossey, 2008; Spolsky, 2009). Studies respond more to questions of linguistic diversity in military forces rather than to ideas of security and how language constitutes security. Security itself is not primarily an issue of communication and language use but rather a discussion of contexts in which a threat is determined in relation to a particular state, and language becomes a part of security when it is perceived as contributing to that threat or as addressing the threat in some way. This issue is less studied than language use in military contexts (however see Liddicoat, 2008; Lo Bianco, 2008; Rajagopalan, 2008; Wenden, 2008). For language to be planned in Anthony J. Liddicoat, Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick.

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security contexts, language has to come to be seen as a problem that is directly related to security and as a result decision-making about language will influence the security of a particular state. This chapter will examine issues relating to language education policies relating to national security and also specific policy initiatives at particular historical moments during which security has been a key government concern. The discussion of general issues will examine the motivations for including language education within the specific focus of security. This will include a discussion of the ways that notions of threat are articulated to construct language as an element of the threat, the perceived role of language in creating, exacerbating or resolving threats and the ways in which language knowledge is mobilised to address threats. The chapter will begin by examining the idea of securitisation—the process through which something comes to be identified as consequential for security—as a way of understanding how language comes to be construed as a security problem. It will then examine two cases in which language has come to be securitised: Turkey, where Kurdish has been identified with terrorism, and the USA, where a lack of foreign language capability has been identified as a security problem. These two cases have been chosen because they represent very different contexts for understanding the relationship between language and security.

7.1 Security and language Security is essentially related to understandings of national survival (Williams, 2003). Language planning and policy becomes interrelated with security when they are associated with a perceived threat to national survival through an association of language with a threat to national soverignty or safety. Wæver (1998) refers to the process by which something comes to be designated as a threat as securitisation, which is a discursive accomplishment; something comes to be seen as a security threat as the result of the discursive construction of a particular act, group or phenomenon as a threat to the wellbeing of the state. Security or insecurity are therefore not objective conditions of threat or safety but rather they are discursively created ways of understanding a phenomenon (Balzacq, 2005). The designation of something as a threat warrants a particular way of responding, justifying the mobilisation of the maximum effort by the society to resolve or remove the threat. Thus, securitisation is both the discursive accomplishment of designating something as a threat and also the discursive accomplishment of a legitimate way of responding to the threat. When something is designated as a security threat, the state “moves a particular development into a specific area, and thereby claims a special right to use whatever means necessary to respond to block it” (Wæver, 1998: 55). Wæver argues in fact, that when something comes to be securitised it is moved beyond or taken out of its ordinary context and moved into a new context in which addressing the perceived threat becomes the sole consideration. In particular, responses to security involve a



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legitimisation of the use of force as a way to address the perceived threat (Donaldson, 2008). When language is associated with a threat then it becomes a part of the process of securitisation and at the policy level is removed from its ordinary domain into the realm of security. For language this would mean that language is moved from a context in which thinking about language is framed in terms of its use for communication, as its ordinary domain, and becomes associated with either the enactment of a threat or ways of responding to or reducing threat. The most commonly understood form of threat relates to military security, relating to threats to territorial integrity and possibilities of war or other forms of violent conflict (Buzan, Wæver, & de Wilde, 1998). In this context language comes to be seen as something which is associated with promoting or preventing such threats of violence (Liddicoat, 2008). While this form of security will be the main focus of the present chapter, when language is involved, military security may also come into relationship with other understandings of security. In particular, language questions may have connections with political security, in which threats are constructed in relation to government authority that stem from elements within the society itself and societal security in which the threat is constructed in terms of a risk to group identity from cultural flows, population movements or other societal phenomena.32 In terms of the relationship with language, political security may involves threats related to sub-state groupings that challenge state control, such as internal linguistic minorities (Anaid, 2014; Rajagopalan, 2008) while societal security may construct threats in relation to the presence of immigrant groups within the national space (Baele & Sterck, 2014; Huysmans, 1995; Messina, 2014).

7.2 Language and security in Turkish language policy In the Turkish context language has been securitised in order to address an internal conflict between the Turkish state and an ethnolinguistic minority, the Kurds. The language policies of the Turkish republic have not recognised Kurdish as a minority language. Initially, the lack of recognition of Kurdish was framed within a discourse of national identity and state building. Within this discourse, internal ethnic divisions were denied as creating divisions within Turkish identity and Kurds were considered as linguistically and culturally primitive Turks (Steinbach, 1996; Zeydanlıoğlu, 2012). Haig (2003) refers to the language policy of Turkey at this time as one of ‘invisibilisation’ and argues that, because language is the most salient marker of difference between Turks and Kurds, language was targeted most strongly in processes of assimilation. The process of making the Kurdish language invisible consisted centrally of avoiding reference to or acknowledgment of the existence of Kurdish as a language in all official

32 For a fuller discussion of the five ‘sectors’ of security see Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde (1998).

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public discourse. Initially, Turkish language planning did not specifically ban the use of Kurdish (Rumpf, 1985), which in any case would have required acknowledgement of the existence of the language, but instead followed a policy favouring Turkish as the only language of Turkey. However, the Turkish government from the 1980s began to ban the use of Kurdish in a number of public contexts, which ranged from the banning of Kurdish language printed media and the singing of folksongs in Kurdish to the replacement of place names of Kurdish origin with Turkish forms (Zeydanlıoğlu, 2012). This change occurred at a time when the Kurdish language had begun to be securitised in Turkish policy discourses. Following the coup of 1980, the new military government developed a stronger opposition to minority groups and introduced legislation to limit the use of minority languages. The 1982 constitution (Republic of Turkey, 1982)33 declared Turkish to be the language of all Turkish citizens and banned public use of “languages forbidden by law”, which were defined as languages which were not the first official language of a state recognised by Turkey (Haig, 2003). As Kurdish was not the language of any recognised state, it thus became a language forbidden by law, without its existence as an independent language being recognised. These language laws were overturned in 1991 and a more open period emerged in which Kurdish was granted some limited recognition but this recognition did not survive long. This prohibition is present in the Associations Law of 1983 (Republic of Turkey, 1983)34, which outlines legal requires for the establishment and operation of cultural, social and other societies. The act explicitly associates language with national integrity and bans associations which would have as their purpose: Dil, ırk, sınıf, din ve mezhep ayrımına dayanılarak nitelikleri Anayasada belirtilen Türkiye Cumhuriyetinin varlığını tehlikeye düşürmek veya ortadan kaldırmak [Threatening or destroying, on grounds of differences of class, race, language, religion or region, the existence of the Turkish Republic described in the Constitution] (Republic of Turkey, 1983, Section 5, 2).

Article 3 of the Turkish constitution describes Turkey as an indivisible entity with Turkish as its language (Türkiye Devleti, ülkesi ve milletiyle bölünmez bir bütündür. Dili Türkçedir [The Turkish State, with its territory and nation, is an indivisible entity. Its language is Turkish]). Thus linguistic and regional particularities have the status of threats to the indivisible nature of the republic. The law also prohibits the use of languages in most activities of associations: Tüzük ve diğer dernek mevzuatının yazımında ve yayınlanmasında, genel kurullarında, özel veya resmi, açık veya kapalı yer toplantılarında kanunla yasaklanmış dilleri [Languages forbid33 For an English translation see http://www.constitution.org/cons/turkey/turk_cons.htm. This translation has been used for the English versions in this text. 34 For an English translation see http://www.legislationline.org/documents/action/popup/id/5001. This translation has been used for the English versions in this text.



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den by law, in their statute or in the writing of any other of the association’s regulations or publications, in their general meeting, or in any of their private or official, open or closed meetings] (Republic of Turkey, 1983, Section 6,3).

The law therefore constrains the use of Kurdish as a language of community activity and constructs such use as an aspect of threat to Kurdish territorial integrity. Kurdish resistance to Turkish control and aspirations for an independent state have been a feature of the Turkish political scene since the formation of the Republic, although the strength of opposition has varied over time (Gülistan, 1996). Armed conflict between Kurdish groups and the Turkish state saw a resurgence from the 1980s, especially in campaigns led by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK). The PKK was designated as a terrorist organisation by the Turkish government and anti-terrorism laws were enacted to counter Kurdish military activity in 1991. In the early 1990s, the Kurdish region in the south-east was heavily militarised and a major military campaign was carried out destroying much of the infrastructure of the area. From the mid-1990s a securitisation discourse emerged around the Kurdish language in which claims of Kurdish linguistic identity were framed as a threat to national security because they were tantamount to separatism, that is, a threat to the geopolitical integrity of the state, that is the political security of Turkey (Buzan et al., 1998), and equated with terrorism, that is as a military threat (Muller, 1996). The situation can therefore be understood as an application of the one nation – one language ideology to an issue of national security (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2008), in which linguistic unity is equated with national stability and linguistic diversity with national disintegration. The language planning involved was largely operationalised under antiterrorism laws passed in 1991 (Republic of Turkey, 1991).35 Under this legislation, disseminating separatist propaganda was deemed to be a terrorist act: [da bu yöntemlere başvurmayı teşvik edecek şekilde propagandasını yapan kişi… cezalandırılır. [those who …make propaganda in connection with such organizations shall be punished] (Republic of Turkey, 1991, Article 7). This provision was adopted because such propaganda constituted a threat to the unity of the state (Gülistan, 1996). Such propaganda was very loosely interpreted; for example, Muller (1996) reports that including the mention of Kurds or Kurdish in a newspaper report could be understood as separatist propaganda (see also Section 6.3). These terrorist laws have been used as ways to prevent Kurdish language education in Turkey. Skutnabb-Kangas and Fernandes (2008) report a number of court cases from 2002 where supporters of Kurdish language education have been found guilty of terrorist offenses. These cases include teachers and union officials who were charged for speaking publically in favour of Kurdish language education for Kurdish children, Kurdish adolescents who were charged for demanding Kurdish language tuition, and students and parents who have asked for

35 For an English translation see http://www.refworld.org/docid/4c4477652.html.

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option Kurdish language courses. All of these have been charged with supporting or giving assistance to a terrorist organisation (i.e. the PKK). Thus, support for the language becomes constructed as support for a particular political agenda related to the ethnic group that uses the language and hence to the military actions that seek to realise that political agenda. Such cases are instances of language being removed from its normal field of activity and being brought into a new field, that of security (Wæver, 1998). As a result of language being securitised in such a way, types of action are made more legitimate against proponents of the language that would not be considered appropriate in the normal field of language, for example the instances of torture used against Kurdish language learners reported by Skutnabb-Kangas and Fernandes (2008). In the Turkish case, use of and support for the Kurdish language came to be portrayed as central to the prosecution of military conflict and thus as a form of enemy action. As such, support for Kurdish has come to be understood as a threat to Turkish territorial integrity and national identity and so has come into the ambit of military conflict. Since 2002 there have been a number of reforms in Turkey in the context of Turkey’s bid for European Union membership that have given some space to Kurdish in education and in the media but these reforms are of very limited scope. Kurdish may be taught in schools, but only in private schools, and only to people who have completed eight years of education in the Turkish school system. Teachers of Kurdish must be native speakers of Turkish and must come from within Turkey, preventing teachers qualified in countries such as Sweden or Germany, where Kurdish is a recognised language and is taught in some schools and universities from working as teachers of Kurdish. In addition, the curricula may not include cultural or historical content (Haig, 2003; Zeydanlıoğlu, 2012). In reality however even these limited reforms have remained superficial and are rarely implemented (Grosjean, 2009; Özcan, 2013). In fact Skutnabb-Kangas and Fernandes (2008) report a number of investigations and sanctions against supporters of Kurdish following these reforms. The reality is that these reforms have been implemented while the securitising discourses around language and identity have continued to shape thinking about the Kurdish question and which conflict with the direction of the reforms required by Europe. Without a movement away from securitisation of the Kurdish language, it is unlikely that reforms for Kurdish are to be successful because of the fundamental conflict that exists between such reforms and current understandings of the nature of security.

7.3 Language and security in US language education policy In US language education policy, the threat that policy seeks to address is not internal to the state but external, although over the period from the 1950s, when language first began to be securitised, the identity of the external enemy has changed. The first securitising discourse around language education in the United States can be seen in



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the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958 (Congress of the United States, 1958). This Act focused on the need to develop knowledge as a way of securing the nation, as the title of the Act makes clear: An Act to strengthen the national defense and to encourage and assist in the expansion and improvement of educational programs to meet critical national needs; and for other purposes. (Congress of the United States, 1958: 1580)

The Act therefore is not a complete securitisation of language as other functions of language learning remain present even within a security orientated document. Thus, language is moved into the field of security but not completely removed from other contexts. The Act describes the current situation as an “educational emergency” and in so doing equates educational problems in a number of areas, including foreign language study, as being in some way contributory to the existing threat. The Act thus co-opts education into security discourses and constructs it as part of the national effort to respond to threat. The NDEA grew out of the Cold War and responds both to the military threat posed to the USA by Communist nations and the loss of prestige to the USSR in the area of technology and development, following the launch of Sputnik (Brecht & Rivers, 2000). The discourse of the period, and for a substantial time after 1958, was that the USA was a pre-eminent nation but that its status and safety were undermined by its lack of language capabilities (Bale, 2014). Bale notes the emergence of a discourse that constructs war as being necessary only because there is not a sufficient language capability to address problems in other ways. Thus, lack of language capability comes to be constructed as a source of (military) insecurity. Title VI of the Act focused on language education at the post-secondary level, including the teaching of less commonly taught languages, the education of language teachers, and the development of teaching materials and tests. It sought to establish Language and Area Centres as a way of developing knowledge of parts of the world. It does not name languages for these centres to teach but states the criteria for the development of such centres in terms of foreign languages not widely taught in the US. The purpose for which speakers of such languages are required is also expressed in general terms: individuals trained in such language are needed by the Federal Government or by business, industry, or education in the United States (Congress of the United States, 1958: 1593)

The formulation here is not specifically framed in terms of (military) security but frames it in both economic and educational terms. As education has been co-opted into the discourses of security by the Act itself, the promotion of languages needed for education is this consistent with the security discourse of the Act. The inclusion of business and industry would seem perhaps to relate to a broader domain outside securitisation discourses and may reflect a reality in which languages education is

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recognised as having legitimacy outside the narrow security focus. However, as the Act specifically links defence (and education) to production: The defense of this Nation depends upon the mastery of modern techniques developed from complex scientific principles. It depends as well upon the discovery and development of new principles, new techniques, and new knowledge. (Congress of the United States, 1958: 1580)

The linking of languages to business and industry may therefore constitute a private sector manifestation of the need for modernising production. Thus, the securitisation of language was not specifically directed to developing military responses to threat but rather to developing national capacity as a way of mitigating threat or of preventing the formation of threats. The Act also proposed establishing Language Institutes which have as their focus wider language learning in the society: for advanced training, particularly in the use of new teaching methods and instructional materials, for individuals who are engaged in or preparing to engage in the teaching, or supervising or training of teachers, of any modern foreign language in elementary or secondary schools (Congress of the United States, 1958: 1593).

The Act is therefore not only concerned with the development of language abilities in languages that are lacking in US education, but also develops wider language education goals within the ambit of security. It also reflects an approach to security that sees language learning within the wider population as the measure that will diminish security risks rather than targeting security-specific language specialists. Security is thus constructed as relating to general levels of understanding of and knowledge about others. The Act articulates the purpose of language learning as for the improved understanding of other cultures and places and does so in a number of places. In particular mentions of language education in Title VI are often associated with area studies, which emphasises the focus in knowing about others: instruction in modern foreign languages and other fields needed to provide a full understanding of the areas, regions, or countries in which such languages are commonly used (Congress of the United States, 1958: 1594).

Thus the focus of language education is not specifically on communication, which is the normal place of language, but on knowing about others, which reflects the securitising discourse about languages. Understanding of others is seen as something necessary for security and language capability is central to such understanding. The events of 9/11 mark a changing point the securitising of language in the US that sees language being reconstructed as something that is central to military responses to conflict. This change of emphasis adds to the securitising discourses of the NDEA



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that focused on languages to develop understanding and involves a more explicitly military dimension. The Homeland Security Education Act (HSEA) (Congress of the United States, 2001), which was introduced in 2001 but not adopted, represents a key articulation of the move away from viewing language learning as a way of preventing threat by encouraging greater understanding to a greater integration of language into the processes of military engagement. The Act begins by arguing that: Foreign language proficiency is crucial to the economic competitiveness and national security of the United States. Significant improvement in the quantity and quality of foreign language instruction offered in United States elementary and secondary schools is necessary (Congress of the United States, 2001, Section 2, 4).

The framing of language needs here is quite similar to the NDEA’s objectives and also has the association of military and economic dimensions discussed above. The HSEA continues a discourse in which low levels of language learning is associated with security risks for the USA. It frames this explicitly as a capability required by all Americans: All Americans need a global perspective. To understand the world around us, we must acquaint ourselves with the languages, cultures, and history of other nations (Congress of the United States, 2001, Section 2, 5).

The HSEA continues discourses developed in the 1950s but also constructs the security dimensions of language learning differently with a more specific focus on the military significance of language capabilities: Communicating in languages other than English and understanding and accepting cultural and societal differences is vital to the success of peacetime and wartime military operations (Congress of the United States, 2001, Section 301, 3)

Thus in the HSEA, the focus of language learning and security has moved from a general need for the USA to know more about and understand better linguistically and culturally different Others to the operational use of such language in military contexts. The ability to communicate in a foreign language is not linked only to generalised knowledge of languages and cultures but to specific militarily relevant dimensions of security (Liddicoat, 2008). That is, language is explicitly securitised as a dimension of military response. The movement of languages specifically into the sphere of military security introduces a discourse about levels of capability that was not so much present in the NDEA: Proficiency levels required to perform national security functions have been raised. What was once considered proficiency is no longer the case. The ability to comprehend and articulate technical and complex information has become critical (Congress of the United States, 2001, Section 301, 7)

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The emphasis is placed much more heavily on activities relating to war rather than on maintaining peace. The Act mentions language activities such as debriefing after missions and interrogating suspects in this context. The language focus of the HSEA is on the languages of enemies, especially the languages of George Bush’s ‘axis of evil’ and the ‘war on terror’: Arabic, Korean, Persian/Farsi, and Pashto. The teaching and learning of other languages is understood as a developing preparedness for learning the language of future enemies: “Existing foreign language proficiency in non-targeted languages also provides a foundation for subsequent foreign languages, even if unrelated” (Congress of the United States, 2001, Section 301, 8). In response to the post-2001 US policy, Kramsch (2005: 556) argues, “the priority was not to raise the general level of foreign language competencies of the population at large nor to internationalize education in order to better communicate with our allies” but to create a group of people who could use languages for intelligence gathering. Although the HSEA was not adopted, the securitising discourse of the Act was introduced into other US language policy provisions. For example, the establishment of the Center for the Advanced Study of Language (CASL) at the University of Maryland as a research centre affiliated with the Department of Defense was predicated on the need to improve US intelligence capabilities, defend national security, and serve the goals of US foreign policy abroad (Brecht, 2003). The focus on intelligence represents a particular shaping of language capabilities that emphasises the need to learn about enemy activities as a way of responding to future military threats. This intelligence focus has both elements which lie inside language education, such as the need to developed high level language capabilities in the languages required for intelligence gathering, and aspects that lie outside language education, most notably in the development of technology to monitor, select and translate intelligence information. The integration of language into the technologisation of surveillance reconstructs national language needs in such a way as to limit the human dimension of language use and to refocus on mediated ways of allowing cross-language communication without language learning (see Liddicoat, 2008 for a fuller discussion of such technological aspects of language planning for security). The discursive constructs of the HSEA can also be seen being worked through in the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) (Powell & Lowenkron, 2006), established by President George W. Bush in 2006. The NSLI is focused around the need to develop “critical need languages” for security and articulates three goals in relation to language education: (1) to expand the number of speakers of critical need languages together with the promotion of an earlier start in language learning, (2) to increase the number of advanced speakers of these languages and (3) to increase the number of foreign language teachers and the resources available to for their teaching. In these goals there is a marked division between goals (1) and (2), which focus on critical need languages, and goal (3) which seems to be more general, referring to ‘foreign’ languages not critical need language. This indicates that, although most attention is given to a limited set of languages related to military security needs, there



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is nonetheless a more general association between language capabilities and security that appears to reflect a continuation of the NDEA’s earlier provisions. However, even goal (3) contains a military dimension in the form of the creation of a Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps (CLRC), which sought to establish a military reserve force of people with specific linguistic capabilities to support military and other national needs. The CLRC was introduced as the National Language Service Corps in 2013 but rather than being developed as a military reserve force, it was established as a civilian program (National Security Education Program, 2004). However, in spite of its civilian status, it is a Department of Defense program under the National Defense Authorization Act (Congress of the United States, 2013). Although the aims of the program are to provide advice and services to the government in general terms, their administration through the Department of Defense indicates the primacy of security functions for this body. The Department of Defense further developed the securitising discourses around language in the 2006 Defense language transformation roadmap (Department of Defense, 2006). The Roadmap articled a strong version of language as an element of military action, linking language capability explicitly to the capacity to fight wars: This new approach to warfighting in the 21st century will require forces that have foreign language capabilities beyond those generally available in today’s force. (Department of Defense, 2006: 3)

It also recognised a current lack of capacity and in so doing carries through the discourses of lack that have characterised securitisation of languages from the 1950s – current levels of language knowledge are represented as contributing the emergence of and problems in responding to threat. In the Roadmap, the lack of language abilities is represented as the consequences of a lack of awareness of languages as a component of fighting: Language skill and regional expertise have not been regarded as warfighting skills, and are not sufficiently incorporated into operational or contingency planning. As a result, there is insufficient effort under the current “requirements” determination process to prepare for support of deployed forces. Much language talent resident in the force (Active and Reserve Components, and civilians) is unknown and untapped. Language skill and regional expertise are not valued as Defense core competencies yet they are as important as critical weapon systems. (Department of Defense, 2006: 3)

This discursive construction of the place of languages in security represents a recasting of the ideas around language and security in earlier policy documents. In the NDEA for example, language abilities are not presented as specifically military, rather they relate to the need to understand others and be understood by them. That is, language capabilities were seen primarily as contextually important for security, as creating the conditions necessary from security, rather than as ways of responding to military threat. In previous discourses therefore it can be argued that the connection

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between language and security was less strongly argued than in the Roadmap, as in previous policy language capabilities had been framed as indirectly contributing to the removal of military threat, except in the case of intelligence gathering, while in the Roadmap the contribution is understood as direct. The Roadmap proposes a number of solutions to the lack of language capabilities. The majority of these solutions are educational and reflect the provisions of earlier policies in this field. In addition, the Roadmap also considers changes in recruitment practices to take advantage of the presence of American citizens who are heritage language speakers of critical need languages. The specific focus on the military role of heritage speakers represents a departure from previous policy discourses which appear to presuppose that language education was required to develop the language capabilities of English-speaking Americans and is largely silent on the capacity represented by heritage language speakers, although academic arguments have been put forward for recognising the possible contribution of heritage languages speakers to security (e.g. Brecht, 2003; Brecht & Rivers, 2000, 2002; Spolsky, 2002). The Roadmap’s provisions relating to heritage speakers appear tentative – they involve establishing guidelines for recruitment and investigating possibilities for using heritage speakers for military tasks beyond interpreting and translation. This tentativeness appears to reflect a problem inherent in securitisation discourses about languages. Pratt (2004) and Lo Bianco (2008) have pointed out that the development of high levels of language capability requires more than linguistic accomplishment, it also involves developing understanding and affinity with other cultures and people, establishing relationships with speakers of other languages, and becoming an insider in some way in the community. For heritage languages speakers, the connections with languages and cultures becomes greater as it involves personal identity as a member of a cultural group other than that of one’s nation (Khalema & Wannas-Jones, 2003; McKenzie, 2004). Where language has become associated with security, such identification becomes potentially problematic as the logic of securitisation needs to understand such an identification as an identification with an enemy, and thus speakers themselves become part of the potential threat.

7.4 Conclusion Language policy and planning as an element of securitisation can take a range of forms (see Liddicoat, 2008) but in the language education contexts discussed above, two main strategies can be identified which can be seen as representing polar opposites in language and security. Language itself can be seen as indexical of the threat that security policy wishes to resolve, as in the case of Turkey, in which Kurdish language and identity have come to be constructed as constituent elements of the threat to national territorial integrity. Where this is the case, language policy seeks to remove the language from the linguistic ecology of the state in order to resolve the threat.



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In such securitising discourses, language is seen as benefiting an enemy and the security response is to remove the benefit. Language policy in this case is repressive, seeking to exclude the ‘enemy’ language from valued public contexts, especially education, where the language would benefit from the symbolic value attached to such contexts and to its recognised public use (Bourdieu, 1982). Such activities can be seen as responses to language that seek to destroy the symbolic capital that such languages may possess and that may provide support for a perceived enemy at least at the symbolic level. A different way of constructing the relationship between language and security found in language policy focused on security is the idea that ensuring security requires that a society as a whole has an understanding and knowledge of those nations or other groups which pose possible security threats and language education is seen as a way to develop such understanding and knowledge. The language planning response in such contexts is to increase the learning of languages at various levels of education to offset a lack of capacity. This is essentially the way in which language has been securitised in the US. However, what is meant by knowledge and understanding of another can be constructed in different ways. The first is that the state’s response to a perceived threat can seek to mitigate threats by developing better relationships between language groups. Such understanding involves a general relationship between people and countries. This is seen as a security issue in that lack of understanding is seen as the cause of threats to national security and establishing understanding therefore can be understood in a general way as resolving security problems. This has been the main framing of securitising discourses in the US since the 1950s. The second way of viewing understanding and knowledge is as a component of the act of military response itself. In this case, the focus of understanding and knowledge is the particular actions of enemies that constitute the threat to national security. It involves the state’s response to prevent threats through the use of language capabilities, that is, the state uses language capabilities to detect and respond to threats at the military level. In this case, languages is used for strategic advantaged against specific groups and the focus of attention is placed on knowing actions of the other, rather than understanding the other. Since 9/11, US education policy has increasingly moved toward such an understanding of the place of languages in security, although without displacing totally older ways of thinking about language and security. In both cases, the main language planning and policy dimension typically involves language-ineducation policy, but other activities are also possible. The language planning responses discussed above consider language as a barrier for effective national security but construct the problem and the solution in different ways. They reveal that language becomes a problem only when it is discursively constructed as a problem and that language becomes associated with security also as the result of discursive processes. These discursive processes are forms of securitisation (Balzacq, 2005; Buzan et al., 1998; Wæver, 1998; Wæver, Buzan, Kelstrup, & Lemaitre, 1993) – processes by which a phenomenon is moved into the framework of security

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from which solutions are found to address the problem. They also construct different expectations around language learners and the ways that language learners are thought to intervene to resolve issues of national security.

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Republic of Turkey. 1991. Terörle Mücadele Kanunu. [Law on the fight against terrorism]. Rumpf, C. 1985. Das türkische Sprachenverbotsgesetz (SprVG). [The Turkish language prohibition act]. Informationsbrief Ausländerrecht, 251-256. Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & Fernandes, D. 2008. Kurds in Turkey and in (Iraqi)Kurdistan: A Comparison of Kurdish Educational Language Policy in Two Situations of Occupation. Genocide Studies and Prevention, 3(1), 43-73. Spolsky, B. 2002. Heritage languages and national security: An ecological view. In S. Baker (Ed.), Language Policy: Lessons from global models. Monterey, CA: Monterey Institute of International Studies.103-114. Spolsky, B. 2009. Language management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Steinbach, U. 1996. Die Türkei im 20 Jahrhundert. Schwieriger Partner Europas [Turkey in the 20th century. A difficult partner in Europe]. Bergisch-Gladback: G. Lübbe. Wæver, O.1998. Securitisation and desecuritisation. In R. D. Lipschutz (Ed.), On security. New York: Colombia Univesrity Press.46-86. Wæver, O., Buzan, B., Kelstrup, M., & Lemaitre, P. 1993. Societal security and European security. In O. Wæver, B. Buzan, M. Kelstrup, & P. Lemaitre (Eds.), Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe. London: Pinter.185-199. Wenden, A. L. 2008. Planning language change: A strategy for promoting human and ecological security. Current Issues in Language Planning, 9(2), 193-206. doi: 10.1080/14664200802139364 Williams, M. C. 2003. Words, images, enemies: Securitization and international politics. International Studies Quarterly, 47(4), 511-531. Zeydanlıoğlu, W. 2012. Turkey’s Kurdish language policy. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 217, 99-125.

Phyllis Chew Ghim Lian

8 A tale of two cities: Religion and language policy in Malaysia and Singapore Just like the great cities of the world—Athens and Rome, London and New York, Paris and Berlin—Kuala Lumpur and Singapore deserve to be compared, especially as their sovereignties are separated only by a 1056 meter causeway. Sharing the same geography and ecology, both are an integral part of Southeast Asia. Historically, together with Philippines and Indonesia, they were under the sway of the Malay empires of Srivijaya and Malacca. Their independent nationalistic histories only developed after European colonialisation between the 17th and 20th century. Both Malaysia and Singapore were colonised by the British through initial port-settlements, namely Penang in 1786 and Singapore in 1819. Both countries achieved independence from their colonial masters in 1957 and 1959 respectively. In 1963, Singapore (together with Sabah and Sarawak) merged with Malaya to form Malaysia. However, two years later, in 1965, due to political differences, Singapore left the Federation and established itself as an independent republic. This then is a tale of two irretrievably connected cities which went their separate ways. The national language for Malaysia and Singapore is Malay. However, in Singapore the Malay language has a unique position; it “is a symbolic political gesture recognising the geopolitical realities in Singapore’s locale” (Tan, 2007: 76), and is predominantly spoken by the Malay community. Instead, English has been the dominant language and is spoken by most Singaporeans. Conversely in Malaysia, English is never regarded as one of the Malayan languages and “is only accepted as a second language, secondary importance in the ranking of languages of Malaysia” (Thirusanku & Yunus, 2014: 254), since the emphasis has always been on Malay. Thus, the government plays an important role in determining the types of language used, raising the status of a language (or vice versa), and modifying the linguistics structure of the society. Such deliberate interventions by the government through language planning and policy are to achieve their covert or non-covert aims, such as economic benefits and cultural preservation. Language policy is defined by Fishman (1973) as the decisions taken by the authority to facilitate effective communication in the speech community which can result in language shift or language assimilation. Therefore, language planning involves deliberate and future oriented change in the linguistic makeup of that particular society that is usually undertaken by the government (Rubin & Jernudd, 1971; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). In both Singapore and Malaysia, language policy is associated with government planning. Although much has been written on the language policy of both Malaysia (cf. Asmah, 1985; Gaudart, 1987; Gill, 2002) and

Phyllis Chew Ghim Lian, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

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Singapore (cf. Kuo, 1977; Gopinathan, 1979; Chua, 2004), these accounts have always been written within nationalistic boundaries with scarce reference to each other or to the wider context of Southeast Asia despite their shared ecology and history.

8.1 Religion and language planning in early Singapore and Malaysia While much has been written on language policies, relatively less has been written on the religious dimension; not to mention the impact of religion on language policy. Similar to research on language policies, whatever research have been undertaken on religion in both Malaysia and Singapore are encapsulated within their own nationalistic domains, and without reference to each other (cf, Djamour, 1959; Roff, 1967; Tong, 1987; DeBernardi, 2002 etc.). The fact that hardly anything has been written about the interface between religion and language policy is strange, bearing in mind that the former has long influenced the latter, sometimes with explosive and divisive outcomes as observed in, for example, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Religion here is defined as a type of belief system and a source of spiritual, social and even cultural nourishment for many people. Both Malaysia and Singapore are located at the crossroad of the east-west trade routes and have been influenced by various civilisations, cultures and religions. Since the first millennium, traders and travelers has brought with them the globalising influences of Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism, and Singapore’s strategic location at the tip of the Malayan peninsula has made it a strategic entry point. For example, at the dawn of independence, Singapore has been described as the “Antioch of the East”, a base for Christian missionary outreach and funding. It was also known as “the center” of the Malay Muslim world comprising the Malay Archipelago (Malaysia) and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) since it was the staging point for pilgrims from the archipelago sailing to and from Mecca (Roff, 1967: 43). Indeed, the concentration of Malay publishers and newspapers made it the “Malay heart”. It was only much later, in 1965, with Singapore’s political separation from Malaysia that the “center of Malay publishing” (along with a number of prominent Malay writers) shifted to Kuala Lumpur (Koh & Ho 2009). Religion and language policy is an especially volatile issue to explore in both countries. The colonial era also saw the Maria Hertogh riots in 1950 that was sparked off when the Singapore court decided that the child, Maria, who had been raised by Christians should be returned to her biological parents who were Muslims. A protest by outraged Muslims escalated into a riot resulting in many people killed or injured (Khairuddin, 2009). Subsequently, there were racial-religious riots in Singapore in 1964 between Chinese and Malay groups with many killed and injured. Similarly, in 1969, in Malaysia, Sino-Malay riots were triggered by the results of the General election with a few hundred people killed and these riots also caused a spill-over effect in Singapore. These riots may be said to be a manifestation of the “plural society” (Furnivall, 1956), a kind of colonial society created by the British of



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distinct groups with their own religion, culture and language, who do mix but do not combine. Then, segregation was used as a means of governance and separatist tendencies encouraged. Segregation may be seen, for example, Malaysia, where the Chinese worked in the mines in urban area, Indians in the rubber plantations and Malays confined to rice fields and fishing villages. Even in the arena of sports, sporting identities were strongly aligned with racial ones in the sense that Sports Clubs such as Indian, Ceylon and Malay were allocated particular playing fields in designated parts of the city (Chew, 2011; 2013).

8.2 The perceptions of religious issues in Singapore and Malaysia during colonial period During the colonial period, the education system helped maintained the segregation through, for example, the four different mediums of instruction, which corresponded to the four sub-cultures within Malaysia and Singapore societies. In Malaysia, the schools were located based on ethic group locations, for example, in the kampongs or villages (Malay-medium), in towns (English medium and Chinese medium) and in the plantations (Tamil–medium). The objective of the colonial governments was to provide training in English and to give English-medium education only to the elite few so as to prepare them for employment as middle-ranking officials in the colonial administration. Christian missionaries from the various competing Christian denominations also set up their own institutions and as they were located in urban areas, they groomed individuals mainly for government and administrative purposes. The Chinese and Indian communities also established their own schools with school curricula and teachers from China and India respectively (Gopinathan, 1979). As a result, such segregation had further created mistrust among the different ethnic groups. To further complicate matter, the colonial Census had also listed the religions into discrete categories. While Christianity is well-defined with discernible boundaries and fits well as a relatively distinct entity, a strict classification of entities to represent relatively “eclectic” religions such as Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism would mean forcing such hitherto inclusive and syncretic faiths to be more exclusive and ideologically-attuned than they were in reality. For example, the Chinese masses have historically drawn philosophies and practices from Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Shamanism. Such syncretism is not normally regarded as contradictory as these religions are perceived as complementary rather than competing. In this way, the census also played its part in strengthening religious differences and their respective identities, a practice which continues to the present day (cf. Chew, 2013). Thus, religion played its part in reproducing the racial-linguistic order. For example, the British designated the Malay population as clearly “Muslims”, thus setting the stage for Islam to become cloosely identified as the “the religion of the Malays”, rather than as a universal faith in its own right irrespective of race. This was affected

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by confining Islam to very specific areas of Malay life such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, the administration of Muslim affairs in general, including the collection and disbursement of zakat (tithes). Colonial law was developed in such a way that only the Malays were identified with Islamic family law and not the other races. For example, the law considered Babas (later generational Chinese who have largely assimilated Malay customs and culture) to be “Chinese”, hence encouraging them to tacitly view Chinese religion as essential to their identity and to resist conversion to Islam. In addition, the British made the Sultan the supreme head of religious matters, after their own Anglicanism. Over time and with self-governance, it was not surprising for the majority of Malays to begin to identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, in oppositional contrast to the rest of the population, who were encouraged to practice their own religions (Chew, Ibid.). At the dawn of independence, Malaysia and Singapore, respectively in 1957 and 1959, found themselves to be multilingual, multiracial and multi-religious. Both countries have three dominant ethnic groups − Malays, Chinese and Indians and a diversity of languages within each group. The difference was that the majority population in Malaysia was Malay, and the majority population in Singapore was Chinese. This makes the consideration of religion an important interface in language policy even if it was not visible in the radar of research because of its sensitivity. Recently, however, sociolinguistics have begun to claim this territory as seen in the first international colloquium on the sociology of language and religion organised at the University of Surrey, Roehampton in June 2002. The conference was followed by a collection of papers on the on the sociology of language and religion (Omoniyi & Fishman, 2006). Later, another volume, Omoniyi (2010) and his contributors refine their focus to examine change, conflict and accommodation. Later, a special issue of Multilingua edited by David and MacLellan (2011) included seven articles which investigate diverse aspects of language and religion. World Englishes, devoted a special issue on language and religion in 2013 (cf Davis, 2013). This chapter is a pioneering effort to study the role and impact of religion in language policy in Malaysia and Singapore. It examines the two nations’ response to globalisation as influenced by their religious ideologies. The chapter concludes by a brief discussion on both the planned and unplanned aspect of religion on language policy; and the extent of this aspect from contemporary globalisation.

8.3 Malaysia: Islamisation and language policy Malaysia decided to continue the divide-and-rule policy it inherited from the British. During the colonial rule, “the British State’s designation of Malays as the indigenous group and Chinese as “alien residents” led to the adoption of differential language and educational policies towards the different ethnic groups” (Lee, 2008: 119). As a result, religion is utilised as the key player in the drawing of religious, racial and



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linguistic lines. This is apparent in three dimensions. First, under Article 160 of the 1957 Malaysian Constitution, a “Malay” refers to a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language and conforms to Malay custom. Hence, to say that a Malay person is a Muslim is a legal tautology. Converting to Islam, commonly referred to as “masuk Melayu” (“entering or becoming Malay”) is also indicative of the equation of race and religion. In addition, there is accompanying legislation that forbids either criticism or public discussion of the government’s ethnic policy. First, “Malayness” as an ethnic status is important because that status carries with it certain special privileges, most of which are entrenched in Article 153 of the Constitution (Bari, 2014). This includes the position of the Malays in the military which in turn dominates the composition of the public service. This affirmative status ensures that a huge majority of public servants are Malays and Muslim. In the implementation of language policy in education, administrative decisions are made chiefly by Malays so as to ensure that the activities of teachers can be monitored and sanctions can be applied to personnel who fail to abide by government policies. Thomas (1986) has pointed out that research on issues of race and religion are carried out only under careful government supervision, with the results made public only when they suggest that government policies are succeeding. Second, the Malaysian constitution is equivocally worded, ostensibly to placate different competing ideological groups.36 While the Constitution states that the common law is the dominant legal system in Malaysia with general jurisdiction, and the Syariah law as the servient legal system with limited jurisdiction; recent years have seen the increasing assertion that both courts are equal and equally dominant, and that both are equal sources of public law values (Neoh, 2014). In cases involving the question of apostasy, the civil court has been dragged in to strike a balance between the modern idea of liberty and the Islamic notion of rights. Apostasy involves complex questions of constitutional importance especially when some states in Malaysia have enacted legislation to criminalise it. The case of Lina Loy in 2007 may be seen as the battleground of Malaysian political and cultural identity and of freedom of religion (Burton, 2007). Lina had petitioned the government to remove the word “Islam” from the religion category on her state identity card as she had converted to Christianity. She lost the case as the court subsequently ruled that people born as Muslims in Malaysia do not have a choice of religion in spite of constitutional guarantees on freedom of worship.37 Such judicial decisions have not only strengthened the power of the Shariah Courts but also signaled that the offending citizen is subjected to punishment for apostasy. 36 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� According to Neoh (2014), the constitutional text engages in double-speak and is internally incoherent and inherently unstable. Two competing camps can appeal to the same constitutional text, with the result that the ensuing ideological competition is contained within the constitution itself. 37 “Lina Joy Loses Appeal”. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2007/05/30/ lina-joy-loses-appeal

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Third, since independence, there have been progressive efforts at Islamisation on a wide scale in governance and social life (Bari, 2014). For one, only the religion of Islam is entitled to government assistance and only Muslim religious personnel may receive salaries form the government. Perhaps the most visible religious agency is the Department of Religious Development (JAKIM), which is an agency under the purview of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister also chairs the National Council of Religious Affairs. Then there is the National Fatwa Committee, which does not have a legal or constitutional basis, but which has been able to influence public opinion when it comes to religious issues and controversies. Through the years, more and more public funds have been allocated to the building of mosques, religious educational institutions, as well as the International Islamic University as a means to demonstrate the government’s commitment to the growth and development in the country. Other religious apparatus of the state include the Pilgrimage Board, the Islamic Foundation, the International Islamic University, Bank of Islam and the Islamic Insurance Company (Bari, 2014).

8.3.1 The linguistic effects of religion and globalisation in Malaysia Religion is intrinsically concerned with the idea of “wholeness”, and it may be said to be a primary agent of globalisation. In examining Malaysia’s response to globalisation, one discerns two stages. The first stage that spanned from the 1980’s to 2005 when Malaysia began to turn gradually from the West to the Middle East and the Islamic World. In the second stage, from 2005 to the present day, the Malaysian-Middle East relation witnessed a process of strengthening and bridging whereby the bilateral relations with the Middle East have entered a stage of extensive cooperation after a series of encouraging policies in the domains of tourism, economy and education. In this stage, Malaysia has been highly receptive to the cultural flows of people, information, technologies, capital and worldviews form the Middle East where an emergent “global” Arabic brotherhood is eager to play an active role in the mediation of the religious experience (Apadurai, 1996). Globalisation saw Malaysia gravitating towards “the halal connection”, such as Egypt, Lebanon, Libya and other Muslim countries. This engagement with Arabicspeaking countries has also affected the phonetic, phonological as well as the lexical structure of the Malay language; and over the years, Arabic has increasingly become the language to express the religious experience in the country. More and more Arabic words and phrases have been incorporated into the Malay language, as apparent in the five daily prayers and in the Muslim confession of fait (kalimat al-shahadah). The use of Arabic is encouraged as it can be used as a boundary marker of a global Muslim “brotherhood” and it is seen as the sacred language of Muslims all over the world.



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8.3.2 Religion and Malay as a medium of instruction (MOI) The education system has also been harnessed to serve the objectives of the National Economic Policy (NEP), which came into effect in 1971 with a focus on restructuring the society in terms of economic wealth. It is also called the “bumiputera” 38 policy because of its affirmative action provisions for Malays. This policy may be said to mark the decline in the role and status of English and corresponding, the rise and status of the Malay language, with its prescribed corollary, that is, Islam. The phrasing out of English as MOI in all public schools and tertiary institutions in favor of Malay occurred in stages and took a total of 12 years. By 1982, all school subjects except for English and other languages were taught in Malay. In general, Malay and Arabic are favored over English due to their “Muslim” connection while English, a “western” and “colonial” language, identified with many “Christian” nations, begins to take the back seat. The installation of Malay as MOI has led to declining standards in English since students could graduate from public universities without a significant proficiency in English, which is today the world’s foremost globalised language, and a significant requirement for professional and technical jobs, offered by multinational employers. In addition, it did not help that the Malay language lacked a substantial literature on topics required for modernisation. As a result, the lack of proficiency in English has created an unexpected economic problem as seen from the rising numbers of unemployed graduates from public universities. As a means of remedying the mismatch between policy and reality, the private sector was spurred to establish private universities, which used English as an MOI. Many of these private universities offer courses in co-operation with a foreign institute or university from Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, thus allowing students to spend a portion of their course duration abroad as well as the opportunity of getting overseas qualifications. This innovative phenomenon, which was pioneered in Malaysia from the 1980’s have led to two systems at the tertiary level − public universities where undergraduates studied in Malay, and private institutions of higher learning where instructions are provided in English. It is an innovation which has further divided the population, as undergraduates are now divided not only along socio-economic but also ethnic lines (Gill et al., 2002). This is because the private universities are more expensive than public universities as public universities are heavily subsidised by the government. Therefore, students from middle class families usually enrol only in private universities whereas those from working class families can only afford to enrol in public universities. Furthermore, the majority of the students in public universities

38 This is a Sanskrit term (bumi soil or earth) and putera (prince) refer to the people indigenous in Malaysia, as opposed to the Chinese and Indians (non-bumiputera) who migrated from their respective home countries.

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tend to be Malays whereas the majority of the students in private universities are Chinese.

8.4 Singapore: Civil religion and language policy While Islamisation in Malaysia has created a series of processes that have produced results which shows itself defined in opposition to Christianity, with the latter constructed as a remnant of colonialism; Singapore; on the other hand, has mandated the observance and practice of separating religion and state as far as possible, and the state is positioned as neutral vis a vis the various religious faiths and between religion and non-religion. The adoption of such a civil religion stems from Lee Kuan Yew’s belief (hereafter Lee), the architect of modern Singapore and the country’s first prime minister, that competing religions and ethnic groups have deep fault lines that will divide the society and hence each religion must be strictly managed by a secular authority to keep “its proper place”. The state therefore favors a ‘civil religion’ as a counter to the competing theistic religion. While theistic religions contain a belief in god(s), the gods of civil religion are pragmatism and moderation. The practice of civil religion is seen in Lee’s PAP’s (Peoples’ Action Party) model of “priesthood” whereby its party members wear an all-white uniform − a priestly vestment signifying neutrality, purity and incorruption. Embedded in each National Day rally speech are the values of civil religion, such as survivalism, multiracialism, meritocracy and pragmatism. The state defines pragmatism as “practical or useful and concerned with actual application rather than theory or speculation” (Mauzy & Milne, 2002: 52). The concept of meritocracy is defined as “each individual’s social and occupational position is determined by individual achievement, not political or economic influence; not race, class or parentage” (Mauzy & Milne, 2002: 55). Selected theistic values (virtues), which are also embedded in the speeches, and which are drawn from the Character and Citizenship syllabus (CCE) implemented in all public schools are: resilience, responsibility, kindness, harmony, respect and tolerance. The ideologies form the fundamental bedrock of the civil religion. While the French laicize policy display a strict separation between religion and state, in Singapore religion is viewed as an important means of cultivating certain behavior, values and norms for the purposes of nation-building. It is also looked upon as a guardian of tradition, and a useful antidote to excesses. To tap the positive character-building powers of religion without allowing their congregations to be in any way confrontational in their engagement with the state, the Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO), a non-government organisation, is recognised by the government as a symbol of religious harmony in Singapore. Ten religions are represented here, namely Baha’i Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism, Taoism and the Zoroastrianism. Unlike the Malaysian IRO where discussions are more bilateral – taking place between the government (representing the Muslim



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majority) and the non-Muslim minority (comprising all the other faiths), which often revolves around the effects of the Islamisation policy on non-Muslims (Majid, 2013; Zain et al., 2014). Conversely, the Singapore IRO promotes more multilateral opportunities where representatives from the ten religions of Singapore may come together to discuss various issues common to all faith and to organise mutual selfhelp events among themselves. To promote character building, there was also a short-lived government imposition of Religious Knowledge (RK) as a compulsory subject for upper secondary students in Singapore from 1984-1989 to ensure that younger Singaporeans did not lose their moral values from the onslaught of westernisation and hedonism. Here, pupils had a free choice to study one of the religions offered in the curriculum, that is, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism. However, RK was short-lived and scrapped due to religious revivalism and evangelistic activities among Buddhists and Christians, both of whom saw the teaching of RK as opportunities for mass conversion of school children (Tong, 1987). In its place, a new compulsory subject, Civics and Moral Education (CME), which incorporated factual knowledge about the main religions in Singapore, was put in place, to be studied by all school children. The mother tongue was recruited as a corollary of civil religion as it was seen as a useful tool for the imparting of moral values and cultural traditions. Hence, from the 1980s to 2000s, statements on language and education policies categorically positioned English as the language of commerce and mother tongues as the languages of heritage and identity. Indeed, in 1973, the second language paper became of equal importance to the first language paper, with both languages carrying twice as much weight as Mathematics or Science. Hence, unlike Malaysia, which is a Malay-knowing bilingualism, Singapore is a bilingualism which is “English-knowing” (Pakir, 1991). It is a situation where the “first language” is English, and the “second language”, is one of the other official languages such as Mandarin, Tamil and Malay. 39

8.4.1 Religion, race and language policy in Singapore The colonial policy of divide-and-rule continues not just in Malaysia but also in Singapore. However, while Malaysia continues the division of race and religion through an increasing Islamisation of the State in the religious, educational and linguistic realm; in Singapore, the principle is more subtly maintained through the ethnic rather than religious route. Here, there is the establishment of separate ethnic bodies such as 39 The terms “first language” and “second language” are placed in brackets because in Singapore, the first language and mother tongue of the population, be they of the Malay, Indian or Chinese race, are normally not any of the four designated official languages (English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil), but rather languages such as Boyanese, Javanese, Hokien, Teochew, Cantonese, Malayalam and Singhalese).

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SINDA (Singapore Indian Development Association), MENDAKI (Council on Education for Muslim children) and CDAC (Chinese Development Assistance Council); which provides a range of rather similar educational and social services and community programmes. The link between religion, race and language; and religious and racial harmony in Singapore is also seen in the fact that the Chairman and other members of the key Presidential Council for Religious Harmony are appointed by the President, on the advice of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights (Goh, 2009). Various state policies spell out religious space and practices and the common space is jealously guarded, for example, unlike Malaysia, the Singapore government has disallowed the wearing of tudongs in schools for fear it will lead to a narrowing of the common space. However, in deference to the sensitivities of the Muslim community, Singapore has allowed Muslim girls to don track pants instead of shorts for physical education, to be exempted from swimming lessons, and to have permitted time-off to attend Friday mid-day congregational prayers at mosques (Goh, 2009). While in Malaysia, the choice of Malay as national language had everything to do with Islamic nationalism, identity and culture; in Singapore, its selection has everything to do with nationism, economic pragmatism and the preservation of the nation states, all of which are attributes of civil religion. There are basically two key reasons for raising Malay as the national language. First, the end of the Japanese occupation of Singapore had seen a rising Malay political consciousness among Malays, who became more aware of their heritage and rights. The Malays comprised 15% of the population, and it was evident to all that they were afraid of being overwhelmed by the majority Chinese in economic, social and cultural fields of human endeavor. Fearing the potential fragmentation of society through religious, ethnic and linguistic rivalries, Lee decided that the elevation of the Malay language would defuse a potentially unstable situation (Lee, 2008). Second, Singapore is situated in the heart of a Malay-speaking region and its fortunes irretrievably linked with those of its immediate Malay-speaking neighbors, Malaysia and Indonesia. Here, the installation of Malay as its national language (with its accompanying state regalia such as a Malay national song, a Malay-worded state crest and military commands in Malay) would enable it to merge linguistically with its geography. It would also reassure its watchful neighbors that its citizenry were not “Chinese fishes in a Malayan sea” but rather assimilated and peaceful citizens of the Malayan landscape (Lee, 2008).

8.4.2 Globalisation: The response of civil religion Globalisation has brought in its wake a general destabilisation affecting all societies, vast population mobility, the emergence of multi-cultural societies in many places, and an exponential increase in human interactions. Such trends are fast redefining traditional parameters of culture and identity. In a response to globalisation, the Singapore government promotes new knowledge-based industries with higher-skilled workers and



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welcomes new migrants into the country. In 2004, Lee explained that, “We [Singaporeans] are multiracial. So absorbing new migrants of different races and religions and cultures doesn’t worry us. In fact, it makes us more attractive as a cosmopolitan center, and makes us more relevant to the world” (Straits Times, 2004). Many scholarships have also been awarded to students from China and India in the past two decades, because as Lee put it, “If one out of four foreign students from China or India stayed behind in Singapore, …Singapore’s talent pool would outweigh that of any neighboring country” (Today, October 14, 2004). With this increase in population, the status of English has also been reinforced since English is perceived as the unifying language. An allegiance to the global order has led to a wholesale adoption of English, which can be said to be the high priest of civil religion, which will lead the way to the desired “heaven”, that is, global connectivity and material wealth, from third world to first world status, within one generation. Vaish’s (2007) study shows that the number of children entering Primary one who spoke predominantly English language has risen within a decade from 36 per cent in 1994 to 50 per cent in 2004. For such a short period, the increase has been dramatic. Lee stressed the indispensability of English in nation building: Suppression of the English language, which gives access to the superior technology of the West, will be damaging to the developing countries. Not only will it blindfold the next generation to the knowledge of the advanced nation, it will cause a brain drain. But so many new countries have stifled the foreign language they have inherited. Sometimes this is done, not so much to elevate the status of the indigenous language, as to take away an advantage a minority ethnic group has by having greater competence in the former colonial language. This has been damaging. It blindfolds the next generation to the knowledge of the advanced countries. Worse, it leads to an exodus of the professionally trained. They can immigrate to the advanced countries, and do because they do not intend to allow their children to be crippled by language linkers. To get access to new knowledge, the best course would be to continue using the language of the former metropolitan power, particularly where this happens to be English. (Lee, 1971: 4-5)

Clearly then, the situation has dictated a pragmatic situation where Malay is the dejure national language, with English is the defacto national language. In line with the precepts of civil religion, it is recognition of language as “linguistic capital” rather than “cultural” or “nationalistic” or “religious” capital (Chew, 2011).

8.5 Comparing Singaporean and Malaysian approaches to religion and language policy As discussed previously, the interface of religion and language policy in Singapore and Malaysia, irretrievably connected, are similar and yet different. Both countries are intensively religious i.e., they are multi-religious, multi-lingual, and multicultural, and both governments follow a religious policy i.e., Islamisation in Malaysia

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and a civil religion in Singapore. In both countries, education is the handmaiden of language policy and there is a top-down language-in-education planning. However, in both countries, the choice of Malay as the national language reveals different priorities and motivations at work. Although both have chosen to implement bilingualism in their education system, either Malay as MOI in Malaysia or English as MOI as in Singapore, the Malaysian bilingual policy is infused with religious and cultural nationalism whereas in Singapore it is driven by a pragmatic economic reality. Malaysia has responded to globalisation by looking towards the Middle East and Muslim brotherhood as a source of inspiration and solidarity; while Singapore response has been one where mutual pragmatic benefits may be acquired. In Malaysia religion is solidly in the public domain but in Singapore, it is placed squarely in the private sphere, with common space as a guarded area. Drawing on Baldauf’s (1994) work on unplanned language change at the micro level despite nationally planned language policy and language use in the study of speech communities this chapter highlights the role of religion in Malaysia and Singapore’s language planning in this era of globalisation. Malaysia has ostensibly achieved significant success in corpus planning in Malay in concrete terms, having developed a systematic and efficient spelling system and pronunciation (Hashim, 2005). Malay has also spread in use – from a language that was once used colloquially by Malays and non-Malays on the streets into a standard variety used by all in the highest formal situations. The result is that the Chinese and Indians did eventually become bilingual and trilingual, mastering standard Malay, their own mother tongue and English. Although the replacement of English as MOI with Malay was supposed to integrate the races through a common language, in reality Malay has been progressively linked with Islamisation and identified with one race. Consequently, this has resulted in resentment rather than integration, and national integration is still as volatile an issue as it was at the time of independence, perhaps more so. Islamisation and the encapsulation of the majority of Malay have sowed the seeds of further separatism (Aleh, 2010). Coupled with the practice of pro-bumiputera, or more specifically Pro-Malay, this has widened not just the cleavage between the Malay and non-Malay but also created an unexpected rift between the urban bilingual population and rural population who are basically monolingual in Malay. Another unplanned effect of the implementation of the Malay as MOI has led to the creation of private education system that establishes educational institutions using either Mandarin or English as MOI, both languages with an international standing. This rapid development of a large private education system has thwarted the objectives of the public Malaysian education system (Tie, 2008). As a case in point, the government-sponsored universities which used Malay as MOI are only useful to the Malay students, who are looking for public sector jobs. It has also created the unforeseen situation of the Malay population becoming largely monolingual especially in the rural areas. The non-Malays preference to enrol in English speaking overseas university enabled them to get a job in the more higher-paid private sector.



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While Malaysia has seen a shift to Malay monolingualism, it is also interesting to note that there has been a corresponding shift to English monolingualism in Singapore (Chew, 2014). This trend is evident even among the Singapore Malay community, which has every incentive to be proficient in Malay in view of the proximity of Malaysia and the fact that it is the national language of Singapore. Indeed, there are, ironically, sections of the Malay community who look down on their own language and are concerned they may be viewed as backwards if they used Malay in public (Abdullah & Ayyub, 1998). The fact that English is increasingly used during Friday prayers at mosques and that religious teaching is being taught in English to youth through the weekend Madrasah programme signals the fact that younger Malays are more comfortable in English than in Malay (Chew, 2014). These trends indicate that the link between language and culture in the Malay community is weakening in Singapore (Subhan, 2007). Globalisation may be seen as intrinsically religious in the sense that it involves a relativisation of ourselves and others in the world. This relativisation involves reactions and resistances within society and leads towards a politico-religious definition of particularistic identity and value, which may result in the spread of fundamentalism, as is the case in Malaysia. On the other hand, globalisation may also lead to a desire for diversity and a part of a greater order as in Singapore. In Singapore, in the wake of globalisation, the prior narrative of “western science – Asian values”, has now given way to one which views culture and identity as tradable commodities. Presentday Singapore has abandoned the politics of culture prevalent in Malaysia in favor of new pragmatic positions, where language and culture are valued as commodifiable resources rather than markers of identity or heritage. In the de-politicised civic society of Singapore where a civil religion thrives, religious groups can preach their values and beliefs but they must not mobilise their congregations to be confrontational in their engagement to the state (Tan, 2010). To ensure that this rule is followed, the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act was passed by Parliament in 1990, to ensure that religion is not exploited for political or subversive purposes. Here any member of a religious group who cause ill-feelings between different religious groups or promote a political cause or carries out subversive act under the guise of propagating religion may be issued with a restraining order, as well as a fine or imprisonment.40

8.6 Conclusion While religion has a great moral dimension which may be tapped to help lay the bedrock of an ever-advancing civilisation where human enterprise and interaction achieves its fullest potential, it has also often been utilised as an instrument for communal hostility, dividing people more than it unites them. Worse, religion is often used as a 40 This Act has been effective in slowing down the rise of Christianity in the period 1990 to 2000.

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wedge by nationalistic politicians, through the medium of media and education, to strengthen identities already made distinct by race. The Indo-Pakistan conflict, Islam in the Philippines and in southeast Thailand, Hindu Tamils and Sinhala Buddhists in Sri Lanka, the Sikhs in India, Christian Karen and Buddhist Burmans in Burma are cases in point. A civil religion such as that in Singapore which has shown itself to be effective in keeping the social order intact, in producing a disciplined citizenry, in building world class education, and in spurring economic growth; may not be as efficient in giving an inner peace, a purpose in life or joyfulness in general. For example, the Happiness Index by WIN/Gallup International, the world’s leading association in market research and polling, has shown Africa as the “happiest” region in 2014 with 83% of those surveyed across the continent being content, followed by Asia (77%) despite the latter continent being vastly more successful than the former in terms of its GDP and per capital figures. Within Asia, Singapore loses out significantly in the Positive Experience Index and the Happiness Index to Malaysia and its neighbors. Indeed, Singaporeans has been reported to be the least likely in the world to report experiencing emotions of any kind on a daily basis. The 2013 findings belie Singapore’s 1.9 per cent jobless rate in the third quarter and per capita GDP of more than US$50,000 – among the highest in the world.41 However one tells it, the fascinating history on the interface of religion and language policy in this tale of two irretrievably connected cities, which went their separate ways half a century ago, deserves more studious attention.

References Abdullah, K., & Ayyub, B-J. 1998. Malay language: Issues and trends community. In Gopinathan, S. (Ed.), Language, society and education in Singapore. Issues and Trends (2nd ed). Singapore: Times academic Press. 179-190. Aleh, P. 2010. The language medium policy in Malaysia: A plural society model? Review of European studies, 2(2), 195-200. Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Asmah, H-O. 1985. The language policy of Malaysia: A formula for balanced pluralism. In B. David (Ed.), Papers in South-East Asian linguistics no 9: Language policy, language planning and sociolinguistics in Southeast Asia. Pacific Linguistics, A-67. 39-49. Baldauf, R. B. Jr. 1994. “Unplanned” language policy and planning. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (1993/1994), 14, 82-89. Bari, A. A. 2014. Religion, law and governance in Malaysia. Unpublished paper.

41 Retrieved from http://www2.inbox.com/search/resultsc.aspx?q=singapore+gallup+polls+hap piness+index&tbid=82872&tp=pts<=3&iwk=357. See also http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/23/ world/asia/singapore-emotions-gallup/



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Burton, J. 2007. Malaysia rules against right to choose religion. Financial Times, 31 May 2007, 8. Chew, P. G. L. 2011. The emergence, role and future of the national language in Singapore. In J. A. Fishman & O. Garcia (Eds.), Handbook of language and ethnic identity. New York: Oxford University Press. 204-218. Chew, P. G. L. 2013. A sociolinguistic history of early identities in Singapore: From colonialism to nationalism. Basingstroke: Palgrave. Chew, P. G. L. 2014. Coming to grips with modernization: The teens aL.I.V.E. programme and the teaching of Sadaqah. In Buang, S. & Chew, P. G. L. (Eds.), Muslim Schools in the 21st century: Asian Perspective. New York: Routledge. 142-162. Chua, C. S. K. 2004. Singapore’s literacy policy and its conflicting ideologies. Current Issues in Language Planning, 5(1), 64-76. David, M. K., & McLellan, J. (Guest Eds.). 2011. Preface (special issue on Language and Religion). Multilingua, 30, 3-4. Davis, D. 2013. World Englishes in world religions. World Englishes, 32(3), 377-379 DeBernardi, J. 2002. Malaysian Chinese religious culture; past and present. In S. Leo (Ed.), Ethnic Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore: Times Academic press. Djamour, J. 1959. Malay kinship and marriage in Singapore. London: Athlone Press. Fishman, J.A. 1973. Language and nationalism: Two integrated essay. Rowley: Newbury House. Furnivall, J. S. 1956. Colonial policy and practice. A comparative study of Netherlands India. New York: New York Press. Gaudart, H. 1987. English language teaming in Malaysia: A historical account. The English Teacher (vol XVI). Retrieved from http://www.melta.org.my/The-English-Teacher-1987/ q?cid=47&doit=showclass Gill, S. K. 2002. International communication. Serdang: Universiti Putra Malaysia Press. Gill, S. K., Nambiar, R. M. K., Ibrahim, N., & Tan, K. H. 2010. Globalization and language-in-education policy shift in Malaysia: Challenges of implementation. In V. Viniti (Ed.), Globalization of language and culture in Asia. The impact of globalization processes on language. London: Continuum. 180-205. Goh, R. B H. 2009. Christian identities in Singapore: Religion, race and culture between state controls and transnational flows. Journal of Cultural Geography, 26(1), 1- 23. Gopinathan, S. 1979. Singapore language policies: Strategies for a plural society. Southeast Asian Affairs. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd. 280-295. Hashim, A. 2005. Language planning in Malaysia: The first hundred years. English Today, 21(4), 3-12. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. B. 1997. Language planning: From practice to theory. Clevedon, USA: Multilingual Matters. Khairuddin, S. M. A. 2009. Colonialism, violence and Muslims in Southeast Asia. The Maria Hertogh Controversy and its aftermath. London and New York: Routledge. Koh, J., & Ho, S. 2009. Cultures and customs of Singapore and Malaysia. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood Press. Kuo, E. C. Y. 1977. The status of English in Singapore: A sociolinguistic analysis. In C. William (Ed.), The English language in Singapore. Singapore: Eastern University Press. 10-33. Lee, E. 2008. Singapore. The unexpected nation. Singapore: ISEAS Press. Lee, K. Y. 1971. Ministry of culture, the mirror. Singapore: Singapore. Government Printer, 8 November 1971, 4-5. Lee, K. Y. 1979. Reply to the educational study team report published in Education study team, report on the Ministry of education 1978. Singapore: Ministry of Education. Majid, A. A. 2013. Inter-religious dialogue in Malaysia and prejudice reduction: A preliminary survey. Proceedings of the International conference on social science research. 4-5 June 2013, Penang, Malaysia. Organized by World Conference.net.

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Muazy, D. K., & Milne, R. S. 2002. Singapore politics under the People’s Action Party. London: Routledge. Neoh, J. 2014. The name of God on trial: Narratives of law, religion and state in Malaysia. Law Text Culture, 18, 198-220. Omoniyi, T., & Fishman, J. (Eds.). 2006. Explorations in the sociology of language and religion. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 40-63. Omoniyi, T. (Ed.). 2010. The sociology of language and religion. Change, conflict and accommodation. Basingstroke: Palgrave. Pakir, A. 1991. The range and depth of English-knowing bilingualism in Singapore. World Englishes, 10(2), 167-179. Roff, W R. 1967. The origins of Malay nationalism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Rubin, J., & Jernudd, B. 1971. Can language be planned?. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii. Straits Times. 2004. December 22, 2004, p. H6. Subhan, M. A. 2007. Planning for Malay Language in education: Lessons of history and present ecology. In V. Viniti, S. Gopinathan & Y. B. Liu (Eds.), Language, capital, culture: Critical studies of language and education in Singapore. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publications. 157-174. Tan, E. K. B. 2007. The multilingual state in search of the nation: The language policy and discourse in Singapore’s nation-building. In H.G. Lee & S. Leo (Eds.), Language, nation and development in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Utopia Press. 74-117. Tan, K. P. 2010. Pragmatic secularism, civil religion, and political legitimacy in Singapore. In M. Heng & T. C. Liew (Eds.), State and secularism: Perspectives from Asia. Singapore: World Scientific. 339-358. Tie, F. T. 2008. Constitutional challenge to freedom of religion in schools in Malaysia. Australia and New Zeeland Journal of Law and Education, 13(2), 89-100. Thomas, R. M. 1986. Malaysia. Education and Urban Society, 18(4), 399-411. Today (2004), October 14, 2004. p. 1. Tong, C. K. 1989. Religious conversion and revivalism: A study of Christianity in Singapore. Report prepared for Ministry of Community Development, Singapore. Thirusanku, J., & Yunus, M.M. 2014. Status of English in Malaysia. Asian Social Science, 10(14), 254260. Retrieved from http://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article/viewFile/37998/21197 Vaish, V. 2007. Globalization of language and culture in Singapore. International Journal of Multilingualism, 4(3), 217-233. Zain, A. E. M., Awang, J., & Zakaria, I. 2014. Inter-religious dialogue: The perspective of Malaysian contemporary Muslim thinkers. International journal of Islamic Thought, 3, 1-9.

Karin van der Worp, Jasone Cenoz, Durk Gorter

9 Language policy in business and industry: Between local and global developments Globalisation reaches to all corners of the world, although not to the same degree everywhere. The daily lives of people get affected in the products they can buy (consumer goods from abroad), the way they dress (clothes produced far away), the food they eat (exotic food from other countries), the culture they consume (eg. Hollywood movies), the news they watch and even the way they speak. One of the consequences of globalisation is that many people are found to adopt more urban lifestyles including those living in rural areas. As Castells (1996) pointed out, in our “networked world” we experience interconnectedness with people from around the globe. In the Basque Country in Spain, over the past 40 years a strong policy has been developed to support and strengthen the use of the minority language, Basque, in all domains of society, including private business and industry. The policy to promote the minority language has led to several initiatives to encourage the use of the minority language in companies. During about the same period of time, the global language English has gradually obtained a more prominent position in society. In a region like the Basque Country in Spain, globalisation is clearly noticeable. A large variety of international products are available to consumers, because the region is well-connected by road, by rail and by sea to Europe and other countries around the globe. Furthermore, the improvement in technology has an important influence on the daily lives of people, such as their language habits, which is of special relevance in an area where a local language has been spoken since “time immemorial”. Over the centuries, through foreign contacts the Basque language has been influenced by several languages, such as French, Latin and Spanish. During the 19th and 20th centuries, an important shift took place. Many indigenous Basque people switched from speaking Basque to Spanish, and fewer people transmitted the language to the next generation. During the period of the Franco dictatorship (19391975), the Basque language was suppressed and this further accelerated language shift toward Spanish. Only in the last quarter of the 20th century a relatively strong language policy was implemented to revitalise Basque; the main aim is to extend the use of Basque to all domains of society. Notwithstanding these revitalisation efforts, Spanish has remained the dominant language in the Basque society, and due to global developments English has gradually obtained a larger presence, although compared to some Northern European countries its presence is still modest.

Karin van der Worp, Jasone Cenoz, University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU Durk Gorter, University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, IKERBASQUE – Basque Foundation for Science

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This chapter looks at the efforts of Basque language planning and policy, in particular in the private sector, against the background of globalisation. On the one hand, the Basque regional government has developed an important programme of measures to revitalise the use of the Basque language, not only in the fields of education, culture and media (Gorter, Zenotz, Etxague & Cenoz, 2014), but also for private companies. On the other hand, the same government has also developed plans for internationalisation of companies; efforts which recently were intensified after the beginning of the economic crisis. The governmental policy and planning to promote the local language Basque go in parallel with campaigns to make Basque companies operate on a global market, where the use of English is often seen as obligatory. The chapter discusses how the local companies mediate between the local and global demands, and how this has affected the region.

9.1 Globalisation in the region According to Wallerstein (1974), the process of globalisation is similar to the “world system”; the world became more connected through trade, transport, and technology. However, Wallerstein (1974) also states that it is not a recent phenomenon, but in fact, these developments originated centuries ago and only recently are being accelerated. In the field of globalisation studies, some authors point to important factors, such as the rise of free trade between countries (Irwin, 2015), the introduction of standardised 40-foot containers which make quick trans-shipment of goods possible (Levinson, 2006), or the invention of computer chips which helped create the internet (Mazurek, 1999), all of which are captured in the famous saying “the internet changes everything” (Businessweek, 1995). In those theories, globalisation is explained by economic or technological factors, but there is also a cultural side related to consciousness and values. Robertson (1992: 8) emphasises the cultural dimension when he refers to globalisation as “the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole.” Languages and linguistic diversity are included in such a cultural dimension of globalisation. Robertson (1992) is also among the first to use the concept of ‘glocalization’; he likens it to a process in which the relationships between the global orientations and the preservation of local values come together. This hybrid concept draws attention to the fact that globalisation is interpreted and taken up differently depending on the starting point and history of different local groups. Wellman (2002) metaphorically refers to the opening up of the local as if it was a set of closed little boxes, and he mentions how people are now moving more and more between separated social networks. This is because the workplace of people is no longer the same as their neighborhood or the town where they live. Instead, they commute via the highway and do not know what is located in between. Wellman (2002) highlights the movement of people as another important characteristic of globalisation. Large streams of (labor-)



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migrants and refugees have led to millions of people settling in other places away from where their ancestors were born and lived. Inevitably, these migrants will take the languages they speak as a child to the host countries, and along the way many will learn the languages of those new countries. Thus, globalisation is not only about economic, technological or general cultural issues, but also linguistic spread and diversity, which has an effect on language policy and planning. During the last few decades, globalisation has also given rise to the global spread of English in the domains of trade, technology and mass-culture. Across the globe, English has become the language most often learned in the school system of almost any country. It has become hugely attractive for many people since they believe that learning the language will bring economic, social and political advantages. The new global language has been given a high prestige and people associate English with being modern, cosmopolitan, chic, and “current”. The British Council and commercial enterprises actively promote the learning of English and make huge profits on its testing. Other languages, such as French, Mandarin and Spanish are also spoken by hundreds of millions of people, and the learning of those major languages is actively promoted by institutions, such as Alliance Française, Confucius Institutes and Instituto Cervantes that are funded by their state governments. Due to globalisation, mainly through its spread in the mass media, people around the globe learn new names of places, persons, products, services and ideas all at the time. Some of the terms have become household words in a short period of time (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Wikipedia), others are short-lived in collective memory because of a war or a disaster (e.g. Eyjafjallajökull, the Icelandic volcano erupted in 2010). Brand names come and go; some become verbs while others are forgotten (e.g. Polaroid, Fax) often because of outdated technology, merger, bankruptcy or a change of name to sound more modern. Thus, globalisation has also led to quite a shared amount of vocabulary among a large portion of citizens across the globe, which besides commercial names and news events, also includes names of sports players and clubs, movie stars, idols in popular music, government leaders and politicians and others. However, globalisation does not reach to all people due to personal choice or simply a lack of access to modern technology. In a similar vein, the way globalisation has an effect on bilingual speakers of regional languages like Basque is different from how globalisation affects the monolingual speakers of larger state languages, such as French or Spanish. In the context of this chapter, it is important to consider the effect of globalisation on language policies whereby the aim is to preserve, to protect and to promote minority languages such as Basque. Stimulus measures are taken to teach the language in schools and to encourage its use among its speakers, and this happens at different levels of society ‒ the government, schools and other institutions. In this chapter, the focus is on language policies in private companies in the commercial sector.

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9.2 A framework for language policy and planning The field of Language Policy and Planning (LPP) has had an important development. Kaplan and Baldauf eloquently express the core of the field as “in the simplest sense, language planning is an attempt by someone to modify the linguistic behaviour of some community for some reason” (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997: 3). They further define language planning as involving “deliberate, although not always overt, futureoriented change in systems of language code and/or speaking in a social context, [… mostly] undertaken by government” (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997: 3). They recognise that language planning also occurs in other societal contexts and at other levels than the state government. Similarly, Spolsky (2004) refers to language policy as a determined and explicit policy change, a set of managed and planned interventions supported and enforced by law and implemented by a government agency. However, Spolsky (2009) prefers to use the term ‘language management’ instead to emphasise the range of levels at which language policy and management can take place, for example inside a family, a church or an organisation. Spolsky (2009) anchors his language management framework on three components: language practices, beliefs about language and efforts to modify practices. In a nutshell, Spolsky (2004) believes that the ideologies about the language, the ecology that surrounds that language and the actions taken to manage or manipulate language behavior are the foundation of language policy. Often a basic distinction is made between ‘status planning’ (the use of language in society), and ‘corpus planning’ (the language system itself). In his study of the standardisation of Norwegian in the 19th and 20th century (with its two varieties of Nynorsk and Bokmal), Haugen (1966; 1987) uses that distinction to design and develop his cyclical framework of language policy over time. He distinguishes four stages of policy: codification, elaboration, implementation, and evaluation. However, Cooper (1989) advocates a third dimension of language planning – ‘acquisition planning’, which refers to language teaching but includes a wider range of learning activities (Cooper, 1989: 157-163). This third dimension is also referred to as ‘language-ineducation planning’. Based on these studies and others, Kaplan and Baldauf (2003) develop a revised and expanded framework of language planning goals; they use these three dimensions of status, corpus and language-in-education planning, and add ‘prestige planning’ as a fourth dimension. Prestige planning is about the image of the language, “so that the full capabilities of the language are actually used in important or prestigious situations” (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2003: 222). Baldauf (2006) emphasises that language policy and planning has to be extended from the dominant macro perspective to focus more on micro language planning. This includes businesses, education, and other organisations which have strong influence at the local level. He also mentions the importance of globalisation and



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power and provides several examples of the relevance of micro language planning, among others for sales and services and for manufacturing. He concludes that “micro language planning seems to be a useful concept for solving language problems in a range of areas including business” (Baldauf, 2006: 166). The following section discusses the main outlines of the sociolinguistic and economic context of Basque businesses.

9.3 Sociolinguistic and economic context The Basque Country is located on the state border between France and Spain, where it extends from the Western Pyrenees along the coast of the Gulf of Biscay. It has a total population close to 3 million people. The area is historically divided into seven provinces. Today the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC) consists of the provinces of Araba, Bizkaia, and Gipuzkoa and has 2.1 million inhabitants. The neighbouring autonomous province of Navarre has 642 000 inhabitants. The Northern Basque Country, or Iparralde, is part of the French ‘Départment des Pyrénées Atlantiques’ and has 260 000 inhabitants. Historically, it consists of the three provinces Lapurdi (Labourd), Nafarroa Behera (Lower-Navarre) and Zuberoa (Soule). In this chapter, the focus is on the Basque Autonomous Community and following the usage of the Basque Government, we will refer to it as Basque Country. The sociolinguistic context can be summarised based on the extensive sociolinguistic surveys carried out since 1991 with five-year intervals (Vice-Ministry for Language Policy, 2013). We will briefly discuss the geographic distribution, the language competence per area, the use of Basque and the attitudes towards the promotion of Basque. According to the 2011 survey-data, 32% of the population of the Basque Country is bilingual, which means they can speak Basque and Spanish, another 17% understands Basque but can only speak Spanish and 51% can only speak Spanish and has no Basque knowledge (Vice-Ministry for Language Policy, 2013, p. 67). One important characteristic of the Basque language is its uneven geographic distribution. Some areas have less than 20% Basque speakers, other areas have between 20 and 50% or between 50 and 80%, but only in a few territories, such as in Gipuzkoa, there are over 80% of Basque speakers. Figure 9.1 shows that there are clear differences in language competence between the three provinces, ranging from 49.9% bilingual Basque-Spanish speakers in Gipuzkoa, to 25.4% in Bizkaia and only 16.8% in Araba. The survey also presented results for language use (see Figure 9.2).

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Fig. 9.1: Language competence in the provinces Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Araba (Basque Country) (in percentages; aged 16 years and over). (Source: Vice-Ministry for Language Policy, 2013: 69). NB: the size of each circle represents the size of the population of each province.

Fig. 9.2: Language use in the Basque Country (in percentages; aged 16 years and over). (Source: ViceMinistry for Language Policy, 2013: 98).



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Figure 9.2 shows that 28.9% of the people use Basque to a considerable extent, of those, 12.7% use more Basque than Spanish, 7.3% use Basque as much as Spanish and 8.9% use some Basque but more often Spanish. A large majority (65.2%) always use Spanish and 5.9% almost always use Spanish (Vice-Ministry for Language Policy, 2013: 98). Over the last 20 years, the use of Basque has increased gradually. The percentage of people who only use Spanish or a little Basque has gone down from 78% in 1991, to 71% in 2011. The survey results further indicates that the use of Basque has increased most in formal service situations (such as government services and health care) and with colleagues at work. In terms of language attitudes, the survey found that a majority of 62% view the promotion of the use of Basque favourably, 26% are neutral and 12% are against. The number in favour of the language policy to promote Basque has increased by 7% over the last 20 years. An interesting observation can be made from the basic economic data about the Basque Country. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) with less than 250 workers make up over 99% of all companies (out of about 165,500 companies, 2011 data) and those SMEs employ two-thirds of the total workforce (EPIC, 2013). Since the start of the crisis in 2008, the Basque economy has suffered a downward trend, and the number of companies has decreased. The industrial sector is the most important sector for foreign export; about half of all exports go to five countries (France, Germany, Italy, the United States of America and the United Kingdom), while the other half goes to a whole range of other countries. Over the last few years, exports of Basque companies have increased substantially but mainly due to large companies that do much more in terms of internationalisation and innovation than the SMEs (Confebask, 2014). This circumstance has an influence on the possibilities for the development of micro language planning inside companies. Often, in large-scale companies there is more capacity to develop a language policy than in SMEs, especially in small companies with fewer than 50 workers. At the level of the regional government, the Basque Agency for Business Development (SPRI) aims to internationalise local companies besides attracting foreign investors to the Basque Country. However, this government agency has placed little attention in the development of language planning and policy as a factor in internationalisation although this is compensated with the government setting up a separate agency that focuses on the development of Basque language policy. In the next section a short overview of the developments of language policy and planning will be given.

9.4 Language policy and planning for Basque in general Recent historical events are important in understanding the ways in which language planning and policy for Basque has developed over a period of about 40 years. After the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975, the first legal recognition of Basque came into the Spanish constitution of 1978. The Basque language was declared a co-

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official language in the territory of the Basque Autonomous Community alongside with Spanish. This gave an important boost to the status planning of Basque. Corpus planning had been going on for some time since the standardisation of the Basque language in the 1960s. Further elaboration of terminology, grammars, specialised dictionaries, etc. was continued from the 1980s onwards as well. In the Autonomous Region of Navarre, there was a similar legal recognition, but it was restricted to the Basque-speaking areas in the north. In the northern part of the Basque Country in France, on the other side of the state border, there is no or minimal legal recognition, which means that Basque has much less formal status there. This chapter focuses on language policy and planning in the Basque Autonomous Community (as previously mentioned, we refer to it as Basque Country throughout this chapter). The legal status of Basque was further enhanced by the Basque Country’s Statute of Autonomy (1979) and the Basic Law on the Normalization of Basque Language Use (1982). A central notion of these texts is “normalisation”, a concept which in Spanish refers to a general process through which the minority language will become a normal language of daily communication for the citizens. More specific guidelines were contained in the General Plan for the Promotion of the Use of Basque (EBPN, 1999). The basic aim of the plan is formulated as “to promote language policy measures necessary to ensure the possibility of living in Basque for those who so desire” (EBPN, 1999, p. 53). Through this policy a situation has to be created in which the use of Basque is taken for granted and its social status is fully accepted. It implies the public use of Basque on equal footing with Spanish. This can be considered as the core of the policy of ‘normalization’. In the 1980s, the Basque language was the first language of a relatively small proportion of the population (24.1% according to the first sociolinguistic survey in 1991) (Vice-Ministry for Language Policy, 2013: 249). To improve the situation, priority was given to the teaching of the Basque language in schools. The emphasis was thus on language-in-education planning. The idea was to start learning Basque as early as possible and to introduce the language in all stages of education, including the university and adult courses. Three basic models were developed in order to create a choice for parents. In the first choice, they can send their children to the so-called D-model where all teaching takes place through the medium of Basque, except where Spanish is taught as a subject for a limited number of hours per week. Originally the D-model was intended for pupils with Basque as their home language, but over time it became also popular among Spanish-speaking parents. The second choice is the B-model where Basque and Spanish are taught for about 50% of the time and both languages are also taught as a subject. As for the third choice, there is the A-model, which is more or less the reverse of the D-model because the basic teaching language is Spanish and Basque is only taught as a subject for some hours. In many cases, one school can offer the parents the choice between two models or sometimes even three. At the beginning there were serious shortages of materials for the teaching of Basque and other subjects through the medium of Basque, so the government agency gave



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strong support to the development of learning materials. At the same time priority was given to the training of teachers who can teach through the medium of Basque. In this way, schools were facilitated to create a stream for a D-model in their school. Over time, these policy measures have led to some impressive changes in the education system. In 1982 only about 5% of all teachers were able to teach through the medium of Basque but by 2012 the figure has gone up to over 80%. The demand for education through the medium of Basque (D-model) has increased significantly. In addition, the percentage of new registrations for the D-model Kindergarten has gone up from 7% in the school year 1982-1983 to 77% in the school year 2014-2015. Usually once a child is registered in a model, s/he will remain there throughout his or her school career. Nonetheless, the increase in the participation in the D-model has been gradual, and therefore the number of students enrolled in secondary schools where Basque is the medium of instruction is still lower. In the school year 2014-2015, 60% of the upper-secondary students are enrolled in the D-model. As a consequence of the language-in-education policy, the number of people that are able to speak Basque has increased substantially over the years. In 1991, about 24.1% of the population was able to speak Basque, but 20 years later, according to the survey of 2011, the number had increased to 32% (Vice-Ministry for Language Policy, 2013: 70). This shows that there has been a gradual increase among the population as a whole but a closer look at the category of 16-24 year olds shows a more impressive increase. In 1991, in the youngest age-bracket of the survey, about 25% could speak Basque, and this also included a small group who had already gone through the Basque medium education in the years before. By 2011, the percentage for this group had gone up to 59.7% (Vice-Ministry for Language Policy, 2013: 73). However, one of the main challenges for the revitalisation (or normalisation) of Basque is to put the acquisition of language skills into actual use. Although the sociolinguistic surveys indicate that the knowledge of Basque has increased, the daily use of the language is still lagging behind. The usage figures for the youngest generation are somewhat more favourable because they are more proficient in the language, but a substantial group of young people only uses Basque from time to time and less often than Spanish. As there are important differences in the geographic distribution over the territory, the percentages for those people who use Basque at least as often as Spanish in the province of Gipuzkoa are much higher than in the province of Araba. Over the years, more and more parents from Spanish-speaking homes have chosen Basque as a medium of education. There are several reasons to explain this phenomenon. An important reason is that Basque as a medium of instruction has produced academically successful students. Pupils not only achieve high levels of proficiency in Basque and Spanish, but also in mathematics, English, and other subjects. The idea that learning more languages is an advantage has caught on. There is a strong awareness that Basque is an endangered language and the parents want to contribute to saving the language. The choice for the D-model can also be linked to a strong sense of Basque identity which is reflected in relatively high percentages of

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votes for nationalistic political parties (over half of the electorate). Another reason is the absence of a counter-reaction against Basque as a medium of instruction because there was and still is a choice for those parents who do not want it for their children. Other developments in the wider society have further contributed to the reinforcement of Basque in education. More support and provisions are made for Basque-language media, such as the radio and television programmes, but also music, literature, theatre, folklore and, nowadays, the Internet, social media and other digital resources even though the offer of Spanish media content is still much larger. Another important reason for the increase in popularity of the Basque language is its socio-economic advantage. In particular, in the labor market, such as the public administration sector, proficiency in Basque has increasingly become a job requirement. Gradually such requirements for certain proficiency levels of Basque have extended to include almost all civil servants. In recent developments, such requirements have been adopted by many companies in the private sector that require (or prefer) specific levels of knowledge of Basque of their staff, particularly in jobs where staff members are in contact with the public, such as financial services (banks, insurances), tourism, hospitality industry, shops, and other commercial establishments. Thus, the increase in socio-economic demand implies an important incentive for parents to send their children to Basque medium education. The development of language planning and policy aimed at the private sector is of special relevance for this chapter, and the most important policy programme for this sector is a programme called ‘Lan-Hitz’ (which means language at work); this programme will be described in the next section.

9.5 Language policy and planning for Basque companies As discussed previously, language policy and planning is most often thought of as being developed by the government with the aim to influence the public sector. In the Basque Country, over the years the different levels of government – regional, provincial and municipal – have developed policy plans that primarily aim at their own institutions and related organisations. At the same time, they have developed initiatives to support the use of Basque specifically for the private sector. One example is a grant scheme by the city of Donostia-San Sebastián that gives subsidies for using Basque in public signage. The local government provides a subsidy of up to 50% to shop-owners for the costs of new signs when those are in Basque only and 30% when they are bilingual in Basque and Spanish (with limitations of the maximum amounts) (Aiestaran, Cenoz & Gorter, 2010; Gorter, Aiestaran & Cenoz, 2012). Similar programmes also exist in other municipalities. An important policy measure is the programme called Lan-Hitz (language at work) that was set up in 1997. This programme can be seen as an example of micro language planning for companies (Baldauf, 2006). The goal is to increase the presence



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and the use of Basque in the domain of the private sector. The Lan-Hitz programme is directly linked to the General Plan for the Promotion of the Use of Basque (EBPN, 1999) already mentioned above. The General Plan applies to language policy and planning for the whole of society whereas the Lan-Hitz programme aims at language use in the world of work in a wide sense, but in particular in private companies. Every year the regional government makes grants available for entities in the private sector to develop their own language policy plans. The government prescribes a standardised tool called ‘EME’ to develop tailor made language plans. The tool is designed to assist companies in a systematic design, implementation and evaluation of their plans for the use of Basque. As a company cannot change its language use in all areas of work all at once, the planning tool subdivides all areas of work into a large number of small steps. The tool is an interesting example of micro language planning that could also be used in other situations and therefore a short overview will be given. The EME planning tool covers three key areas: (1) the corporate image and communication, (2) external relations, and (3) internal relations. For each area, the tool provides a detailed diagnosis of the contents of communications. As a whole, it constitutes a framework with 143 different sections for which language use is established. For example, in the key area Corporate Image and Communication, the heading ‘reception’ is divided into three sub-headings: ‘language of reception’, ‘visits’ and ‘security’. The first of those, ‘language of reception’ is further subdivided into four smaller sections: (1) personal or telephone attention: salutation and general information, (2) automatic reception, answering machine, automatic cashiers, (3) public address (PA) system, and (4) written record of visitors. For each of the smaller sections, a company is asked to describe how they plan to use Basque (next to Spanish which they already use in almost all cases). The second example concerns the key area of Internal Relations, where one of its five subheadings is called ‘horizontal and vertical communication’. This subheading is then further divided into four smaller sections with one titled ‘work meetings, groups and committees’ where a distinction is made (1) short texts, such as announcements and presentation materials, (2) oral presentations and (3) long texts, such as reports. Basically, the EME-tool will be used by companies to determine precisely where they want to increase the use of Basque in their company structures. The outcome of the diagnosis is an overall language plan for Basque that includes a detailed timetable for implementation. Through the application of the step-by-step EME-tool, the use of Basque in the company can be increased alongside with Spanish. Usually Basque is dealt with as an issue on its own and even with increased internationalisation, English or other languages are often not included in the language plan. Usually, a company appoints a staff member as its Basque language coordinator, and creates a special working group to support the planning work. The first step is to make an inventory of language competences of the staff of the company, which is followed by an appraisal of the company using the EME-tool. It establishes the basis for a multi-annual plan for Basque and an annual implementation plan. These plans can be supported by grants from the

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regional government, and the provincial governments of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa. Moreover, Elhuyar, a private foundation whose main aim is “to consolidate the Basque language in science, technology and society” and who is known for developing Basque language materials, such as dictionaries and teaching materials, has developed a tool called “neurtzeko” (see http://neurtzeko.net/) to make it possible to follow the presence and use of Basque in companies based on the EME framework. In order to illustrate how the planning for Basque in a company works, this section discusses the case of the Elay Group, which is mainly based upon the study of the Soziolinguistika Klusterra (2008)42 and a recent Language Communication Audit (van der Worp, 2015). The Elay Group is a high technological industrial company that manufactures metallic parts using fine blanking technology, a special type of metal stamping or precision cutting to produce, for example, the metal parts of safety belts or brake plates. The company has about 400 employees and an annual turnover of 55 million euros (see www.elay.com). The main premises are located in the town of Antzuola, in the heartland of the Basque Country. In the early 1980s the teaching of Basque in towns’ schools began while most of the adults used Basque at home, among friends and in the street. Conversely, inside the factory, the employees continued to use Spanish. Some workers of Elay had the idea that they could also use Basque as a working language. After contacting the regional government and the Elhuyar foundation they developed a first plan for Basque. Gradually some measures were introduced, those included in 1982 bilingual signage and some bilingual internal documents, and in 1987 reimbursement for Basque language courses for workers (the same year the first two workers took a course). In 1992 the company started a pilot-project to extend its work through Basque, even though there was little prior experience of how to introduce changes in language habits in a company. It also actively participated in the application of the Lan-Hitz programme. An important challenge was to ensure that the workers are literate in Basque so as to prevent language loss since that generation of adults was only taught in Spanish. During the next years, intentional ‘communication circles’ were set up where Basque was used among colleagues, and these turned out to be successful in creating new daily language use habits. However, Basque was not used in the external relations of the company due to the delicate sociolinguistic situation in the business world in the Basque Country in the 1990s. After a few years, the communicative circles disappeared and a Basque language commission was given the task of systematically implementing and evaluating the use of the language, and workers began to use the language spontaneously and could progress on their own. Since then the Basque language became an institutionalised part of management as any other kind of business issue.

42 The Soziolinguistika Klusterra, a cluster of several non-profit organisations, published a number of case studies on the implementation of Basque language plans between 2007 and 2014 (see www.soziolinguistika.eus/kasuak; texts are in Basque and Spanish, some in French).



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However, the documents and procedures that described the use of Basque were until 2008 only written in Spanish while internal work orders were bilingual. Gradually the company started to have internal documents in Basque only. In 1992 about 65% of the workforce of Elay could speak Basque and nothing was written in Basque. In 2008, 16 years later, 85% could speak and 83% could write Basque; 72% of all written texts were in Basque (Soziolinguistika Klusterra, 2008: 7). By 2015 the whole workforce, except for six people, speaks Basque very well. Today all internal documents are in Basque, but invoices are also in English and Spanish. In external relations, the difficulties the company encountered in the use of Basque were gradually overcome. The Chamber of Commerce and their auditing company had begun to translate their documents in Basque, but there were quite a few struggles with the social security administration, the labor office and even branches of the Basque Government. Many times the employees of the companies felt isolated, but due to their persistence they had become a guiding example in the Basque Country of how to implement a policy for the use of the minority language. The Elay Group operates on a global scale; it has factories in Mexico and China, a sales-office in Germany and 80% of its clients are from abroad. Thus, most of the external relations are conducted in Spanish and English. Despite its global emphasis, the company’s philosophy is to maintain its Basque identity, and in order to achieve this the use of Basque is essential. This is reflected in efforts to introduce some Basque in their offices abroad, where the directors of the plants in Mexico and in China are both Basque speakers (van der Worp, 2015), and even a Chinese worker is learning Basque. English is mostly used in situations abroad, for example also with clients in France or Germany, although it may not be their most preferred language. In a nutshell, the company shows a strong awareness of the importance of languages; its main principle is to promote the use of different languages depending on the circumstances. It is one of the first companies that is proactive in the development of language plans for multilingualism, which are discussed in the next section. From the numbers of annual grants in the Lan-Hitz programme (for example, more than 600 in 2014) it is evident that thousands of companies have taken part over the years. However, the number of very small enterprises is huge compared to large companies (almost 155.000 of the total of 165.000 enterprises in the Basque Country have less than 10 workers, see Confebask, 2014), and there are fewer possibilities and fewer facilities for implementing a language plan for Basque in these very small enterprises. Perhaps there is also less need because most issues can be resolved in an informal way and within the coincidental composition of the small work-team. Moreover, as shown in the example of the Elay Group, implementing a language plan on a micro scale is a slow process and hence planning for Basque in the private sector still has a long way to go. Overall, an impressive amount of work has been done to promote Basque in the private sector and this is much more than what has been achieved for other European minority languages perhaps with the exception of Catalan and Welsh for which similar policy efforts have been undertaken.

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9.6 Policy and planning for multilingualism for Basque companies As we have discussed previously, increasing the internationalisation of local companies is an important aim of the Basque government; their economic policy of encouraging exports to other countries brings with it the use of other languages. One would thus expect that a need for multilingual language policy was felt. However, the awareness in companies seems low and usually does not extend beyond the need for better skills in English among the staff (van der Worp, Gorter & Cenoz, 2016). An exception is the already mentioned Elhuyar foundation that some years ago had made a step from planning for the use of Basque and managing bilingualism to adopting a more multilingual approach. One of the main reasons given was “to adapt to the changes brought by globalisation”. As stated by Elhuyar, “our clients work at global level and have to handle different languages. The bilingual context in which companies worked before has now become a multilingual context” (Soziolinguistika Klusterra, 2014: 30). In response, it created an online platform called “Hizkuna”, which is intended for “language management in multilingual environments”. The platform consists of a number of resources such as machine translation, voice synthesis, and digital dictionaries that are meant to support work in an international environment (see http://hizkuna.elhuyar.eus). In this case ‘language management’ seems to have a more restricted meaning and refers to an applied and technical approach to solving language problems. One company that felt an obvious need to develop a multilingual policy in recent years was the Tecnalia Corporation, an organisation working in the sphere of research, development and innovation (RDI). The case of Tecnalia clearly illustrates how local and global demands interact in the development of language policy and planning for multilingualism. The following summary is mainly based upon the study of the Soziolinguistika Klusterra (2014). Tecnalia is the result of a merger of eight technology centers in 2010 (see www. tecnalia.com/en/). Today, it has spread over 20 locations with its head quarter in Donostia-San Sebastián, another eleven locations in the Basque Country, four in Spain and four more in France, Italy, Mexico and Serbia. Tecnalia has a multilingual workforce of over 1.400 staff-members from 29 nationalities. It is one of the important private research centers in Spain and Europe. In 2011 the newly merged organisation started to develop a language policy plan that took into account its Basque roots, its international research context and its multilingual workforce. The first step of the specially established Linguistic Diversity Group was to take the EMEtool in order to design a language plan, not only for Basque but also for Spanish and English because these three were the most common used languages. The new policy distinguished between (1) obligatory use of all three languages (e.g. in newsletters, the website); (2) flexible use of two languages (e.g. Basque and Spanish with Basque authorities or English and French with French clients); and (3) open language use, where everyone can use the language(s) of their choice. After a few months it turned



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out that managing this large organisations’ linguistic diversity was more complex than initially thought. The implementation process was halted and a period of reflection initiated. This coincided with contacts with the Elhuyar foundation and cooperation began in early 2012. Together they started to analyse different internal communication processes and the most urgent areas to work on such as marketing and external communication were identified. Tecnalia now uses all three languages on its website and in important documents of external communication such as its annual report. Care has been taken to ensure that all people working in the reception at the different locations can respond in Basque, Spanish and English. For internal communication many templates are available; the company newsletter is trilingual, and increasingly standard emails are also written in three languages. Other initiatives, such as ‘language lunches’ to create opportunities for staff to practice language skills, were less successful. Tecnalia aims to disseminate an understanding of how to deal with different languages among its employees, partners and clients. There are some stated principles, but no strict rules because the idea is to work in a flexible way. At the same time, the company wants to break with the past by creating a multilingual environment in all centers. However, a lot of work remains to be done in the field of language management. More recently, Elhuyar has developed a new diagnosis tool specifically for planning multilingualism in companies and other organisations that operate internationally. The tool is used by Elhuyar while it participates in a European project called EPIC (which stands for ‘Enhancing and  Promoting  International Business Communication’, see http://epicforyou.eu/en/). The European EPIC-project runs as a pilot in four countries − Italy, Lithuania, Poland and Spain (Basque Country). The aim is to help Small and Medium- sized Enterprises (SMEs) to overcome language and cultural barriers in international trading. The project is funded by the European Commission (Lifelong Learning Programme) and it is based on outcomes of earlier research that found that SMEs have an annual turnover loss of up to 11% due to communication barriers (European Commission, 2006) and SMEs can gain up to 25% revenue by implementing a language management strategy (Hagen, 2011). In the EPIC project a common Language Communication Audit (LCA) has been designed. The first step in such an audit consists of a pre-audit questionnaire filled in by the company. This is followed by a personal visit of one or two auditors to review the company’s communication channels, strategies, and possible language barriers. The auditor then provides a report with an analysis of the current linguistic situation and recommendations for improvement. The outcome is a tailor-made policy plan for multilingualism. The company can decide to implement the proposed changes or not, but the main idea is to help the company to create new possibilities for international trade and will thus raise its annual turnover. The Elhuyar foundation has widened its scope by applying the European based LCA to what is still a limited number of companies and organisations in the Basque Country. Even though the support for the use of Basque is still prioritised, the new approach includes a diagnosis of the use of

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other languages, in particular English. In this way Elhuyar may evolve from a local to an international player in language management for companies.

9.7 Discussion and conclusion This chapter highlights the development of the language policy and planning for the revitalisation of the Basque language with particular emphasis on the private sector. At the micro level a form of language planning has been reasonably successful to support the use of Basque in private companies through a standardised tool EME and being part of a special programme Lan-Hitz that aimed at the language of work. Over the four decades this minority language has gradually obtained a more prominent place in the day-to-day internal and external communications, and in the marketisation of many large and small businesses in the Basque Country. As shown in the case of the Elay Group, there is a need for persistent effort over a significant period in order to obtain positive results in the operation of the company through the medium of Basque. However, the impact of globalisation has become more significant in the region and the need for the use of the global language English is felt by many companies. Therefore, the region responded by developing multilingual policies in the already bilingual Basque-Spanish context. As seen in the case of Tecnalia, the company took the effort to develop adequate plans and provide support to use the three languages − Basque, English and Spanish - in internal and external communication, and where there was a demand, other languages were also used. Essentially, larger companies with more than 250 workers will be better able to implement multilingual plans for Basque, English, Spanish, and other languages because they have more capacity. As shown in the case of the Elay Group and confirmed by the interviews with the managers in internationally operating companies in our earlier study (van der Worp et al., 2016), the findings suggest that whenever a company starts to think about internationalization, the focus is on competency in English. The idea that ‘English is enough’ seems to be the prevailing attitude in dealing with overseas businesses even though in many internationalisation plans language is not given any priority. There is some awareness of the importance of cultural differences, for example, they often notice cultural differences with Latin American countries although they can mostly speak Spanish in their business relationships with those countries. However, they seem to underestimate the effect of using only English with their French, German, Chinese, or other trade partners. A Language Communication Audit as carried out in the EPIC-project suggests that internationally operating companies also need other languages besides English, but to convince the leadership of the companies to look beyond English will be a difficult task especially for SMEs. Due to their company size, they are more likely to have a hard time developing a multilingualism plan and hence they will need the support of the



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Basque government and an organisation like Elhuyar. In conclusion, most companies in the Basque Country will have to navigate between the local needs of support for the minority language and the global demands of English and other languages for business communication abroad in this global age.

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Daniel Perrin, Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow

10 Translation in journalism: Local practices in multilingual newsflows43 In an increasingly globalised and immediate world, journalists are faced with a plethora of multilingual newsflows originating from sources other than established news agencies. Recorded by amateurs or local media, source materials such as video bites can contain utterances from all over the world in various languages. Our empirical research suggests that the challenges that this diversity presents to journalists and editors could be mitigated by conscious language planning in the newsroom. This chapter looks at the question of how journalists cope with multilingualism in their news production processes, focusing on quotes in languages they may not be familiar with or can hardly understand. The chapter discusses to what degree knowledge gained from our multi-method approach can be applied to addressing this question. Specifically, selected findings are presented to illustrate how insights from this research can be generalised to contribute to understanding and optimising crosscultural newsflows.

10.1 Research question: How does news translation work? Various studies have shown that translation happens in newsrooms44 yet relatively little research has explored the translation practices and strategies of socially powerful actors who are not adequately educated as professional translators or interpreters but who work between languages and therefore produce real life multilingualism (e.g. technical writers, authors of instruction manuals, journalists).45 From research in legal and medical settings, it has been established that there are risks associated with engaging untrained personnel to perform public service interpreting.46 Journalists, however, are language professionals who must be aware of the implications of transferring meaning from a source to a target text, whether within or between languages. 43 This chapter is a revised and expanded version of Perrin & Ehrensberger-Dow (2012). 44 See, for example, Cheesman et al. (2011), Davier (2014), or van Doorslaer (2009). 45 For relevant research into crowdsourcing and lay translation, see Susam-Sarajeva & PérezGonzález (2012). 46 For more on community interpreting in these domains, see de Pedro Ricoy, Perez & Wilson (2009), or Hertog (2010).

Daniel Perrin, Institute of Applied Media Studies, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow, Institute of Translation and Interpreting, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland

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A basic practice in the newsroom is text reproduction. Source texts and other types of source materials are used in collaborative text production processes by journalists to produce target texts appropriate for their audiences. Their pyschobiographies include language education that can result in increased language awareness. In addition, social settings such as newsroom facilities and contextual resources such as global access to news sources influence their decisions in news production (see Fig. 10.1).

Fig. 10.1: Text reproduction as the basic practice in the newsroom (Jakobs & Perrin 2008, p. 364).

Figure 10.1 shows that in increasingly convergent media in a globalised environment, the audience can have direct access to journalists’ sources or can function as sources (i.e., co-authors) themselves by providing input to multi-layered collaborative text production processes. Hence, all of these factors can influence journalists’ translation practices and strategies. The question of interest here is what exactly journalists do if the incoming texts or other source materials are in a different language from the target language of the outgoing texts. More specifically, we are interested in exploring whether institutionalised language policies guide journalistic practices in such circumstances (e.g. whether professional translators are foreseen in collaborative news text production) or whether journalists develop and rely on their own strategies in dealing with multilingual newsflows. On analogy to the definition of writing strategies that we have used elsewhere47, journalists’ translation and language strategies are defined here as the reinforced, conscious, and therefore articulable ideas of how decisions are to be made during the act of transferring meaning between languages so that the process or text product

47 See Perrin (2003) or Perrin & Ehrensberger-Dow (2008).



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has a great probability of fulfilling the intended function.48 Journalists’ translation strategies are assumed to be related to their linguistic awareness, which we define as the language users’ individually-determined, socially-influenced, and sociallyformative sensibility for and consciousness of the interrelations between language, language use, and the situation the language is used in.49 By contrast, journalists’ practices are what they actually do, whether they are more or less conscious of what they are doing and why they are making that choice.

10.2 Research plan: Mapping knowledge from large research projects Over the past few years, the first author has been involved with large transdisciplinary research projects that have investigated journalists’ text production processes in order to determine workplace practices and to make inferences about the strategies that might be guiding those processes and practices. Although translation strategies and practices related to multilingualism were not of primary interest when the data were first collected, the findings presented below draw on the corpora from these research projects. The data were re-analysed to focus specifically on multilingual issues in newsrooms. One of the first of these projects was a qualitative and explorative investigation of journalistic writing in Swiss print, radio, television, and on-line news offices. Data on writing processes were obtained from journalists’ workstations in media newsrooms and evaluated as case studies.50 The project examined journalists’ practices in order to deduce their strategies. Specifically of interest were the strategies used by journalists in the process of writing to ensure that their text products were dramaturgically effective in terms of text function, meaning, structure, and language variant. The corpus from this project contains recordings of 40 news production processes from 17 journalists working in 17 different print, radio, television, and online newsrooms. Based on this type of corpus (one journalist per newsroom), translation strategies and practices can be related to journalists (and their psychobiographies, settings, and contextual resources) as representatives of their profession. Another type of corpus and data originated in a project investigating journalists’ collaboration and shared practices within a socially situated media organisation. In the Idée suisse project, our research group51 investigated the interplay of the

48 As yet there has been little agreement in the translation studies literature on the definition of translation strategy. See Jääskeläinen (2007; 2009) or Gambier (2010) for a review. 49 For more on the linguistic awareness of journalists, see Perrin & Ehrensberger-Dow (2006; 2008); for more on the multilingual awareness of multilinguals, see Jessner (2006; 2014). 50 For further details, see Perrin (2003; 2013). 51 The research group members of the Idée suisse project and their affiliations are: Daniel Perrin (project leader), Michael Schanne and Vinzenz Wyss, Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Win-

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language policy, norms, and practices of the multilingual Swiss public service broadcasting company. As a public service institution, the Swiss broadcaster has a federal, societal, cultural, and linguistic mandate to fulfill which we reconstructed, from a sociolinguistic perspective, as promoting social integration by promoting public understanding. In a highly multilingual country like Switzerland this means, at first glance, promoting discourse across the language boundaries. Essentially, the research team was interested in establishing how the company should, actually does, and could fulfill the responsibilities of its language-focused societal mandate. The research questions and framework of the Idée suisse project were developed in collaboration with actors in the real-life worlds of media politics, media management, and journalism. The project comprised four modules (see Tab. 10.1).

Tab. 10.1: The Idée suisse project modules.

A media politics - societal remit

Conversation

Corpus amount Verbal protocol

Writing process

Text product

Interview

Data source

Dokument

Project module and focus

- -

documents (144) guided interviews (23)

C media production - TV news of SF and TSR - 3 news programs - 5 journalists per newsroom - 1 week per journalist

- - - -

editorial policies (3) guided interviews (15) news reports (120) logfiles (120)

D production discourse - 1 production case per journalist: all editorial conferences all peer conversations all individual work

• - - - - -

Progression Analysis s-notations (15) progression graphs (15) verbal protocols (15) work[lace talks (9) editorial conferences (20)

B media management - broadcasting company SRG

terthur; Aleksandra Gnach and Mathias Fürer, University of Bern; and Marcel Burger, University of Lausanne. This project group was supervised by the project steering committee: Iwar Werlen, University of Bern (chair); Hans-Jürgen Bucher, University of Trier; Werner Kallmeyer, University of Mannheim; Caja Thimm, University of Bonn; and Jean Widmer, University of Fribourg. The project was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, National Research Programme 56, 2005-2009.



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The first module (A) traced the development of the language policy expectations of the broadcasting company using document analysis and thematic interviews. Module B reconstructed management’s actions and reactions, interpretations and reasons, and those of their leading media outlets, again using document analysis and thematic interviews. Module C investigated the text production practices of 15 journalists working for the most important German and French language information broadcasts with process and product analysis. Module D used discourse analysis to investigate the quality control follow-up communication in the editorial offices of the leading news programs. The overall findings show that the knowledge of how to bridge the public mandate and market forces cannot be identified in executive suites but in newsrooms instead. Although the managers are usually frustrated by the expectations of media politics, some experienced journalists find solutions to overcome the conflict between the public mandate and the market. These solutions tend to emerge when the journalists tackle complex and unexpected problems in critical situations within their daily routines.52

10.3 Research framework: The multi-method approach In all of our research projects, Progression Analysis, a multi-method approach that combines ethnographic observation and interviews, computer recording, and cuebased retrospective verbal protocols was employed. This approach has proven valuable in understanding the writing processes of language workers such as journalists, communication professionals, and translators.53 This is because Progression Analysis allows data to be obtained on three levels (i.e., the work situation, writing movements, and writing strategies) in order to investigate collaborative writing as a situated activity in organisational and societal frameworks. The first level of Progression Analysis considers the journalists and the writing situation, which includes the journalists’ professional socialisation and economic, institutional and technological influences on the work situation as well as the specific writing task that the journalists must accomplish. Data on the journalists’ self-perceptions are obtained in semi-standardised interviews that focus on their writing, professional experience and their workplace. Ethnographic data are collected through unstructured participatory observations of organisational practices as well as interviews about them. The second level of Progression Analysis records every keystroke and writing movement in the emerging text. Programmes that run in the background behind the

52 For a more detailed discussion of the project see Perrin et al. (2008; 2009). 53 For detailed descriptions of progression analysis and its applications see Perrin (2003; 2013), Gnach et al. (2007), or Ehrensberger & Perrin (2009; 2015).

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text editors that the journalists usually use, such as behind the user interfaces of the news editing systems, record and provide information on what they actually do during the writing process. The recording can follow the writing process over several workstations and does not influence the performance of the editing system or the journalist; every movement and revision represents intermediate text versions in the writing process. The third level of Progression Analysis allows inferences to be made on the strategies that the journalists use and their awareness of them. As soon as the writing process is completed, the journalists can view the recordings of how their texts came into being and comment on what they have done during the writing process and why they have made that choice. The multiple levels of Progression Analysis allow the strategies and practices that they articulate in these cue-based retrospective verbalisations to be placed in relation to the situational analysis and the data from the computer recordings.

10.4 Findings: Translating as tacit knowledge In spite of the increasing complexity and relevance of working with more than one language, translating in the newsroom still seems to depend more on the tacit knowledge of the individual journalists concerned than on institutionalised procedures, organisational routines, or even explicit organisational knowledge. Whereas some journalists seem quite lost when confronted with the need to work between languages, others seem to be able to draw on elaborated repertoires of domainspecific translation strategies. The linguistic awareness of journalists, like that of other language professionals, is probably higher on average than that of professionals in other domains. It may be this linguistic awareness and not necessarily translation strategies per se that induces some unexpected solutions to language problems that emerge in the newsroom. A selection of these is presented below: (1) discussing a case from a local Swiss television station in order to illustrate our multimethod approach; (2) drawing on data from the Idée suisse project to demonstrate the types of crosscultural problems journalists are confronted with; (3) and finally integrating the insights from both levels to discuss why translation matters in the newsroom.

10.4.1 The TeleZüri case in a local Swiss television station: Shifting from agents to victims The first example from our corpus demonstrates how journalists adapt the presentation of news to the language variant of a dialect-speaking audience. A journalist working for TeleZüri, a local TV station focused on the city of Zurich and surroundings produced a short item about a presidential election victory in South Korea. The source material



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was written in standard German, but the journalist chose to write the item in the local dialect (Zurich German). Although standard German is used for most types of written communication in Zurich and in the rest of the German-speaking part of Switzerland, local variants of Swiss German are used for virtually all spoken interactions (except with foreigners or Swiss from the other language areas) and the distinctive local dialects are highly valued as identity markers by Swiss German communities. The final version of the item, which would be read aloud, is provided as:

Extract 1: Final version of the TeleZüri item in Zurich German (translation in italics).

The following sections outline the process involved in producing this story through the use of Progression Analysis: the revisions and the phases in the writing process; the text versions; and the practices and translation strategies as derived from the retrospective verbal protocol.

10.4.1.1 Revisions in the writing process The journalist who wrote the TeleZüri news item in Extract 1 made several revisions while producing the text. For instance, moving back to insert or delete certain words or to rewrite passages. The position and order of insertions and deletions during the writing process are recorded in the logging data and can be represented concisely in so-called S-notation.54 Wherever a journalist interrupts a text to delete or add anything, S-notation inserts a break-character (|) with a raised (n) or lowered (n) number to indicate the order of the steps. Deleted passages are in n[square brackets]n and later insertions in n{curly braces}n. The steps in the writing process of the example above would appear in S-notation as seen in Extract 2.

54 See Kollberg & Severinson-Eklundh (2001) for more details.

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Extract 2: S-notation of the writing process for the TeleZüri news item.

Extract 2 shows that there are very few revisions at the beginning of the process, as indicated in the first three lines of S-notation of the first two sentences, but numerous insertions and deletions in the process of writing the last sentence.

10.4.1.2 Phases in the writing process The detailed analysis of a writing event can be considerably simplified with S-notation, and the broader pattern can be traced in a progression graph, which shows how a journalist moves through a developing text. The temporal sequence of revisions is shown on the horizontal axis, and the spatial sequence of revisions in the final target text is on the vertical axis. Represented in this way, the revisions describe a two-dimensional graph of text progression. If a journalist completes an item by only moving forward and never deleting anything or jumping to previous parts of the text to insert something, the graph would be a straight line from the upper left corner to the lower right. However, most real-life writing processes show more complex progression graphs. In the writing process of the TeleZüri item, Figure 10.2 demonstrates three distinct phases. The process was relatively linear in the first phase as the journalist formulated the first draft of his item with only a few revisions as he went along (revisions 1-5). The start of a second phase, marked with a dark vertical line, was a jump back in the text (revisions 6-8) before another relatively linear process (revisions 9-12). The beginning of a third phase is marked by an abrupt jump back in the text almost to the beginning of the last sentence (revision 13, marked with a second dark vertical line) and then another relatively linear progression to the end of the text as the last sentence is rewritten. The thick horizontal lines delimit the zone in which the revisions were devoted to the last sentence of the item.



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Fig. 10.2: Progression graph showing the three phases of the writing process for the TeleZüri news item.

10.4.1.3 Text versions A closer examination of the text versions of the TeleZüri item at the end of each phase reveals that the last sentence underwent considerable shifts in meaning as the journalist revised it (see Extract 3).

Extract 3: Zurich German versions of the last sentence of the TeleZüri news item at the end of each phase (translation in italics).

Extract 3 highlights how the journalist revised the role of the president. In this case, the role of the president ascribed to his compatriots in the first version, as active agents having a choice to commit themselves having a choice to commit themselves

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progressively shifted to that of passive victims who were forced to accept cutbacks in the final version.

10.4.1.4 Retrospective verbal protocol and translation strategy After the writing process, the journalist commented on his actions as he watched the computer recordings. What he said as he watched himself revising the third sentence of the item suggests that he was less concerned about the roles of the text agents in the item than about the linguistic sensitivities of his audience (see Extract 4).

Extract 4: Extract from the retrospective verbal protocol of the TeleZüri journalist (translation in italics).

This perspective is consistent with the policy of TeleZüri, which considers speaking the news in the regional dialect of Zurich to be an important part of the station’s audience design. Since part of the local station’s mandate is to be close to its audience, the journalist’s strategy consists of translating written standard German into the dialect spoken in the region in order to stage proximity to the audience. The TeleZüri case shows how the quantitative and qualitative data are combined to explain what writers under investigation do and why they do it. On the one hand, the recordings of the writing activities are used as cues for the retrospective verbal protocols, on the other, the verbalised strategies and practices can be related to situated activity. It is only by triangulating data across the three levels of Progression Analysis that we are able to identify intentions and understandings beyond the situated activity: in this case, the language awareness guiding the journalist’s production of language suited to local needs.

10.4.2 Some Idée suisse cases: Coping with foreign languages As discussed previously, the journalist in the TeleZüri case translates standard German into the local variety of German in order to meet his station’s guidelines of audience design whereas other journalists have to make source material in various languages accessible to their target audiences. An experienced journalist indicated that many of them are aware that they are unprepared for the linguistic diversity of their sources and that this can be a serious issue in cross-cultural newsflows (see Extract 5).



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Extract 5: Retrospective verbal protocol about the United Nations (UN) Security Council item (sf_ ts_061018_1300_sicherheitsratsabstimmung; translation in italics).

The following sections draw on data from the Idée suisse project, where workplaces in three newsrooms of the same media organization, the Swiss public broadcaster, were investigated. The examples illustrate ad-hoc translation solutions that journalists devise to meet their informational and dramaturgical needs.

10.4.2.1 Altering quotes in voice-over translations In an item for the national German-language news broadcast about the election of a non-permanent member to the United Nations Security Council, a journalist decided to alter quotes slightly in the voice-over translations. The item reported on a duel between two countries for a seat on the Security Council and used two quotes: one from the United States (US) ambassador for the UN and the other from the president of one of the countries competing for the seat. The journalist’s comments about his decision to alter the quotes suggest that he has a very odd idea of what translation really is (see Extract 6).

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Extract 6: The retrospective verbal protocol about the UN Security Council item (sf_ts_061018_1300_ sicherheitsratsabstimmung; translation in italics).

Extract 6 suggests that this journalist seems to believe that a translator “simply translates” without understanding what it meant, a view that professional translators would not share. In their understanding, translation never takes place in a vacuum. Texts are translated for particular purposes and audiences. If the translation brief from the client is not explicit, then professionals infer as much as possible about the audience, time, place, occasion, medium, and intended function of the translated text. Throughout the process, translators juggle responsibilities to the source text, the source text author, the target audience, and the client, occupying a central position as experts in a complex system and bringing various types of competence to bear in order to complete the specific translation task at hand.55 Although the journalist might not have realised it, his altering of the quotes can be considered a very specific translation strategy of adapting sources to achieve dramaturgical objectives.56 Heightened awareness of what translation entails and explicit language planning in the newsroom could prevent journalists from having to develop and justify such practices extemporaneously.

55 See Holz-Mänttäri (1984), Nord (1997), Reiss & Vermeer (1991) or Vermeer (1989/2004) for further discussion of translators’ roles and Ehrensberger-Dow & Massey (2013) for a discussion of translators’ self-concepts. 56 For more on adaptation as a translation strategy, see Baker & Saldanha (2009: 3-6).



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10.4.2.2 Solving translation problems One of the processes in our corpus, from a French-language newsroom, provides an insightful example of a journalist solving a translation problem by talking about it with a non-linguist colleague. The journalist prepared his text for an item about a plane crash in Indonesia while sitting next to the cutter, who was working on the pictures for the same item. The journalist worked from an English source text, which he was translating simultaneously into French. At one point, the cutter offered an alternative to the journalist’s incorrect translation of a verb (pull instead of push), which initiated an exchange of several moves in which they seemed to test the sound of the two English verbs, perhaps by retrieving mental representations of them, before agreeing on the correct French translation (see Extract 7).

Extract 7: The writing process of the Indonesian plane crash item (J = journalist; C = cutter; tsr_ tj_070307_1245 _yogyakarta; translation in italics).

Collaborative translation of this nature has also been documented as the social phenomenon called ‘fansubs’, in which amateurs work together to produce subtitles for films that have not yet been subtitled professionally or are not commercially interesting.57 The highly variable quality of fan subtitling remains a problem: it can be due to a lack of source language competence (as in Extract 7) or a lack of strategies for dealing with temporal constraints (see Extract 8 in the next section).

57 For a discussion of collaborative translation, see O’Brien (2011) and for fan subtitling Diaz-Cintas & Muñoz Sanchez (2006) or Orrego-Carmona (2015).

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10.4.2.3 Translating to fit temporal constraints In another case in our corpus, the journalist referred explicitly to his translation strategy, which was to take certain liberties in order to allow his audience to hear the original language (see Extract 8). The item is about the resignation of the US Secretary of Defense and shows scenes of the speech he gave at the official announcement.

Extract 8: The retrospective verbal protocol about the Secretary of Defense item (sf_ts_061108_2400_ rumsfeld; translation in italics).

Extract 8 shows that rather than translating everything that was said in the video excerpt, the journalist decided to focus on translating only the key sentences of the speech, which meant that the Secretary of Defense’s voice was clearly audible in parts and especially at the end, when he gave his final farewell. The journalist attributes his ad-hoc strategy to the specifics of television news production, seemingly unaware that this type of voice-over translation is a well-known technique in audiovisual translation.58

58 See Franco, Matamala, & Orero (2010) for an overview of voice-over translation.



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10.4.2.4 Planning language resources Another translation strategy that we found in our corpus was journalists’ recognition of the available resources not being up to the task. Instead of trying to deal with the difficulties inherent in transferring information from one language to another, one journalist raised the possibility in the newsroom conference of involving a translator in the news production process (see Extract 9).

Extract 9: A newsroom conference (sf_zvz_070123_1400_editorial_discourse; translation in italics).

However, it is not always clear that journalists mean professionals when they refer to translators (see Extract 10). As current models59 clearly illustrate, translation competence involves much more than the ability to use more than one language.

Extract 10: The retrospective verbal protocol about the UN Security Council item (sf_ts_061018_1300_ sicherheitsratsabstimmung; translation in italics).

Hence, it is important for journalists in cross-cultural newsflows to understand the risks inherent in using non-professionals and for processes to be in place that allow them to find the right people to take on translation tasks that require special expertise.60

59 See Göpferich (2008) or Hurtado Albir & Alves (2009) for reviews of translation competence models. 60 For a discussion of the translator’s role in global news production, see Bielsa & Bassnett (2009) or Li (2014).

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10.4.3 Translation matters in the news production process Data in our corpus confirm that translation happens in newsrooms and that it matters throughout the news production process. Specifically, journalists need to consider which parts of the source materials they need to translate and how they are to be translated when they are in these situations: (1) when they find and use sources in other languages; (2) when they limit their topics; (3) when they take their own positions; (4) when they stage their stories; (5) and when they establish relevance for their audiences. In our increasingly multilingual world, translation has become a factor in almost every aspect of the writing helix processes (see Figure 10.3).

Figure 10.3: The writing helix (Perrin & Ehrensberger-Dow 2012: 367; Perrin 2013, p. 151).

Our research has revealed that translation is ubiquitous and interacts with all kinds of journalistic writings. Therefore translation matters in news production because journalists’ practices and strategies can shape who is represented in news items, what is talked about, and how text agents, topics, and utterances are framed. Journalism has a mediating function just as translation does. An insider metaphor of journalism, which refers to translating technical language and jargon to everyday language (see Extract 11), could and probably should be extended to include making global news as well as news from other language regions accessible to local audiences.



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Extract 11: Extract from a newscaster’s handbook (Hug, 2007: 23).

10.5 Conclusion: Knowledge transformation to organisations and domains Translation is intertwined with every aspect of news production, including how journalists handle their source materials, their target texts, and their social environment. Translation practices can range from a sort of inner translation, such as journalists reformulating the language of the source text to another language variety in order to meet audience design standards, as in the TeleZüri case, to purposeful omission of utterances from sources that journalists do not understand or do not have the resources to translate in favor of other sources, such as choosing English instead of Arab quotes. In view of this, at the micro level the journalists are important actors in news production because they can decide which voices are to be heard in their important function as gatekeepers who control which messages the public receives.61 Especially when the sources are in languages other than those of the region the journalist is writing for, then translation strategies influence not only news style, but also the content and selection of the information presented. In other words, translation influences what we know about the world. Our studies have shown that the translation strategies adopted by the journalists may be based on their linguistic awareness and external linguistic resources. Nonetheless, they should still deliberately reflect on the effectiveness of their strategies even if they are aware of what they are doing and why. The goal is to release the tacit knowledge of experienced players and so-called positive deviants—their situated, implicit and individual strategies and practices—in order to make it available to the newsroom through systemic knowledge transformation.62 More specifically, the challenge is making such tacit knowledge as well as insights from translation theory and professional practice available to media organizations and the professionals involved in order to improve the efficiency and output quality of cross-cultural newsflows in a globally networked multilingual world. For example, in the Idée suisse project, through organisational consultation and development, a 61 See van Doorslaer (2009), Cheesman et al. (2011), and Li (2014) for discussions about framing and gatekeeping in journalism. 62 For a discussion of tacit knowledge and positive deviants in ethnographically based organisational consulting, see Agar (2010) who draws on Polanyi (1966) and Schein (1987).

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more top-down approach in generating knowledge was introduced. The aim was to stimulate a shift of focus towards enabling variation and change in the newsrooms. At the same time, a bottom-up approach was also initiated through training, coaching, and education of future professionals in journalism schools and practitioners in the newsrooms. By adopting both approaches, the objective was to improve organisational conditions that enable emergence of good strategies and solutions at the macro level and at the same time raise awareness, extend open-mindedness, and expand knowledge of practical models at the micro level. Strategies include storytelling (success stories of problem solving, based on case studies of tacit knowledge and good practice) and guidelines for curricula in professional education. As translation matters both in the newsroom and in the news, it is worth taking it into consideration in the organisational and societal quality management of journalism in globalised, cross-cultural newsflows.

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Hertog, E. 2010. Community interpreting. In Y. Gambier & L. van Doorslaer (Eds.), Handbook of translation studies (Vol. 1). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 49-54. Holz-Mänttäri, J. 1984. Translatorisches Handeln. Theorie und Methode. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. Hug, H. 2007. Handbuch der Tagesschau. Zurich: Schweizer Fernsehen. Hurtado Albir, A., & Alves, F. 2009. Translation as a cognitive activity. In J. Munday (Ed.), The Routledge companion to translation studies. London: Routledge. 54-73. Jääskeläinen, R. 2007. Translation strategies – what are they?. In W. Chlopicki, A. Padelek & A. Pokojska (Eds.), Cognition in language. Volume in honour of professor Elzbieta Tabakowska. Krakova: Tertium. 343-361. Jääskeläinen, R. 2009. Looking for a working definition of ‘translation strategies’. In I.M. Mees, F. Alves & S. Göpferich (Eds.), Methodology, technology and innovation in translation process research: A tribute to Arnt Lykke Jakobsen. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur. 375-388. Jakobs, E-M., & Perrin, D. 2008. Training of writing and reading. In G. Rickheit & H. Strohner (Eds.), The Mouton-De Gruyter handbooks of applied linguistics. Communicative Competence (Vol. 1). New York: De Gruyter. 359-393. Jessner, U. 2006. Linguistic awareness in multilinguals. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Jessner, U. 2014. On multilingual awareness or why the multilingual learner is a specific language learner. In M. Pawlak, & L. Aronin (Eds.), Essential topics in applied linguistics and multilingualism. Cham: Springer International Publishing Switzerland.175-184. Kollberg, P., & Severinson-Eklundh, K. 2001. Studying writers’ revising patterns with S-notation analysis. In T. Olive & C. Michael Levy (Eds.), Contemporary tools and techniques for studying writing. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. 89-104. Li, P. 2014. Investigating institutional practice in news translation: An empirical study of a Chinese agency translating discourse on China. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 22(4), 547-565. Nord, C. 1997. Translating as a purposeful activity: Functionalist approaches explained. Manchester: St. Jerome. O’Brien, S. 2011. Collaborative translation. In Y. Gambier & L. van Doorslaer (Eds.), Handbook of translation studies (Vol. 2). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 17-20. Orrego-Carmona, D. 2015. The reception of (non)professional subtitling. PhD dissertation. Universitat Rovira i Virgili: Spain. Perrin, D. 2003. Progression analysis (PA). Investigating writing strategies at the workplace. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(6), 907-921. Perrin, D. 2013. The linguistics of newswriting. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Perrin, D., Burger, M., Fürer, M., Gnach, A., Schanne, M., & Wyss, V. 2008. Idée Suisse. Final report. Winterthur: Institute of Applied Media Studies. Perrin, D., Burger, M., Fürer, M., Gnach, A., Schanne, M., & Wyss, V. 2009. Talk and action: Practicing internal multilingualism in the newsroom. ZITIMATA EPIKINONIAS (Communication Issues), 3(9), 24-39. Perrin, D., & Ehrensberger-Dow, M. 2006. Journalists’ language awareness: Inferences from writing strategies. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, 19, 319-343. Perrin, D., & Ehrensberger-Dow, M. 2008. Progression Analysis: Tracing journalistic language awareness. In M. Burger (Ed.), L’analyse linguistique des discours médiatiques. Entre sciences du langage et sciences de la communication. Québec: Nota Bene. 155-182. Perrin, D., & Ehrensberger-Dow, M. 2012. Translating the news: A globally relevant field for applied linguistics research. In C. Gitsaki & R. B. Baldauf (Eds.), Future directions in applied linguistics: Local and global perspectives. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers. 352-372 Polanyi, M. 1966. The tacit dimension. Garden City NY: Doubleday. Reiss, K., & Vermeer, H. J. 1991. Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie (2nd ed). Tübingen: Niemeyer.

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Schein, E. H. 1987. The clinical perspective in fieldwork. Newbury Park: Sage. Susam-Sarajeva, Ş., & Pérez-González, L. (Eds.). 2012. Non-professionals translating and interpreting: Participatory and engaged perspectives. Special issue of The Translator, 18(2), 149-165. van Doorslaer, L. 2009. How language and (non-)translation impact on media newsrooms: The case of newspapers in Belgium. Perspectives, 17(2), 83-92. Vermeer, H. J. 1989/2004. Skopos and commission in translational action. Trans. Andrew Chesterman. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The translation studies reader (2nd ed). London: Routledge. 191202.

Munene Mwaniki

11 Chasing a phantom: Afrikaans in higher education in the globalisation era The chapter explores an under-researched aspect of South African higher education (HE), namely its language dynamics, from a relatively new perspective of effects of globalisation on language dynamics in South African HE. With a specific focus on Afrikaans, and using three data sets derived from an on-going research on sociolinguistics of South Africa’s higher education at the University of the Free State (UFS) in South Africa, the chapter brings to the fore the complexities attendant to policy and programme initiatives aimed at maintaining Afrikaans as a language of HE in the face of globalisation forces. The first data set—referred to as “sociolinguistics of social justice”—first presented in Mwaniki (2012a) points to Afrikaans in South Africa’s HE being perceived as inimical to social justice; an idea that is largely associated with the spread of democracy, a spread which in turn is a consequence of globalisation. The second data set—referred to as “sociolinguistics of knowledge production and dissemination”—first presented in Mwaniki (2014) demonstrates how globalisation pressures emanating from the now widely accepted international benchmark in HE of publishing research in internationally accredited journals has led to a publishing shift at this South African university. The third data set—referred to as “sociolinguistics of learning resources”—presented for the first time in this chapter shows how, despite UFS’s overt language policy that advocates for use of Afrikaans in teaching and learning, non-availability of up-to-date learning resources in Afrikaans largely due to global book market dynamics beyond institutional or country control is gradually eroding the status of Afrikaans as a language of teaching and learning in South African HE. According to Terreblanche (2002: 3-4): With the election of 1994, and the introduction of a proper democratic system, the misguided attempts by some white South Africans – both English and Afrikaans-speaking – to maintain a ‘white’ political system were finally and thoroughly defeated. Consequently, all whites (irrespective of their political orientation) have been at liberty to take stock – hopefully with as open a mind as possible – of all the false trails on which they travelled for so long, and the phantoms they pursued with such conviction and enthusiasm. Of course, it has not been easy for white South Africans (or most of them at least) to acknowledge the evils of colonialism, segregation, and apartheid, and the fallaciousness of the arguments used to legitimise those forms of oppression. However, if whites do not critically re-evaluate their past, they cannot expect the victims of colonialism to accept them as trustworthy companions in building a common future.

The inability “to acknowledge the evils of colonialism, segregation, and apartheid and the fallaciousness of the arguments used to legitimise these forms of oppression” Munene Mwaniki, University of the Free State/University of the Witwatersrand – Johannesburg, South Africa

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(Terreblanche, 2002:4), aside, an enduring difficulty for white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans – at home and in the diaspora – has been to acknowledge the gradual and almost inevitable displacement of Afrikaans as a high-status language in domains such as higher education; and legitimately so. First, the difficulty can be attributed to an existential reality. Afrikaans, a language developed on the back of the now proven tenuous Eurocentric notion of the analogous relationship between ethno linguistic identity, the nation state and a rigorous racial colonial ethic, has been integral to the discursive construction and sustenance of Afrikaner identity; an identity constructed as an apex identity atop of the socio-cultural, political and economic arrangements in South Africa. A change in these arrangements that accompanied the democratic transition of 1994 has created a deep existential crisis on the part of the Afrikaner. This is because the Afrikaner is adrift in unfamiliar territory of not controlling the levers of State that were critically instrumental in developing the language in the larger part of the 20th century. Second, the difficulty is explainable by the contemporary reality that in a country where in the words of Bargueňo, “in order to escape apartheid racial categories, tensions between ‘Whites’ and ‘Africans’ have been described as politics between Afrikaansspeakers and speakers of other languages” (Bargueňo, 2012: 2). Almost invariably, Afrikaans is made to bear the burden of its history with concomitant negative language attitudes towards the language on the part of speakers of other languages in South Africa. Without a nationalist government to prop the language in high function domains and with an overwhelming majority of South African population with either ambivalent or negative attitudes towards the language due to its burden of history, there is an inevitability of the language ceding ground in high function domains. Third, the difficulty is explainable by the near helplessness in mitigating the effects of globalisation on the language especially in high function domains, such as higher education and science. A core idea in the ensuing discussion is that in the face of globalisation and compelling data i.e., the three cases presented in this chapter, the Afrikaners do not need to engage in another pursuit of a phantom in the name of propping the language in high function domains such as higher education. Rather, what may be appropriate is to explore how the synergies unleashed by globalisation can be used to address the underlying factors that have led to the diminishing status of Afrikaans in high function domains such as high education. The discussion is presented in four parts. The first part frames the entire discussion by addressing some of myths around Afrikaans in relation to higher education. The second part addresses itself to the intersections between globalisation and higher education in emerging economies and the place of language in these intersections. The third presents three data sets from an on-going research project on Sociolinguistics of South Africa’s higher education by the author and an appraisal of the myths around Afrikaans in relation to higher education in light of insights from the data sets. The final part presents the conclusions.



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11.1 Addressing some myths around Afrikaans in relation to higher education The discourse on Afrikaans’ place and maintenance in higher education which oscillates between ‘language rights’ and ‘language rights in education’ discourses, often masks a deep-seated but enduring metanarrative on the contestations between the Afrikaners and the English at the turn of the last century, and with almost every other ethno linguistic grouping within what is the territory currently referred to as Republic of South Africa for the better part the last century. According to Alexander (2003 :8), Lord Milner: Introduced a punitive Anglicisation policy, directed in the first instance at the white Afrikaansspeaking community throughout the territory that became the Union of South Africa in 1910… the policy gave rise to what eventually became among white Afrikaans-speaking people a rabid, racist, and narrow ethnic chauvinism, based essentially on shared language, religious orientation and alleged descent… in a word, Milnerism… helped to entrench the racist version of Afrikaner nationalism that eventually gave birth to the political policy of apartheid. Language became the issue around which the ethnic consciousness of what in effect came to be “the Afrikaner community”, i.e. white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans, crystallised. The fact that the struggle for the recognition of their language as an official language equal in status to English in the new dominion of the Union of South Africa was closely related to the struggle for “their” land and the independence of the republics they had lost and in which, among other things, gold and diamond deposits had been found, gave rise to a habitus in which certain “white” varieties of the Afrikaans language featured as one of the criteria for being Afrikaner. This passion for the language has had extremely destructive effects, as manifested, for example, in the Soweto uprising of the black youth in 1976 against the unjust imposition on black schoolchildren of Afrikaans-medium (next to English-medium) instruction in the racially segregated classrooms of that time.

The ‘rabid, racist, and narrow ethnic chauvinism, based essentially on shared language, religious orientation and alleged descent’ metanarrative has however found trans-generational currency, especially with regard to the “ethno-nationalism so apparent in the contestation about Afrikaans in higher education in South Africa today” (van der Waal, 2012: 446), largely because of some enduring myths. This should not be surprising because the entire enterprise of construction of Afrikaner identity, without an essential primordial base, was a deeply mythologised discursive practice. It is important however, to note that the use of the phraseology “myths around Afrikaans” is not this author’s invention. Quoting Nienaber (1959), Beukes (2007:245) refers to the deliberative crafting of these myths “through a process of myth-making, [and] Afrikaner ideologues have viewed the genesis of Afrikaans from a vulgar patois and its rapid development into a modern public language through rose-tinted glasses.” Nevertheless, with the debate on language in South Africa’s higher education and Afrikaans in South Africa’s higher education having been specifically high on national and international consciousness, these enduring myths around Afrikaans

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need to either be disabused or put into perspective. The discussion of these myths frames the rest of the discussion.

11.1.1 Myth 1: “The Miracle of Afrikaans” There are references to “the miracle of Afrikaans” in the literature such as Alexander (2009). A most erudite rendition of this myth however, is Beukes (2007). According to Beukes (2007: 246): The construction of the mythical representation of the miracle of Afrikaans and Afrikaner language heroes’ achievements climaxed during ‘die Wonder van Afrikaans’ festival, a series of nationwide language festivities held from 6 April to 31 May 1959 in honour of the Afrikaans language. The festivities were part of the golden jubilee celebration of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, a body established in 1909 to promote the Afrikaans language and culture. Looking back on half a century’s labour in aid of Afrikaner nationalism’s most prized possession, the Afrikaans language, its vernacularisation and standardisation process was communicated by Afrikaner ideologues as miraculous in a variety of publications and public presentations.

To underscore the trans-generational currency of this myth, it recently surfaced in a presentation63 by famed anthropological linguist Kwesi Kwaa Prah. Professor Prah termed the development of Afrikaans a “miracle” and proceeded to compare it to the development of Hebrew and Bahasa Indonesia. The argument was that there are lessons to be learnt from how these languages have developed in the modern era in bids aimed at developing African indigenous languages to codes befitting higher functions like higher education. However, this kind of analysis misses a fundamental historical material fact in the development of Afrikaans, and by extension the other two languages i.e., Hebrew and Bahasa Indonesia, a fact that I pointed out to Professor Prah in the August 2015 Symposium. Starting with Afrikaans, there was nothing ‘miraculous’ in the development of the language. History bears it out that the language was developed by a minority government—a euphemism for a dictatorship—that presided over one of the most brutal regimes in the modern era and one that committed gross human rights violations and other crimes against man. In short, Afrikaans developed on the might of the brute force of institutionalised racial capitalism before 1948, and on the back of indigenous Afrikaner-led colonialism after 1948. With regard to Hebrew, there has been nothing miraculous with its development in the modern era, which has been supported by the state machinery of a succession of nationalist governments of the State of Israel. Inasmuch as these governments may not be characterised as being 63 Prah, K. K. (2015). Language, literacy and the African development challenge. A Keynote Address delivered at the Second Wits International Language and Literacy Symposium, hosted by the Division of Languages, Literacies and Literatures of Wits School of Education, 8–10 August 2015.



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outright dictatorial, the State of Israel has been variously described as a ‘pretending democracy’ and an ‘ethnocratic state’ (cf. Jeenah, 2012) and a ‘democracy for a minority’ (cf. Kasrils, 2012). Similarly, Bahasa Indonesia developed as a high status language under the regimes of Surkano and Suharto. The democratic credentials of these regimes were not particularly deep. It would be a mistake to assume that this historically situated analysis is selective or isolated. Examples of how non-democratic governments have been efficient in developing languages extend beyond the three examples from Professor Prah. The development of Amharic in Ethiopia (cf. Cooper 1989) happed under a succession of regimes that were everything but democratic. The development of Swahili in Tanzania (cf. Legère, 2006; Blommaert, 1996; 2006) also did not happen under democratic conditions. A consistent motif in all these “language miracles” is that they have happened on the back of a deficit in democracy. The spread and entrenchment of democracy is an idea intimately and inextricably related to modern conceptualisations of and trends in globalisation. At a cursory level, the “miracle of Afrikaans” can be posited as the phantasmagorical framing of the arduous work that went into making Afrikaans a language befitting high status functions like being a language of higher education. At a deeper level however, it is difficult to contemplate replication of the “miracle of Afrikaans” in relation to its maintenance in high function domains. For example, while the state may be obliged to develop all South African official languages in higher education within a democratic dispensation, the same democratic dispensation guarantees citizens the right to exercise their right not to receive language related goods and services such as higher education in their mother tongue. Effectively, the real “language miracle” would be a two-pronged endeavour: (a)the development of a language for a high function domain such as higher education in the context of democratic contestations, and (b) the sustenance of a language such as Afrikaans that was developed in an insular environment sheltered from the contestations of modern democracy and globalisation in high function domains such as higher education.

11.1.2 Myth 2: Afrikaans “is a well developed language of academia and science” Another myth that surrounds persistent arguments for the continued use of Afrikaans in higher education is the assertion that it is a well-developed language of academia and science. This argument would only hold true if the position of Afrikaans in academia and science is contrasted with the position in academia and science of the previously marginalised South African languages. The latter’s position in academia and science is a consequence of Afrikaans ascendancy in academia and science or, to paraphrase Thiong’o (1993), Afrikaans developed as a language of academia and science on the graveyard of South Africa’s previously marginalised languages’ development as languages of academia and science. What is increasingly apparent is that Afrikaans no longer holds its own as a language of academia and science in the globalisation era

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with its concomitant insistence on an international bibliometric assessment system of a country’s research outputs in relation to international standards. Gevers (2006: 1) succinctly captures the quandary that Afrikaans finds itself in this changed global knowledge production terrain by documenting: Assessment of a country’s (South Africa’s) research productivity by the proxy of international bibliometric and other forms of survey analysis based on peer-reviewed publications in research journals may not be adequate from a number of different points of view, but there appear to be few alternatives. Amongst the accepted confounding issues are language, coverage of a particular field of knowledge, and national/regional focus. While the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) (of the Institute for Scientific Information, ISI) contains journals published in 36 languages, all of which meet the system’s requirements for English-language translated indexing components, none of South Africa’s Afrikaans journals are included. Afrikaans has been developed to a fullvocabulary scientific reporting language and there is no prima facie reason why an Afrikaans journal should not be indexed if it meets the general selection criteria.

Mwaniki points out that the assertion that “there is no prima facie reason why an Afrikaans journal should not be indexed if it meets the general selection criteria” is one that is open to contestation and proceeds to posit that: A fundamental consideration in advancing a contestation to this line of thinking would be the fact that Afrikaans as a language of scientific reporting is largely confined to sections of South Africa’s research community; and to a lesser extent to sections of the research community in the Republic of Namibia – only. Effectively, Afrikaans scientific reporting is largely an insular exercise that does not advance intellectual debate and dialogue at a regional, let alone global, level. (Mwaniki, 2014: 202)

Without the language being used in top-rated national and international journals essentially because of a globalised knowledge economy primarily riding on English as a global scientific language, it is a matter of time before Afrikaans cedes ground as a language of academia and, that is if it has not already done so.

11.1.3 Myth 3: Not having Afrikaans in higher education “violates the Constitution” There is an enduring myth in some sections of South Africa’s higher education especially in the so-called Historically Afrikaans Medium Universities (HAUs) that not having Afrikaans in higher education “violates the Constitution”. Existential reality does not back the myth. Basically, there is no constitutional textual support for the myth, and there is no case law support for the myth. From an existential perspective, all public universities in South Africa that are English medium would exist in violation of the Constitution. From a constitutional text perspective, there is no text in South Africa’s 1996 Constitution (Act 108 of 1996) that supports the myth. The applicable clause in the Constitution is Section 29, which inter alia states:



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1.

Everyone has the right – a. to a basic education, including adult basic education; and b. to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible. 2. Everyone has the right to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice in public educational institutions where that education is reasonably practicable. In order to ensure the effective access to, and implementation of, this right, the state must consider all reasonable educational alternatives, including single medium institutions, taking into account – a. equity; b. racticality; and c. the need to redress the results of past racially discriminatory laws and practices. To cast a spotlight on the myth under consideration in light of the above constitutional text, it is important to document the overarching ideology of the 1996 South African Constitution, namely Transformative Constitutionalism, pursuant to which an appraisal will ensue. According to Klare (1998: 150) transformative constitutionalism entails: A long-term project of constitutional enactment, interpretation, and enforcement committed (not in isolation, of course, but in a historical context of conducive political developments) to transforming a country’s political and social institutions and power relationships in a democratic, participatory, and egalitarian direction. Transformative constitutionalism connotes an enterprise of inducing large-scale social change through nonviolent political processes grounded in law. I have in mind a transformation vast enough to be inadequately captured by the phrase ‘reform’, but something short of or different from ‘revolution’ in any traditional sense of the word. In the background is an idea of a highly egalitarian, caring, multicultural community, governed through participatory, democratic processes in both the polity and large portions of what we now call the ‘private sphere’.

A critical reading of Section 29 against the background of the overarching ideology of the Constitution as outlined above, contrary to the myth under consideration, could be interpreted as an injunction against language being used to make higher education progressively unavailable and inaccessible to sections of South African population. In light of the foregoing analysis, what the purveyors of this myth have difficulty appreciating is that South Africa’s higher education terrain cannot remain beholden to language politics of an erstwhile era, especially when such a language politics in general and Afrikaans language politics in particular was and is used to racially discriminate against people of colour accessing higher education.64 Having been 64 �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Cf. (a) Case No.: CCT 40/09 [2009] ZACC 32 in the Constitutional Court of South Africa in the matter between Head of Department: Mpumalanga Department of Education, Minister for Education and

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tested up to the Constitutional Court, it can be postulated that purveyors of this myth could be aware of the slim chances of success of any legal/constitutional challenge to maintain Afrikaans in higher education in view of the overarching ideology of the Constitution and in light of South Africa’s peculiar history. This explains an enduring reluctance to test this myth at the highest court in South Africa, i.e. the Constitutional Court, because failure at the Constitutional Court would completely vanquish the Afrikaner ‘civil society’ juggernaut that relies on this myth to fundraise.

11.1.4 Myth 4: It was an act of benevolence on the part of Historically Afrikaans Medium Universities (HAUs) to grant access to non-Afrikaans speakers through parallel medium instruction The assertion that it was an act of benevolence on the part of HAUs to grant access to non-Afrikaans speakers through parallel medium of instruction flies in the face of historical and material facts. In fact, the prevalence of this discourse in South African higher education bodes well with the revisionist streak that is integral to the myth making that has accompanied the development of Afrikaans for the better part of the last 100 years. To better understand this argument, it is important to get a snapshot of how HAUs evolved. Du Plessis (2006: 97-98) documents: The bilingual universities (where bilingual Afrikaans-speaking students were the majority) slowly evolved into monolingual Afrikaans-speaking universities. Steyn (1993a: 254 ff) describes this process at the Universities of Stellenbosch, Pretoria, Free State and Potchefstroom since 1918. He identifies at least three crucial factors in this development, viz. the demand for Afrikaans higher education (among students and the public in general), the language competency of students (especially bilingual Afrikaans-speaking students as opposed to monolingual Englishspeaking students) and language loyalty among Afrikaans speakers (Steyn, 1994: 44-46). The

Hoërskool Ermelo, heard on 20 August 2009, decided on 14 October 2009. (b) Case No.: 219/08 [2009] ZASCA 22 in the Supreme Court of Appeal of the Republic of South Africa in the matter between Hoërskool Ermelo v The Head of Department of Education: Mpumalanga heard on 12 March 2009, decided on 27 March 2009. (c) Case No.: 3062/2007 in the High Court of South Africa (Transvaal Provincial Division) in the matter between Hoërskool Ermelo and The Head of Department: Mpumalanga Department of Education heard on 4 September 2007, decided 17 October 2007. (d) Case No.: 140/05 in the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa in the matter between the Western Cape Minister of Education and the Governing Body of Mikro Primary School heard on 23 May 2005, decided 27 June 2005. (e) Case No.: 332/2005 in the High Court of South Africa (Cape of Good Hope Provincial Division) in the matter between the Governing Body of Mikro Primary School and the Western Cape Minister of Education judgment delivered on 18 February 2005. (f) Case No.: 1177/2004 in the High Court of South Africa (Northern Cape Division) in the matter between MEC of Education, Northern Cape and Seodin Primary School heard on 7 February 2006, judgement delivered on 24 February 2006. (g) Case No.: 1177/2004 in the High Court of South Africa (Northern Cape Division) in the matter between Seodin Primary School and MEC of Education, Northern Cape heard on 11 – 13 May 2005, delivered on 24 October 2005.



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development of Afrikaans as a medium of higher education in South Africa unfolded against the background of the growth of Afrikaner nationalism, especially in the min-1930s, the period when the Afrikaans movement gained ground and the language was established as a viable option for medium of instruction…Ironically, monolingual Afrikaans-speaking universities thus evolved ‘via bilingualism’ as Steyn (1994: 42) phrases it. Steyn (1993a: 246) describes this evolvement as a cyclic process. Significant numbers of bilingual Afrikaans-speaking students made it possible for a university to adopt two languages as media of instruction. This contributed to an increased concentration of Afrikaans-speaking students at these universities, which eventually led to a growing demand to drop the English-medium option, thus paving the way for the establishment of monolingual Afrikaans-speaking universities.

The understated subtext of the above history of HAUs is the alignment of their evolution to the apartheid ideology of segregation. Therefore, it was inevitable that with the collapse of the apartheid state, the (strategic) move by HAUs to grant access to non-Afrikaans speakers through parallel medium instruction was not an act of benevolence. Rather, it was and remains a ploy and proxy in pursuit of sectional noneducational goals, namely Afrikaner Calvinism at an ideological level and preservation of Afrikaans at a cultural level on the back of taxpayers’ money. In relation to the subject of this chapter, it was an act at insulating these institutions against a key force of globalisation–democratisation of higher education access.

11.1.5 Myth 5:English is still a colonial language A consistent narrative amongst the conservative Afrikaner right that continues to prop Afrikaans in higher education irrespective of material facts that show that the language is in a decline in academia and science is that replacing the language with English will be pandering to colonial whims. At a rudimentary level, and as observed elsewhere, if English is a colonial language, so is Afrikaans! At a more nuanced level however, as Afrikaans clings on to its colonial baggage by persistently failing to decouple itself from the racial identity that is the Afrikaner identity, English continues to shed its colonial baggage by reinventing itself as a global and international language mainly through the development of non-native Englishes. A leading scholar in nonnative Englishes Braj Kachru has characterised this phenomenon as “the alchemy of English”. In Kachru’s own words: What is the appropriateness of the term “alchemy” to the functions of the English language today? In a metaphorical sense, this term captures the attitudinal reactions to the status and functions of English across cultures during our times. Competence in English and the use of this language signify a transmutation: an added potential for material and social gain and advantage. One sees this attitude in what the symbol stands for; English is considered a symbol of modernisation, a key to expanded functional roles and an extra arm for success and mobility in culturally and linguistically complex and pluralistic societies. As if all this were not enough, it is also believed that English contributes to yet another type of transmutation: it internationalises one’s outlook. In comparison with other languages of wider communication, knowing English is

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like possessing the fabled Aladdin’s lamp, which permits one to open, as it were, the linguistic gates to international business, technology, science, and travel. In short, English provides linguistic power. (Lachru, 1986: 1)

Can the same be said of Afrikaans inasmuch as both languages bear a coloniser’s tag? Hardly! A core premise as to why this is so is because of the international nature of English in modern times. To a larger extent actually, the spread of English and its positioning as an international language is intimately linked with globalisation. It is therefore intellectual denialism and/or special proclivity to myths to insist that English is still a colonial language in much of the developing world in the face of material facts that point to English as increasingly becoming an international language with an increasing repertoire of standardised local varieties. The same cannot be said of Afrikaans. A question that arises at this point in the discussion is: what does disabusing and/ or putting into perspective the myths in this section have to do with the role and place of Afrikaans in higher education in the globalisation era? The straightforward answer is: everything. This is because these myths have held the language and Afrikaans first language speaking ideologues within the faculty especially in HAUs captive to ethnic and (sub) nationalistic proclivities. Consequently, this has kept them away from any initiatives that can prime the language to continue developing as a language of academia and science and by implication as a language of higher education in the globalisation era.

11.2 Globalisation and higher education in emerging economies There is an extensive corpus of literature on globalisation. It is not the place of the current discussion to provide a synthesis and/or synopsis of this literature. Rather, the focus is narrower and specific: to briefly outline the intersections between globalisation and higher education in emerging economies manifest in the literature. Before this however, and by way of context, it is proper to clarify what, in the current discussion, is meant by ‘globalisation’ and ‘emerging economies’. An encompassing definition of globalisation would be one that factors in the notion of ‘internationalisation’ because the terms are, in the words of Scott (2000) used interchangeably inasmuch as there are marked differences between the two. To this end, Scott opines that “not only are internationalisation and globalisation different; they are actually opposed” (Scott, 2000: 4). In his own words: There are three main reasons for arguing that globalisation cannot be regarded simply as a higher form of internationalisation. The first is that internationalisation presupposes the existence of established nation states – globalisation is either agnostic about, or positively hostile to, nation states. The second is that internationalisation is most strongly expressed through the “high” and historical worlds of diplomacy and culture; while globalisation is expressed in “low” and contemporary worlds of mass consumerism and global capitalism. The third reason is that



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internationalisation, because of its dependence on the exiting unequal pattern of nation states, tends to reproduce – even legitimise – hierarchy and hegemony. Globalisation, in contrast, can address new agendas – of global climate change, worldwide pollution, sustainable technologies and, most important of all, the inequalities between North and South and those within nations – because it is not tied to the past, because it is restless, even subversive, force. (Scott, 2000: 4-5)

The current discussion embraces the above conceptualisation of ‘globalisation’ and agrees further with Scott (2000: 5-6) that, … the university is fundamentally challenged by globalisation in three main ways: first, because of the University’s close identification with the promulgation of national cultures; second, because of the standardisation of teaching through the impact of communication and information technology, and the emergence of global research cultures and networks; and third, because global markets have undermined high public expenditure welfare states on which universities depended for the bulk of their income.

These three challenges represent part of the key intersections between globalisation and higher education in emerging economies. The discussion returns to expound on these intersections in a short while after defining ‘emerging economies’. Hoskisson, Eden, Lau and Wright, define an emerging economy as a “country that satisfies two criteria: a rapid pace of economic development, and government policies favouring economic liberalisation and the adoption of a free-market system” (Hoskisson et al., 2000: 249). The authors proceed to identify 64 emerging economies “divided into two groups: 51 high growth developing countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa/ Middle East, and 13 transition economies in the former Soviet Union” (Hoskisson et al., 2000: 252). In Africa, emerging economies include Botswana, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia and Zimbabwe. An integral part of the dyad of rapid pace of economic growth and economic liberation that define emerging economies is a marked shift in these economies toward knowledge based economies in which, in the perspective of The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 1999: 7) quoted by St. George (2006: 590), “the production, diffusion and use of technology and information are key to economic activity and sustainable growth.” Baseline institutions in knowledge based economies are higher education institutions which in the perspective of the World Bank, … support knowledge-driven economic growth strategies and poverty reduction by (a) training a qualified and adaptable labour force; (b) generating new knowledge; and (c) building the capacity to access existing stores of global knowledge and to adapt that knowledge to local use. Tertiary education institutions are unique in their ability to integrate and create synergy among these three dimensions”. (World Bank, 2002; cited by St. George, 2006: 592)

These three imperatives as well as three challenges listed earlier represent a hexagon whose edges and vertices represent the intersections between globalisation and higher education in emerging economies.

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In view of this, the intersections between globalisation and higher education in emerging economies could be listed as being: a. A decoupling of higher education from being an exclusive pursuit in promulgation of national cultures and ushering in an era whereby higher education is at the vortex of transgressive mass culture; b. Continuous adaption of curriculum, policies and practices, and management structures (Jowi, 2012) through creative deployment of communication and information technology aimed at strategic positioning of higher education within global research cultures and networks; c. Reconfiguration of higher education resourcing away from dependency on state funding to mixed-model funding hinging on university-industry links (Yusuf, 2007) of a global nature; d. Focusing on training a critical mass of highly qualified and adaptable cross-border actors capable of initiating, operating and sustaining complex communities; e. Shifting toward research-intensive universities where teaching proceeds almost exclusively on the basis of new validated knowledge; and f. Engendering reflexivity as a core tenet in university endeavours aimed at accessing existing repertoires of knowledge with a view of adapting it to local use. These six intersections are/will be the sites for a reconfigured higher education in emerging economies in the era of globalisation. This list easily finds corroboration in a characterisation of higher education in a global knowledge economy by Marginson (2010: 6964) that posits that: Education and research are key elements in the formation of the global environment, being foundational to knowledge, to the take-up of technologies, to cross-border association and to sustaining complex communities. Though higher education institutions often see themselves as objects of globalisation they are also its agents. Major research universities are among the key sites and drivers of globalisation all over the world and often primary agents in opening up their nations to global engagement.

However, a discussion on globalisation and higher education in emerging economies will be incomplete without mention of cross-boarder higher education (Li & Bray, 2007; Martin & Peim, 2011; Njuguna & Itegi, 2013), which is also known transnational higher education (Huang, 2007). According to Njuguna and Itegi, “cross border higher education is seen as one of the ways a country responds to the impact of globalisation yet at the same time respects the individuality of the nation” (Njuguna & Itegi, 2013: 75), and it “provides opportunities for knowledge and technology acceleration including the promise to penetrate new markets, but also increases competition for scarce resources such as human capital, research infrastructure and foreign investment” (Njuguna & Itegi, 2013: 757). To Huang (2007: 422) cross-boarder/ transnational education describes “both real and virtual movement of students, teachers, knowledge, and educational programs from one country to another.” The

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intersections between globalisation and higher education in emerging economies as well as cross-border/transnational higher education have the potential, if managed well, to unleash unprecedented social, educational and economic benefits which will extend beyond the confines of higher education institutions.

11.3 Language question in higher education in emerging economies in the globalisation era The six intersections listed above as well as dynamics attendant to cross-border/ transnational higher education largely define the language question in higher education in emerging economies in the globalisation era. A valid point of departure in discussing language in higher education in the globalisation era would be an observation by Watson (2007: 252) that “the forces of globalisation are leading towards uniformity in the languages used, in culture and even in education.” The language under reference is English. The current discussion does not agree with the view that English, riding an unprecedented wave of globalisation, will necessarily lead to a uniformity of cultures primarily because of the notion of ‘alchemy of English’ generally and the emergence of culture-specific non-native Englishes specifically. However, it is difficult not to agree with Watson (2007) on the issue of uniformity of languages used in education generally, and higher education specifically in the globalisation era and the disquiet that accompanies the global spread of English. Watson captures the magnitude of the spread as well as the disquiet by observing: Many must feel that they are fighting a losing battle. The tide of history is against them. This is most noticeable in the growth and spread of the English language since it is here that the impact of globalisation is most keenly felt. Already 430 million speak English as a first language and 1.6 billion speak it as a second or third language. According to a recent report for the British Council…half of the world’s population will be speaking or learning English by 2015. Within the next decade, 2 billion will start to learn the language! 75% of the world’s ordinary mail and 80% of the electronic mail sent via the Internet is in English. The world stock markets, international banks, most TNCs, the multilateral organisations, and most international organisations, whether in Asia and the Pacific or in the Middle East conduct their affairs either solely in English or in English as a joint language. Most international academic journals, especially in science, medicine, computer science, linguistics and education are written in English. (Watson, 2007: 259-260)

The “next decade” referred to by Watson is the current decade. When the above analysis is applied to the dynamics attendant to language in higher education in emerging economies, the net effect of globalisation in which English is ubiquitous is continuous pressure on higher education systems to align their language practices so as to produce a critical mass of knowledge workers who can operate in a globalised world. This alignment is increasingly being viewed as an imperative at individual, institutional, national and regional levels. It is important to note that this pressure

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is being exerted by human resource needs of both private sector entities and public sector entities because, … globalised companies, TNCs, are seeking employees who can work for them regardless of which country they come from. The more highly educated and qualified individuals should expect to be globally transferable to anywhere that the company wishes to send them. The middle ranking members if society who will service government and the economy within their own countries will be expected to be computer literate as well as being conversant with English. (Watson, 2007: 260)

With specific reference to Africa, Teferra and Altbach corroborate this view by first observing, … at a time when globalisation has become such a powerful force, the dominant position of European language has become even more accentuated and evident. English has become particularly powerful, even dominating over other European languages. The predominance of English is fuelled by, among other things, the Internet and globalisation. (Teferra & Altbach, 2004: 45)

After noting that “African universities rely on the knowledge system that has been conceived, developed, and organised based on Western languages” (Teferra & Altbach, 2004: 45), the authors further point out that, … in the age of the Internet, globalisation, and expanding knowledge systems, which are all driven by a few Western languages, no country can afford to remain shielded in a cocoon of isolation brought about by language limitations. Such isolation would prove both disastrous and, likely, impossible to achieve. (Teferra & Altbach, 2004: 46)

Afrikaans is such a language that would impose a cocoon of isolation on South Africa’s higher education. It is the homogenising tendencies of globalisation that are rendering Afrikaans untenable in higher education because of the exclusive nature of the language. It is only coincidental that the language most associated with globalisation is English. This is not a matter of Afrikaans versus English, as many conservative commentators on South African language politics would wish to frame it. Rather, it is a matter of the ubiquitous entanglement of English with globalisation dynamics, often at the “detriment” of other languages including other European languages. To validate this observation however, a question worth posing at this point in the discussion is whether Afrikaans can service all the emergent intersections between globalisation and higher education as listed in the previous section. The discussion attempts to answer this question in the conclusion.



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11.4 A note on research design and methodology used to derive the data sets The Sociolinguistics of South Africa’s Higher Education Project, by design and execution, is a language management project. The project uses language management research design and methodologies. Mwaniki provides an insight into these by documenting: Language management method is a complex of methods derived from the constitutive theories of language management theory. An important aspect of language management method, like language management theory to which it is inextricably linked to, is its open-ended nature, i.e., as the repertoire of the constitutive theories of language management theory keeps on expanding so as to meet new and emerging epistemological demands, so does the repertoire of methods. The picture that emerges from this characterisation of language management method is that language management method is at once a ‘multidisciplinary method’; an ‘interdisciplinary method’; and a ‘transdisciplinary method’ – in sum it is a ‘cross disciplinary method’. A multidisciplinary method, it draws appropriately from multiple disciplines in an attempt to define and interrogate language-related problems outside the boundaries of linguistic science in an attempt to reach solutions based on a novel and broad-based interactive understanding of complex language-related situations and phenomena. As an interdisciplinary method, it crosses the traditional boundaries between linguistic disciplines or schools of thought in linguistics in an attempt to provide plausible explanations to language related phenomena. As a transdisciplinary method, it seeks, using shared conceptual frameworks drawing together disciplinary-specific theories, concepts and approaches, to address common language-related challenges, situations and phenomena especially as they relate to the optimisation of language resources for the most possible good for individuals and society. (Mwaniki, 2012b: 7-8)

Effectively, language management research design straddles the entire scope of research design types these being: empirical and non-empirical; primary, secondary and hybrid; numeric, textual, and combination of numeric and textual; and high control, medium control and low control (Mouton, 2001). The onus therefore lies with the researcher to carefully determine which design type most appropriately addresses a particular language management research problem and attendant research question(s). Conversely, at the heart of language management methodology is the notion of triangulation in the sense explained by Wisker (2008), which is the use of at least two and preferably three methods to gather data so that the analysis of results and findings can be drawn from several sources. Adopting several methods ensures increased validity and development of patters in data. As explained by Babbie and Mouton (2009), this is achieved through the collection of information of different events and relationships from different points of view by asking different questions, seeking different sources, and using different methods. However, it is not uncommon that inasmuch as different studies within a language management project would generally share a commitment to the overarching language management design and methodology, each would have a particular design and a specific corpus of research methodologies. This was the case with the studies from which the data sets reported in this chapter were derived. Specific research designs used in each of the studies from which the data sets were derived from and their attendant research methodologies are discussed under each of

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the data sets. However, a golden thread running through the three studies is that all of them were “case studies”, for good reasons. In the words of Yin (2014: 4), … the case study is used in many situations, to contribute to our knowledge of individual, group, organisational, social, political, and related phenomena. Whatever the field of interest, the distinctive need for case study research arises out of the desire to understand complex social phenomena. In brief, a case study allows investigators to focus on a ‘case’ and retain a holistic and real-world perspective.

11.5 The three data sets The three data sets emanate from the on-going research project on sociolinguistics of South Africa’s higher education by the author. The project interrogates the way language is discursively constructed within South Africa’s higher education space and how resultant language practices discursively construct South Africa’s higher education spaces. The three data sets are: sociolinguistics of social justice in South Africa’s higher education; sociolinguistics of knowledge production and dissemination; and sociolinguistics of learning resources. With a specific focus on Afrikaans, the data sets bring to the fore the complexities attendant to policy and programme interventions aimed at sustaining the language as a language of higher education in the face of globalisation forces. A discussion follows each data set after which a brief synthesis of results from the three data sets in relation to the issue of language in higher education in the globalisation era is presented.

11.5.1 Sociolinguistics of social justice in South Africa’s higher education This was an evaluative case study that used quantitative and qualitative data collected at UFS. The case study sought to establish students’ perceptions of the intersections of language and social justice at the UFS. Data were collected using questionnaires. Through purposive sampling based on South African and UFS demographics, 120 questionnaires were administered to UFS students 20 Black females, 20 White females, five Coloured females, five Indian females, 20 Black males, 20 White males, five Coloured males, five Indian males, five Black foreign females, five Black foreign males, five non-Black foreign females and five non-Black foreign males). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data (Mwaniki, 2012a, pp. 214-215). The meaning of social justice “may vary according to different definitions, perspectives and social theories” (Mwaniki, 2012a: 216). This notwithstanding however, the study acknowledged that “most conceptions of social justice refer to an egalitarian society that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights and that recognises the dignity of every human being”

YES(9) NO(11)

20(B)

20(B)

F 20 1(A) 1(B) 5(D) 8(E) 3(H) 1(J) 1(K)

2(A) 18(B)

YES (12) NO(8)

19(B) 1(D)

19(B) 1(D)

Gender Sample size Home Language

Second Language

Question 1: Was UFS your 1st choice of university? Question 2: Preferred medium of receiving instruction? Question 3: Preferred language for reading materials?

Indian

5(B)

5(B)

YES (3) NO (2)

19(B) 1(L) 5(A)

M F 20 5 1(B) 2(C) 5(B) 11(D) 3(E) 1(I) 2(J)

Black

Demographic Group

Tab. 11.1: Sociolinguistics of social justice.

5(B)

5(B)

3(B) 2(A)

3(B) 2(A)

1(A) 4(B)

F 5 1(B) 4(A)

4(B) 1(A)

4(B) 1(A)

2(A) 3(B)

M 5 2(B) 3(A)

F 20 16(A) 4(B)

White

12(B) 8(A)

12(B) 8(A)

4(A) 15(B) 1(L) YES(3) YES(3) YES(3) YES(14) NO(2) NO(2) NO(2) NO(6)

4(A) 1(L)

M 5 5(B)

Coloured

10(B) 10(A)

10(B) 10(A)

YES(16) NO(4)

3(A) 17(B)

M 20 16(A) 1(L) 3(B)

4(B) 1(L)

M 5 1(B) 4(L)

3(B) 2(L)

F 5 2(B) 3(L)

5(B)

M 5 1(B) 4(L)

White Foreign

21(A) – 17.6% 92(B) – 76.6% 7(L) – 5.8%

120 40 (A) – 33.3% 27(B) – 22.5% 2(C) – 1.7% 16(D) – 13.3% 11(E) – 9.2% 3(H) – 2.5% 1(I) – 0.8% 3(J) – 2.5% 1(K) – 0.8% 16(L) – 13.3%

Totals/% where applicable

5(B)

4(B) 1(D)

5(B)

5(B)

5(B)

5(B)

5(B)

5(B)

98(B) – 81.66% 21(A) – 17.5% 1(D) – 0.84%

97(B) – 80.83% 21(A) – 17.5% 2(D) – 1.67%

YES(2) YES(4) YES(4) YES(3) YES(76) – 63% NO(3) NO(1) NO(1) NO(2) NO(44) – 37%

4(B) 1(L)

F 5 1(B) 4(L)

Black Foreign

Others

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Indian

Coloured

White Black Foreign

Others White Foreign

Totals/% where applicable

Source: (Mwaniki 2012: 226 – 227)

Question 4: YES(17) YES(19) YES YES YES(3) YES(5) YES(17) YES(17) YES(5) YES(5) YES(5) YES(5) YES(108) – 90% Is language NO(3) NO(1) (5) (5) NO(2) NO(3) NO(3) NO(12) – 10% important in entrenching fairness in UFS Question YES(15) YES(16) YES(5) YES(3) YES(0) YES(4) YES(6) YES(6) YES(4) YES(5) YES(5) YES(4) YES(72) – 60% NO(48) – 40% 5: Does the NO(5) NO(4) NO(1) NO(2) NO(5) NO(1) NO(14) NO(14) NO(1) NO(1) Parallel Medium Policy (PMP) give some students unfair advantage? Question 6: Is NO(17) NO(15) NO(3) NO(4) NO(0) NO(2) NO(5) NO(7) NO(4) NO(4) NO(4) NO(3) NO(68) – 56.8% YES(52) – PMP socially YES(3) YES(5) YES(2) YES(1) YES(5) YES(3) YES(13) YES(13) YES(1) YES(1) YES(1) YES(2) 43.4% just? KEY: Gender: F – Female; M – Male Language Codes: Afrikaans (A); English (B); Sepedi (C); Sesotho (D); Setswana (E), IsiNdebele (F); IsiSwati (G); IsiXhosa (H); IsiZulu (I); Tshivenda (J); Xitsonga (K); Others (L)

Demographic Group

Black

Tab. 11.1: Sociolinguistics of social justice.

Continued

200   Chasing a phantom: Afrikaans in higher education in the globalisation era



The three data sets 

 201

(Mwaniki, 2012a: 216). In sum, social justice concerns are mostly expressed through perceptions of fairness or lack thereof. Mwaniki (2012a: 220) goes on to document that “the fundamental premise that links language to social justice in higher education is access. Language to a greater extent determines who has access to higher education.” From the data, 90% of respondents perceived language to be an important factor in entrenching fairness while 10% did not perceive language as being important in entrenching fairness. Within the parallel medium environment of the UFS, the data showed that 60% of respondents perceived the parallel medium policy as granting some students an unfair advantage with 40% of respondents indicating they do not perceive the parallel policy as granting unfair advantage to some students. 56.8% of respondents perceived the parallel medium policy as not being socially just while 43.4% perceived the policy as being socially just. The language that was perceived as granting some students some unfair advantage within the parallel medium environment and thus being inimical to principles of social justice is Afrikaans. Qualitative data from the research was captured through narrative accounts at the end of the questionnaire. Three thematic threads emerged from a content analysis of the narrative accounts namely, disenfranchisement, entitlement and opportunity. First, “across all language groups, there is a deeply entrenched feeling of languagebased disenfranchisement at the UFS. For non-Afrikaans speaking students, the [parallel medium policy] PMP is a policy and programme mechanism designed to deny them a level intellectual competing ground with Afrikaans speaking students” whereas “Afrikaans-speaking students perceive any attempt at tinkering with the PMP as an affront to their language rights” (Mwaniki, 2012a: 230). Second, there is “a deep-seated sense of entitlement across all language groups, the only difference being how various language groups conceptualise entitlement” (Mwaniki, 2012a: 230). In an interpretation that captures the complexities inherent in policy and programme discourses in South Africa’s higher education Mwaniki (2012a: 230) documents that non-Afrikaans-speaking students feel that “they are entitled to a ‘good’ education and to them good education is axiomatically an English-medium education. For Afrikaansspeaking students, they feel entitled to use their language at [the] university level”. Third, and with regard to opportunity, all language groups represented in the sample perceive an English-medium education as according them a relevance in a modern work place that is defined by globalisation and internationalisation forces. The same cannot be said of an Afrikaans-medium education. Within the South African context, the democratic transition of 1994 was watershed moment for social justice discourses in society and higher education. From the 1980s to the early 1990s, the movement that pushed for transition to democratic rule was global in nature, founded and organised around the idea of universality of democracy and its regime of rights and social justice. It is therefore not far-fetched to assert that the democratic transition in South Africa is to an extent a consequence of globalisation. The clamour for social justice in higher education is a global trend (cf. Furlong & Cartmel, 2009) that is accentuated by globalisation forces.

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11.5.2 Sociolinguistics of knowledge production and dissemination This study was also an evaluative case study that sought to establish the extent of publishing shift amongst UFS researchers as occasioned by policies adopted by the university in an attempt to realign itself with a changing international knowledge production and dissemination terrain. Mwaniki (2014: 215) documents that, … apart from academic literature and UFS policy documents, the corpus for the study consisted of raw data on research outputs over a nine-year period (2000-2008). The data was accessed from the university’s Directorate for Research Development where it is archived as part of the university’s Management Information System (MIS). The data is reliable because it is archived only after it has been verified and audited by the [Department of Higher Education and Training] DHET. The years 2000 – 2008 were selected for two reasons: firstly, data on research outputs for these years was readily available from the Directorate for Research Development. Secondly, it was important to include data from before 2002 (when the UFS Research Turnaround Strategy was implemented and consequently setting in motion an irreversible shift in the university’s linguistic culture and the concomitant shift in the language of research output) and after 2002 so as to trace the shift over time.

The study was premised on the linguistic culture that is increasingly being influenced by internationalisation forces and is facilitating a shift in the language of publication of research outputs at the UFS from Afrikaans to English (Mwaniki, 2014; UFS, 2002; UFS, 2010a; UFS, 2010b). The number of research outputs in each of the languages for every year under review was captured first as a frequency and secondly as a percentage of the gross research output for that particular year. The results of the years under review were tabulated in Table 11.2 and plotted in a bar graph (Figure 11.1) and a line graph (Figure 11.2) (ibid).

Tab. 11.2: Overall descriptive statistics of the frequency and percentage of Afikaans/English as languages of accredited publications (2000-2008).

Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Totals

English Language

Afrikaans Language

Frequency 278 255 306 305 329 395 453 453 420 3194

Frequency 81 92 88 71 70 66 75 72 62 677

Percentage 77.4 73.5 77.7 81.1 82.5 85.7 85.8 86.3 87.1

Percentage 22.6 26.5 22.3 18.9 17.5 14.3 14.2 13.7 12.9



The three data sets 

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In recent decades, and in the case of the UFS since 2002, universities have implemented strategies aimed at increasing accredited and international research outputs. At the UFS, policies implemented to achieve this goal include the UFS Research Turnaround Strategy (2002), the Revision of Research Awards at the UFS (2010a) and the UFS Academic Appointment and Promotions policy. These policies, through a raft of monetary and non-monetary incentives, are designed to encourage UFS researchers to publish in international journals that prefer English. From the data set, for the period under consideration (2002-2008), the mean annual shift to English as the language of accredited publication was 1.34 per cent. At this rate it can be projected that there will be a near complete shift to English as the language of accredited publications at the UFS by 2018. As Mwaniki (2014: 197) observes, … the results indicate[d] that despite the university’s articulated overt trilingual language policy, the pressures of internationalisation have led the university to adopt other policies which constitute a covert language policy, which is leading to a significant shift in the language of publication by UFS researchers. This development indicates that in an era of internationalisation, university language policies are but a small component of the macro dynamic that determines language choice(s) within universities.

In sum, it can be posited that globalisation pressures emanating from the now widely accepted international benchmark in higher education of publishing research in internationally accredited journals have been occasioning this shift in favour of English at the UFS.

Source: Mwaniki (2014, p.217) Fig. 11.1: Bar graph representing the percentage shift in the use of English and Afikaans in accredited research outputs at the UFS (2000-2008).

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 Chasing a phantom: Afrikaans in higher education in the globalisation era

Source: Mwaniki (2014, p.218) Fig. 11.2: Line graph representing the percentage shift in the use of English and Afrikaans in accredited research outputs at the UFS (2000-2008).

11.5.3 Sociolinguistics of learning resources The research sought to establish the availability and use of Afrikaans as well as English learning materials within the parallel medium policy context at the UFS. The ideal availability of a full corpus of learning materials in both languages and their ultimate utilisation in teaching and learning was a key assumption underlying the research. The research sought to establish the extent to which the parallel medium of instruction at the UFS measures to this ideal using a purposive sample which was triangulated for demographic and discipline i.e., faculties and representativeness. A peculiar aspect of the research was that it was carried out as part of a class project for 2014 freshmen pursuing LIN 114 (Introduction to Linguistics). The motivation for the project was two-fold, with each motivation having inherent permutations. The first motivation was purely scholarly with two inherent permutations, namely: (i) a paucity of research literature that interrogates this rather sensitive issue in South Africa’s higher education, a sector that bears marked cleavages that are a microcosm of language and identity politics of the larger South African society; and (ii) a paucity of empirical data on aspects of parallel medium policy and implementation. With regard to the latter permutation, debates on the merits and/or demerits of parallel medium instruction—which can legitimately be construed as a relic of apartheid—are heavily skewed toward normative and ideological polemics rather than empirically verifiable arguments or justifications. The second motivation was practical and pragmatic, and again, with two inherent permutations, namely: (i) a desire and objective to introduce freshmen to the intricacies of sociolinguistics research through an investigation of an issue they encounter daily; and (ii) as part of a larger university-wide drive to re-imagine the curriculum through a recurriculation



The three data sets 

 205

process; which in turn is part of a country-wide higher education transformation process. Essentially, the integration of a research component into LIN 114 was done within a greater epistemological context involving a critical questioning of university endeavour, not only within the South African context, but also within a global context. What has largely been documented about these processes are the macro and micro forces at play, the actors, and the policy outcomes – achieved and expected. What have received scant attention in the research however are the realities occasioned by these processes on lecture-room practices and discourses; in a word, the realities of pedagogy in universities that use parallel medium instruction. The research in part sought to address this hiatus in the literature. The study combined three methods, namely: the Delphi technique, literature review and questionnaires. The Delphi technique was selected because it creates opportunities to involve all members of a research team in all stages of the research endeavour (from conceptualisation to reporting of the research findings) while linking each successive stage to underlying (socio) linguistic theory and method. There is consensus in the literature such as Dalkey and Helmer (1963); Linstone and Turoff (1975); Clayton (1997); Critcher and Gladstone (1998); Okoli and Pawlowski (2004); Scholl et al. (2004); Landeta (2006); Hsu and Sandford (2007); and Geist (2010) that the technique was first used by the Rand Corporation in the 1950s. According to Linstone and Turoff Delphi technique is “a method for structuring a group communication process so that the process is effective in allowing a group of individuals, as a whole, to deal with a complex problem” (Linstone & Turoff 1975: 3). From a pedagogical perspective, the technique allowed for an interdisciplinary approach in teaching/ learning sociolinguistics while encouraging the development of independence of thought, principled persuasion on the basis of (compelling) data, reflexivity and critical thinking skills in students. In a series of Delphi meetings from February to April 2014 the research topic was determined, the research questions were formulated, and appropriate research methods (questionnaires and literature review) were identified and questionnaires designed. The sample was also determined and triangulated for UFS demographic and discipline i.e., faculties and representativeness. Members divided responsibility for data collection amongst themselves. After the questionnaires were successfully administered, a series of meetings were dedicated to figuring out how to proceed with data analysis and synthesis using a sample of the questionnaires. These meetings doubled up as reading/reflection sessions on literature. With the lecturer playing the role of a moderator, the discussions on data analysis and synthesis centred on content analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics. The review of literature—with emerging themes shared and discussed in successive Delphi meetings—sought, in part, to place the entire research in the context of the general body of knowledge on language politics, curriculum and institutional culture and institutional race politics. In sum, the literature review sought to satisfy the parameters of ‘why conduct a literature review’ eloquently outlined by Zorn and Campbell (2006: 173):

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First, literature reviews are indeed important for scholarly research within the university setting. They can be a source of ideas, research questions, and hunches to explore. That is, through finding exemplars of well-executed research, interesting ideas that are not particularly well executed, or gaps in the body of knowledge in a discipline, we can identify possibilities for future research. Literature review also helps scholars avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’ by enabling them to build on what others have done. Finally, literature review helps researchers develop an argument for their study by demonstrating that they are extending existing knowledge – building on what is already out there are filling the gaps that exist.

Hence, the questionnaire was constructed in one of the Delphi meetings and its biographical data battery, questions and structure followed the general questionnaire format outlined by Babbie and Mouton (2009). In opting for questionnaires, a key consideration was efficiency in the sense outlined by Wagner (2010: 26), which means that “they can be administered to a large number of participants easily, they can be objectively scored, and the data can be analysed quantitatively.” The data was coded and analysed quantitatively using descriptive and inferential statistics. The sample was purposively drawn from all the seven UFS faculties with an average weighting of 11 respondents from each faculty. 78 questionnaires were successfully administered. 43 respondents were female (55%) and 35 respondents were male (45%). In terms of ethnicity, 24 were Black (30.8%), nine were Coloured (11.5%), five were Indian (6.4%), and 40 were White (51.3%). In terms of home language, 47 were Afrikaans home language speakers (60.3%), four were English home language speakers (5%), 10 were Sesotho home language speakers (12.8%), four were Setswana home language speakers (5%), one was an SiSwati home language speaker (1.4%), six were IsiXhosa home language speakers (7.7%), one was Tshivenda home language speaker (1.4%), and five had other languages as home languages (6.4%). The above demographic spread in the sample reflects overall UFS demographics. However, it is important to account for the sizeable representation of “Whites” and “Afrikaans home language speakers” in the sample: this skew in the sample is explainable by the fact that the LIN 114 class that carried out this research was the “Afrikaans Class”. This skew may at first appear like a problem in regard to the validity and reliability of the data but when the skew is juxtaposed against the preferred language of instruction, an interesting dynamic that is afoot at UFS becomes apparent and thus validating the reliability of the data. There was an even split in the preferred language of instruction. As indicated above, when this even split is contrasted with home language data however, 10.3% Afrikaans home language speakers would prefer English as the language of instruction. This shift in preference is a microcosm of larger language shifts at the university (cf. Mwaniki, 2014). There are further (interesting) dynamics attendant to this shift generally and the implications of this shift on parallel medium instruction that become apparent when data on frequency of learning materials availability and use is brought to bear on the analysis of preferred language of instruction at the UFS. The discussion of results below illuminates some of these dynamics.

19

46 16

15

21

23

EN AE 3

AF 52

17

EN AE 4

AF

31

24

EN AE

5

AF

24

14

EN AE

10

AF

27

3

EN AE

63 14.5%

246 56.6%

126 28.9%

N = 78 F = 43 (55%) M = 35 (45%) BL = 24 (30.8%) CL = 9 (11.5%) IN = 5 (6.4%) WH = 40 (51.3%) A = 47 (60.3%) B = 4 (5%) D = 10 (12.8%) E = 4 (5%) G = 1 (1.4%) H = 6 (7.7%) J = 1 (1.4%) L = 5 (6.4%) A = 39 (50%) B = 39 (50%) AF EN AE

Totals/% where applicable

Totals 81 81 59 72 59 43 40 435 KEY: Gender: F – Female; M – Male Ethnicity: BL – Black; CL – Coloured; IN – Indian; WH – White Frequency of Learning Materials Availability: AF – Afrikaans; EN – English; AE – Afrikaans and English Language Codes: Afrikaans (A); English (B); Sepedi (C); Sesotho (D); Setswana (E), IsiNdebele (F); SiSwati (G); IsiXhosa (H); IsiZulu (I); Tshivenda (J); Xitsonga (K); Others (L)

29

45

AF

A(5) B(3)

7

EN AE

A(3) B(6)

AF

A(3) B(7)

EN AE

A(5) B(10)

AF

A(10) B(2)

A(7) B(3)

BL(2) CL(1) WH(5)

A(8) B(6)

BL( 3 ) IN(2 ) WH(4)

Natural & Agric Theology Sciences F M F M 2 7 2 6

Preferred Language of instruction Frequency of Learning Materials Availability and Use

M 3

BL(4) CL(1) WH(5)

F 7

Law

A(8) D(1) E(1) A(7) D(1) G(1) A(10) D(1) E(1) A(5) B(3) D(2) A(7) H(1) D(2) A (4) B(1) D(1) A(6) D(2) H(1) J(1) L(2) H(1) E(2) H(2) L(1) H(1) L(2)

M 1

BL(2) WH(10) BL(6) CL(4) IN(1) WH(4)

F 14

Humanities

Home Language

BL(3) CL(2) WH(5)

Health Sciences F M 5 7

BL(4) CL(1) IN(2) WH(7)

Economic & Education Mgt Sciences F M F M 5 9 8 2

Ethnicity

Gender Sample size

Faculty

Tab. 11.3: Sociolinguistics of learning resources.

 The three data sets   207

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 Chasing a phantom: Afrikaans in higher education in the globalisation era

435 modules were covered in the study, averaging 62 modules per faculty. Of these, 63 were in Afrikaans only (14.5%); 246 were in English only (56.6%); and 126 are available in Afrikaans and English (28.9%). Were the latter split proportionately, the weighting for Afrikaans would be 29% and English would be 71%. This imbalance indicates that parallel medium instruction is not operating at an optimal ideal at the UFS. The results indicate therefore that despite the UFS’s overt language policy that advocates for use of Afrikaans and English in teaching and learning, non-availability of up-to-date learning resources in Afrikaans largely due to global market dynamics beyond institutional or country control is gradually eroding the status of Afrikaans as a language of teaching and learning in South Africa’s higher education. In sum, a synthesis of findings from the three data sets indicates that inasmuch as there may be pedagogical, policy, and socio-political grounds for the maintenance and development of Afrikaans in South Africa’s higher education, data points to an inevitability of the language ceding ground in South Africa’s higher education terrain, a development that is largely attributable to globalisation pressures.

11.6 Revisiting the myths around Afrikaans in relation to higher education in light of data from Sociolinguistics of South Africa’s Higher Education Project Revisiting the myths around Afrikaans in relation to higher education in light of ...

At a general level, the data sets indicate a marked shift for Afrikaans as a language of higher education in South Africa’s democratic era. It is indicative that the advent of democracy in South Africa coincides with a time when the transgressive forces of globalisation have become increasingly manifest. As observed earlier the spread and entrenchment of democracy is an idea intimately and inextricably related to modern conceptualisations of and trends in globalisation. However, individual data sets are an empirical means of not only challenging the myths around Afrikaans in higher education but a means of disabusing these myths too. The data set on “sociolinguistics of social justice” challenges and disabuses the myths of the miracle of Afrikaans. This data set indicates the exact opposite as being true. With data conclusively pointing to parallel medium instruction (whose centrepiece is Afrikaans) being contrary to the principles of social justice, the retention of the language in higher education serves to defeat the objects of the Education Clause (Section 29 of the Constitution), and as such, the retention of Afrikaans in higher education is in all likelihood a violation of the Constitution (cf. detailed discussion of this argument under the exposition of the myth earlier in the chapter). The perceptions that Afrikaans continues to disenfranchise a majority of students who do not use the language to access higher education puts to bed the myth that it was an act of benevolence on the part of HAUs to grant access to non-Afrikaans speakers through parallel medium instruction. Stated another way, parallel medium instruction is still perceived as one of the major policy and practice manifestations of systemic exclusion in HAUs and the lengths to which policy actors in these institutions would



Conclusion 

 209

go to retain systemic privilege for Afrikaans speaking students. Basically, parallel medium instruction in these institutions is by intent, design and execution an act at preservation of Afrikaner privilege. It should come as no surprise therefore that there are positive perceptions toward the default language in parallel medium instruction environments, namely English. Although there are critics who want to pejoratively ascribe interpretations of data that highlight such positive perceptions to “celebratory postcolonial theorising”, overly entertaining these critics will be an act of denying that English is a language that is being extensively used in the former colonial world to redress the residual exclusionary effects of colonialism and to redress the residual discriminatory effects of apartheid by millions of South Africans. The data sets on “sociolinguistics of knowledge production and dissemination” and “sociolinguistics of learning resources” also challenge and disabuse the myth that Afrikaans is still a well-developed language of academia and science. Although Afrikaans may be better developed than most other African languages as a language of academia and science, it may not be primed to meet the demands of academia and science in the globalisation era that concomitantly insists on an international bibliometric assessment system of a country’s research outputs in relation to international standards on the one hand and an higher education learning resources market that is largely driven by global forces; forces which in turn ride on the pervasiveness of English as an international language. In line with what is observed earlier, without the language being used in top rated international journals and in the production of learning resources by global learning resources actors, the status of the language as a “well developed language of academia and science” may not hold for much longer.

11.7 Conclusion Generally, Afrikaans in higher education in the globalisation era would have to contend with a reality graphically outlined by Altbach (2004: 24) that, … globalisation in higher education and science is inevitable. Historically, academe has always been international in scope, and it has always been characterised by inequalities. Modern technology, the Internet, the increasing ease of communication and the flow of students and highly educated personnel across borders enhance globalisation. No academic system can exist by itself in the world of the 21st century.

Specifically however, the real test of whether Afrikaans will survive in higher education in the globalisation era depends on whether Afrikaans can service all the emergent intersections between globalisation and higher education in South Africa as an emergent economy. As at present, it does not look likely that Afrikaans can service these intersections because of the following reasons: a) Afrikaans is deeply beholden to the Afrikaner sub-national culture, a culture that is manifestly historically hostile to transgressive mass culture;

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 Chasing a phantom: Afrikaans in higher education in the globalisation era

b) Afrikaans inextricable relationship with Calvinist Afrikaner culture expressed in both institutional and documented curricula in Historically Afrikaans-Medium Universities (HAUs) curtails continuous adaptation of curriculum, policies and practices, and management, which are all prerequisites for higher education in the globalisation era; c) Because of its provincial nature (prevalence only in South Africa and Namibia, and dwindling research outputs in the language many of which are only in South African journals) Afrikaans does not come close to positioning South Africa’s higher education within global research cultures and networks. d) Without targeted state funding for Afrikaans to prop the language in domains such as higher education like was case during the Apartheid period and with an ever-shrinking Afrikaans driven national industry in the post-apartheid period, the resultant reconfigured higher education resourcing terrain is not favourable to prop Afrikaans in higher education; e) Dwindling international research outputs in Afrikaans do not fit into the shift toward research-intensive universities where teaching proceeds almost exclusively on the basis of newly validated knowledge through cutting edge research; and f) The duality of institutional culture that Afrikaans entrenches in higher education is inimical to engendering reflexivity as a core tenet in university endeavour especially when such endeavours are aimed at accessing repertoires of knowledge encoded in other indigenous languages. Effectively, Afrikaans undermines a key tenet of higher education in the globalisation era by curtailing the adoption of knowledge encoded in these languages for local use. In light of the above, for now, it seems the continued use of Afrikaans in higher education is akin to chasing a phantom.

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Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen, Huong Thu Nguyen, Huy Van Nguyen, Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen

12 Local challenges to global needs in English language education in Vietnam: The perspective of language policy and planning

English education reforms have been implemented across Asia in response to globalisation and the increasing spread of English as an international language. This has created both opportunities and challenges for local systems of English language education in non-English speaking countries. This chapter critically examines the role of English education in Vietnam in view of the broad context of the globalisation of English. It starts with a discussion on how globalisation has impacted English language education in general and in Vietnam in particular. It includes a review on the current reforms in English education policy, which is followed by a discussion of three empirical case study findings on the English education policy implementation in Vietnam. The chapter concludes by highlighting the possible implications for policymakers and language educators in Vietnam. All across Asia, English seems to have become more important than ever before due to its increasingly prominent role in globalisation. Globalisation and the spread of English have undeniably resulted in English being recognised as a valuable resource for national development and regional integration. The link between English and globalisation is believed to be the driving force behind reforms in English education policies in most Asian polities (Qi, 2009; Tollefson & Tsui, 2004). As a result, most governments in Asia, including Vietnam, have recently initiated reforms in English language education to improve the language proficiency of the learners (Hamid, 2010; Johnstone, 2010). English has been introduced as a compulsory subject at an increasingly younger age. For example, in China and Korea, English is taught at Grade 3, while in Indonesia it starts at Grade 4, or in Taiwan at Grade 1. As English has been increasingly used as medium of instruction, this has resulted in the transformation of many local English education systems in Asia. For instance, this demand for English offers opportunities to the Teaching English to Speaker of Other Languages (TESOL) profession but at the same time it creates tremendous challenges for the local education system. For most of the countries in Asia, English education innovations have encountered a number of issues, including teacher quality and quantity, teaching and learning resources, and equality of learning outcomes (see Lamb & Coleman, 2008; Kosonen,

Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen, The University of New South Wales, Australia Huong Thu Nguyen, Huy Van Nguyen, Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen, The University of Queensland, Australia



Globalisation and global English education 

 215

2013). For example, the introduction of English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) initiative in higher education in Malaysia has encountered inefficient implementation, and less desirable learning outcomes (Ali, 2013; Gill, 2012; Lee, 2014). In a similar vein, the issue of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) quality teaching and learning environment is a major concern in the context of Indonesia (Dardjowidjojo, 2000; Kirkpatrick, 2007). In many of the countries in Asia, the introduction of English language policy initiatives has triggered issues of ineffective implementation at the local level. In view of this, there is the need to investigate the tension between policy formulation at the macro level and policy operation at the local level in developing countries such as Vietnam.

12.1 Globalisation and global English education English has been strongly associated with globalisation since it is the de facto working language in this modern world. Together with Information Technology (IT), English constitutes what is called “global literacy skills” (Tollefson & Tsui, 2007: 1), which redefines labour efficiency in the globalised world. Lo Bianco asserts that the education of English as a foreign language is “profoundly” influenced by globalisation and that the spread of English is attributed to the fact the English is “well-endowed” with “Q value” (Lo Bianco, 2014: 317), a term he borrowed from de Swaan (1993), to refer to the “communication payoff” considering the time and effort one has to spend on learning the language. Majhanovich even considers English as a “tool of neo-liberalism and globalization in Asian contexts” (Majhanovich, 2013: 249). She argues that the spread of English today helps to promote neoliberal ideals inherent in the globalisation process. Neo-liberialism is associated with the ideologies of choice, competition, and the free market (Price, 2014). Therefore, critics have pointed out that the spread of English entails potential danger of “exacerbating or even creating socioeconomic and educational inequalities” (Price, 2014: 569) between individuals, social groups, as well as between developed countries and the less developed or developing ones. Many non-English speakers in Asia are encouraged to attain the ideal English language proficiency that is comparable to the English-speaking world regardless of their local contexts and traditions. For example, Asian universities are keen to adopt English as the main medium of instruction and establish high-stake language testing as an entry and exit gatekeeper. Consequently, English language education in many Asian countries is constructed based on Eurocentric knowledge, evaluation systems, textbooks, and resources. This also reflects an important neoliberal ideology perpetuated by the English-speaking world in education, and that is the shift from “pedagogical to market values [and] the abandonment of the social and cooperative ethic in favour of individualist and competitive business models” (Block, Gray & Holborow, 2013: 6).

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 Local challenges to global needs in English language education in Vietnam ...

Empirical research evidence has converged on the challenges and adverse impact of globalisation and neo-liberal agenda on language education in many Asian contexts. For example, Lamb and Coleman (2008) warn that the spread of English in the long run might deepen the “inequalities in the distribution of cultural, social, and economic capital” among young Indonesian learners of English (Lamb & Coleman, 2008: 189). In line with this opinion, Price (2014) has looked at English language education policies in Taiwan from 2000 to 2008 and argued that the neoliberal mantra of choice and competition reflected in English-for-all policies did not guarantee opportunities for learners. On the contrary, she posits that “regions, schools, and individuals are forced to compete with each other on anything but a level playing field given uneven resource allocation in the public education sector between rural and urban areas” (Price, 2014: 586). In her review of current studies in English language education in Asia, Majhanovich (2014) criticises the recent embracement of EMI in some Asian countries including those who were never British colonies like Vietnam. Siding with Kosonen (2013) and Brock-Utne (2013), she advocates for the role of local Asian languages as media of instruction rather than that of English language. She stresses that, … more micro-level studies, and policy-practice studies, are desirable to highlight the inequities, the contradictions, and the complexities of how language and education play out in a local or national landscape pervaded by global influences and neo-liberal economic policies. (Majhanovich, 2014: 179)

12.2 Current English language policy and planning in Vietnam The constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam stipulates that Vietnamese is the lingua franca of the country (National Assembly, 2013). With 54 ethnic minorities in its territory, Vietnam boasts diverse language ecology. To maintain such linguistic richness, the government tries to support the language capacity of minority people. For example, even though it is stated in the Education Law that Vietnamese is the language of education for all people, it also enshrines that, The State shall enable ethnic minority people to learn their spoken and written languages in order to preserve and develop their ethnic cultural identity, helping pupils from ethnic minorities easily absorb knowledge when they study in schools and other educational institutions. (National Assembly, 2005)

The major historical developments of the country have also contributed to the country’s language environment. Chinese, French, Russian and English have come to Vietnam through warfare, colonial domination, foreign support, economic development and global integration (Lo Bianco, 2001; Wright, 2002). These political, economic and social influences have impacted the government’s policies regarding



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the teaching of foreign languages as well as people’s attitudes in learning foreign languages (Pham, 2014). At present, like other Asian countries, English is the most popular foreign language in Vietnam for communication, education, trade, science and technology (Goh & Nguyen, 2004). Facing the need to ensure economic growth for the country, the Vietnamese government places special importance on the role of foreign languages especially English education in the national economic development and global integration (General Secretary, 2013). In view of the importance of English education in Vietnam, the government has recently approved the project “Teaching and learning foreign languages in the national education system, period 2008-2020” (known as the Project 2020) (Prime Minister, 2008a). Even though the document provides a framework for the education of foreign languages, the focus is on strategies to develop English proficiency for Vietnamese people particularly the students and teachers. For example at primary school level, English as a school subject is introduced earlier, starting in grade 3 instead of grade 5, and includes minority students whose mother tongue is not Vietnamese. In addition, in some schools EMI is used for mathematics and sciences. In some private schools, bilingual education is offered for the development of primary school children’s English proficiency. In senior high schools, the English programme has also undergone a revamp – the objective is to ensure that there is a continuation of English education from primary school to high school level. This is known as the 10year English programme, starting from grade 3 to grade 12. In higher education (HE), the two prominent developments are 1) the application of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) in setting up core competences in English education and assessment, and 2) the introduction of EMI programs in increasing number of universities in Vietnam. The aforementioned English language policy changes were aimed at improving the quality of the country’s future workforce because once equipped with good English skills, Vietnamese students will have a better chance to work in an international market (Nguyen, 2010). However, what research on language policy and planning has revealed is that planning might not necessarily lead to success and that planners should be prepared for failure (see Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). For the case of Vietnam, we argue that without careful consideration and planning from the government, challenges would outweigh chances. In the case studies that follow, we illustrate some of the challenges triggered by such changes in the new English language policy espoused by Vietnamese government. Adopting the language-in-education theory posited by Kaplan and Baldauf (1997; 2005), this chapter discusses the need to put in place the necessary conditions in order for successful language policy and planning (see Table 12.1).

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Tab. 12.1: Language-in-education goals (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2005: 1014). Language-in-education planning goals

Explanations

Access Policy

Who learns what, when?

Personnel Policy

Where do teachers come from and how are they trained?

Curriculum Policy

What is the objective in language teaching/ learning?

Methods and Material Policy

What methodology and what materials are employed over what duration?

Resourcing Policy

How is everything paid for?

Community Policy

Who is consulted/involved?

Evaluation Policy

What is the connection between assessment on the one hand and methods and materials that define the educational objective on the other?

In the following sections, three case studies will be discussed to highlight the challenges and implications found in Vietnamese language planning and policy, in particular, its Access Policy, Personnel Policy, Methods and Material Policy, as well as Evaluation Policy.

12.2.1 Case study 1: English education for minority students For the past years, the Vietnamese government has introduced a number of policies that specifically relate to language and education for ethnic minorities, however, until now most of the ethnic minority students in Vietnam still have to join the same education system that uses Vietnamese as the only language of instruction together with their Kinh (Viet) majority counterparts. Many of them have to start their first days of primary school with little or no experience of Vietnamese (Aikman & Pridmore, 2001). The language barrier puts these minority students at a disadvantage when attending school. The language problem becomes more complicated when minority students start learning English as a compulsory subject because they have to depend on the second language i.e., Vietnamese for foreign language learning. The present case study sets its focus on English language policy and minority students. Findings of this study were drawn from a large-scale project examining bilingual identity of ethnic minority students in Vietnam. The data was taken from eight college-age students who were focal participants of the larger project, and two issues were surfaced from the data, and they were, the lack of considerations on language and cultural factors, and the lack of students’ needs analysis.



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12.2.1.1 Lack of considerations on language and culture factors The most salient issue that is related to language and culture discontinuation is the use of the same curriculum and English teaching methods to both Kinh majority and minority students. As what was reported by the minority students, because the school language was Vietnamese rather than their mother tongue, they had many initial language difficulties in their early schooling. Some of them related that in their Grade 1, they could not understand what their teachers were saying and hence could not follow the lessons in Vietnamese. One student even revealed that due to language issue, he could not pass the first year and had to repeat Grade 1. Many students also believed that their Kinh counterparts seemed to have more advantages in terms of language than them. All the students confirmed that they had little or no idea about English in primary school and only started leaning it as a subject from Grade 6 (7 students) or Grade 10 (1 student). In early secondary school, although many of them were not fluent in Vietnamese and were not confident in communication with their Kinh friends in Vietnamese, they had to rely on Vietnamese to learn English. One student pointed out that English was one more language burden for his study: On early days of Grade 6, it’s more difficult for them [minority students], because... they haven’t mastered Vietnamese yet, but had to speak English […]. In Grade 6, I was shocked... didn’t know anything.

Thus, these students have faced many language obstacles in learning English; they need to double their efforts in order to keep pace with their Kinh counterparts. Furthermore, due to the highly centralised education system in Vietnam, the students in this study had to follow the same curriculum together with their Kinh counterparts in which the cultural contents were mainly designed for Kinh majority students. As the curriculum, learning materials, and teaching practices mainly follow the Kinh culture, the inclusion of minority cultures in English lessons has been omitted. Therefore, the policies have failed to take into consideration students’ cultural heritages and linguistic ability when learning English. Basically, the minority students have to learn the Kinh culture and the culture of English language concurrently. In addition, compared to their Kinh counterparts, most of the minority students live in remote places and are usually unfamiliar with the outside world, especially Western culture, thereby making it even harder for them to learn English (Blachford & Jones, 2011).

12.2.1.2 Lack of students’ needs analysis The implementation of English language policy for minority students also failed to accommodate students’ needs and attitudes. The students reported that English did not play any considerable role in their daily communication although common words or phrases such as “hello” or “thank you” were added into their speech. In fact, after a few years of learning English in secondary and high schools, they still could not

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engage in basic communication in English well, as the emphasis was on vocabulary, grammar, reading or writing in English and not communication skills. To them, the Vietnamese language could bring them more practical benefits in school and the mainstream society than English. The students’ limited use of English in their real life and their basic English proficiency is evidence of the failure of teaching and learning English in school in terms of developing English communication skills for young learners. Although English was considered to be less practical in real life by the students, most of them asserted that they had positive attitudes towards this language as they believed that English was useful for them, for communication with foreigners, travel and career opportunities because this language was “the trend” of the society. It is indicated that although the students had to deal with many problems in learning English in school, they did not undervalue the importance of this language. Hence, the hypothesis that minority students often attach little value to English and do not have much motivation to learn English, therefore, is not always empirically true (Sunuodula & Feng, 2011). Students’ needs in learning and using English as well as their attitudes towards English can vary, depending on personal motivation, ethnicity, age or the environment they are living.

12.2.2 Case study 2: English-medium instruction in Vietnamese universities The introduction of EMI in Vietnam higher education (HE) can be traced back to the early 1990s. This period was marked by the emerging of joint programmes between Vietnamese and partner higher education institutions (HEIs) from overseas for postgraduate level, an attempt to improve the quality of education in HE sector (VIED, 2015). Thus, in 2008 the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) provided financial incentives for Vietnamese HEIs to develop another type of cooperative programmes known as the Advanced Programmes, which are joint collaboration projects with high-ranked universities in the West, such as United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) (Prime Minister, 2008b). The project aims to develop Vietnamese universities to the level of the 200 world’s leading universities. To date, there are 27 Advanced Programmes offered in Vietnamese HEIs. The EMI-based Joint Programmes and Advanced Programmes in local HEIs receive support from their foreign partners in terms of curriculum, materials, assessment, etc., hence their label Foreign Education Programmes (MOET, 2014). In recent developments, local HEIs have also introduced their own EMI-based programmes using foreign English materials from countries, such as Australia, UK and US. These locally developed EMI programmes are known as High Quality Programmes (MOET, 2014), and to date, 21 Vietnamese HEIs are offering 55 High Quality Programmes. This case study was undertaken by the second author over a period of four months in 2012 to 2013; it focused on one Vietnamese HEI (called E-University, a pseudonym), which offers all types of aforementioned graduate EMI-based programmes. In 2006,



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E-University started its first EMI-based programmes while maintaining the existing Vietnamese-medium-instruction (VMI) programmes. In total, the institution offers two Advanced Programmes with US partners, two Joint Programmes with UK partners, one Joint Programme with a Danish institution, and four High Quality Programmes. However, the existence of both EMI and VMI programmes has created tension in the university.

12.2.2.1 Language barriers Both students and academics reported difficulties in using English for academic functions. The criteria for selecting academics teaching in EMI programmes was that their previous education must be in an English-speaking environment, either in a country or a programme that uses English on a regular basis. Even though all non-native English speaking academics in EMI programmes received an overseas education, such as from Australia, UK, US and the Netherlands, it was different from lecturing in English. Thus, the students would face ‘double difficulty’ learning in English through non-native-English-speaking academics. For example, some international students shared the fact that they were lost in the lectures because of the unfamiliar English spoken by local academics and totally different teaching styles. Many local students revealed that it was also very difficult for them to understand the lectures and even if they did, they could not retain the knowledge for long. Although being admitted to EMI programmes meant that students had had acquired sufficient English proficiency to learn in English, in reality, many students could not function well in the programme. One reason was that the E-University set the language requirement bar low for student admission. Students only needed to demonstrate Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) result of 500 points (ETS, 2014b). This test result could be substituted by Test of English as Foreign Language (TOEFL) paper-based 477 points, or TOEFL internet-based 53 points (ETS, 2014a), or International English Language Testing System (IELTS) band 4.5 (IELTS, 2012). Such low requirements have negative impacts on teaching and learning in EMI setting. For example, foreign lecturers complained that students in Joint Programmes could barely contribute to class discussion or answer questions.

12.2.2.2 Insufficient language support Both students and academics faced this language stumbling block in EMI classrooms, and the support available for them was inadequate. For example, an English course was once made available for academics and was provided by British Council. However, what they received was general English skills, such as presentation skills and not specific pronunciation and teaching skills in English i.e., appropriate English and pedagogy support for their teaching needs in EMI settings. Likewise for students, English classes were available for them throughout their study but the lessons did

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not support their academic needs. For example, students practiced IELTS tests that included academic English content but it was not catered to specific academic purposes, i.e., academic style, citation and referencing.

12.2.2.3 Quality downgrade It was also found that students constantly compared the curriculum between EMI and VMI programmes. They discovered that academics had simplified and shortened the course content for EMI class due to language barrier and felt that upon graduation their knowledge might not be as good as VMI peers. Another concern was due to the aforementioned difficulties in comprehension and knowledge retainment, many of them thought that they would not perform well in the examinations but somehow they still managed to obtain good results in the end. Such disparity had led to students questioning the quality of EMI programmes since these programmes were more expensive and promised to provide students with international standard quality programmes, and the opportunity to study with foreign/native-English-speaker academics.

12.2.2.4 Social division and tensions Another unequal treatment between the VMI and EMI programmes is that academics who taught in EMI programmes received from four to seven times higher payment than those teaching in VMI stream, and they were waived from administrative work. Furthermore, EMI programmes were labelled as High Quality and Advanced Programmes whereas VMI programmes were perceived as ‘normal quality programmes’. In other words, education in English was associated with high quality and Vietnamese with low quality. In addition, the presence of foreign academics put pressure on local academics. Students preferred studying with foreign academics not only because they were native English speakers but also because they had Western teaching styles. Students found these academics more open, catering for students’ needs (such as ready to stop the lecture and explain any unclear point) and friendlier than local academics whose teaching styles were more distant and hierarchical. In summary, although the introduction of EMI in E-University has been a good initiative, as mentioned previously, there are pressing issues that require institutional attention in order for the EMI programmes to be sustainable over time.

12.2.3 Case study 3: The CEFR policy in Vietnam In 2008, Decision 1400 was issued by the Prime Minister of Vietnam to complement Project 2020 guidelines that required a nationally unified framework to be developed



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and implemented to strengthen teaching and learning of foreign language within the Vietnamese education system. Based on a Western-based model, known as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), a detailed description of language competence levels compatible with international categorisation of foreign language competence was introduced. This framework serves as a platform for curriculum design, course materials development, teaching plans, and evaluation i.e., assessment. The objective was to ensure that there was connectedness between the different stages of learning in the national education system of foreign language teaching and learning. This new policy have triggered a lot of debate among educators and attracted the attention of many researchers in the field of language education. Policymakers believed that this CEFR-based policy would lead to a comprehensive reform in foreign language education and transform the way language educators and learners carry out their daily work. However in reality, there are enormous challenges in its translation process due to huge financial and contextual barriers. Educators from many Vietnamese universities have indicated that the new CEFR-based language outcome is over-ambitious and likely unachievable for students in the near future. To further complicate matter, institution administrators have been confused and could not reach a consensus on the interpretation of the policy, resulting in possible intuitive coping strategies which could do more harm than good to the foreign language education system in the long term. This study explored how CEFR was adopted in Vietnam and how this process had influenced language learning and teaching activities in a Vietnamese tertiary educational institution. The data were obtained from a larger research project that looked at how local actors’ agency in the implementation of the CEFR in Vietnamese higher education. In-depth interviews were conducted with academic administrators, teachers and students in University A (UA ‒ a pseudonym). The data were analysed using qualitative content analysis procedures (Krippendorff, 2013). Findings from our data showcased the challenges generated by the CEFR policy enactment, which have been reported in details elsewhere by the third author in Nguyen and Hamid (2015). In this section, we recapitulated three important challenges for lecturers and students in a Vietnamese tertiary institution.

12.2.3.1 Overdependence on ready-made Western teaching and testing materials An important aspect of CEFR-related practice observed at UA was that the CEFR was mainly used to set obligatory language proficiency standards for both lecturers and students. It was employed to design high-stake language proficiency testing which then served as a powerful tool to execute obligatory changes in curricula and teaching methodology. For example, lecturers were found to adopt a pragmatic approach towards teaching by employing ready-made international textbooks with invalidated

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claims of being aligned to the CEFR common levels of reference65. In addition, they also used ready-made practice tests designed by Cambridge English Language Assessment66 that could be easily found and downloaded for free from the Internet. Such practice seemed to suggest that teachers at UA had run out of alternatives and had to rely heavily on invalidated CEFR-aligned textbooks and testing materials proliferated in local market by different commercial agencies.

12.2.3.2 A poor sense of ownership towards the framework Despite UA administrators’ effort to communicate the value of CEFR as a reforming tool to all teachers, the majority of them still preferred testing scores and numbers. Some teachers had adopted other testing mechanisms, such as IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC to present the students’ English language competency level. According to an administrator at UA, this had reduced the understanding of the framework, which had also reflected a lack of engagement and a poor sense of ownership towards the framework.

12.2.3.3 Lack of learner-centred pedagogical tools Despite the fact that some lecturers had started to incorporate can-do statements67 in their lessons, students at UA appeared to be less informed about the framework and how it could work to the best benefits of their study. Many students confided that they mainly heard of the CEFR “through the grapevine”. They preferred ready-made selfassessment tools from some textbooks rather than reflected on their actual need for language use. They seemed to have failed to internalise the self-assessment can-do statements that promote a learner-centred approach to language learning.

65 The CEFR common reference levels categorise language learners into three kinds of users and six levels of proficiency, including A1 (Breakthrough) and A2 (Waystage) for basic users, B1 (Threshold) and B2 (Vantage) for Independent users and C1 (Effective operational proficiency) and C2 (Master) for proficient users. 66 Cambridge ESOL/Cambridge English practice test papers include Key English Test for A2 level, Preliminary English Test for B1, First Certificate in English for B2, Certificate of Advanced English for C1 and Certificate of Proficiency in English for C2. 67 The CEFR can-do statements constitute a self-assessment grid that guides learners to progress with their learning. For example, a can-do statement for level B1 listening skill is “I can understand the main points of clear standard speech on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.”



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12.3 An overview of the effectiveness and sustainability of the reforms As a lingua franca, English has been increasingly recognised as a mediating communicative tool for people of diverse linguistic background in Asia in communication in this globalised world. As such, in recent years, there have been reforms in English language education in many Asian countries including Vietnam. However, as discussed previously, English education reform in Vietnam has led to problems and dilemmas for the country. The implementation of new English education initiatives in Vietnam is one of the governmental responses to the impact of globalisation. However, the effectiveness and sustainability of these initiatives remain a major concern. As illustrated in the three case studies, there are a number of implementation issues at the micro level. Using Kaplan and Baldauf’s framework (1997; 2005), this chapter highlights a number of issues associated with the implementation of English language education reforms in Vietnam.

12.3.1 Access policy Access policy designates who learns what languages at what age or what level, and this will provide guidelines in the designing of school-based language programmes (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2005). In Vietnam, this new initiative requires the minority students to learn English and Vietnamese at the same time while maintaining their ethnic languages, and this has placed them in a disadvantaged position. Such demand shows that inadequate consideration has been given to the minority students’ language, culture, their needs and attitudes (Bui & Nguyen, 2016; Nguyen, Le, Tran, & Nguyen, 2014). By applying the same English language education system that is mainly constructed for the majority, schooling in Vietnam “focuses more on providing access to the high status language than on promoting diversity and a distinct sense of cultural identity” (Adamson & Feng, 2009, p. 329). Hence, such a biased access policy empowers the majority Kinh group and alienates the minority peoples even more (Bastid-Bruguiere, 2001; Beckett & Macpherson, 2005). Although Kirkpatrick (2010) explains that the Vietnamese school curriculum can be seen a good example of pressures on minority students to learn the national language along with the international lingua franca while still maintaining the language of their ethnic group, the introduction of English into the school system have caused more challenges for minority language education and policy (Blachford & Jones, 2011). The second case study on the practice of EMI also reveals the differences between the English-medium programmes and Vietnamese medium programmes. Social division and tensions were reported to impact on lecturers’ teaching methods and students’ perceptions toward their learning. The study shows the inequality on access to teaching and learning conditions and instruction methods of different groups of

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students. Further discrimination has been created through higher tuition fees, higher payments and better conditions for the EMI population. This supports the claim in a recent study on Vietnamese primary school education that the implementation of the national language policy has failed to address the equal access to quality teaching and learning conditions at the primary level (Nguyen et al., 2014), and this has led to the division between VMI for the mass and EMI for the elite (Wilkinson, 2013). As seen in E-University, the difference in access to resources has divided the students, academics and programmes depending on which programmes that they were enrolled. Without further consideration of this symbolic dichotomy, division will be clearer and more serious in the near future such as in the case of Bangladesh (Hamid & Jahan, 2015). It can be seen that the current reform in English education in Vietnam allegedly brings along the division and gap among individuals and communities, which, in according to Sung-Yul Park and Wee, such social division is an example of the “problems and dilemmas that globalization engenders or exacerbates” (Sung-Yul Park & Wee, 2013: 3).

12.3.2 Personnel policy Kaplan and Baldauf (2005) believe that when a new language policy is introduced, the authorities need to consider the role of teachers in implementing a new language curriculum program. A number of researchers (e.g., Baldauf 2005; Chua, 2010; Hamid, 2010; Li, 2007) agree that if the policy does not deal with the issues related to teachers effectively, failure to achieve policy goals is inevitable. Findings from case study two on the practice of EMI in universities in Vietnam revealed that academics had difficulty in using English for academic functions. This difficulty could be attributed to the fact that graduation abroad served as the eligibility for teaching in EMI for academics while in practice many academics revealed many problems faced, such as mispronunciation or inflexibility in classroom communication. In fact, these findings confirm claims about the serious lack of English competence of Vietnamese academics and students in EMI programmes by a number of scholars in Vietnam (Department of State & MOET, 2009; Duong, 2009; Le, 2012; Vu & Burns, 2014). This finding also supports the findings from research in other non-English dominant contexts such as in Europe (Tatzl, 2011; Wilkinson, 2005), Africa (Jones, 2013; Wyk, 2014) or Asia (Cho, 2012; Toh, 2014). Similarly, findings from the third case study on the use of the CEFR in teacher education also revealed that the teachers’ inability to employ the new framework in their designing of teaching materials and teaching in class. This could be attributed to lack of appropriate teacher training and teacher professional development in the midst of education reforms. These issues not only deprive students from effective learning but also bring about confusion to teachers when they are not trained to effectively implement an innovation.



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12.3.3 Methods and material policy Methods and material policy, which are often specified in curriculum policy, are two important areas in the curriculum implementation process (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997; 2005). In the third case study, it was found that teachers and students turned to coping strategies and adopted teaching-and-learning-to-the-test rather than switching to innovative teaching and learning methods. Such practice could lead to “detrimental implications for language educators and learners, making the enactment process of the CEFR in Vietnam a conundrum” (Nguyen & Hamid, 2015: 71). The high-stakes testing mechanism generated by the convenient adoption of the CEFR was found to lead to a reductive and narrow curriculum, pedagogy and teaching professionalism. Furthermore, by depending on high-stake tests proliferated by commercial agencies in the market  could further complicate, rather than  alleviate,  the consequences of wash-back effects on learning and teaching English in the country.

12.3.4 Evaluation policy According to Kaplan and Baldauf (2005: 1014), evaluation policy is concerned with the “the connection between assessment on the one hand and methods and materials that define the educational objectives on the other”. Cumming (2009) highlights that consistency between these two aspects is one of the critical factors in the success of policy implementation. As evident in case study three, there was a mismatch between what was taught and what was evaluated when the new framework was employed to impose a CEFR-based evaluation mechanism. Although the framework was originally adopted and expected to serve as a reforming tool in curriculum design, course materials development, teaching plans, and evaluation, it was conveniently to be adopted for testing and evaluating purposes at the school level. The situation could be traced to the nature of the CEFR. According to Little (2011), the CEFR is originally designed for two purposes. The first purpose of the CEFR is to place learners in a criteria-based system of assessment for comparison purposes while the second is to encourage language learner autonomy and learner self-assessment. As Alderson has pointed out the most influential part of the CEFR is the illustrative scales, and warns that some politicians and civil servants have been too eager to adopt a partial use of these illustrative scales to define standards “without considering achievability or justifiability” (Alderson, 2007: 662). The case studies show that although English language reform has gained momentum in Vietnam, English language education is suffering from inconsistencies and inadequacies in terms of equality, implementation, quality insurance, resources, and infrastructure. Therefore, it is critical that these reforms need to be carefully drafted, and adequate support needs to be in place since students are the direct subjects of the policy changes. In addition, the language used to teach English for

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minority students and the cultural references made during English lessons should be further researched and debated (Sunuodula & Feng, 2011). Scholars have suggested that the use of mother tongue as the medium of instruction is more effective in learning another language (Sunuodula & Feng, 2011). Based on this argument, when providing English education to minority students, it is better to apply a first-language-based education as a transition by which the students are able to gradually transit to second and other languages in their schooling progress (Bui & Nguyen, 2015). The reasons for maintaining students’ first language in school need to be stated clearly (Gao, 2011). In the classroom, more ethnically sensitive teaching approaches should be developed (Blachford & Jones, 2011). It is therefore necessary to reposition languages and its accompanying culture references used in teaching and learning. In other words, there is a need to restructure the curriculum and conduct more research to compare minority language and culture to English language and culture (Blachford & Jones, 2011; Sunuodula & Feng, 2011). Basically, top-down language policy makers need to carefully analyse the roles, benefits, risks and costs of English education for minority students (Coleman, 2011). Thus, the students’ linguistic desires, geographical characteristics, professional trajectories, their socioeconomic and educational challenges must be taken into consideration when they participate in the mainstream society and the global world through the languages they learn (Bui, 2013).

12.4 Conclusion Policies can conserve traditional values, reinforce heritage identity and provide more access to mainstream opportunities or they can result in marginalisation and social disadvantage (Edwards, 2004). As in the case of Vietnam, first, in order to minimise the side effects, it is necessary to ensure a range of options for minority people to create their own pathways (Adamson & Feng, 2009). In English education provision for minority students, reimagining and redefining multilingualism is needed; and flexible attainment goals set in all languages that allows students to determine their own language target could provide a way forward to enhancing equity in language education policies for minority people (Adamson & Feng, 2009; Bui & Nguyen, 2015). In other words, sufficient and appropriate support must be provided at the macro level. This chapter argues the need to put in place sufficient and adequate resources to support the recent language reform. In order to improve the quality of teaching, both language and pedagogical training for teachers is essential, and this should be done on needs-analysis basis because as revealed in the case study two, the general English course provided through British Council was of no value to academics. This supports Mai’s (2014) suggestion that a holistic approach is needed to improve language proficiency of Vietnamese teachers. He further highlights three major factors challenging teachers’ English proficiency development, namely personal, schoolrelated, and socio-cultural challenges.



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Regardless of the state’s effort and investment in enhancing the quality of teacher professional development programs, the school or in this case the university should contextualise the policy to their own context to ensure that the outcomes of such programmes are met (Bui & Nguyen, 2016; Mai, 2014; Nguyen et al., 2014; Nguyen, 2011). For example, the EFL teacher professional development has not been effective because at the micro level the programmes do not meet the teachers’ needs. Instead, different models of mentoring for language teachers are needed in order to address context-specific needs of the teachers and to exploit more efficient human resources (see Nguyen, 2017). As seen in the findings from case study two, local academics valued useful experiences of observing and mingling with foreign academics. In view of this, collaborative models of professional development such as mentoring and peer mentoring could be organised for academics to learn from one another. Foreign academics could also benefit from this opportunity as they could learn more about Vietnamese market and culture to add a few aspects into their lectures. Previous studies also reveal that non-native-English academics might benefit from specific training about pedagogy in EMI settings (Klaassen & De Graaff, 2001). Therefore, it is critical for the ministry to provide platform for teachers to raise their concerns, and their needs and suggestions should be taken into consideration. Likewise, similar platform should be provided for EMI students so that the aims and objectives of the English reforms can be successfully achieved.

Acknowledgement This chapter is dedicated to our late supervisor and mentor, Professor Richard (Dick) Baldauf Jr, a world-leading scholar in Language Policy and Planning field. We are indebted to his expertise in scholarly supervision, valuable guidance, and support throughout our PhD candidature and academic career. His mentorship has had a significant impact on us, both personally and professionally.

References Adamson, B., & Feng, A. 2009. A comparison of trilingual education policies for ethnic minorities in China. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 39(3), 321-333. Aikman, S., & Pridmore, P. 2001. Multigrade schooling in ‘remote’ areas of Vietnam. International Journal of Educational Development, 21(6), 521-536. Alderson, J. C. 2007. The CEFR and the need for more research. The Modern Language Journal, 91(4), 659-663. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00627_4.x Ali, N. L. 2013. A changing paradigm in language planning: English-medium instruction policy at the tertiary level in Malaysia. Current Issues in Language Planning, 14(1), 73-92. doi: 10.1080/14664208.2013.775543 Baldauf , R. B. J. 2005. Micro language planning. Multilingual Matter, 133, 227-239. Bastid-Bruguiere, M. 2001. Educational diversity in China. China Perspectives, 36, 17-26.

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Nor Liza Ali, M. Obaidul Hamid

13 English-medium instruction and teacher agency in higher education: A case study The macro imperatives of globalisation such as national participation in a globalised economy have had a profound impact on language policy and planning (LPP), specifically on language-in-education planning in emerging English-speaking countries. In particular, English-in-education planning has shifted its emphasis from a focus on language forms to language functions, in which case the language is used for knowledge creation, dissemination and consumption as well as workplace communication. For example, the internationalisation of higher education, which seeks to address economic imperatives of globalisation through education, has led to the adoption of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education in many parts of the world (Hamid, Nguyen & Baldauf, 2014). The deployment of EMI is based on the assumption that students and content-area lecturers (CALs) have adequate English proficiency to negotiate teaching and learning in English, which can be further enhanced by EMI (Ali, Hamid & Moni, 2012). Hence, in pursuing the internationalisation agenda, policy-makers in emerging English-speaking countries have positioned EMI as a language-planning tool. EMI has, in turn, led to positioning CALs, either explicitly or implicitly, as language-planning actors who are responsible for promoting students’ English proficiency development (Ali, 2013). Consequently, the success of EMI as well as the internationalisation of higher education lies in the agency of CALs, regardless of whether they have language teaching expertise and/or whether they are willing to shoulder the responsibility of helping students with their English. In recent years, EMI has emerged as a dominant trend in higher education, which requires CALs to metamorphose into “surrogate language teachers” (Toh, 2014). However, there has been insufficient research on CALs’ teaching practices in the context of EMI and their agency and how their performance of the “surrogate” role relates to macro policy goals of EMI and internationalisation. This chapter presents a case study of one public university in Malaysia that investigated the types of agency exercised by CALs and the factors that influenced their agency. Our findings revealed that the CALs displayed various forms of agency including resistance, accommodation and dedication in making sense of the EMI policy being driven by students’ needs and realities. The exercise of agency by CALs is desirable and encouraging. However, their subjective interpretations of the EMI policy and the consequent agentic actions have not contributed much to the macro

Nor Liza Ali, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia M. Obaidul Hamid, The University of Queensland



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policy goals of developing English proficiency. Although the use of English as the medium of instruction in Malaysian public universities has not been officiated by the government, it is a de facto policy (Ali, 2013; Gill, 2005; 2006). Essentially, the policy does not have a clearly specified scope or focus; CALs are required to teach in English, but helping students develop English proficiency has not been clearly articulated as a pedagogical imperative. Macro-level policy-makers have assumed that the natural environment of the EMI class will create the necessary conditions for students’ English language development (see Ali, 2013 for details). This chapter therefore offers insights into the nature of agency exercised by CALs and the factors that influence their agency in creating the English-learning environment in the classroom.

13.1 Agency in language policy and planning Agency in LPP is defined as a strategy undertaken by an actor (traditionally government agencies involved in language planning) to bring about deliberate language change in some community of speakers (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). Strategies vary across the macro and micro levels of LPP. At the macro level, strategies take the forms of policies, campaigns, visions and infrastructures while at the micro level they refer to practices of individuals that often reflect the macro-level strategies (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2003). This chapter draws on recent understandings of the agents of LPP that have indicated a shift from those who have the power to impose language policies to those who have the power to influence language change (Zhao & Baldauf, 2012). At the early stage of the field, the classical approach to LPP viewed the actor as someone who has the power to initiate language change. Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) identified the actor as having a high position in government agencies, education agencies and non/quasi government organisations. However, language policies that are initiated at the macro-level do not automatically create trickle-down effects at the micro level. Consequently, the notion of agency has been redefined (i.e., the actor, who is it that is involved); it operates not only at the macro level, but also at the meso and micro levels. Thus, the impact of language policies lies in the agency of actors operating at different levels (Baldauf, 1982, 2006; Cooper, 1989; Hamid & Baldauf, 2014; Zhao, 2011). Studies that have used micro examinations of macro educational policies confirmed that teachers play a significant role as actors in LPP activities (Baldauf, Li, & Zhao, 2008; Hamid & Nguyen, 2016; Kırkgöz, 2009; Menken & Garcia, 2010; Shohamy, 2006). Zhao and Baldauf further explicate the notion of agency, i.e., the power to influence language change, in micro language planning situations. They argue that individuals (e.g., teachers): … possess neither power nor personal prestige, but passively or unconsciously get involved in making decisions on language use for themselves, often accidently, partially because of their occupations, and sometimes ‘bumping’ into LPP. Their under-the-radar participation in formal

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LPP may be extremely intermittent and ad hoc, but their individual attitudes towards language use, taken collectively, can affect societal language behavior in a significant way. (Zhao & Baldauf, 2012: 5-6)

Therefore, the shift towards the belief that teachers have the implicit power to influence change further extends the definition of actor in LPP (Baldauf, Li & Zhao, 2008; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996) to that of CALs (Ali, 2014; Räisänen & FortanetGómez, 2008). This change invites attention to understand how the agency of CALs operates at the micro level such as in the EMI classroom in developing students’ English proficiency. CALs’ attitudes towards LPP activities can be identified through expressions of their beliefs and practices.

13.2 Micro-level engagement with macro policies as an expression of agency Locating agency in the micro context requires an understanding of how local actors such as CALs engage with macro-level policies. Recognition of the “relative autonomy” of the local context (Canagarajah, 1999; Lo Bianco, 2010) signifies that language or content lecturers cannot be considered as passive policy implementers. Rather, they are agents with the capacity and willingness to interpret and reinterpret policies in their own ways and to enact those policies in the pedagogical domain. Therefore, their engagement with macro policies needs to be seen as an agentic exercise. While micro-level agency has typically taken the form of resistance (e.g., not doing what policies expect local agents to do) or reproduction (e.g., passive compliance with policy dictates) (see Canagarajah, 1999), Petrovic and Kuntz (2013; see also Petrovic, 2015) discuss a continuum of agentic strategies within a cognitive frame. They identify three potential responses to macro-level policies from the local context: 1. Responding within the existing frame ‒ when educators implement policies without questioning policy aims and/or their scope or feasibility; 2. Interpreting the existing frame ‒ when educators examine policies and interpret what they think they are expected to do and do it, although the outcome of teacher interpretations may or may not be same as intended by policies; and 3. Reframing ‒ when educators examine policies, interpret what they are expected to do but decide to implement them in their own ways. The concept of “resistance” can be aligned with “reframing” while “responding within the existing frame” indicates passive compliance. “Interpreting the existing frame” may contain characteristics of the other two, but at the same time, it cannot be identified exclusively with either compliance or resistance. While we initially viewed the practices of CALs in our study through the lenses of these three responses, our data led us to develop a slightly different classification, and they are the concepts of resistance, accommodation and dedication.



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Resistance is the act of opposing policy requirements and goals, such as the CALs’ use of Bahasa Malaysia in the classroom even though policies required the use of English as a medium of instruction. Accommodation refers to agentic adjustments for reconciling differences and is exemplified by teachers’ use of a mixture of Bahasa Malaysia and English to facilitate student comprehension of English-medium content. Although accommodation can be likened to ‘interpreting the existing frame’, the former emphasises identifying the differences and reconciling them. Finally, dedication is a new concept and hence it cannot be directly related to the responses cited above. Here, dedication refers to teachers’ whole-hearted devotion to the cause of students, which require them to do things that can go beyond the policy perimeter. In our view, this role is different from “teacher professionalism” (see Alhamdan et al., 2014) but it bears similarities with teachers as “transformative intellectuals” (see Kumaravadivelu, 2003) or “socio-political actors” (see Alhamdan et al., 2014). Therefore, the concept of dedication exemplifies teachers as agents of change in students’ learning outcomes and their worlds (see Lin, 1999). The next section provides an overview of LPP studies that have explored the agency of CALs in the context of EMI.

13.3 Research on the agency of content-area lecturers Research has only recently started investigating the agency of CALs in the context of EMI. The small number of studies reported in the literature suggests that CALs exercise various degrees of agency either in supporting or resisting EMI policy in the classroom (e.g., Aguilar & Rodríguez, 2012; Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012; Costa & Coleman, 2012). Kılıçkaya (2006) investigated lecturers’ attitudes toward EMI in Turkey and found that they generally preferred Turkish as the medium of instruction in view of the difficulties that students faced in negotiating academic requirements in English. Kerklan, Moreira and Boersma’s (2008) study in Portugal reported that a significant number of lecturers were not willing to teach in English due to an increase in workload and language proficiency issues. In a similar vein, Aguilar and Rodríguez (2012) found that lecturers in a Spanish university were reluctant to teach in English and refused to be trained in content and language integrated learning. These studies indicated that lecturers did not perceive the significance of their role in the macro aspirational goals for EMI. In her review of English language policy in Turkey including EMI at the tertiary level, Kirkgöz (2009) recognised that content-area and language teachers were key players in implementing macro policy decisions, suggesting that their attitudes were important as these influenced how they exercised their agency to adopt practices in classrooms that promoted policy goals. In Malaysia, Gill (2006) examined the nature of dissemination of the EMI policy from the Malaysian government (macro) to academic management of public universities, given that there was no written directive on the EMI policy. She investigated the

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attitudes of lecturers towards the change in the medium of instruction from Bahasa Malaysia to English in the teaching of science and technology courses at the tertiary level. The study involved interviews with 37 academic management personnel and a survey of 630 lecturers from the faculties of science, technology and engineering from nine public universities. The findings showed that while 65% of the lecturers did not resist the change in the medium of instruction (i.e. English), as it was viewed as the language of knowledge which was believed to equip students with workplace skills. However, approximately one-third of the academics disagreed with the change for reasons related to patriotism (see David & Tien, 2009 for details on language and national identity in Malaysia). Instances of teacher resistance of and/or compliance with EMI policies were reported by Zacharias (2013) in a school-level EMI programme in Indonesia. The study reported how teachers’ agentic behaviours were influenced by the complex interplay of factors including teachers and students’ English competence and the lack of socialisation of the EMI policy in the context of implementation. Some of the 12 contentareas teachers that the researcher interviewed demonstrated passive compliance with the policy who explicitly pointed out that they felt obligated to do what policy-makers had asked them to do, and that was to teach in English or in Bahasa Indonesia. Mr Yono, representative of this sub-sample of teachers, explained: EMI policy is just a policy. So, it can be said that I am just trying to fulfill my responsibility as a civil servant. If the government says we need to be like this, I try my best to do so. If we have to teach in this way, I try to teach in that way. I try to teach as expected [using English]. I try my best even though I do not support it wholeheartedly but like I say, it is a policy so just do it. Try to give my best as expected by the government. It’s as simple as that so just keep on trying… . (Mr Yono, 25 June 2012) (Zacharias, 2013: 99)

Conversely, there was another teacher, Mr Eko, who was highly dedicated and took extra effort to ensure that English was used in class. Faced with the challenge of teaching content subjects with his limited English and the continual power outage on school premises, he bought an expensive iPhone so he could use Google Translate as a teaching aid: When I teach, I open google translate in my desktop. So whatever I want to say to the students, I type it into the google translate. I like google translate because it also includes the pronunciation. So, it helps me. Especially when the electricity is down and I cannot use my desktop. That’s why I buy this phone. Too expensive for me, actually… . (Zacharias, 2013: 101)

Despite some notable exceptions, the above studies showed that one of the roles of teachers/lecturers in EMI classrooms is to be the providers of opportunities for students to develop their language development even though in reality this is missing in the EMI classroom. Although the policy-makers require the teachers/lecturers to use EMI as a strategy to help students to improve their English proficiency, available



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research indicates that the policy goal is either not fully understood or passively resisted by teachers/lecturers. While the success of EMI lies in the hands of the teachers/lecturers, the findings by the various researchers suggest that more research is needed to understand about how they negotiate and operationalise the policy in the classroom. Furthermore, there is a need to understand the factors that influence the agency of teachers/lecturers in accommodating language development in the EMI class.

13.4 Context and methodology In the following section, a case study that is part of a larger project that examined the implementation of EMI in regular classroom settings from the perspectives of academic staff will be discussed to illustrate how lecturers use English in their class (see Ali, 2013). The project involved carrying out an in-depth qualitative case study of one premier public university in Malaysia. The data comprised 20 hours of classroom observations and interviews of 11 lecturers to understand the various types and degrees of agency of individual lecturers in the translation of the policy to its implementation. The University of Technology Tun Mahathir (UTTM, a pseudonym), is a premier engineering-based public university that offers a variety of programmes from diploma to postgraduate qualifications. As a premier university funded by the government, UTTM was selected to be the case study as it can provide rich insights into how EMI has been operationalised in the Malaysian higher education system given that the language of instruction in the higher education system (e.g., public universities) is determined by centralised policies. The primary site for data collection for the study was College Tun Razak (CTR, also a pseudonym), which is the faculty in charge of diploma courses of UTTM. CTR offers 16 engineering diploma courses and has an estimated enrolment of 4500 students. The Department of Electrical Engineering was identified as the focal site for data collection. The department offers four diploma courses in various specialisations in the field. The lecturers for the study were selected based on criterion sampling that included years of teaching experience, qualifications and overseas education experience. All of them had obtained their tertiary qualifications overseas in English-speaking universities. Four lecturers from the Department of Electrical Engineering participated in the interviews and the researcher was granted permission to observe EMI class sessions. They were selected based on recommendations from their colleagues. These lecturers reported that they usually used English in teaching but resorted to Bahasa Malaysia when necessary. Other lecturers who were interviewed taught mathematics or physics in the first or third year. Some of these lecturers claimed that they usually taught in Bahasa Malaysia but used English terminology in their teaching. Based on students’ recommendations, one lecturer was also interviewed who taught using only

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English. In total, 11 lecturers were interviewed, including five whom the researcher had observed for their teaching.

13.5 Findings The EMI policy at the university was implicit. Although it stated that English as the language of instruction, it was not related to language teaching and learning goals. There were three varieties of language use in the classroom: i) exclusive use of English; ii) a mixture of English and Bahasa Malaysia; and iii) exclusive use of Bahasa Malaysia. The most common variety was mixed English/Bahasa Malaysia. The choice of using a mixture of English and Bahasa Malaysia in the classroom demonstrated that the CALs exercised various types of agency centred on the use of language to create a ‘safe’ EMI classroom environment for students to develop English proficiency (Martin, 2005). Drawing on the lecturers’ perspectives, the following section examines the three types of agency that were previously mentioned: (a) resistance to the EMI policy; (b) accommodation of the policy to content teaching; and (c) dedication towards both content and language teaching. These three concepts represent particular understandings and interpretations of the implicit EMI policy, which were reflected in language use in the classroom.

13.5.1 Resistance to the EMI policy There were some CALs who used Bahasa Malaysia, despite English being positioned as the de facto language of instruction at the university. From a policy perspective, the agency exercised by these lecturers can be viewed as resistance to the EMI policy. For example, two lecturers claimed that they retained the terminology of the content discipline in English but used Bahasa Malaysia in teaching. They justified their actions as necessary and explained that the main reason was to ensure students’ comprehension of content. Such conviction was also supported by other lecturers who also practised code-switching between English and Bahasa Malaysia in their teaching. Based on our classroom observations, CALs code-switched from English to Bahasa Malaysia when they needed to explain concepts in Bahasa Malaysia, translate specific words and figures, or respond to students who were unable to answer their questions. In addition, they code-mixed i.e., they used linguistic resources from English and Bahasa Malaysia in the same sentence. One CAL commented: For me, this policy is good but not for all subjects. Engineering subjects are OK but certain subjects require thorough explanation, that type of subject is better [taught] in Bahasa Melayu or mix”. (Mr Wan)



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The comment indicated that Mr Wan did not oppose EMI but he was resistant to it because of the difficulty in teaching certain subjects in English. He further clarified the difficulty in implementing full EMI: Subjects that require explanation, for example, electrical wiring, that subject requires a lot of explanation. If [it is taught] in English alone, it is not sufficient. If fully in English, I found students had difficulty to comprehend. So I had to mix or use Bahasa Melayu. This subject is the hands-on type. When I used English, students did not fully understand my statements. If the subjects are core subjects, that’s OK. This is not engineering core subject. It is an additional subject, the hands-on type. (Mr Wan)

The comments indicated that there were two types of engineering classes: the “handson type,” which were practical sessions involving laboratory work, and “core courses,” which were based on mathematical and theoretical aspects and were taught using lectures. Mr Wan emphasised his need to use only Bahasa Malaysia in the former type of courses particularly because laboratory work was involved. He also pointed out that students had to understand clearly what they needed to do to get the desired results from experiments. Moreover, he pointed out that students’ safety in laboratory work was dependent on clear understanding of instructions and procedures. If they were not clear about instructions, he explained, they would keep asking for clarifications as they had to produce desired results at the end of the class. Even though the agency expressed by Mr Wan could be viewed as resistance to EMI, his justifications on the need to use Bahasa Malaysia indicated the choices that he had to make as a lecturer, which was primarily based on ‘safe’ teaching principles (see Martin, 2005). Essentially, his approach to language use in teaching was based on the subject matter and his students’ ability to understand instructions so as to ensure that learning did actually take place. Thus, it is important to note that the agency expressed by Mr Wan was his individual response to teaching and learning in view of students’ difficulties in understanding instructions in English, and it did not represent a strong expression of resistance to the policy in general. Nevertheless, it can be argued that the kind of subtle adversarial stance of agency, as also illustrated by Canagarajah’s (1999) research in Sri Lanka, has the potential to undermine the EMI policy. This suggests the importance of explicit and clear policy on form, function and goals, be it de facto or de jure policy, in the implementation of EMI policy (Chua & Baldauf, 2011).

13.5.2 Accommodation of the policy to content teaching The majority of the lecturers interviewed expressed their agency in terms of how they used the language in the classroom for content teaching and learning. They reported that they used mixed English/Bahasa Malaysia as their strategy to manage students’ learning in the EMI classroom. Mixed English/Bahasa Malaysia means that

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the language of instruction in the class was English but they code-switched between these two languages when necessary, as described by one of them: “Simple English, I mixed, bilingual” (Dr Salina). This expression exemplified a typical description by lecturers who used a mixture of English and Bahasa Malaysia in the classroom. Unlike resistance to the EMI policy, here lecturers code-switch between the two languages to cater to the students’ requests. For example, one lecturer reported that she switched from using only English to mixed English/Bahasa Malaysia in the classroom in the interest of students’ comprehension: I taught in total English, it was in Jan 2007. I am talking about the progression, the beginning that I made the adjustment, when I received some feedbacks from students. I see the feedbacks, I made some changes. So I made changes along the way, speaking slowly, and then I explained in Malay. I checked their comprehension. Sometimes I gave them simple analogies. I also reduced my choice of words. (Prof Siti)

Prof Siti reported that she used to teach only in English but later she had to accommodate and modify her teaching, and that was to code-switch after receiving feedback from students. The students suggested that she should code-switch to Bahasa Malaysia as they had difficulties in comprehending the content. She claimed that she made minor adjustments at first, but what struck her was when she was assessing students’ oral presentations towards the end of the semester: “When I heard their pronunciation, I was wondering how they could understand my lecture” (Prof Siti). She recounted that it was this realisation of students’ difficulty in comprehension that led her to code-switch to Bahasa Malaysia and to use such accommodation strategies as speaking slowly, using simple words and checking comprehension. The common theme that emerged from these lecturers’ accounts of their practices in terms of language use was their concern for students’ comprehension of content. This suggests that the majority of these lecturers perceived EMI as only a language of instruction and should be used if the students were able to understand the content of the subject. As pointed out Petrovic and Kuntz (2013), such approach to using English meant that an understanding of policy intentions could be different from those of EMI policy-makers at the macro level. Although the policy suggested that the lecturers were required to conduct their lessons in English, they did not see EMI as an instrument for developing students’ English proficiency. The type of agency exemplified by these lecturers indicates their positive efforts to use English in class only when their students are able to comprehend the content of the subject. Therefore, the findings suggest that the absence of explicit policy on the role of EMI in content teaching is problematic in the implementation of the language learning goal.



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13.5.3 Dedication towards both content and language teaching Despite the absence of explicit policy on the role of EMI in content teaching and language teaching, two senior lecturers, Dr Zain and Dr Karmila, expressed their agency in reinforcing the use of English in their teaching. Both claimed that they had incorporated a language learning component into their EMI classroom. While Dr Zain adopted a ‘fatherly’ role in requiring students to speak English, Dr Karmila used research-based practices in managing her EMI teaching. The agency illustrated by Dr Zain in creating the EMI classroom as a platform that would provide opportunities for his students to speak English emerged from his own experience and understanding that the campus did not provide the social environment required for regular use of the language. Out of the 11 content-area lecturers interviewed, Dr Zain was the only lecturer who claimed that he used only English in his teaching, and he required his students to use English in his classroom. He started the interview with the story of his daughter who had almost given up her medical studies during the first semester because of the pressure of having to participate in classroom discussion, which was in English. In addition, he reported that he had sent his other children to an intensive English programme after their university studies to improve their English proficiency. Dr Zain’s experience in managing his children’s English proficiency have reinforced his belief in the importance of English for his students’ future and his understanding that tertiary education did not guarantee adequate English proficiency development. This perspective on the importance of English had been extended to his students: I treat them like my kids, you know. ‘I am not your lecturer, I am your father. I treat you [the students] like my kids, I don’t care whether you [they] don’t like me,’ that’s it.

Furthermore, he observed that acquiring proficiency in English cannot be limited to learning English as a subject: English is a skill subject. What do I mean by skill, you must practise, every day, regularly. [Unlike] Mathematics, as long as you understand the basic, you can do. Even after three months, you still manage to solve that.

He understood that language was a skill that required practice and constant exposure, not just understanding. He recognised that to acquire the required level of proficiency, students needed opportunities to “practise, every day, regularly,” particularly in speaking. He further reported that he used only English because of the scarcity of contexts and opportunities for students to speak English:

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Just imagine, you [English lecturers] teach in English nicely, professionally. After that students joined another class in Malay. When are they going to polish their English? This discontinuation, you learn English for the sake of English, not for the sake of knowledge. For the sake of knowledge that means you learn in English, good in grammar, good in writing. You go to another subject, that means discontinuation. So that is another problem.

Dr Zain pointed out the “discontinuity” for students in developing their English as they did not have the opportunity to practise their English skills outside of their English courses. He realised that if these skills were not reinforced in content-area classrooms, the students would not get the opportunity to practise their English. Therefore, he required his students to speak English in the class, and he was the only CAL (as witnessed by students) who reinforced this requirement: If you don’t speak English I will not reply to you.’ That’s it. I informed my students, ‘Don’t ever laugh when your friends ask in English, ok. If he does mistake we must correct him. Not only him, for sure not only him, all of you will learn.

Dr Zain was strict in requiring students to speak English in his class. He acknowledged the prevalent social attitudes towards speaking English among students, which could discourage those who wanted to speak English. For instance, they often jeered at their friends who spoke English or attempted to speak English in the classroom. However, he advised them to be constructive about learning English even in such situations. In a nutshell, Dr Zain drew on his experience in managing his children’s improvement of their English proficiency to make sense of the EMI policy. His expectations that students speak English in his EMI class created the spaces for students to use English regularly. He pushed his students to speak English from a ‘fatherly’ obligation; he also ensured that he did not code-switch in his teaching. Dr Karmila’s orientation to her EMI classroom management sought to meet the same objective, but it was different from the agency expressed by Dr Zain. She reported that she used mostly English but she code-switched to Bahasa Malaysia when she needed to explain difficult concepts to ensure students’ comprehension: The general language for the classes is all English but sometimes when there is something that is really difficult to explain in English, and the students (.) when I say, ‘Do you need to hear this in Malay?’, and when they say, ‘Yes’, then I will repeat it in Malay. That is where when the class becomes very slow. Because as the concept becomes harder, it is the language, you know, the concept is already difficult but the English that I need to explain the concept also becomes slightly difficult. So, it’s double jeopardy. So I need sometimes to speak in Malay to get the concept out and then repeat in English. My notes are all in English. My workbooks are all in English.

This remark highlighted the challenge and the extra work that EMI content-area lecturers had to face to make sure learning took place. Dr Karmila reported that she needed to code-switch when explanations or elaborations were required for complex ideas given that the language (English) was too sophisticated for students to understand. Her remark indicated her concern about content learning as she would



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often ask the students whether they “need to hear this in Malay?” to ensure their comprehension. Dr Karmila was the only lecturer interviewed who reported using research-based practices in managing her EMI classroom. She reported that she and her two colleagues had been researching ways to improve the teaching of mathematics, in which they underscored language as playing an integral part. Hence, they applied several strategies to manage the EMI classroom, one of which was the use of specific “questions” as “prompts” in “simple English” when analysing mathematical problems: We actually had created a way of teaching that we focused on the language and we focused on the mathematics as well. But we gave them [students] very simple English to actually look at the mathematics […] So we created prompts and we called it prompts and questions, to help them [students] see the mathematics but then we had to use English. We used this framework, it is not ours. This framework by (.) I cannot pronounce his name but the earliest work was by one Polish mathematician. We used the modified version by Ann Watson and John Mason. John Mason is my supervisor […] For instance, I gave them an example, we look at the two functions and I gave them some questions, and then I will ask questions, ‘Look at the two functions, what is the same? And what is different?’ And then when I changed the function, I said, ‘What did I change? But what has remained the same?’ So we used this language, very, very simple English and focused on the mathematics. So we actually, although we have data that show that they have poor English, we just ignore it but work on it.

Dr Karmila explained that she applied these prompts to “look at” mathematical problems in classrooms to provide the conceptual understanding for students to “see” mathematical problems. These prompts were in simple English. She reported that the prompts remained in English even when she sometimes needed to code-switch. Confusion between terminology and common word usage was another language issue that she reported when teaching in English. Dr Karmila shared her practices to address this confusion by highlighting terminology that could create confusion for the class. She provided examples of “function, series, limit” which have different meanings in mathematics and in common usage. She added that she needed to do her homework to prepare examples i.e., sentences to show the students the different meanings of a particular word (e.g., in mathematics, “limit” refers to the domain of numbers that can be applied for a particular function [mathematical equation], while in common usage, one of the meanings is maximum value) as she reiterated that language played an integral part when she planned for her class. Dr Karmila also used an approach developed from her experience of teaching her children to speak. She reported that she made sure that her pronunciation was clear and the students could see her lip movement when she pronounced certain words, which she attributed to her experience in teaching her children to speak. Her comments on her experience in managing her EMI classroom indicated the complexities that CALs have to face in managing language and learning. The teaching strategies were developed in response to students’ language needs for comprehension. Her practices illustrated her agency in seeing EMI as both content learning and language learning.

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However, her comments also suggested that the whole process was very demanding of her time, energy, and commitment. The above discussion shows that in the absence of explicit EMI policy, the forms of agency expressed by Dr Zain and Dr Karmila indicated that they understood the policy-intended role of EMI; however, their comments indicated that their agency was a response to their individual experience and context. While Dr Zain’s expectation for his students to use English in the class was informed by his experience in managing his adult children’s improvement of their mastery of English, Dr Karmila was a member of a research group with a focus on improving teaching and learning. What seems to be clear, from an understanding of the factors that influenced these individuals’ agency in structuring EMI as both content and language learning, is that their agency was dependent upon their individual experience and context, rather than on uniform understanding of policy or of formal language teaching. Thus, if EMI implementation, with both a content and language focus, has to rely on such experiences and contexts, its implementation may not be reliable in terms of achieving EMI policy goals. In a study of EMI programmes in Denmark, Werther et al. (2014) also found that lecturers were assumed to have English competence to teach EMI classes and were left on their own to manage their class in terms of content as well as language teaching. They argued that institutions should provide the necessary support and manage EMI policy systematically. Therefore, the findings suggest the need for an explicit EMI policy at the institutional level as part of policy development with clear identification of language and content teaching goals for EMI.

13.6 Conclusion While macro-level policy-makers have positioned the EMI classroom and the agency of CALs to help develop students’ English proficiency, the findings in the context of Malaysia indicate that EMI is being implemented largely in a deficient way, and that is, English is used as the language of lecturers, but not as the language of the classroom. Students are not required to speak English with their lecturers, who have a tendency to code-switch to Bahasa Malaysia to facilitate student comprehension of academic content. Even though the exposure to teaching and learning in English may help boost students’ familiarity with the language, the findings of this study indicate that the linguistic environment in the EMI classroom is far from adequate in developing students’ ability to communicate in English. We identified three types of agency expressed by the CALs: resistance, accommodation and dedication. While resistance and accommodation have been reported in the EMI literature (e.g., Aguilar & Rodriguez, 2012; Costa & Coleman, 2012), our findings have highlighted the underlying reasons related to the engineering field that influence lecturers to code-switch to Bahasa Malaysia as strategies of either resistance or accommodation. Particularly, the CALs in this study understood that



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students often experienced difficulty in doing practical, laboratory-type classes if English was used in teaching. The consequences of the inadequate comprehension of instructions can be immediately seen in the outcomes of laboratory tests and safety procedures which are not visible in lecture-type classes. The agency illustrated by these lecturers indicated their positive attempts at implementing EMI in ways that ensured the learning of content, with limited consideration for English proficiency development. Although the EMI policy at the institution was not explicit in terms of focus and scope (i.e., a dual focus on content and language was warranted), there were at least a couple of lecturers who were dedicated to helping students develop English language proficiency while they taught engineering content. The key factors that motivated this agentic behaviour was their involvement in socialisation with the English language. While one lecturer mentioned his own efforts to manage his children’s English proficiency, the other referred to her research pertaining to teaching and learning. The agency expressed by these individuals was subject to specific interpretations of the EMI policy (i.e., teaching both content and language, not just content), which was motivated by their personal experience and context (e.g., addressing children’s English language needs as part of family language management, being in a related research group or experiences in the classroom) as well as their responses to students’ learning difficulties and needs in the EMI classroom. Teacher agency underlying dedication is the notable finding of the study, which also echoes the dedicated practice of one teacher in Zacharias’s (2013) study in Indonesia. These dedicated practices reinforce Lin’s (1999) and Martin’s (2005) observations made in the context of school-level EMI teaching in Hong Kong and Brunei respectively: that it is teacher agency that can make a difference in students’ learning outcomes and experiences against the odds related to policy absurdity, contextual irrelevance, institutional constraints and curricular demands. This individual agency deserves some comments. Apparently, teacher agency can be seen as a paradox. It is born out of macro-level policy imposition that asks wrong people (CALs, who are not language teachers) to do the right kind of thing (help students with their English) (recall the concept of “surrogacy” previously mentioned) to address the imperatives of globalisation. This is a case of “policy without a plan” (Pearson, 2014), in which policy-makers understand the importance of certain policies in a globalised world, but do not have the capacity, resources or political willingness to see through their implementation. Therefore, “dumping” policies down to higher education institutions is taken as a strategy at the macro-level that creates a “sink or swim’ situation for actors at the local level (Hamid & Nguyen, 2016). It can be argued that the agency in the sense of dedication discussed in this chapter is conditioned by the top-down power running down the policy hierarchy. Although the CALs were free to resist the EMI policy, as some of them did, those who were particularly concerned about students’ academic wellbeing did not have a choice but to resort to self-exertion, be it in the form of buying an

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expensive phone or making extra efforts, so that students could learn. What emerges from the practices of CALs’ language use in engineering courses is that when higher order agency is insufficient to support a language policy, individual agency may be the key to its success. However desirable is individual teacher agency, its individuality also constitutes its problems because it may take different forms of expressions, not all of which can be productive. While CALs need to be encouraged to exercise their agency, there has to be a convergence of agentic efforts from individual actors towards common goals. Thus, the prospect for the success of EMI may rest on the agency of the leadership at the institutional level to develop de facto university language and literacy policies as a mediator to influence and align the individual agency of lecturers with macro-policy goals.

13.7 Ethical Statement Ethical clearance for the research reported in the chapter was obtained from a higher education institution in Australia. The research was conducted by strictly following the ethical guidelines and standards of this institution. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This paper draws on data from the first author’s doctoral study which was sponsored by Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education.

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Minglin Li

14 English language education planning for Chinese schools – Multi-level actors at work Language planning operates at macro, meso and micro levels in societies, and multilevelled actors are involved in language planning process. Drawing on the key concepts of multi-levelled actors in language planning with a particular focus on micro language education planning in local contexts, this chapter points out the actors involved in English language education policy planning in China and what roles various actors play in the policy enactment. To achieve this, the macro-level expectations in the intended curriculum for teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in Chinese schools were examined through analysing the EFL curriculum documents. Semi-structured interviews with members in the Teaching and Research Departments (TRDs) and EFL teachers were conducted to find out how macro policies have been interpreted and enacted in local schools. It was found that the actors involved in the EFL education planning included government bodies, curriculum experts, EFL textbook and material writers and EFL tests designers/writers, TRDs, and EFL teachers. Most researchers agree that language planning operates at macro, meso and micro levels in societies; the actors involved in language planning process are multilevelled, such as governmental bodies, agencies (mainly educational agencies) and individuals working at different levels in the development and practice of language policy (Baldauf & Ingram, 2003; Haarmann, 1990; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997; Shohamy, 2006; Spolsky, 2004). Language education planning (LEP), a distinct branch of language planning (Grabe, 1992) that was initially defined as language acquisition planning by Cooper (1989), seeks to demonstrate how, within the education system, the ideals, goals and content of language policy can be operationalised at the school level. As macro-level language planning is often realised through language education planning (Baldauf, 1990), it is important to look at not only how language policy is developed, but also how specific methods and teaching materials are designed to support language development of the individuals or communities so as to ensure that the targeted language is able to meet societal, institutional or individual needs (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2003). At the macro and meso levels, the actors involved in language planning process can be official/government bodies, for instance, education departments, curriculum boards, syllabus committees, national language academies, or professional bodies such as associations of language teachers or applied linguists (Baldauf & Ingram, 2003). Other educational policy makers include educational leaders and educational linguists who

Minglin Li, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith Institute of Educational Research, Griffith University, Australia

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could be curriculum experts in central, regional, or local departments of education. However, at the school level, practitioners are also considered to be educational policy makers because they hold the power to translate the policy into desired (or sometimes undesired) practices (Spolsky & Shohamy, 2000). Ricento and Hornberger (1996) likened the involvement of actors to an onion with three different layers: national, institutional and interpersonal, and discussed the degrees to which these layers engaged in the development and implementation of language policy and planning. The outer layer is the state i.e., the national/macro level, which “plays a very important – although sometimes indirect – role, […], in deciding which language(s) will receive support (usually through the education system), which will be repressed, and (often) which language(s) will be ignored” (Ricento & Hornberger, 1996: 414415). The next layer is the institutions, such as schools, civic and other private and publicly subsidised organisations who are involved in meso or micro level language planning, and very often have a greater impact on language policy development. Finally at the core, also known as the micro level, the classroom teachers are considered to be at the heart of language policy. This is because they are not only the implementers of what “experts” in the government, or board of education, or central school administration have already decided, Ricento and Hornberger (1996) argued that they are the catalysts for policy making, and therefore they should be viewed as primary language policy makers. Other researchers, such as Ashworth (1985), Freeman (1996) and Shohamy (2006) also claimed that teachers are the primary language policy-makers because of their expertise and ability to operationalise the policy into actions.

14.1 Multi-level actors in LEP and micro language planning in local contexts Over the past decade, language planning was generally viewed as large scale and macro activity, often undertaken by government to impose changes to alter literacy practices within a society. Generally, micro planning and local agency were not discussed in a variety of language learning and teaching situations (Baldauf, 2006). In recent years, however, there has been a shift towards locating the power of change to the micro and local level. Researchers, such as Liddicoat and Baldauf (2008) have stressed the need to look at the fundamental and integrated part of the overall language planning process and summarised four groups of agents at the micro-level of language planning: 1. Individual(s) who work(s) to revive or promote the use of a language; 2. Language organisations that play a significant role in the local language planning for small communities; 3. Official institutions that are not necessarily language oriented; and 4. Local community education groups who may also play a significant role.



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Despite the need to understand how language planning is played out in the local context, the agency still lies with the initiator at the macro level. This is because these initiators hold the power to introduce change although both “macro and the micro are often simultaneously at work” in order to fulfill the broad-scale language policy demands (Baldauf, 2006: 153). In China, foreign language education policy planning has been shaped mainly by economic and political forces, which in return have reinforced the status and role of EFL subject in Chinese schools (see e.g., Adamson, 2004; Li, 2007). The Chinese government has always been actively involved in language planning since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 (Liu, 2010). Hence, EFL education policy planning is based on a top-down hierarchical process with the government and the Ministry of Education (MOE) as the active agents with no exception of the most recent EFL curriculum reform for Chinese schools in 2001 (see e.g., Adamson, 2004; Hu, 2007; Li, 2010). Following the requirements in policies issued by the State Council in relation to education and language education in general, at the state level, the MOE organizes specific reform activities including engaging curriculum experts to design the EFL curriculum for Chinese schools with specified guidelines on how to implement the curriculum. The curriculum and the guidelines are then forwarded as policy documents to each education department at the provincial level for implementation. Two units in the provincial Education Department have been directly involved in implementing the 2001 curriculum through organizing training programs and helping with the selection of teaching materials. They are the Administrative Department of Basic Education (ADBE) and the Teaching and Research Department (TRD). The ADBE is responsible to disseminate the national policy documents to the provincial TRDs and to determine how the national policies should be implemented locally. Subsequently, the regional TRDs organise the curriculum implementation in Chinese schools; they design specific implementation activities, such as teacher training programs and supervising of EFL teachers’ classroom teaching (Li, 2016). Nevertheless, despite the different roles undertaken by the state, provincial and regional administrators, there are basically two actors involved in the EFL curriculum policy planning process in China – policy makers and policy implementers. The first group of actors is the policy makers, and they are leaders at the national – State Council and the MOE, provincial and regional levels – ADBE and TRD. The second group of actors is the teachers who are perceived to be passive adopters of the official curriculum policy whose primary role was to follow faithfully the pre-specified teaching (Li, 2010). However, EFL teachers are regarded as important actors in the policy implementation process; it has been found that they seldom follow the instructions and recommendations in the English curriculum but “teach in the way that they thought to be better for their students’ examination results” (Li, 2010: 447). Consequently, the intended objectives of the language policies are not achieved.

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This chapter reports on a study that looked at how the various groups of actors interpret the English language education policy and operationalise in the local Chinese schools. Firstly, relevant EFL curriculum document ‘English Curriculum Standards for Nine-year Compulsory Education and General Senior Secondary Education (Trial)’ (MOE, 2001; hereafter the Standards) was analysed in order to find out what is prescribed in terms of EFL teaching and learning. Secondly, either one-to-one or focus group interviews were conducted in one province in China with TRD members at provincial and local levels who were involved in EFL teaching and teacher training, and with two groups of EFL practitioner teachers. They were able to provide first-hand information about enacted curriculum in EFL classrooms in that province (Choy, Li & Singh, 2015).

14.2 The intended EFL curriculum The traditional EFL curricular for Chinese schools focused largely on teaching and learning basic linguistic knowledge and skills whereas the 2001 Standards focuses on learners rather than the language itself with the aim to educate students holistically (Cheng, 2004; Cheng & Gong, 2005; Wen & Hu, 2007; see e.g., Adamson, 2004; Wang, 2007; Wang & Lam, 2009, for a brief history of the English language curriculum reforms for Chinese schools). As described by Wang (2007: 96-100), the characteristics of the 2001 Standards include: –– An emphasis on whole-person education through language teaching; –– A new design in learning outcomes to ensure continuity, flexibility and selectivity; –– A more student-centred and task-based teaching with a proper increase in vocabulary; –– A new assessment system focusing more on performance and progress; and –– An increase use of technology for language teaching. The overall goal is to develop students’ ability and attitude towards language use with the following specific areas: 1. Language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing; 2. Linguistic knowledge: pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, functions, topics; 3. Affective attitudes: motivation, confidence, teamwork, patriotism, international vision; 4. Learning strategies: cognitive, meta-cognitive, communicative, and resourcing strategies; and 5. Cultural awareness: cultural knowledge and understanding, cross-cultural awareness and competence.



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In addition, English teaching and learning is divided into nine competence-based levels with a comprehensive description of the required components in each of the above five areas for various levels – Levels 1-5 for primary to ninth graders (nine-year compulsory education), and Levels 6-9 for senior secondary students (see Wang, 2007, for more information). Given the goals and objectives of the Standards, English teaching should aim to develop students’ creativity and practical language ability (Wang, 2007), and hence teachers are recommended to follow the guidelines in their classroom teaching: –– Aim to build a solid foundation for all students’ overall and life-long development; –– Focus on students’ emotions and creating flexible, egalitarian and harmonious teaching and learning environment; –– Promote/encourage task-based teaching and learning and training students in their overall ability in language use; –– Strengthen the guidance to the students in learning strategies, and build a solid foundation for their life-long learning; –– Expand students’ cultural vision, and develop their awareness and ability in cross-cultural communication; –– Utilise modern educational technology, and increase the opportunities for students to learn and use English; –– Organise active and lively extra-curricula activities, and facilitate students’ English learning; and –– Update the knowledge structure, and adapt the English course to meet the needs of the development of the modern society. Basically, the teachers are to play an active role in engaging students in EFL class. In addition, in the area of assessment, EFL teachers are to “shift from a purely exambased to a more performance and progress-based one” (Wang, 2007: 99). The 2001 Standards also included the use of formative assessment in primary schools, both formative and summative assessments in secondary schools. Formative assessments referred to the checking on students’ learning outcomes, their attitudes and strategies in learning English whereas the summative assessment focused on assessing students’ comprehensive language competence by means of oral, listening and written tests. In addition, suggestions were also provided for the teachers to show how they could use the new texts and develop new teaching resources. In the following section, the accounts of TRDs and EFL teachers obtained through semi-structured interviews will be discussed to illustrate how these new concepts were interpreted and how the provided suggestions were enacted in EFL classrooms.

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14.3 Bridging the intended curriculum and enacted curriculum The main purpose of using semi-structured interviews was to use conversation, i.e., questioning and discussion, to provide insights to how TRD members at provincial and local levels, as well as EFL teachers interpret and cascade the new EFL curriculum into the classroom. In total, there were one provincial TRD member, a group of four TRD members at the local level, two groups of EFL teachers – one group consisting of six teachers was from a key school68 in a city, and the other group consisting of four teachers was from junior and senior secondary schools in various suburban and rural areas. In order to identify the quotes taken from the interviews, labels will be used respectively: –– TRDI for the provincial TRD member; –– TRDG for the group of local TRD members; –– TG1 for the group of EFL teachers from the key school in the city; and –– TG2 for the other group. Content analysis, a technique to extract a set of characteristics from a text in order to make valid inferences (Franzosi, 2004; Weber, 1990), was used to analyse the curriculum documents and the data from the interviews. Content analysis was chosen because it classifies textual material, and reduces it to more relevant and manageable bits, or content categories, with each consisting of one, several, or many words (Weber, 1990). For the purpose of the study, qualitative content analysis was conducted through “thematic analysis” (Wilkinson, 2004: 185). Four key themes were found, and they are: TRD as a platform; Textbooks in EFL teaching; Test regulates practice; and enacted curriculum in EFL classrooms.

14.3.1 TRD as a platform The TRD was perceived as a platform in the implementation of the national English curriculum Standards. TRDI and TRDG commented that they would receive training 68 Key schools (“selected” schools) were established by the government in the late 1950s for training specialised personnel of higher quality. They were shut down during the Cultural Revolution, but re-established in the late 1970s and in the early 1980s, becoming one part of the effort to reform the educational structure. Key schools enjoy greater educational priorities in the recruitment of the best students, the assignment of teachers, or the allocation of financial support for equipment and resources. Selection is based on entrance scores, and the best students can attend key schools successively from junior secondary schools to universities. After the launch of the educational structure reform emphasising quality-oriented education in 1985 and the promulgation of the NineYear Compulsory Education Law, key schools have been closed down in some cities but still exist in some other cities. The existence of the key schools is the cause of fierce competition among students working for higher examination scores.



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from the experts organised by MOE who have deep understanding of the Standards. After the training, the TRDI and TRDG would then cascade the policies from the national level to the teachers at the school level. Subsequently, the TRDs were expected to put in place various kinds of teacher training programmes for the teachers to ensure that the EFL teachers would have a good understanding of the requirements of the English curriculum Standards and the competencies needed to implement the curriculum. Every term, they would provide the EFL teachers with various kinds of training opportunities to transfer what they had learned, such as the analysis of the curriculum Standards, analysis of textbooks: We lead the teachers at the beginning of the term in the discussions about the principles that teachers should follow in their teaching, and guide them in choosing the key points that they should teach. (TRDG) We would observe teachers’ lessons, and based on the requirements stated in the Standards which principles the teacher has followed and how they were implemented. (TRDG)

Furthermore, the TRD would organise sessions for EFL teachers to watch DVDs, observing and evaluating the recorded lessons by other teachers so as to help deepen their understanding of the Standards and convince them that the new approaches would help their students to learn better: English teachers would think that “what I need to teach the kids is no more than the English language knowledge”. We have been making every effort in helping teachers change this mindset of theirs. That is, what you need to teach is not only the language knowledge, but also the cultural awareness, quality education, and so on. … I tell the teachers: “You do not have to force-feed the kids. You can find other approaches that motivate the students so they’ll be interested in your subject, English. When they study because they want to, you’ll never have to worry about their achievement”. (TRDI)

14.3.2 Textbooks in EFL teaching Despite all the possible training, the TRDs reported that the EFL teachers were unable to fully understand the new concepts in the Standards and to follow the new principles in their teaching, such as student-centred, task-based teaching, to develop students’ creativity and their language use ability (see also e.g., Li & Baldauf, 2011, for EFL teachers’ proficiency that has limited their effective implementation of the new curriculum). Although the TRDs could provide the necessary training, the EFL teachers needed to be more flexible in teaching the contents in the prescribed textbooks: I’ll use what I have gained from my own training to analyse and evaluate the textbooks [that are in use in schools]. In order to help teachers avoid detours, when prepare teachers for their lessons I would show them how to use an example in one book to teach contents in another

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book. What teachers can do is to try to adjust the contents in the textbook to accommodate their teaching, that’s all. (TRDG)

Nevertheless, despite the effort to prepare teachers for their lessons, teachers were found to follow the text too closely without altering the contents: We repeatedly tell them [teachers], you are using the textbook to teach students, but you are not there repeating the language forms in the textbook. … Take “My favourite food is hamburger” in a textbook for example, I sometimes went down to schools in the rural areas to observe English lessons, I noticed that teachers would teach students over and over again the western food such as sandwich, hamburger, milk shake, cheese, so on and so forth…. Once I asked a teacher after class: “How many times in one week do you have hamburgers?” He answered: “I’ve never had one.” Then I asked: “Why did you tell the kids your favorite food was hamburger if you haven’t had one yet?” His response was because “it was written so in the textbook”. (TRDI)

The above extract shows that some teachers would just transfer what was found in the textbook to their students, and would not customise to their students’ needs and to fully develop their ability in language use even though the local TRDs had tried to help them to make changes: We are very thorough in training teachers how to use the textbooks. However, we could tell when we observe their lessons that some teachers did not understand completely how to use the textbook, to what depth the knowledge should be delivered and to what extent it should be expanded. (TRDG)

14.3.3 Tests regulate practice The topic of assessment and high-stakes tests i.e., Gaokao and Zhongkao69, was the most heated discussion during the interviews. The TRDs reported that they tried as hard as possible to downplay the importance of summative assessment and students’ end-of-term test results. TRDG had observed that EFL teachers were inclined to see summative assessment as the most important and the only practical type of assessment. Nonetheless, TRDG also had shared beliefs and agreed with the teachers that “TEST is the baton. We’ll go where the baton leads. We all have to cross that log bridge [entrance examination]”. For this reason, all TRDG members and EFL teachers expressed their strong belief that formative assessment was just a waste of time and 69 Gaokao is the annual national Higher Education Entrance Examination in China for students graduating from senior secondary schools to enter higher education institutions at the undergraduate level; Zhongkao (Senior Secondary School Entrance Examination; also the Academic Test for Junior Secondary School Students) held at provincial or local levels, is for junior secondary school graduates to be admitted to educational institutions at senior secondary school level including senior secondary schools, secondary skill schools, vocational and technical secondary schools.



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resources. Basically, “A lot of things need to be done (for formative assessment), and collaborative work is needed from parents and other teachers” (TRDG), and even then this would not negate the importance of the make-or-break high-stakes tests. They claimed that “it is not that we don’t conduct the (formative) assessment, but that we are not able to use many forms of assessment” (TRDG). Given the pressure from the high-stakes tests, the TRDG pointed out that their main responsibility was to ensure that the students raise or maintain their test scores: Sometimes there are some rarely used words in the textbooks that are not among the vocabulary listed in the Standards. They would be difficult for teachers to teach and for students to learn. However, it would be our biggest mistake if those words appear in the test paper from the higher level but we tell teachers they do not have to teach them. …. I can tell teachers I won’t test such and such vocabulary, but I cannot guarantee it won’t appear in the test paper designed by upper level TRDs. (TRDG)

As shown in the above extract, there were misalignments in the learning requirements between the Standards and some of the prescribed textbooks. As a result, the TRDs at local levels would rather the teachers teach their students to learn and memorise all the vocabulary that were found in the textbooks so as to ‘play safe’. This example showed that the TRD in general was an active agent in EFL education because TRD members were able to determine to some extent what was taught in Chinese schools by deciding what to be tested in the test papers. It also shows how an important part textbooks play in EFL classrooms in Chinese schools, which is supported by the following comment: Some schools may have the opportunities to choose their own textbooks, but general direction should be followed. Take xxx school for example [a top school in this province], they have to [emphasis in original transcript] firstly teach the PEP textbooks [textbook series published by the People’s Education Press] because tests are based on these textbooks. (TRDG)

Consequently, when local TRDs designed their test papers, they would “have to” take into consideration of items in previous test papers designed by upper level and covered whatever that appeared in the textbooks. Nevertheless, the requirements set in the Standards might not be the criteria to be abided by when they designed test papers as seen in the following extract: The objectives described in the Standards should just be for information and implemented flexibly. To be honest, the curriculum Standards were designed for us to implement, but we may not even read the objectives at various levels or strictly follow them when we design test papers. (TRDG)

As a result of the inconsistencies between the macro and micro levels, the level of English competency varies across the different provinces and schools in China.

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In the following section, EFL teachers’ accounts are presented to show what decisions EFL teachers make in their teaching. Two key sub-themes will be discussed, and they are: the intended curriculum is not so practical and misalignment in what is tested and what is required to be taught.

14.4 Enacted curriculum in EFL classrooms All the EFL teachers interviewed agreed that the prescribed textbooks were the main resources for EFL teachers’ teaching and students’ learning, and they were aware that the textbooks they were using were basically in line with principles and guidelines set out in the national English curriculum Standards. They also indicated that the most important task of EFL teachers was to try their best to help students to acquire the knowledge and skills needed for them to achieve good academic grades so as to secure positions at universities in the entrance examinations. However, the new textbooks were found to be unsupportive of the EFL teaching and learning because the contents were not aligned to the requirements in the entrance examinations.

14.4.1 The intended curriculum is not so practical All of the participating EFL teachers commented that it was not very easy to use the new textbooks in their classroom teaching and learning, particularly in classrooms in rural areas: If we follow the traditional way in our teaching, the textbook would be too difficult; if we follow suggestions in the Standards, we feel that our students would not be able to learn much. The texts [in each unit] are bit too long, and the vocabulary is just huge. The Standards requires us to use four class hours to finish one unit. There are five to six texts in one unit with around 150 vocabulary [one teacher interrupted: 300 in some units]. Think about it, four to five lessons, 45 minutes each lesson, 180 minutes four lessons for the six texts when students have so many other subjects to study. No way to complete the tasks. (TG1)

To further complicate matter, textbooks were compulsory texts although teachers were given the choice to decide what to be taught and what to be omitted: The textbook writers told us when we were in the training program that textbooks were no longer called textbooks but teaching materials. It means that teachers can decide what to choose and not to choose from the teaching materials in their teaching. However, this is not an easy decision. You let the teachers to choose, this is too difficult a task. There will be a few texts about the same topic. … We would think, based on the usual practice, that the first section, Section 1, is the most important, the focus, but sometimes they were not sequenced like this. Sometimes the article that we think is good has been put into Section 4. How do you think you could handle this? … So, given that we are allowed to adopt the textbooks in our own way, we would decide that this



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unit, we would just delete this unit, we would work together to find some other materials from wherever. However, it would take us a long long time to make such a decision. (TG1)

As a result, the EFL teachers found it difficult to make decisions, and in most cases, the teachers tend to fall back on the traditional way of teaching, and inculcate their students, or in their words – guan70, with the given content: The communicative approach is recommended, but very difficult for the kids in the rural schools to get used to it due to too large a vocabulary. In particular, there are too large loads of contents and massive information… There is no way to finish the contents [in the textbook] if we follow the suggested approaches. Therefore, what we can do is to “guan” … The greatest relief is a sense of security, and you’ll feel safe when you finish all the contents. As least I have taught them all… In fact, we are wearing new shoes but walking on the old path. We just guan, guan and guan. (TG2)

As reported by the EFL teachers, the fundamental cause for the difficulty in making changes in material adoption is the high-stakes tests, in particular Gaokao. For many years, the testing regimes have become rather rigid; the test items would focus on vocabulary and grammar, which have not changed much particularly in relation to the composition despite the revised curriculum. For example, the test does not require “the kids to write creatively” but only simple and short sentences for the writing section in the test paper (Li & Baldauf, 2011: 709). Although the EFL teachers did not think it was good for students’ English language competence development, they still chose to teach to the test. EFL teachers from the key school, schools in suburban and rural areas all indicated that such force feeding of information was the best way to prepare students for the most important tests for their future: Actually, to be honest, it is not a difficult job to do to deal with Gaokao. English for entrance exam is very simple. Only those several task types. You just practise, and more practice, right? ... You do not need a textbook in teaching for the exams. We can just find some test papers, previous test papers, for students. We can explain if students do not understand, with examples, then provide more similar tasks so they can practise. (TG1)

14.4.2 Misalignment in what is tested and what is required to be taught Due to the misalignment of teaching and testing, the teachers usually ended up teaching to the test: What we [students] learn is totally different from what is tested. In Junior Secondary One we would have some pair work and group work, practise some listening and speaking in class, but the test items designed by the TRDS are all from the old textbooks. … There are so many we have

70 Instilling the required textbook contents into students’ minds which also refers to rote learning

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not even taught. And there are those thick exercise books, the exercises are not consistent with the new textbooks, all words and grammar in the old textbooks are included in the exercise books. So we would just do the exercises, teach students those that are not in the new textbook because they might be tested later. It turned out that they were in the examination papers. (TG2)

In addition, some teachers would go to the extreme of not using much of the textbooks because “the contents in the textbook weight toward everyday life, toward spoken language but tests focus more on vocabulary and grammar” (TG2). Clearly, teaching to the test dominates EFL teachers’ practice even though they agreed that this should not be the way English language is taught and learnt. As one teacher from the key school said, “I am so vacillating sometimes when I have to give students stacks of exercises for them to tick. Alas, give them or not?”. Consequently, interactive activities, such as pair work and group work were omitted as the teachers would rather explain how to use the words and to have the students do the exercises in order to save some time.

14.5 Multi-level actors in English language education planning for Chinese schools Given the political nature of language planning, the multi-leveled actors are most likely to be top-down politicians or else bureaucrats (Baldauf & Kaplan, 2003). Yet, although the government bodies are in power to impose their ideas, at the micro level the teachers also have the power to operationalise the policies (Liddicoat & Baldauf, 2008). As Liddicoat and Baldauf (2008: 11) have pointed out, “no macrolevel policy is transmitted directly and unmodified to a local context.” In reality, the norms and expectations for the ways in which EFL is taught in local schools can be established by a macro-level institution(s), but how they are realized is dependent on the decisions made at the other levels. Based on the existing literature and findings from this study, the actors involved in EFL education planning for Chinese schools are intricate and multi-levelled. First, at the macro level, the state government, MOE and administrative education officers have the power to make and guide the implementation of relevant EFL education policies (Hu, 2007; Li, 2010; 2016). Second, at the meso level, curriculum experts (mostly university academics), EFL textbook and material writers, EFL tests designers/writers and TRDs have the power to transmit ideology and concepts imposed from macro level. Third, at the micro level, EFL teachers act as local practitioners to implement top-down EFL education policies. Basically, these agents at the different levels play various parts in determining the success of the policy. As described earlier, the MOE engaged curriculum experts to design the national English curriculum Standards based on relevant policies from the State Government; education officers at provincial and regional levels were involved in policy dissemination and textbook selection. However, to translate the new concepts in the Standards into practice at the micro level, the textbook writers and TRDs play



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a key role in supporting this translation process. For example, new textbooks are required to be written in congruent with the English Standards for Chinese schools, and they are to be approved by the MOE textbook review committee before they are recommended to be used in schools (Wang, 2007). Similarly, TRDs at the provincial and local levels have to organise effective teacher training programs to help teachers to implement the new Standards and to use the new textbooks. The main findings of this study show that TRDs at local levels would have to ensure that their guidance for teachers would not affect the students’ test scores. As discussed previously, although TRDs have the power to design test papers to assess students’ academic performance, their decisions about what to be tested (e.g., vocabulary) could be determined by those from the higher levels (e.g., higher level TRDs, provincial or national test paper writers). In view of this, one of the important actors involved in EFL education planning for Chinese schools will be the test designers/writers since they hold the power to influence what and how English is taught at the school level. Test designers/writers can be from various levels: national and provincial levels for Gaokao students who are graduating from senior secondary schools, various local levels for Zhongkao students who are graduating from junior secondary schools. These testing regimes have in principle regulated EFL teachers’ classroom practice (Li & Singh, 2016). In addition to the textbooks that teachers are using in their teaching, teachers are also seeking assistance from the commercial exercises books on the market for students to practise their testing skills. This has made the examinations/tests material writers part of the guiding agents involved in EFL teaching and learning. The EFL teachers in this research can be seen as active agents; they are able to make decisions regarding certain issues such as adaptation of teaching materials and the selection of teaching methods, participating directly or indirectly in the EFL education planning process. A large number of EFL teachers regarded the new texts as the new curriculum, and would directly transfer the linguistic knowledge in the textbook to their students. However, they also did not always follow the new concepts offered in the Standards, such as communicative, task-based and student-centred teaching. Instead, they ended up using the new textbook but taught in the traditional way or used other materials for students’ testing skills. They did not see the need to include these new tasks since they would not be tested in the examinations, and for some they might not have the competencies to teach these news skills to the students (see also, Li, 2010). Essentially, the teachers exercise their agency by responding to “their environment rather than simply in their environment”, and the achievement of agency depends on the interplay of individual efforts, available resources and contextual and structural factors (Biesta & Tedder, 2007: 137). High-stakes testing has regulated modes of pedagogy, but the extent to which it impacted on teachers’ pedagogical choices varies from individual to individual, particularly from teachers in top schools in cities to teachers in rural areas in China.

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14.6 Conclusion The present research reveals the relationship between intended curriculum and enacted curriculum, and among the multi-level players in EFL education planning. The intended curriculum was well designed from the theoretical point of view with expectations for teachers and students being in line with the international trends in its standards and norms. However, the enacted curriculum was designed around ensuring high student scores (Li & Singh, 2016). In such a context in China, the highstakes testing has negatively impacted on teachers’ ineffectively enacted curriculum and therefore will be on their student learning. In a nutshell, the relationship among the different actors involved in EFL education policy-making and implementation is complicated since lower level policy makers are also interpreters and/or transmitters and/or implementers of higher-level policies. The possible breakdowns in communication among various agents involved in the curriculum formulation and implementation has led to the lack of collaborative effort in the Standards implementation. This has to some extent impacted negatively on the enacted curriculum (Li, 2016) although players at all levels have the same ultimate goal in their hearts – student learning. van Els asserts that there are three level of agents involved in decision-making: the school, the region and the nation, and each of the level will have their individual sublevels. The agents include “the pupils, their parents or caretakers, the teachers, the school authorities, the local and/ or regional authorities, the school inspectors, and the national government” (van Els 2005, 975). Thus, at the micro level, the students should also be given a voice to make decisions on language learning. Therefore, in order for any language reform to be more effectively carried out, the various agents at the three levels need to consider successful classroom practices and appropriate activities that aim to support the implementing of the new reform.

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Sandra Pinhui Wu

15 Translation of language policy from pre-school to primary school in Singapore: Multiplayers at work With globalisation and technological advancements, the world is becoming smaller as the divisions between countries are increasingly blurred, resulting in an interconnectivity that transcends geographical boundaries. This intensification of worldwide social relations is the byproduct of a process of convergence that has created an universalisation of economic, social, cultural and political elements through the spread of various objects, experiences, ideas and policies worldwide that has formed a homogenous global society where nations, governments, societies and communities are now more interconnected and interdependent than ever (Giddens, 1990; Cleghorn & Prochner, 2010). Through globalisation, English has become prominent in economic trade, technology and popular culture, thus positioning it as one of the most commonly used languages in the world and in a world that is rapidly converging, sharing a common language becomes pivotal to facilitating communication and interactions on a global platform. From a systems perspective, Baldauf (2006) saw the impact of globalisation on language planning as one that had affected governments, education, businesses and organisations from the macro, global level to the micro, local level. The multiple players in the global landscape are countries, governments, education ministries, businesses, organisations, communities and individuals, and they all play a role in language policy planning through a ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ interaction of forces. According to Kaplan and Baldauf (1997), this interaction of forces supports the intended direction of change of the language planning and policy (LPP) from the macro to the micro level. At the macro level, actors which possess more power, such as the government, education ministry, businesses and organisations act as initiators of change, imposing language policy from a ‘top-down’ direction whereas actors at the micro level such as communities and individuals support the change from a ‘bottomup’ direction as they do not possess the similar degree of power as the actors on top (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). In LPP, the government enforces, supports and implements an explicit change in the organisation of the society and through language management, effect change from the government to the society, community and individuals (Spolsky, 2004). Although the common belief that the actors at the micro level possess lesser degree of power as compared to the actors at the macro level, actors at the micro level do have the power to influence language choice as their individual attitudes toward language use can collectively affect societal language behaviour in a significant way (Zhao, 2011).

Sandra Pinhui Wu, National Institute of Education/Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

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Essentially, language policy planning is a complex process that Kaplan and Baldauf (1997: 3) have defined as, … a body of ideas, laws and regulations (language policy), change rules, beliefs, and practices intended to achieve a planned change (or to stop change from happening) in the language use in one or more communities. To put it differently, language planning involves deliberate, although not always overt, future oriented change in systems of language code and/or speaking in a societal context.

LPP therefore becomes important as it enables governments to strengthen the desired language proficiency and position in societies especially where language skills are critical for building human capital. For example, the development of English language proficiency is an important aspect in engineering the desired human capital for many countries such as India (Shastry, 2011). In the global economy, nations rise to the demands of market competition through human capital development, and education is one such tool for developing human capital. When Singapore gained independence in 1965, its first Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew set up a government that is focused on developing its economic system and building the country’s human capital so as to stay competitive on a global scale. He played a central role in shaping Singapore’s history and was one of the key drivers for the country’s success (MOE, 2015a). Under his political leadership, Mr Lee believed in using education to create a knowledge-based society that would give Singapore a chance at surviving and competing in the global arena. Given the importance of English in the global economy, it was chosen to be a working language for trade and economic purposes, and used as the main medium of instruction in all schools. English is still a ‘prestige’ language in Singapore till today. With English being the first language of Singapore, all Singaporeans will have to learn a second language, which is their mother tongue. The three official Mother Tongue Languages (MTLs) are Chinese, Malay and Tamil, each representing the three main ethnic groups ‒ Chinese, Malay and Indian. This marks the inception of Singapore’s bilingual policy. This chapter explores how this policy translates from the preschool context into the primary education system, with a focus on the Chinese language curriculum in the early years, and how it affects the transition to Primary One Chinese learning. It aims to compare a preschool Chinese programme with the primary school Chinese syllabus to illustrate the extent the preschool curriculum is aligned to meet the ministry’s objectives. It concludes with a discussion on the outcomes of the bilingual policy in both preschool and primary school settings by looking at the roles of the multi actors and the different forces at play.

15.1 A Brief History of Singapore Since Singapore gained independence in 1965, a time where many thought that it would not succeed due to its size and lack of natural resources, the government



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saw the need for capability building in a population with low educational level in order to raise the quality and standard of living (MOE, 2015a). Education became a national priority for economic growth and progress, and nation building (OECD, 2010). Towards this end, Mr Lee created an efficient government with his “vision of a city-state where all Singaporeans, regardless of their race, language or religion, have equal and ample opportunities to seek a fulfilling future” (MOE, 2015a). His vision is founded on one of the key ideologies in Singapore’s governance – meritocracy, which is believed to promote social mobility through education (OECD, 2010). Mr Lee created access to quality education and invested in schools to “build the foundation for nation building” and nurture “Singaporeans with character – Singaporeans who are rugged, honest, cohesive, possessing strong instincts for racial harmony and collective survival” (MOE, 2015a). Thus, meritocracy is believed to facilitate the affordance of equal opportunities for its people, enabling Singaporeans from all communities to progress and be rewarded according to individual merit (MFA, 2010). The underpinning assumption to this belief is that no one will be discriminated against or disadvantaged because of his/her race, language or religion in a positive, competitive environment that inspires individuals to continuously improve themselves, ensuring continual progress and growth (MFA, 2010). Based on this ideology, English was chosen as the ‘neutral’ language as it does not give an ethnic group an advantage when the students start primary school (Dixon, 2005). The official MTLs assigned to its respective ethnic groups ensured such parity. Under Mr Lee’s political leadership, the “optimal use of human and natural resources to govern a prospering country” became the key contributing factor to Singapore’s success story (Bellows, 2009: 25). Mr Lee led the People’s Action Party and took public office under an elitist leadership that was underpinned by pragmatism necessary for survival and progress (Bellows, 2009; Sapari, 2013). For a city-state with limited natural resources, an educated workforce became the key driving force for economic progress and development (Wong, 1999; Tavangar, 2009). Thus, Singapore positioned itself as a knowledge based economy to create national wealth and sustain economic growth through education (Reyes & Gopinathan, 2013). This is a natural consequence of globalisation’s impact on education as countries seek to develop valuable human resource in order to survive, participate and compete in the global economy (Rana, 2012; Velde, 2005). From an economic lens, the acquisition of English language proficiency is crucial for Singapore to stay competitive through the development of its human capital. With such a strong emphasis on education and heavy governmental investment in building the educational landscape, Singapore has developed one of the world’s best education systems and continually topped the charts internationally, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 2015 (Graham, 2015). Evidently, a high quality English education is one of the determinants that enable nations to participate in globalisation

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processes successfully, thus justifying governments’ investments in human capital development for the economic functioning and prosperity of their nations (Velde, 2005; Olaniyan & Okemakinde, 2008).

15.2 Singapore Education System Studies suggest that the link between education and economic growth has an important implication on educational policies and practice (Goy, 2015). According to the World Economic Forum, the global GDP could go up by 20 per cent if countries were able to maximise their citizens’ talents through education and skills development. Based on OECD’s study of an over 40-year data, a strong correlation between cognitive skills and economic growth has been found (Ng, 2015). “The quality of schooling... is (therefore) a powerful predictor of the wealth that countries will produce in the long run”, and quality comes in the form of knowledge acquisition and skills development where individuals acquire a solid foundation of knowledge in key disciplines, develop creative, critical thinking and collaborative skills, and build character attributes, such as mindfulness, curiosity, courage and resilience (Ng, 2015). Singapore’s approach to education has always been forward-thinking so as to equip its people with the skills that will enable them to be ready for the future (Ng, 2015). Thus, education plays an important role in cultivating a workforce that is ready for an ever-changing global landscape. In The Learning Curve report, Singapore was ranked third in terms of cognitive skills and educational attainment index (Pearson, 2014). This international study was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit which concluded that successful education systems are attributed to a “culture of accountability” ‒ where teachers, students and parents all take responsibility for education, and this was found to be one of Singapore’s critical success factors (Davie, 2014). Pearson’s (a British multinational publishing and education company) chief education adviser Michael Barber had labelled Singapore an “educational superstar” and attributed its success to a combination of factors that includes “an exceptionally high regard for the teaching profession, a culture of accountability that holds parents and students equally autonomous and accountable for their own success, as well as strategic thinking with effective implementation”. He states, “the rise of Pacific Asian countries like Singapore… combine effective education systems with a culture that prizes effort above inherited ‘smartness’”. This success was largely attributed to using education to create a unified nation in a multi-ethnic demographic to fulfill the economic goals he had set for the nation (NCEE, n.d.). In an information-rich and innovation-driven global economy, the Singapore education system has to be forward thinking and progressive in developing workers for the 21st century workforce (OECD, 2010). They need to be literate, educated and future ready. The Ministry of Education (MOE) developed the 21st Century Competencies



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framework with such a focus in mind, underpinned by the values and competencies identified to equip young Singaporeans for the challenges and opportunities brought about by “globalisation, changing demographics and technological advancements” (MOE, 2010a). The MOE emphasised the acquisition of “knowledge and skills must be underpinned by values” and character that will in turn shape “the beliefs, attitudes and actions” of individuals (MOE, 2010a). This resonated with Mr Lee’s speech on cultivating a literate population with a strong values system, In the long run, it is the quality of our youths that will determine our future. And we have to invest in them more than any other sector… Our schools will train students in the classrooms... But even more important, they will teach our students high standards of personal behaviour, social norms of good and bad, right and wrong. Without these values, a literate generation may be more dangerous than a completely uneducated one. (MOE, 2015a)

In addition to educating and inculcating the desired values and competencies for a workforce ready for the future, the bilingual policy was believed to be one of the critical factors for its nation’s success.

15.3 Bilingual Policy: Conception and Implementation Singapore’s bilingual policy is defined as a “proficiency in English and one other official language” (Pakir 1994: 159), effectively making English the lingua franca, dubbing the policy as the “English-knowing bilingualism” (Kachru 1983: 42). The bilingual policy has been heralded as the cornerstone of Singapore’s education system. It has played a central role in increasing the literacy level of its population that has enabled Singapore to participate in the global economy. Used as a form of language management in Singapore’s language planning policy, the primary motivation in Singapore’s language policies is to use language as an economic resource, as being proficient in English strengthens international cooperation (Ng, 2011). With almost half of the world’s population being bilingual or even multilingual, societies have become more interconnected through globalisation, migration, social mobility and overseas job opportunities, and thus, sharing a common language connects people across countries (MOE, 2013a). English was considered to be crucial to Singapore’s economic development and survival, while MTLs serve to maintain its ethnic identities and traditional values as an emblem of culture (Lee, 2000; Ng, 2011). Linguistic diversity has enabled countries to preserve their unique national and cultural identities, and how that materialises in reality hinges on language planning policies, which in turn shapes national identity and contribute to nation building. Thus, in Singapore, the MTLs serve to reinforce its unique national and cultural identity for its ethnic communities. The bilingual policy is also crucial to the identity formation of a multi-ethnic nation in its early years. In 1966, it was made compulsory as a fundamental feature of the Singapore education system where children in all

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schools “must learn English so that they will have a window to the knowledge, technology and expertise of the modern world. They must know their mother tongue to enable them to understand what makes us what we are today” (Lee 1983: 43). English is the medium of instruction in schools and a common language that facilitates communication amongst ethnic communities (MOE, 2013a). The political objectives of the bilingual policy were two-fold: 1. to facilitate inter-ethnic interactions and foster national identity, and 2. to reduce inequalities between the English educated and disadvantaged vernacular educated in the workforce (Chiew, 1980). In his own words, Mr Lee asserts, Having made English the working language of government and administration, what do we do about the mother tongues? If we had no set policy and allowed free market practices, free choice, all mother tongues would have eventually vanished… Therefore, we decided that, however unpleasant, however contrary to the concept of a homogeneous society, each racial group would learn his mother tongue as a second language… Was that policy right or wrong? If you bring me back to 1965, I would say that is the policy I would still adopt. (Lee, 2015)

Mr Lee stood firm in his policy in using English as a first language and MTLs to preserve cultural and national identity (Lee, 2015). As a pragmatic government, the main focus stemmed from the need for economic progress, with cultural preservation playing a secondary role. Indeed, language planning has played an important role in the Singapore society in organising the society, building social solidarity, and developing a sense of collective identity (Ng, 2011; MOE, 2013a). The bilingual policy also facilitated an ‘Asianisation’ of Singapore that ensures social cohesion and racial harmony amongst the ethnic communities through pragmatic multilingualism where each racial group is given equal importance to promote homogeneity and to ensure that the ethnic groups stay connected to their cultural roots (Bokhorst-Heng, 1999; MOE, 2009). It had contributed to Singapore’s national unity and cultural identity in a multiracial, migrant society where the population comprises people from different language backgrounds and dialects (Wellman, 2002). However, such a spread of linguistic diversity also has a definitive impact on language planning and policies as the government has to adopt language management as a strategy to manage its multiracial society, using languages as a form of resource and engineering language development to meet its target needs (Wellman, 2002; Kuo & Jernudd, 1994; Gopinathan, 1998). Through its educational policies, languages began to play different roles in the domains of the home, school, housing estates and other public places (Gopinathan, 1974). The three main ethnic groups, Chinese, Malay and Indian, were each ascribed an official MTL that was accorded the same status to recognise the diverse linguistic and cultural multi-ethnic population (Tan, 1998). MTLs thus, became the cultural languages of Singapore.



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15.4 The Competitive Edge of Bilingualism On a global level, language plays an important role in promoting international relations and cooperation, and cross-cultural exchange amongst nations (MOE, 2013a). In the face of market competition, Singapore reinvented its identity and culture through language planning policy (Chew, 2007). According to Chua (1995), language planning in Singapore is closely linked to its economic development and nation building. Mr Lee’s pragmatic orientation towards language planning policymaking has enabled Singapore to stay competitive in the global economy through its English proficiency and build a sense of nationhood and Asian identity (Ho & Alsagoff, 1998; Ng, 2011; MOE, 2009). Mr Lee’s memoirs detailed his belief that bilingualism would give Singapore the competitive edge over other Asian countries, … if we were monolingual in our mother tongues, we would not make a living. Becoming monolingual in English would have been a setback. We would have lost our cultural identity, that quiet confidence about ourselves and our place in the world. (Remembering Lee Kuan, 2015).

It is the cultural identity that makes Singapore uniquely Singaporean, hence, while English is not only a colonial inheritance from the British’s colonisation, it also served as a language of commerce which impacts on Singapore’s economic future (Remembering Lee Kuan, 2015). While the government emphasise the use of the English language in schools, the policy was also implemented from a bottom-up approach, resulting in a dominant use in both school and home environments under the government’s directive (Chew, 1999). Findings on the demographic trends and language use in the 2016 government report reaffirmed this, with English being the dominant language used at home (Lee, 2016). This demonstrates that there was an interaction of forces between the centralised top-down approach and the society’s ground-up implementation. On hindsight, this seems to be an unintended outcome of the bilingual policy as Mr Lee’s goal was for Singaporeans to speak English as the first language and their mother tongue to preserve ethnic identity. Bilingual education was a lifelong commitment for Mr Lee. He emphasised on starting young to give students the foundation necessary for effective language acquisition, “in Singapore, our bilingual policy makes learning difficult unless you start learning languages, English and the mother tongue, from an early age - the earlier the better” (Tham, 2013). Given the importance of preschool education in language acquisition, it is imperative that the government seeks to increase Singaporeans’ proficiency in the MTLs from an early age to support their transition to formal education. At a macro level, the impact of globalisation on Singapore has resulted in government’s language planning at the micro level whereby the bilingual policy has shaped the country’s language climate with the government’s emphasis on English to enhance its global standing, and consequently, changed the language status of MTLs in its society thereby resulting in the dominant use of English in its population.

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15.5 Bilingual Acquisition in the Early Years Studies have found that the three key factors that contribute to effective bilingual acquisition are age, environment and exposure. Research indicates that the optimal time for language acquisition is from birth to three years while the next best period of time appears to be between four and seven years as children are still able to process multiple languages on parallel paths (Pearson, 2008). Bilingualism is found to benefit children’s cognitive development as brain research has shown that bilingual children are able to concentrate better than monolingual children and consequently focus on their task at hand to achieve their goals. Children who learn both English and their MTL before the age of eight tend to have a better chance at acquiring both languages at a higher level than those who start later (MOE, 2010a). The environment also plays an important role in learning speech as children learn speech when varied meaningful social interactions occur in the social context of their lives (De Houwer, 1999). The amount of input for each language is thus tied to the language environment at home and the language status of the two languages outside of the home environment (Gathercole & Thomas, 2009; Oller and Cobo-Lewis, 2007). For bilingual children, the quantity of exposure to each language has a profound effect on their language development, that is, hearing more words would enable children to better learn the language, for example, activities such as watching educational television programmes, parent-child book reading, were found to lead to later advantages in language acquisition and school performance (Hart & Risley, 1995; Uchikoshi, 2006). With greater exposure, they also develop higher proficiency in grammar and pronunciation and are better able to process the language (Hoff et al., 2012). Exposure, that is the quantity of input, is just as crucial as the quality of input. As such, ensuring a relatively balanced exposure to the two languages is most likely to promote successful acquisition of both languages (Thordardottir, 2011). A study by Uchikoshi (2006) suggests that preschool experience can influence second language vocabulary growth. Children who attend preschool programmes in the second language tend to start kindergarten with a higher expressive vocabulary than those who stay at home. At the same time, the results also suggest that the exposure and use of a second language at home has an impact on vocabulary growth. Successful programmes tend to focus on increasing children’s vocabulary through repetition and reinforcement. It was found that the quality of preschool experience influence second language vocabulary growth (Uchikoshi, 2006). Essentially, there are two main types of second language learning, and they are simultaneous and sequential acquisition. Simultaneous acquisition occurs when children are exposed to more than one language from an early age, for example, when parents speak to the child in different languages, or when a child starts preschool and is exposed only to English, but speaks only a second language at home. Sequential acquisition occurs when children begin to learn the second language only after the first language has been partially established, for example, learning the language only after children



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attend preschool (Siraj-Blatchford & Clarke, 2000). Thus, both home and preschool environments are critical factors to bilingual acquisition and development. The Singapore education journey starts from primary school although preschool education is the precursor to formal education. However, the preschool landscape is largely unregulated in terms of programmes and curriculum as different operators use a variety of curriculum models and pedagogies in their centres. While there are national curriculum frameworks in place, these frameworks only act as guidelines for centres, unlike in formal education, which starts from primary school and operates under a centralised system under the MOE, the syllabi are the same across all schools. As the preschool sector is largely decentralised, children enter primary school with varying abilities due to the diverse programmes and curriculum available in the market. Preschool education prepares children for primary school in the areas which requires them to develop learning dispositions such as perseverance, reflectiveness, appreciation, inventiveness, a sense of wonder, curiosity, and engagement, in order for them to be ready for primary school learning (MOE, 2013b). After kindergarten, children are expected to have achieved the desired outcomes of preschool education that would have laid the foundations for primary education. Yet, given the diverse landscape, not all children would have attained the same competencies that will equip them for primary schooling. This creates different starting points that consequently perpetuate social inequalities, privileging children who are better prepared for primary school as they would have received better quality preschool education and have access to more resources. After preschool, the child enters the education system in primary school and the path the child chooses after primary and secondary education would determine his/her trajectory in life. The pathways include technical education and vocational training in institutes of technical education and polytechnics, or academic learning in junior colleges, after which the child can eventually choose to enter tertiary education in universities. In Singapore, English is the main medium of instruction at all educational levels and whichever pathway the child chooses, they were all designed and structured to prepare him/her to enter the workforce and for the life ahead. Clearly, the emphasis is on education in English. Given the disparity in language status, that is, English being the first language in prestige planning, one of the unintended outcomes of the bilingual policy (English plus one MTL) is that MTL plays a secondary role in children’s language learning from the onset, thus affecting children’s bilingual acquisition in the early years. Therefore, given the importance of preschool education, quality education in the early years is pivotal to children’s future outcomes, and the development of human capital for the 21st century workforce in a knowledge economy (Watson, Vadaketh, Suresh & Vohra, 2012). The government emphasised the acquisition of knowledge and skills, underpinned by values which in turn build character and “shape the beliefs, attitudes and actions” of individuals in the MOE’s 21st Century Competencies framework, as these competencies were believed to crucial in equipping young people

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for the challenges brought about by “globalisation, changing demographics and technological advancements” (MOE, 2010a). The framework maps out the desired outcomes of education, which is for each Singaporean to become: 1) A confident person, 2) A self-directed learner, 3) An active contributor, and 4) A concerned citizen. At the centre of this framework are five core values: 1) Self-Awareness, 2) SelfManagement, 3) Social Awareness, 4) Relationship Management, and 5) Responsible Decision-Making that students need to cultivate. Together with the need to acquire the three key competencies: 1) Communication, Collaboration and Information Skills; 2) Civic Literacy, Global Awareness and Cross-Cultural Skills and; 3) Critical and Inventive Thinking (MOE, 2010a), preschool education thus plays an important role in laying the foundation for children and supporting their transition to formal schooling.

15.6 Early Childhood Landscape In Singapore, preschools tend to be an alternative to domestic help due to the prevalence of the dual income family. It was found that 53.8% of the married couples are both working (Lee, 2016). Working parents send their children to childcare or kindergarten when they do not have family support or domestic help to care for their children. The early childhood landscape comprises different operators that offer care and educational services for children from two months to six years of age under service providers such as “community foundations, religious bodies, social organisations and business organisations” (Preschool Connect, 2012a). It operates in a market system and is regulated by the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) that maintains baseline standards in the sector. While the government emphasises on preschool education and the 21st Century Competencies to achieve the desired outcomes in its educational pathways, early childhood education remains quasi-market driven and quasi-state regulated. This has an important implication on the quality of preschool education because quality standards tend to vary from operator to operator. There are two main types of services ‒ childcare centres and kindergartens run by diverse operators in the private sector. While preschool education is encouraged, it is not compulsory as compulsory education only starts in Primary school, when children reach the age of seven. According to ECDA, preschools should offer programmes that provide holistic learning experiences that support children’s physical, intellectual, emotional and social development through parents-centre partnerships (Child Care Link, 2013). Childcare centres generally provide services for children between eighteen months to six years of age. Some child care centres offer infant care programmes for children between two to eighteen months (ECDA, 2013). These services include full day, half-day and flexible programmes. Kindergartens offer a three-year structured programme for four to six year olds. It consists of three levels: Nursery, Kindergarten 1 and Kindergarten 2 (Preschool Connect, 2012b). These sessional programmes



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generally run twice a day, ranging from two to four hours per session (ECDA, 2013). Kindergarten programmes should develop children’s language and literacy skills, numeracy concepts, social skills, creativity and problem-solving skills, appreciation of music and movement, motor skills, and overall physical development through outdoor play. Children learn in two languages, English and a MTL (Preschool Connect, 2012b). As kindergarten programmes prepare children for formal schooling before they enter primary schools, they play an important role in children’s transition to school. In the preschool landscape, there is a difference between child care and kindergarten programmes as child care centres run for longer hours due to the routine care involved, such as meals, naps and showers; whereas kindergartens follow a structured sessional programme that focuses on preparing children for primary school. As such, the duration of programmes in these two settings is significantly different as child care typically starts from 9 am to 4 pm, which is much longer than the two to four hour programmes kindergartens offer. As preschool programmes cater to very young children, they include both educational and care components. There are many different models in the market that vary according to each centre’s profile, philosophy and curriculum model. Given the diversity in the range, variety and quality of the programmes offered, it is critical to understand how bilingual programmes are offered in preschools as that will affect children’s MTL acquisition and later trajectory in formal schooling. In preschools, there are two main types of bilingual programmes – immersion and structured. For immersion programmes, there is a balanced exposure to both English and a MTL throughout the day as both English and MTL teachers facilitate and teach concurrently. For example, when a teacher is conducting an activity in English, the other teacher facilitates the class in a MTL. For structured programmes, the exposure is limited to the time allocated for MTL learning. In this case, children learn the language within a specific time slot. This is especially significant when the percentage of children aged five and above is found to be speaking English more often at home, with a rise in the statistics from 32.3 in 2010 to 36.9 per cent in 2015 (Lee, 2016). The data on the dominant use of English in home environment suggests that preschools have an important role to play in children’s MTL acquisition. Once again, this reiterates the unintended consequence of the bilingual policy, where English is favoured over MTLs and more commonly used, thus demonstrating the translation of bilingual policy into practice and the importance of quality bilingual preschool programmes for MTL learning.

15.7 Mother Tongue Language Teaching and Learning In the Singapore context, there are multiple players at work that contribute to the translation of the bilingual policy from preschool to primary education. At the macro

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level, the government, education system and policies affect the players at the micro level – preschools, centre leaders, teachers, children, parents and families. Hence, there are multiple players at work that affect children’s transition from preschool to primary school MTL learning. At the global level, globalisation influences governments in their language planning policies. At the national level, the government takes charge of language policy planning that shapes the language climate of the society. At the preschool level, centre leaders and teachers work together with parents and families on children’s MTL acquisition in preschool and home environments. Although English is the first language, the MOE had sought to promote and raise preschool children’s proficiency of MTLs through the introduction of the Nurturing Early Learners (NEL) Framework for MTLs and the provision of teaching and learning resources (MOE, 2015b). The learning goals that children should achieve by the end of kindergarten education are for them to: 1. have an interest in learning MTL; 2. develop foundational language and literacy skills; and 3. be aware of the local ethnic culture (See Table 15.1).

Tab. 15.1: Learning goals, key knowledge, skills and dispositions (MOE, 2013b). Learning Goals

Key knowledge, skills and dispositions

Learning Goal 1: Have an interest in learning MTL

• Actively participate in MTL activities • Enjoy MTL activities

Learning Goal 2: Develop foundational language and literacy skills

• • • • •

Learning Goal 3: Be aware of the local ethnic culture

• Be aware of customs and traditions • Interact with friends, family and community

Listen with understanding Speak to convey meaning Recognise words and read with assistance Show understanding of story or rhyme Make marks, draw symbols and write letters/ characters to represent ideas

The objectives of the NEL framework for MTLs are three-fold: 1. communication 2. culture and 3. connection. It aims to develop children’s foundational language and literacy skills; awareness and appreciation for their local ethnic culture; and strengthen bond with family, friends and community (MOE, 2013b). The four guiding principles for the design and implementation of a MTL curriculum are to: 1. make MTL a living language to children; 2. include cultural elements to encourage MTL learning; 3. cater MTL teaching to diverse learners; and



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4. ensure that MTL learning is active, interactive and takes place in authentic settings (MOE, 2013b). Given the government’s directive on MTL teaching and learning, preschools are encouraged to adopt the framework as guidelines in their MTL programmes. However, how are preschools teaching MTLs in their settings? Seven critical success factors were identified to promote effective MTL teaching and learning. They are: 1. Quality of MTL teachers; 2. Quality of MTL teacher training; 3. Quality of teaching and learning resources; 4. Goals of the curriculum; 5. Teaching and learning approaches; 6. Support from centre leadership and management; and 7. Costs. In Singapore’s early childhood field, the efficacy of the two main types of MTL programmes (immersion and structured) that facilitates MTL teaching and learning is dependent on the above factors. There seems to be a lack of qualified MTL teachers and adequate teacher training in the sector and consequently, most MTL programmes tend to be structured rather than immersion due to limited manpower and the costs involved in hiring two teachers to teach concurrently. On top of the shortage of MTL teachers and low teacher quality, resources are not always widely available for centres, which make achieving the goals of the MTL curriculum difficult. Without a centralised system in place, developmentally appropriate teaching and learning approaches may not be used in centres. In the private sector, centres differ in terms of curriculum and quality, leaving the onus on centre leadership and management to implement an effective and successful MTL programme. Last but not least, the costs involved in hiring and training MTL teachers and procuring sufficient, adequate resources is also a consideration for centres, particularly those that are profit driven, as that would incur additional costs for the centre. Due to the above factors, the efficacy of MTL programmes tends to vary from centre to centre. With such a strong push for English to be the first language, the unintended consequence of the bilingual policy is that MTLs have been side lined, impacting children’s MTL proficiency and abilities starting from preschool. In 2010, the MOE MTLs Review Committee launched a report – Nurturing Active Learners and Proficient Users on MTL teaching and learning in preschool. The ministry recognised that children enter primary schools with different home language backgrounds and from different starting points, and saw the need to align MTL teaching and learning to promote children’s MTL proficiency and literacy. In a bilingual education system where the medium of instruction is English, the general language environment of Singapore gravitates towards English language use in the home environment, resulting in varied MTL abilities in children (MOE, 2010b).

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Such an outcome could be a result of a lack of effective preschool MTL programmes for MTL acquisition in a social environment that favours the use of English. In a study that investigates the language use of Primary 1 students over a period of 20 years, it was found that the proportion of Chinese students used English at home had increased from 28% in 1991 to 59% in 2010. A similar trend was found in Indian and Malay students where the increased use of English at home rose from 49% to 58% for Indians and 13% to 37% for Malays respectively (MOE, 2010b) (See Figure 15.1).

Fig. 15.1: Proportion of Primary 1 students speaking English most frequently at home (MOE, 2010b).

The implication of this finding suggests that the bilingual policy had been effective insofar as to promote English language use impacting the use of MTLs in home environments. In schools, children predominantly learn and use English in their classes and interactions, resulting in a further decline in the use of MTLs and consequently, a lower proficiency in their MTLs. Having seen the shifts in the language landscape, the ministry recognises that the primary school MTL curriculum has to focus more on the functional use of the languages and has since revised its curriculum with a greater emphasis on listening and speaking skills to facilitate and promote MTL acquisition (MOE, 2015b) (See Table 15.2).



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Tab. 15.2: Revised MTL Curriculum: Key Features (MOE, 2015b). Chinese Language Curriculum (Modular)

Malay Language Curriculum

Tamil Language Curriculum

• • • •

More emphasis on listening, speaking and reading More emphasis on oral interaction and written interaction skills Teaching tailored to meet the different learning needs of students More engaging and appealing teaching materials that capture students’ interests

•

All students will take the Core Module

•

Students with little or no exposure to the Chinese Language will take the Bridging Modules

•

Students with the interest and ability to go further will take the Enrichment Modules

•

Students will be taught according to their different levels of achievement

•

Students will be given more opportunities to practise Spoken Tamil

This chapter focuses on the preschool and primary school Chinese programme and syllabus and aims to compare if the syllabus are aligned to meet the ministry’s objectives. The Chinese Language (CL) curriculum in primary school follows a modular structure where all students are required to take the core module. Bridging modules serve to supplement students with little or no exposure to the CL whereas those with the interest and ability to advance further are allowed to take the enrichment modules. With a focus on making CL learning enjoyable, the ministry had introduced changes to the curriculum to offer greater flexibility in its teaching and learning. The guiding principles of the new teaching approach to make CL learning more enjoyable for primary 1 students can be seen in the diagram below (MOE, 2015b). This is guided by the assumption that when learning is fun, it facilitates student engagement and promotes learning and interactions, which in turn encourages the acquisition of useful language concepts, strategies and character recognition (see Figure 15.2).

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Fig. 15.2: The New Teaching Method for the New Chinese Language Curriculum for Primary Schools (Modified from MOE: 2015d).

With enjoying learning the language at the heart of the diagram, the primary 1 curriculum focuses on developing children’s ability to listen and speak more in CL, recognise characters effectively, and read and write (MOE, 2015b). In the preschool context, there are many different CL programmes offered to support children’s CL learning. With the wide range of programmes available in the market, the Kindergarten 1 (K1) and 2 (K2) syllabus of an anchor operator was selected for this comparison. As anchor operators are government funded organisations that cater to the masses and serve the average Singaporean family, it was found that the K1 and K2 curriculum of this centre would be suitable for investigating pre-schoolers’ transition from the kindergarten CL programmes to the primary 1 CL curriculum. This anchor operator, known as Early Learning Centre, uses the NEL – a curriculum framework for kindergartens in its kindergarten programme. From the overview of its learning goals web, the six learning domains prescribed in the framework were found to inform the curriculum and programmes for all its centres. The Early Learning Centre uses a centralised curriculum that the headquarters disseminate to all its centres. In a year, there are four school terms and while centres are able to adapt the curriculum plans according to their own needs, they generally abide by the lesson plans prescribed for them. A review of the learning objectives of the K1 and K2 curriculum plans over a span of eight terms (2 years)



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reveals that both English and Chinese programmes are closely aligned to achieve the learning outcomes of the framework. Each centre uses a structured, thematic approach for inquiry based learning in its programmes that correspond to the learning domains and objectives stated in the national curriculum framework. A comparison between the learning objectives in K1, K2 and Primary 1 suggests that there is an alignment in promoting and supporting the language and communication abilities of primary school children with a focus on cultural cultivation to ensure that children are able to appreciate, and are more familiar with their Chinese heritage (see Table 15.3).

Tab. 15.3: Comparison of learning objectives from K1 and K2 to Primary 1 (Adapted from Early Learning Centre curriculum plan and MOE, 2015c).

Chinese Language Teaching and Learning Language and Literacy (Chinese)

2015 Syllabus Chinese Language (Primary)

Kindergarten 1 & 2

Primary 1

Learning objectives for K1 & K2: • Listen for information and enjoyment • Speak to convey meaning andcommunicate with others • Read with understanding and for enjoyment • Use drawing, mark making, symbols and writing with the invented and conventional spelling to communicate ideas and information

Lesson objectives: • Language ability • Communication ability • Cultural Cultivation • Spoken production and interaction • Listening • Oracy • Written production and interaction • Reading • Writing

At kindergarten level, the learning objectives are to develop children’s ability to listen for information and enjoyment, speak to convey meaning and communicate with others, read with understanding and for enjoyment, and to use drawing, mark making, symbols and writing with invented and conventional spelling to communicate ideas and information. This corresponds with the objectives of language and communication abilities to be able to listen, speak, read and write in both spoken and written production and interaction. In addition, children’s proficiency and language abilities are also tiered according to their abilities at primary level in the modular structure. Although the learning outcomes are clearly spelt out in both the NEL framework for MTLs and the 2015 Syllabus for Chinese Language (Primary), there is no formative assessment of children’s language proficiency and ability that can determine how

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well kindergarten children are prepared for CL learning in primary school. Therefore, this shows that even though there is an alignment between the preschool and primary school Chinese syllabi, the effectiveness of the policy and the translation of policy into the desired outcomes are very much determined by the actors at the ground level. As the preschool landscape is highly diversified, the objectives of the bilingual policy may be affected by how CL programmes are conducted at kindergarten levels, which in turn impact children’s CL proficiency and competencies. With children entering primary school with varying CL abilities, the learning curve becomes sharper for those who are weaker in their CL. This creates a disparity across Chinese primary school students, which the modular structure for CL learning seeks to address. In addition, given the proliferation of enrichment centres for pre-schoolers, parents who have the financial ability to send their children for CL classes can better prepare them for the CL syllabus in primary school. On the other hand, children from less privileged backgrounds will be disadvantaged by the inequality perpetuated by the market system in a diverse preschool landscape. The implications of the unequal starting points will place these children in a position where they will need to attend bridging modules to catch up with their better performing peers. While the education system seeks to level up children from a lower starting point from their peers by using a modular structure, this inadvertently adds pressure on the children who do not have the access or resources to keep up with their classmates. Consequently, the onus rests upon the preschool and primary school Chinese teachers and parents to help these children perform in the school and home environments. Thus, it is evident that while preschools seek to prepare children for MTL learning in primary school, a more seamless and coherent transition from preschool to primary school is needed to ensure that children’s language foundations are laid to better equip them for their later learning trajectory. This will require a more involved government approach and intervention in enabling pre-schoolers to learn their MTL by uplifting the quality of the sector in terms of teachers, programmes, resources and a continuity of learning between home and preschool environments.

15.8 Bilingual Policy – Still a Competitive Edge? The effective implementation of Singapore’s bilingual policy has been so successful that its citizens are predominantly using English, rather than their MTLs. In a 2016 government report, the Singapore population comprises Chinese making up 74.3% of the resident population, with Malays standing at 13.3% and Indians, 9.1% respectively (Lee, 2016). In a population that is predominantly Chinese, the use of English was found to increase steadily, inversely, the use of Chinese dialects has fallen from 18.2% in 2005 to 12.2% in 2015 (Lee, 2016). Language differs from a dialect as only standardised languages are recognised as mediums of instruction in education (Dixon, 2005). Thus, for the Chinese community, this has important implications on



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the loss of dialects as one of the unintended outcomes of the English plus one MTL policy. With the government’s emphasis on English and Chinese learning in schools and the increased use of the official languages in the younger generation, dialects are disappearing over time. Dialect loss is believed to be a consequence of the bilingual policy with its decreased use, as English has replaced the vernacular languages of different racial communities (Bokhorst-Heng 1998). While the use of Mandarin at home seemed to be relatively stable (Lee, 2016), how connected are the communities to their cultural roots, particularly for the Chinese community which has different dialect groups, is debatable. This demonstrates the cascading effects of the bilingual policy from a macro, national level to the micro, local level, resulting in a preference of English language use over MTLs. With early childhood being the foundation of children’s life trajectory, the multiple players in the preschool landscape – government, preschools, primary schools, parents and families – need to work together to help children raise their MTL proficiency through the provision of quality bilingual preschool programmes to support their transition to primary school. In order for Singaporeans to increase their MTL proficiency, they need to start young and there needs to be more qualified MTL teachers and resources at the preschool level and greater efforts at strengthening the MTL teaching and learning at the school level. This will then better translate the bilingual policy into reality. Given the dominant use of English in Singapore, this makes MTL acquisition harder for young children, with the socio-political forces at work. In the preschool environment, children tend to be more exposed to English in their daily interactions, television programmes, and interpersonal relationships with their peers and adults compared to their MTL. Consequently, given the lesser exposure and frequency of MTL use in both home and preschool environments, children’s proficiency in their MTL also tends to be lower. In addition, with English being the medium of instruction in schools and MTL being taught as one of the subjects, the unintended outcome of the bilingual policy is that MTLs play a lesser role in children’s lives. As such, English has played a dominant role in the language climate of the Singapore society under the bilingual policy, resulting in a society that privileges its use. However, given the variance in preschool quality standards, children’s English proficiency level in a diverse landscape may also vary according to the standard of English used in home and school environments. Therefore, in order for Singapore to remain strong in its global positioning, there needs to be a stronger government intervention in the quality of bilingual preschool education to ensure that the foundations are adequately laid. Being bilingual can still give Singaporeans a competitive edge, if they are proficient in both languages. This can only be attainable if a high quality bilingual preschool education is afforded to children, as language acquisition is most effective in the early years. Therefore, a more progressive reform in the preschool landscape is needed to ensure that the objectives of the bilingual policy translate into reality.

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Thordardottir, E. 2011. The relationship between bilingual exposure and vocabulary development. International Journal of Bilingualism, 14(5), 426-445. Uchikoshi, Y. 2006.  English vocabulary development in bilingual kindergartners: What are the best predictors? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9(1), 33-49. Velde, D. W. T. 2005. Globalisation and Education – What do the trade, investment and migration literatures tell us? Working Paper 254. Overseas Development Institute: London, United Kingdom. Retrieved from http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publicationsopinion-files/2484.pdf Watson, J., Vadaketh, S., Suresh, T., & Vohra, M. 2012. Starting well: Benchmarking early education across the world, Economist Intelligence Unit. Singapore: Lien Foundation. Retrieved from: http://www.lienfoundation.org/pdf/publications/sw_report.pdf Wellman, B. 2002. Little Boxes, Glocalization, and Networked Individualism. In: M. Tanabe, P. van den Besselaar, & T. Ishida (Eds.), Digital Cities II: Computational and Sociological Approaches. Berlin: Springer. 11-25. Wong, P. S. K. 1999. Leapfrogging across the millennium: Information technology in Singapore schools. In: F.B. Tan, P.S. Corbett & Y.Y. Wong (Eds.), Information technology diffusion in the Asia Pacific: Perspectives on policy, electronic commerce and education. Hershey, PA: Idea Group. Zhao, S. H. 2011. Actors in language planning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning. Vol. II. New York, NY: Routledge. 905-923.

Francisco Gomes de Matos

16 Planning uses of Peace Linguistics in second language education The beginning of the twenty-first century has seen a global spread of English; people across the globe have been inundated with English language, books, music, movies, food, lifestyle and cultural icons. Instead of seeing English as a threat to one’s identity and cultural heritage, Friedrich (2007) argues that English can be used as a peacepromoting instrument that seeks to build a peaceful society. Essentially, English can function as a diplomatic language that aims to establish linguistic peace through the education system. Hence, the design of the school curriculum could include peace and conflict studies in view of the global problems. Here in particular, teachers in English Language Teaching (ELT) classrooms can act as agents of peace to adopt teaching practices that will help students to develop a vocabulary of peace. The chapter starts with a description of actions that preceded peace linguistics, and the second section focuses on the birth of Peace Linguistics. The third section presents activities for using Peace Linguistics in contexts where second languages are taught. In view of the process of globalization where there is greater international integration (and conflict) of ideas, culture and worldviews, the chapter concludes with a plea addressed to local language planning and policy makers to promote peaceful language education, that is, the use of nonviolent-nonkilling communication for peaceful purposes. After World War II, Peace Studies emerged as an interdisciplinary field that was built on “the establishment of positive, life-enhancing values and social structures” (Basrash & Webel, 2009: 4). Building on Peace Studies, Peace Linguistics, a most recent branch of peace studies particularly represented by Francisco Gomes de Matos and David Crystal, is a latest effort to advocate the need to understand cross-cultural values in order to prevent miscommunication and misunderstanding during social interactions (Friedrich, 2009). Gomes de Matos makes a distinction between “communicating about peace” and “communicating peacefully” which is the focus in Peace linguistics (Gomes de Matos, 2000: 339): On Communicative Peace “If we are not able to share the world, we will surely live in unending violence. Perhaps attention to the conditions of communicative peace may help achieve the social and personal requisites for such sharing” Dell Hymes, personal communication to Francisco Gomes de Matos, August 20, 1993

Francisco Gomes de Matos, Federal University of Pernambuco and ABA Global Education, Recife, Brazil



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On Peace Linguistics “Peace Linguistics emphasizes attitudes which respect the dignity of language users and communities” David Crystal, 1999 “Languages are potentially a force for good (peace linguistics) and bad (incitement to killing)” Bernard Spolsky, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, E-mail communication, February 18, 2016 On Planning Peaceful Uses of Languages “That uses of language(s) have been planned is part of the history of Linguistics, but the planning of peaceful uses of languages for the good of Humankind is a new frontier” Francisco Gomes de Matos, interviewed by Patricia Friedrich (2012).

The above quotes characterise the key concept of Peace Linguistics, which aims at helping create conditions for language users to communicate peacefully in varied settings. This can be done by humanising the use of language and raising awareness of individual communicative responsibility, that is, of language(s) used for dignifying interaction. Basically, the field of Peace Linguistics refers to “the study of how language, in its social, morphological, syntactic components interacts with and impacts peace related phenomena” (Friedrich, 2009: 409). The stress on the use of language to achieve peace is important in this global context since possible conflicts can arise from linguistic (mis)interactions. Essentially, the aim is to create “longlasting states of peace” through languages (Friedrich, 2007: 17). Here, positive peace refers to the absence of war at the macro level, and the building of fair social structures (e.g. through language) that could prevent conflicts at the micro level. According to Crystal (2004), one of the ways to build such positive social structures and linguistic peace is through peace-oriented linguistic education at an early age.

16.1 Before Peace Linguistics: Two precursory actions in Brazil In Brazil, Peace Linguistics was preceded by a Pedagogia da Positividade (Pedagogy of Positiveness), an approach developed by the author aiming at contributing to communicative life-affirming / enhancing / saving / supporting / sustaining as well as drawing attention to “paz comunicativa” (communicative peace). The first initiative toward that goal was a series of articles on Positive Communication published in the São Paulo-based magazine Ave Maria, from December 1992 to June 1995. That was followed by the author’s book Pedagogia da Positividade: Comunicação Construtiva em Português (Pedagogy of Positiveness: Communicating constructively in Portuguese), published by the local Federal University of Pernambuco Press (Gomes de Matos, 1996). The availability of that volume made it possible for workshops to be conducted on campus as well as outside the Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil. Among the first participants in such educational seminar were college students majoring in Portuguese or in foreign languages, police officers attending Community

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Policing Programs and teachers of English from Associação Brasil América (ABA). A description in English of the book’s organisation and some contents therein will help give an idea of the diversity of topics and practices dealt with. Pedagogia da Positividade is organised into three Parts: Part I Pedagogy of Positiveness and Uses of Portuguese Part II Communicating humanizingly Part III Other positive perceptions and actions In part I of the book, the focus is on how to speak, talk, read and write positively. For each of these communicative skills, a checklist is provided. In part II of the book, readers are encouraged to be a positive communicator: –– How to learn languages positively; –– How to assess language learners’ performance positively; –– How to teach school subjects positively; –– How to use Linguistics positively; and –– How to promote the acquisition of literacy positively. The third part, which is the conceptual part of the book, focuses on how to view local and global culture positively, how to cultivate a positive perception of politics, and how to engage in scientific work positively. It also looks at how to apply positiveness in organisations. In addition, the book also includes a 6-item test for self-assessing one’s use of Positive Portuguese as a native language. Paz comunicativa (communicative peace) occurs in item 6, translated as follows: “While interacting with someone, do I look happy and use a friendly, harmonious intonation thus promoting communicative peace?”. For a description in English of my Constructive Communication Approach, see Gomes de Matos (2014a), in which a summary is made of how to interact positively and how to write (academic/management) texts positively. A second anticipatory use of Peace Linguistics in Brazil was the publication of the author’s (2002) Comunicar para o Bem. Rumo à Paz comunicativa (Communicating for the good of humankind: Toward communicative peace). The volume has five parts: –– Communicating for the good of Humankind; –– Human linguistic/communicative rights and responsibilities; –– Citizenship, Education and Work; –– Christianity and Peace; and –– Cultivating a humanising perception. That book is partly the outcome of an article series published in Ave Maria magazine, July 1996-June 2001. The diversity of topics can be seen from this brief listing: –– From destructive to constructive conversational competence –– How do avoid linguistic discrimination –– Human Rights: a still little probed tradition educationally



–– –– –– –– –– –– –– ––

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Media and Education Planetary citizenship, the language of Pedagogy: how humanising? Language and Environment Visual Literacy Ethics and Work Peace negotiation How can we perceive the Police positively? Positiveness in interacting with adolescents

The two publishing initiatives mentioned above centered on the importance of humanity, which helped pave the way for the author’s sustained work in Peace Linguistics especially through the production of texts and posters in English.

16.2 Globalisation and the rise of Peace Linguistics in Brazil If I were asked to point out two globalising initiatives that had helped me to think and propose Peace Linguistics as a communicative-educational-politically relevant branch of Applied Linguistics, they would be the globalisation of the Human Rights Tradition and the globalisation of Peace Education. I felt the impact of that globalising force while visiting the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the early 1980s and learning about its sponsoring a series of Yearbooks on Peace and Conflict Studies. The inspiring volumes were aimed at promoting lasting and constructive peace in view of the problems that could result from conflicts generated from today’s rapidly developing world (Efthimiades, 1986). This is because in this contemporary globalised world, the expansion of capitalism has impacted the economic, cultural and ideological aspects of a society. Furthermore, technological advancement has led to the rise of online media, which has caused the voice of both the majority and the minority to be known. On one hand, global media provides an important source of information, but on the other hand it is dominated by major global players, which tend to use it to further their own interests, rather than being helpful in promoting global peace. Nonetheless, one may argue that beneath these intercultural differences are universal values for love, respect, harmony and dignity. In response to the UNESCO influence and the possible tension between different cultures, my Plea for a World Declaration of Language Rights was published in 1984 by the International Modern Language Teachers’ Federation (FIPLV) World News. Coupled with my engagement in linguistic rights, it paved the way for the UNESCO co-sponsored International Seminar in Human Rights and Cultural Rights, held at the Law School of the Federal University of Pernambuco, October 1987. This event not only brought together human linguistics rights scholars from several countries but also recognised the works of two distinguished Brazilian educator-peacebuilders: Paulo Freire and Dom Helder Camara, both present at the seminar opening ceremony. From

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1987 to 2000, seven events helped pave the way for the birth of Peace Linguistics as a branch of Applied Linguistics: 1. The establishment in 1987 of the LINGUAPAX programme by UNESCO and Fédération Internationales des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes, now a non-governmental organisation (NGO). One of Linguapax’s beliefs is that “Languages express the rich cultural pluralism of the human species and its preservation is a major contribution to peace and international understanding”. Cf. www.linguapax.net 2. Author’s article in the Greek journal Applied Linguistics, titled The functions of Peace in language education. (Gomes de Matos, 1987) 3. Author’s proposal of Communicative Peace as a new concept for Sociolinguistics in a newsletter sponsored by the International Sociological Association. (Gomes de Matos’ (1993) article) 4. U.S. sociolinguist Dell Hymes’ endorsement of that proposal. (Gomes de Matos, 1993) 5. The publication in 1995 of U.S. peace educator Betty Reardon’s Educating for Human Dignity. Learning about human rights and responsibilities 6. David Crystal’s pioneering entry on Peace Linguistics. (Crystal,1999) 7. Author’s article in the journal Peace Psychology, titled Harmonizing and Humanizing Political Discourse. (Gomes de Matos, 2000) As precursory to those actions A plea for the human-improving role of Applied Linguistics (Gomes de Matos, 1982) and A plea for a universal declaration of linguistic rights were published (Gomes de Matos, 1984). The former plea was published by the newsletter of the Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, D.C. and the latter plea appeared in a newsletter cosponsored by FIPLV and UNESCO. Subsequently, tapping into the power of Internet, poems in the form of a plea have become a sustained communicative practice by the author, for its potential impact on trends in language education. For example, cf. the posters: What will there be? A Nonkilling plea to President Obama (Gomes de Matos, 2010); For Nonkilling Education: A Plea to Humankind (Gomes de Matos, 2013) and Teaching English Peacefully: A Plea (Gomes de Matos, 2015a). In another recent poster, a Plea for a World Pedagogy of Positiveness (Gomes de Matos, 2015a), among the rhymed reflections therein, two stand out for their potential relevance to educators: –– Sad to see that in many parts of the world there is increasing negativity, which calls for educators everywhere to enhance the power of positivity; and –– In this age of increasing shameful, violent, killing negativity, a plea is made for educators to help citizens become dignifiers and peace-builders deeply committed to Positivity. These two rhymed reflections stress the crucial role of education in peace building with the aim of preventing future conflicts and promoting the power of positivity. Thus, Peace Linguistics is a study of Language-Peace interaction, as realised by



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communicative acts of language users in peace-building, peace-dignifying, peaceenhancing, and peace-sustaining purposes. In each of these dimensions, users of languages particularly language teachers and learners are challenged to engage in building, dignifying, enhancing or sustaining what I call LIFE PLUS, the lifeimproving force of peaceful language use (Gomes de Matos, 2012). While performing such peacefully relevant actions, language users will be encouraged to fulfil their responsibilities as humanisers and dignifiers (Gomes de Matos, 2013). In summary, the theoretical foundations of Peace Linguistics are built on the need –– to be a peaceful communicator, in all languages you use and will use. How? By communicating constructively, peacefully for the good of persons, groups, communities and countries; –– to dignify your daily dialogue. How? By interacting as a communicative dignifier, prioritising the use of Positivizers, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs used positively (Gomes de Matos, 2015b); and –– to plan your (spoken/written/signed) language use by anticipating and avoiding possible harmful effects on your listeners/readers/viewers. If possible, learn how to enhance your pragmatic competence in the language you will be using (Gomes de Matos, 2014b). However, such deliberate and peace-oriented language planning can only be operationalised by a variety of actors at the macro, meso and micro levels (Baldauf, 2006).

16.3 Different actors in Peace Linguistics In the field of language policy and planning, Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) highlighted that language planning occurred at several levels ‒ the macro, the meso and the micro. At the large scale macro level, it is usually carried out by the government at the national level, i.e., governmental activity. However, the impact of language planning and policy is very much dependent on the meso and micro levels (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). This is because the goals of the policy set up by the planners at the macro level need to resonate with the different actors at the meso and micro levels. Similarly, although Peace Linguistics is a relatively new domain, an integrated and collaborative approach to propagate the rising importance of Peace Linguistics in this globalised world is needed. Peace Linguistics has much to offer from global to local contexts, given its unique connecting of Language use(s) and Peaceful Purpose(s). Therefore, in order to spread the concept of peace and promote the respect of linguistics varieties, at the macro level, the government and political leaders need to support policies and programmes that promote peaceful language use by taking into consideration the complexity of the

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socio-cultural and multilingual context. Furthermore, international organisations, such as the United Nations (UN), and UNESCO could take an active role in advocating the global ensuring of Humankind’s right to learn to communicate peacefully. Other organisations, such as FIPLV, and global religions and spiritual leaders can enhance peaceful communication in inter-religious acts and activities. This recognition of the importance of Peace Linguistics in these large-scale settings will aid in the cultivation and development of Peace Linguistics to serve various communicative needs in different domains. At the meso level, national organisations could play an active part by advocating the adoption of peaceful communication practices intra-culturally. These include programmes for local police and military force, as well as teacher training initiatives which could offer peaceful communication practices in professional education and training. At the micro-level, local education institutions could offer peace education programmes and encourage research in this area to promote peace linguistics and conflict resolution initiatives. Schools play an important role in community-based language planning, which in this case raises a new generation who promotes diversity and engages in peaceful communication both online and offline. In such spirit, teachers must first believe in the importance of positive interaction with their students and practice peaceful communication with them.

16.4 Uses of Peace Linguistics in Second Language Education contexts Since teachers spend most of the day interacting with their students, they could teach conflict resolution skills by showing respect for individual students. The following items are selected from a 10-item Checklist in Gomes de Matos (2014c). Each suggestion can be considered an educational act to be carried out by teachers in a second language context: 1. Humanising assessment/correction of learners’ written text production; 2. Harmonising disagreement between/among students during a classroom discussion; 3. Using peaceful phraseologies to reduce/alleviate communicative aggression and tension; 4. Improving interaction with students, when dealing with controversial issues in class; and 5. Relying on communicative dignity to achieve communicative peace. Here, the teachers take the active role to ‘humanise’ language using especially in second language learning, as learning a new language is always challenging: language learners need a lot of space for making mistakes. Thus, learners will need a lot of support from teachers to overcome the challenges and teachers will need to explore different teaching pedagogies that encourage students to practice the target language



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creatively and to enhance a constructive learning environment. In that same source, 15 suggestions are made for second language teachers to do research in applied Peace Linguistics. Three examples are given: –– Cultivating communicative peace through uses of poetry (reading, discussing, writing, dramatising); –– Encouraging peaceful use(s) of language(s) through artistic creations (posters, videos); and –– Using languages on the Internet to foster international cooperation and solidarity. Likewise, teachers are required to take an active role in using languages peacefully in class through different teaching pedagogies. In view of this, teachers need to experience adequate preparation in order for peace linguistics to reach its full pedagogical potential. Two key concepts from Peace Linguistics are derived from the author’s workshops for teachers of English as a second language held in a Recife, Brazil context: (1) Communicative-life enhancer, and (2) peaceful globaliser. The former has led to the production of the poster Are you a LIFE enhancer? whereas the latter has inspired the creation of the poster Are we globalizers? (Gomes de Matos, 2014, 2015c). In the first type of workshop, language educators are provided with a checklist and are challenged to use it with their students (from intermediate through advanced proficiency levels). The goal is to make second language students aware of the distinctive characteristics of persons who enhance communicative-life by activating dignifying qualities through a checklist: 1. As a second language learner, are you a communicative-life enhancer? How? 2. By interacting in what ways? Check items best describing your communicative qualities. Justify your choices. By interacting: A-amicably, B-benignly, C-cooperatively, D-dignifyingly, E-empathetically, F-fairly, G-good-humoredly, H-humbly, I-inspiringly, J-joyfully, K-kindly, L-lovingly; M-mercifully; O-optimistically; P-peacefully, Q-quietly, R-respectfully, S-spiritually, T-tacfully, U-usefully, V-vibrantly, W-wisely, X- .........., Y-yieldingly, Z-zestfully. As shown in the checklist, the items consist of adverbs in-ly that can modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs and sentences. Here, the adverbs emphasise to what degree the peaceful communication should take place. For example, students should strive to work together ‘amicably’. Another key concept in Peace Linguistics applied to Second Language Education is that of peaceful globaliser. Here is a suggested five answer listing for such purposes: As global citizens, 1. we interact peacefully, constructively, harmoniously; 2. we help build networks for the good of Humankind via online communities;

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3. we commit to communicating global compassion and solidarity when violence causes the killing of innocent people; 4. we help promote peaceful second language education globally; and 5. we promote the diversity of languages/and/cultures and their use for peaceful purposes in varied professional contexts. Similarly, the list promotes intentional and active participation, collaborative effort from different actors, and a good communication plan, which is a basic prerequisite for Peace Linguistics. There are five key steps in planning a peaceful communication: 1. Purpose (communicative intention) Key question: What is the intended meaning? 2. Participants’ profile (biographical information) Key question: Who are the anticipated participants? 3. Context characteristics (circumstances in the event) Key question: Where is the conversation to take place? What other contextual factors might be important? 4. Positivisers preferred (choice of positivisers by participants) Key question: What lexical choices  should be made?  How can vocabulary be strategically used to promote Peace? 5. Effectiveness of exchange (communicative effects of interaction) Key question: What results would you like to see achieved, considering intended peaceful purposes? These key questions are important because they help one to plan through the process, choose the right words and produce the desired outcomes since words may either edify or destroy.

16.5 Conclusion I had two main goals in this chapter. First, I wanted to give an overview of Peace Linguistics, as a precursor and currently developed in my publications and workshops. The second goal was to present implications and suggestions for applying that emerging branch of Linguistics in second language education programmes offered at university level. By providing insights and examples, I hope to encourage new approaches to language planning and policy in view of the global need for peace. In such spirit, a new frontier in second language teaching and learning is being envisaged and a new generation of language advocates is created as appliers of peace linguistics for the good of all persons and groups learning second languages.



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Appendix Plea to Second language educators Dear second language educators, When to your teaching Peace Linguistics you apply your students achieve more than communication They experience a deep transformation and with these principles they learn to comply: The peaceful use of language edifies and creates a world that unifies Let’s commit to character-elevation and enhance our dignity cultivation Let’s share a Love for Life celebration and develop an Art for Peace appreciation Let’s use languages for intercultural cooperation and overcome all types of linguistic discrimination Let’s share a world where compassion everywhere is true where the languages we use will help anticipate what will be peacefully new

References Baldauf, R. B. 2006. Rearticulating the case for micro language planning in a language ecology context. Current Issues in Language Planning, 7(2&3), 147-170. Barash, C. P., & Webel, C. P. 2009. Peace and conflict studies (2nd ed). USA: SAGE Crystal, D. 1999. Entry on Peace Linguistics. In Penguin Dictionary of Language. London: Penguin Books. Crystal, D. 2004. Creating a world of languages. Introductory speech at 10th Linguapax Congress, Barcelona, 10 May 2004. Efthimiades, M. 1986. UNESCO yearbook on peace and conflict studies. International Journal of World Peace, 3(1), 141-143. Friedrich, P. 2007. Language, negotiation and peace: The use of English in conflict resolution. Great Britain: Continuum. Friedrich, P. 2009. World Englishes and Peace Sociolinguistics: Towards a common goal of linguistic understanding. In T. Hoffmann & L. Siebers (Eds.), World Englishes – Problems, properties and Prospects: Selected papers from the 13th IAWE conference. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Friedrich, P. 2012. Comunicative Dignity and a Nonkilling Mentality. Interview with and suggestions by Francisco Gomes de Matos. In P. Friedrich (Ed.), Nonkilling Linguistics. Practical applications. Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling. 157-166.

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Gomes de Matos, F. 1982. Toward a human-improving Applied Linguistics. Washington, D.C.: The Linguistic Reporter. Newsletter of the Center for Applied Linguistics. Gomes de Matos, F. 1984. A Plea for a language rights declaration. FIPLV World Newsletter Gomes de Matos, F. 1987. The functions of peace in language education. Thessaloniki: Greek Journal of Applied Linguistics. Gomes de Matos, F. 1993. Probing the communicative paradigm: A new concept for Sociolinguistics. Dublin: Sociolinguistics Newsletter, International Sociological Association. Gomes de Matos, F. 1996. Pedagogia da Positividade. Comunicação construtiva em português. Recife: Editora da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. Gomes de Matos, F. 2000. Humanizing and harmonizing political discourse: The contribution of peace linguists. Peace and Conflict. Journal of Peace Psychology, 6(4), 339-344 Gomes de Matos, F. 2002. Comunicar para o Bem. Rumo à Paz comunicativa. São Paulo: Editora Ave Maria. Gomes de Matos, F. 2010. Poster What will there be? A Nonkilling plea dedicated to President Barack Obama. Recife: ABA Global Education Retrieved from www.estudenaaba.com Gomes de Matos, F. 2012. LIFE Plus: The life-improving force of peaceful language use. In P. T. Coleman & M. Deutsch (Eds.), Psychological components of sustainable peace. New York: Springer. 121-129. Gomes de Matos, F. (2013). Are you a dignifier? A Checklist. In: Gomes de Matos (Ed.), Dignity. A multidimensional view. Oregon: Dignity Press. 88-89. Gomes de Matos, F. 2014. Are you a LIFE enhancer?. Recife: ABA Global Education. Gomes de Matos, F. 2014a. Language, peace and conflict resolution. In P. T Coleman, M. Deutsch & E. C. Marcus (Eds.), The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 158-175. Gomes de Matos, F. 2014b. Teaching English peacefully. Recife: ABA Global Education. Gomes de Matos, F. 2014c. Peace linguistics for language teachers. D.E.L.T.A Revista de documentação de estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada, 30(2), 415-414. Gomes de Matos, F. 2015a. A Plea for a World Pedagogy of Positiveness. Recife: ABA Global Education. Gomes de Matos, F. 2015b. Using positivizers. Recife: ABA Global Education. Gomes de Matos, F. 2015c. Are we globalizers? When?. Recife: ABA Global Education. Hymes, D. 1993. Personal communication to F. Gomes de Matos on the latter’s proposal of Communicative Peace. August 30. LINGUAPAX (2015). www.linguapax.net Kaplan, R., B., & Baldauf, Jr., R., B. 1997. Language planning from practice to theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Reardon, B. 1995. Education for human dignity: Learning about rigths and responsibilities. Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Bernard Spolsky

17 Language policy: From planning to management The term “language planning” was used in the 1960s when some linguists were first tackling what they considered the problems of newly independent multilingual nations. It is still used, commonly in the abbreviated form LPP (Language policy and planning) by many. However, the planning model i.e., centralised policy, is now suspect in language as well as economics. Instead, the term “management” suggests a more appropriate scheme that includes regular modifications to meet changing conditions and situations. Whatever term is used, the field now has produced a very large number of studies of the processes involved. In an unpublished talk given at the founding meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, Charles A. Ferguson drew attention to the difficulty that linguists seem to have with terminology: he specifically mentioned, as I recall, that we are regularly surprised when asked how many languages we know, explaining that we use the word “linguist” to mean someone who studies language rather than accepting the popular meaning of someone who speaks many different languages. There are other classic misnomers, such as Chomsky’s special use of the word “competence” to mean underlying ability rather than proficiency, or the difficulty many have with the notion that a grammar can be descriptive as well as prescriptive. In this chapter, I will be dealing with the term “language planning” and arguing that “language management” is more appropriate. There are theoretical implications in this choice that I will also explore, but it may be that I am being over sensitive about this term as I am about some others.71 The field of language policy was first developed in the optimistic days after the Second World War when it was still believed that social and economic planning would build a better and more prosperous world. Just as the Marshall Plan was intended to rebuild Europe as a bulwark against Soviet Communism, so linguists working in what Jernudd and Nekvapil (2012) call the classic period of language policy assumed that language planning would solve the linguistic problems of the world’s nations. This was to be done by the state level i.e., macro planning in which specific language variety or varieties were selected for use in the various domains, and also taught in schools. The leading scholars of the field (Alexandre, 1963; Fishman, 1968a, 1968b; Fishman, Ferguson, & Das Gupta, 1968; Haugen, 1950; Neustupný, 1968; Weinreich,

71 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� For example, I found the term “applied linguistics” incorrect for language pedagogy and inadequate for language education: I therefore suggested “educational linguistics”. And I am uncomfortable with “linguistic landscape” as a cover term for the study of public signage in urban areas.

Bernard Spolsky, Bar-Ilan University

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1953) all saw the multilingualism of newly independent nations as “problems” to which they could offer “planning” solutions. With the sponsorship of the newly established Committee on Sociolinguistics of the Social Science Research Council,72 a “conference on the linguistic problems of developing nations” was held at Airlie House in Virginia in November 1966. The core problem of developing nations was “that their political boundaries correspond rather imperfectly to any pre-existing ethnic-cultural unit”, requiring new nations “to plan and create such an identity through national symbols” such as a “national language” together with others like “a national flag, a national ruler” (Fishman, 1968b). Therefore in most cases, whatever is selected as the new national language— for it was taken for granted in those optimistically liberal days that the colonial language must be replaced—needed to be developed, standardised and modernised. In the meantime “language planning of a very careful and concerted sort” (Fishman, 1968b: 7) was required to manage the process of establishing the national language in place of the colonial language and of competing indigenous varieties. Therefore, the implementation of language policy requires specific approaches and the task then was to develop a “systematic social theory-guided approach” (Fishman, 1968b: 8) or language plan which would show how to do this. As the director of the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington DC that was intended to offer advice and leadership in public language policy, Ferguson presented the three major tasks for planning as graphisation, standardisation and modernisation, though he agreed that “the factors making for success and failure in such planning are not clear” (Ferguson, 1968: 34). The approach was well illustrated by a series of Ford Foundation-supported studies (Ford Foundation, 1975; Fox, 2007) of African states i.e., planning in developing societies, such as Ethiopia (Bender, Bowen, Cooper, & Ferguson, 1976), Kenya (Whiteley, 1974), Uganda (Ladefoged, Glick, & Criper, 1971) and Zambia (Ohannessian & Kashoki, 1978) which generally consisted of surveys of the sociolinguistic situation in the country aimed at gathering basic data on how major languages in these states were used and taught. In actual fact, these books contain few if any plans for solution of the problems that had emerged. In fact, Fishman believed that these studies could not provide answers to all questions concerning “the differential success of various language planning processes and implementation procedures with respect to various target populations” (Fishman, 1973: 26). In spite of this continued caution, out of this work developed a field of applied sociolinguistics which was labeled Language Policy and Planning, or LPP,73 and studies and activities have since proliferated.

72 Established at the suggestion of Charles Ferguson in emulation of the pioneering work of the Committee of Linguistics and Psychology (Osgood, 1954), this committee played a major role in the creation and organisation of the field of sociolinguistics (Paulston & Tucker, 1997; Spolsky, 2011) . 73 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Another of my pet peeves is the tendency to replace terms by abbreviations, increasing obfuscation.



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 303

One journal, Language Problems and Language Planning, proclaimed in its title that “planning” solved “problems”. It replaced an earlier journal called “La monda lingvo-problemo” (The world language problem) that had been published in Esperanto, started in 1969 by the Center for Research and Documentation on World Language Problems, a center created in 1954 by the World Esperanto Association. While naturally it maintained a special place for Esperanto, from its beginning in 1977, the new journal published articles on policy issues concerning all languages. Its first issue focused on language loyalty in Britain, considering the status of Scots Gaelic, Welsh, and Irish, and its subsequent issues offered a substantial range of papers on language policy. It could be complained that considering language as a problem or source of problems rather than on developing method of meeting communication and identity needs of various speech communities is no more appropriate than assuming that planning will solve the problems. However, it is only fair to point out that these terms were widely used by most scholars in the field. At the end of the 20th century, it was still quite reasonable for the two publishers to establish new journals dealing with language policy with one of them choosing the title Current Issues in Language Planning.74 The editors, Robert Kaplan and Richard Baldauf Jr, set out a plan for the journal,75 whose coverage of national language policies was to be based on an idealised language planning model: (1) a description of the linguistic problems of the polity (a term the editors prefer to nation or state) concerned presented systematically in such a way that comparison with other cases was possible, (2) details on the development of planned solutions broken down into seven issues,76 and (3) an account of the implementation of the plans, recognising the complexity of the process and the difficulty of implementation in poor nations. There was an underlying assumption that “planning” requires implementation but that it can work. The second journal started in that year took a somewhat different track, using the all-embracing title Language Policy,77 generally avoiding the term planning and using management instead. Both these terms were also in a theory of language policy suggested in Spolsky (1996, 2001, 2003a) and in Spolsky (2008b, 2009). When I used the term “management” in public at a LAUD78 symposium in 2004, I was pleasantly 74 “Current trends in …” was a popular title in linguistic publications in 1960s and 1970s. 75 The corrected version of the introduction appears in the second issue. 76 The issues are modernisation, dissemination, changes in educational language policy, building an educational and literary corpus, adaptaion of variety to science and technolology, funding, treatment of other languages. 77 Proposed and published initially by Kluwer Academic Publishers and co-edited by Bernard Spolsky and Elana Shohamy, it was later taken over by Springer Science. Spolsky was in due course replaced as co-editor by Kendall King. The new editors in 2016 are Ofelia Garcia and Helen Kelly Holmes. 78 “LAUD” is since 2000 a registered trademark; the “D” replaced a “T” when the Linguistic Agency University of Trier (LAUT) moved to Duisburg in 1985. It is currently hosted at the Landau campus of the University of Koblenz-Landau.

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surprised to find it welcomed by Czech linguists, although their approach offered a somewhat different theory of management than mine. While Neustupný (1968) had used the term “policy” for treatment of language problems, and in Jernudd and Neustupný (1987) he had co-authored a paper on language planning, in Neustupný and Nekvapil (2003) he described language policy in the Czech Republic using a language management model. This included both the simple management involved in individual speakers modifying their proficiency (either by accommodating to the audience or by learning the other language) and the complex or organised management originally suggested in the work of the Prague School Theory of Language Cultivation. Planning suggested the work of an architect who designs a building and leaves it to a foreman to implement the plan; management (like cultivation) implies rather an ongoing process of modification of intervention to reflect changing situations and results. The period after the Second World War when classical language policy and planning began was marked by a belief in the effectiveness of economic planning, as exemplified in the Marshall Plan, the European Recovery Programme which gave $17 billion to rebuild European economies. Economic planning, which contrasted with the notion of leaving economies to market mechanisms, was particularly represented by the state socialist planning in the Soviet Union, practiced there between 1918 and 1991. A series of five-year plans started in 1928 in the USSR, with collectivisation of agriculture and emphasis on industrialisation; a second plan also emphasising industry was less effective; and the third was interrupted by the Second World War. Already in the 1960s, doubts emerged about the effectiveness of Soviet economic planning, and as time went on, more and more cases of failures of economic planning as well as linguistic planning became known. Looking at language planning, in Africa, for instance, most efforts to establish indigenous languages as national languages failed, so that international colonial languages—English, French, Portuguese—continue to dominate government and education as well as business. Even in North Africa after independence, Arabicisation turned out to be slow and incomplete, so that French still plays a major role. In India, where the constitution adopted at independence assumed that use of English would be phased out after a few years, the pressures of the non-Hindi states as well as of globalisation have kept it alive as a major language of communication. In Europe, the European Union urging of the teaching of two foreign languages has failed to check the continued spread of English including its growing role in tertiary education. As Robert Burns puts it, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley”. Spolsky (2006) deals with the failures of language planning; MacNamara (1971) with the failures of Irish efforts; and Fishman (1993) notes some success but many failures and dilemmas. While the notion of unanticipated consequences can be traced back to John Locke and Adam Smith, the concept was stated clearly by the sociologist Merton (1936) who said that “no blanket statement categorically affirming or denying the practical feasibility of all social planning is warranted” (p. 904). He posited that an intervention could lead to undesirable outcomes. One obvious example is the side-effects of many



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medicines. Another is the effect of the introduction of plants (such as gorse in New Zealand) and animals (such as rabbits in Australia) which produced major problems. Another was prohibition in the US, which led to a major growth in crime. The US support for the mujahedeen when they were fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan strengthened a movement with which the US has since tried to suppress. In a now classic study, Gruen (2009) explained that planning failures are normal, and that successful management depends on willingness and ability to adapt, to changing goals and methods as one learns about changing situations, failures, and unanticipated results. Baldauf in his writing recognised this, but still tended to maintain an approach that looked for implementation inadequacies to account for planning failures. But the management approach is closer to the reality of complex social dynamics. There has also been a second major change in the field, and that is, the recognition that language policy and management occur at different levels and not just at the level of the central state or nation. Using different terminology, Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) proposed the notion of micro language planning to cover some of these cases. Realising that not just government and government agencies are involved in management provides a much richer picture of the processes and results. For example, the family is now recognised as a major and critical site for policy: many studies (Caldas & Caron-Caldas, 2000; King & Fogle, 2006; Kopeliovich, 2006, 2009; Noro, 1990; Olshtain & Blum-Kulka, 1988; Saunders, 1983; Spolsky, 2008a, 2012; Tannenbaum & Howie, 2002; Te Puni, 2001) are showing the importance of the family domain as site for significant language management. The work of Czech linguists such as (Nekvapil, 2006; Nekvapil & Sherman, 2009; Neustupný & Nekvapil, 2003) has shown the complexity and richness of language management in the industrial domain. A growing number of scholars have been demonstrating the relevance of religion to language policy (Kamwangamalu, 2006; Omoniyi, 2010; Pandharipande, 2002; Paulston & Watt, 2011; Sawyer & Simpson, 2001; Spolsky, 2003b; Weeks, 2002). This is because in today’s world, religion plays an important role in influencing language use since “many migrants, the church, or synagogue remains the principal domain helping to preserve their heritage language” (Spolsky, 2009: 32). Inevitably, the educational domain surely demonstrates the complexity (Spolsky, 2009), as putative language managers at the level of federal or regional or city governments, or churches and other religious institutions, education departments and school boards, parents, and inspectors and principals all try to determine the language policy of schools and classrooms, while students are open not just to these influences but even more to the examples and attitudes of their peers. To understand language policy requires recognition not just of failures and success or centralised administration, but the complexity of factors and levels that need to be taken into account. I believe therefore that management is a more suitable term than planning and that a management model assuming a range of managers and various levels working to modify the language practices of various members of the community offers the

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most useful way of analysing the many complex cases that are starting to come under review. We must be grateful to those who have encouraged the publication of details of these cases, such as the late Joshua Fishman in his journal International Journal of the Sociology of Language and in the book series Contributions to the Sociology of language, both published by Mouton, and to Richard Baldauf and Robert Kaplan in their journal and in other volumes. The data are there to build a strong theory, whatever it is called, but we still lack such a strong theory in this area as we do in sociolinguistics. Ferguson (1997: 80) respecting Fishman’s potential for theorybuilding hoped he would try: I tend to be pessimistic about formulating a basic theory of sociolinguistics; possibly I am unduly pessimistic. I would think that if Fishman put his mind to it, he could probably come up with a kind of theory. Of course, it would tend to focus on macrosociolinguistics (sociology of language), like the books he has written on ethnicity and nationalism and so forth… .

Fishman and his close friend Uriel Weinreich nearly wrote such a theory in 1954, he reports, but gave up: Weinreich’s draft was too linguistics and Fishman’s too sociological to negotiate a common version. Fishman in fact worked to develop a theory of one kind of language management, the efforts of minority groups and endangered language activists to “reverse language shift”, as he labeled it. He recognised the complexity of the task: To attempt…via stylish efforts to control the language of education, the workplace, the mass media and governmental services [without first controlling] “informal intergenerational usage within the confines of the home, family, neighborhood and face-to-face community”… Is equivalent to constantly blowing air into a tire that still has a puncture. (Fishman, 2001: xii)

The language planning model, with its suggestion that all that was needed was centralised policy making by a national government, misses this complexity.79 Perhaps it is just a change of terminology to go from “planning” to “management”, but it does a better job of capturing the complexity of the many tasks and people involved in modifying social linguistic processes.

References Alexandre, P. 1963. Les problemes linguistiques africains vus de Paris. In J. Spencer (Ed.), Language in Africa (pp. 53-69). Cambridge University Press.53-69. Burns, R. 1785. To a mouse, on turning her up in her nest with the plough. Retrieved from http:// www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173072

79 Even totalitarian governments like the People’s Republic of China and Soviet Russia have failed to force their chosen variety on all citizens.



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Bender, M. L., Bowen, J. D., Cooper, R. L., & Ferguson, C. A. (Eds.). 1976. Language in Ethiopia. London: Oxford University Press. Caldas, S. J., & Caron-Caldas, S. 2000. The influence of family, school, and community on bilingual preference: Results from a Louisiana/Quebec case study. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21(3), 365381. Ferguson, C. A. 1968. Language development. In J. A. Fishman, C. A. Ferguson & J. D. Gupta (Eds.), Language problems of developing nations. NY: John Wiley and Sons. 27-35. Ferguson, C. A. 1997. History of sociolinguistics. In C. B. Paulston & G. R. Tucker (Eds.), The early days of Sociolinguistics: Memories and reflections. Dallas, TX: The Summer Institute of Linguistics. 75-95. Fishman, J. A. 1968a. Language problems and types of political and sociocultural integration: A conceptual postscript. In J. A. Fishman, C. A. Ferguson & J. Das Gupta (Eds.), Language problems of developing nations. New York: John Wiley and Sons.491-498. Fishman, J. A. 1968b. Sociolinguistics and the language problems of the developing countries. In J. A. Fishman, C. A. Ferguson & J. Das Gupta (Eds.), Language problems of developing nations. New York: John Wiley and Sons. 3-16. Fishman, J. A. 1973. Language modernization and planning in comparison with other types of national modernization and planning. Language in Society, 2(1), 23-43. Fishman, J. A. 1993. Reversing language shift: Successes, failures, doubts and dilemmas. In E. H. Jahr (Ed.), Language conflict and language planning. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.69-81. Fishman, J. A., Ferguson, C. A., & Das Gupta, J. 1968. Language problems of developing nations. New York: Wiley. Ford Foundation. 1975. Language and development: A retrospective survey of Ford Foundation language projects, 1952-1974. New York: Ford Foundation. Fox, M. J. 2007. Ford Foundation: Personal reflection. In C. B. Paulston & G. R. Tucker (Eds.), The early days of Sociolinguistics: Memories and reflections (Vol.2). Dallas, TX: The Summer Institute of Linguistics.271-272. Gruen, E. S. 2009. Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans. Harvard University Press. Haugen, E. 1950. Problems of bilingualism. Lingua, 2, 271-290. Jernudd, B. H., & Nekvapil, J. V. 2012. History of the field: A sketch. In B. Spolsky (Ed.), Handbook of language policy. Cambridge University Press. Jernudd, B. H., & Neustupný, J. V. 1987. Language planning: for whom? In L. LaForge (Ed.), Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Language Planning. Québec, Canada: Presses de l’Université Laval.69-84. Kamwangamalu, N. M. 2006. Religion, social history, and language maintenance: African languages in post-apartheid South Africa. In T. Omoniyi & J. A. Fishman (Eds.), The sociology of language and religion: Change, conflict and accommodation. Basingstoke UK: Palgrave Macmillan.86-96. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. B. Jr. 1997. Language planning from practice to theory. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters Ltd. King, K., & Fogle, L. 2006. Bilingual parenting as good parenting: parents’ perspectives on family language policy for additive bilingualism. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 9(6), 695-712. Kopeliovich, S. 2006. Reversing language shift in the immigrant family: Case study of a Russianspeaking community in Israel. (PhD dissertation), Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan. Kopeliovich, S. 2009. Reversing language shift in the immigrant family: A case study of a Russianspeaking community in Israel. Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag Dr Müller. Ladefoged, P., Glick, R., & Criper, C. 1971. Language in Uganda. Nairobi: Oxford University Press. MacNamara, J. 1971. Successes and failures in the movement for the restoration of Irish. In J. Rubin & B. Jernudd (Eds.), Can language be planned?. Honolulu HI: University Press of Hawaii.

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Merton, R. K. 1936. The unanticipated consequences of purposive social action. American Sociological Review, 1(6), 894-904. Nekvapil, J. V. 2006. From language planning to language management. Sociolinguistica, 20, 92-104. Nekvapil, J. V., & Sherman, T. 2009. Pre-interaction management in multinational companies in Central Europe. Current Issues in Language Planning, 10(2), 181 - 198. Neustupný, J. V. 1968. Some general aspects of “language” problems and “language” policy in developing societies. In J. A. Fishman, C. A. Ferguson & J. Das Gupta (Eds.), Language problems of developing nations. New York: John Wiley and Sons. 285-294. Neustupný, J. V., & Nekvapil, J. 2003. Language management in the Czech republic. Current Issues in language planning, 4(3&4), 181-366. Noro, H. 1990. Family and language maintenance: An exploratory study of Japanese language maintenance among children of postwar Japanese immigrants in Toronto. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 86, 57-68. Ohannessian, S., & Kashoki, M. E. (Eds.). 1978. Language in Zambia. London UK: International African Institute. Olshtain, E., & Blum-Kulka, S. 1988. Happy Hebrish: Mixing and switching in American-Israeli family interactions. Lashon, 3. Omoniyi, T. (Ed.). 2010. The sociology of language and religion: Change, conflict and accommodation. Basingstoke UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Osgood, C. E. (Ed.). 1954. Psycholinguistics: A survey of theory and research problems; report of the 1953 summer seminar sponsored by the Committee on Linguistics and Psychology of the Social Science Research Council. Baltimore: Waverly Press. Pandharipande, R. V. 2002. Many languages, many religions: Issues in the language of religion in India. Paper presented at the Colloquium on The Sociology of Language and Religion, University of Surrey Roehampton. Paulston, C. B., & Tucker, G. R. (Eds.). 1997. The Early Days of Sociolinguistics: Memories and Reflections. Dallas, TX: The Summer Institute of Linguistics. Paulston, C. B., & Watt, J. M. 2011. Language policy and religion. In B. Spolsky (Ed.), Handbook of language policy. Cambridge University Press. Saunders, G. 1983. Bilingual children: Guidance for the family. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Sawyer, J. F. A., & Simpson, J. M. Y. (Eds.). 2001. Concise encyclopedia of language and religion. Amsterdam; New York; Oxford; Shannon; Singapore; Tokyo: Elsevier. Spolsky, B. 1996. Prologemena to an Israeli Language Policy. In T. Hickey & J. Williams (Eds.), Language, education and society in a changing world. Dublin and Clevedon: IRAAL/Multilingual Matters Ltd.45-53. Spolsky, B. 2001. Language in Israel: Policy, practice and ideology. In J. E. Alatis & A.-H. Tan (Eds.), Georgetown University Roundtable on Language and Linguistics. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.164-174. Spolsky, B. 2003a. Language policy. Paper presented at the ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism, Tempe, AZ. Spolsky, B. 2003b. Religion as a site of language contact. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 23, 81-94. Spolsky, B. 2006. Language policy failures - why won’t they listen? In M. Pütz, J. A. Fishman & J. N.-v. Aertselaer (Eds.), ‘Along the routes to power’: Explorations of empowerment through language (pp. 87-106). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter Spolsky, B. 2008a. Family language management: Some preliminaries. In A. Stavans & I. Kupferberg (Eds.), Studies in language and language education: Essays in honor of Elite Olshtain. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press. 429-450.



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Spolsky, B. 2008b. Language management agencies and academies. Paper presented at the Kia mau ki te aka matua (Maori Language Symposium), Te Ipukarea, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland New Zealand. Spolsky, B. 2009. Language management. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. Spolsky, B. 2012. Family language policy - the critical domain. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(1), 3-11. Tannenbaum, M., & Howie, P. 2002. The association between language maintenance and family relations: Chinese immigrant children in Australia. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 23(5), 408-424. Te Puni, K. 2001. The use of Maori in the family. Wellington: Ministry of Maori Development. Weeks, T. R. 2002. Religion and russification: Russian language in the Catholic Churches of the ‘Northwest Provinces’ after 1863. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 2(1), 87-110. Weinreich, U. 1953. Languages in contact: Findings and problems. New York: Linguistic Circle of New York. Whiteley, W. H. (Ed.). 1974. Language in Kenya. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.

Index 21st century workforce, 270, 275 access policy, 12, 218, 225 accommodation, 12, 129, 234, 236, 237, 240, 246 active agents, 169, 253, 263 African indigenous languages, 186 Afrikaans, 11, 12, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 194, 196, 198, 200, 201, 202, 204, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210 agents of change, 237 Anglish, 19 Arab Spring, 95, 105, 106 Bahasa Malaysia, 12, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244, 246 Basque, 145, 146, 147, 149, 151, 153, 154, 156, 157, Basque Agency for Business Development, 150 Basque Country, 11, 143, 147, 149, 150, 152, 155, 156, 158 Basque language, 11, 26, 143, 144, 147, 150, 152, 154, 155, 158 bilingual identity, 218 bilingual policy, 10, 13, 137, 268, 271, 272, 273, 275, 277, 279, 280, 284, 285 bilingualism, 10, 24, 25, 26, 95, 97, 106, 134, 136, 156, 273, 274 Bologna Agreement, 9, 57, 59 British Empire, 18, 96 Business Processing Outsourcing, 9, 83, 88 centralised top-down approach, 273 Chinese language curriculum, 268, 281 civil religion, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138 code-switching, 240 collaborative translation, 172 colonial language, 18, 189, 302, 304 colonialism, 84, 99, 133, 184, 209 Common European Framework of Reference, 76, 101, 217, 223 communication, 9, 21, 110, 111, 117, 118, 126, 150, 153, 157, 158, 159, 164, 165, 166, 191, 217, 219,220, 225, 234, 255, 264, 267, 272, 278, 283, 290, 296, 298, 304, 305 Communism, 24, 301 comprehensive language competence, 255 content analysis, 198, 201, 205, 223, 256 content-area lecturers, 12, 234, 243, 244 convergent media, 162 corpus planning, 6, 29, 137, 146, 150

cultural autonomy, 6, 39, 41 cultural imperialism, 10, 34, 99, 105, 106 cultural nationalism, 10, 137 cultural preservation, 10, 126, 272 dedication, 12,234, 236, 237, 240, 246, 247 discrimination, 8, 34, 35, 98, 226, 292 educational policy, 89, 107, 251, 252 emerging economies, 5, 12, 184, 192, 193, 194, 195 English as a foreign language, 215, 251 English Language Teaching, 6, 69, 101, 104, 109, 290 English proficiency, 23, 90, 104, 105, 217, 220, 221, 228, 234, 235, 236, 238, 240, 242, 243, 244, 246, 247, 273, 285 Englishes, 18, 19, 34, 191, 195 English-in-education planning, 234 English-medium instruction, 185, 234 English-medium programmes, 67, 68, 225 EU constitution, 61, 62 Evaluation Policy, 218, 227 foreign language education policy planning, 253 foreign languages, 45, 48, 51, 63, 64, 72, 74, 98, 101, 119, 217, 291, 304 formal schooling, 98, 99, 100, 276, 277 formative and summative assessments, 255 global communication, 20 Global English, 20 global language, 18, 35, 145, 147, 160 globalisation, 3, 16, 86, 87, 88, 97, 102, 109, 132, 134, 140, 141, 145, 146, 147, 148, 160, 183, 187, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 198, 203, 208, 209, 210, 214, 215, 216, 225, 234, 247, 267, 269, 271, 273, 278, 293, 304 glob-national, 2, 6 glocalization, 146 higher education, 57, 61, 63, 67, 68, 70, 73, 77, 104, 105, 107, 109, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 198, 201, 203, 204, 205, 208, 209, 210, 215, 217, 220, 223, 234, 239, 247, 248 high-stakes testing, 227, 263 homogenisation, 3 human capital, 90, 194, 268, 269, 275 Idée suisse project, 165, 166, 168, 173, 179 indigenous languages, 39, 42, 210, 304 initiators of change, 267

 institutionalised language policies, 164 international English, 20, 34, 104, 221 internationalisation, 57, 146, 151, 155, 158, 160, 192, 201, 202, 234 Inter-Religious Organisation, 136 Islamisation, 134, 136, 137, 139, 140 Kurdish language, 115, 116, 117, 118, 124 Kurdish language education, 117 language management, 5, 148, 158, 159, 160, 197, 247, 267, 271, 272, 301, 304, 305, 306 language planning, 4, 5, 15, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 39, 57, 59, 60, 65, 74, 77, 78, 79, 113, 116, 117, 122, 125, 129, 140, 148, 160, 163, 174, 234, 235, 251, 252, 253, 262, 267, 272, 273, 295, 296, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306 language planning and policy, 2, 39, 42, 113, 114, 125, 129, 146, 151, 154, 218, 267, 290, 295, 298 language policy, 5, 16, 27, 33, 39, 40, 41, 45, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 97, 109, 110, 113, 115, 122, 124, 125, 129, 130, 132, 133, 139, 140, 142, 145, 148, 151, 155, 158, 167, 183, 208, 215, 217, 218, 219, 226, 228, 237, 248, 251, 252, 253, 267, 278, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305 language policy and management, 148, 305 language policy and planning, 15, 58, 124, 147, 148, 151, 152, 154, 155, 158, 160, 217, 234, 252, 295, 301, 302, 304 language-in-education, 3, 5, 27, 84, 86, 89, 90, 93, 94, 140, 148, 152, 153, 217, 234 Lan-Hitz, 154, 155, 156, 157, 160 linguistic diversity, 40, 41, 61, 62, 63, 76, 92, 113, 117, 146, 159, 172, 271, 272 linguistic dualism, 102, 110 linguistic superiority, 19 literacy, 24, 26, 27, 28, 32, 70, 94,98, 248, 252, 271, 277, 279, 293 macro level, 3, 4, 58, 60, 61, 67, 79, 180, 215, 228, 235, 236, 242, 246, 247, 251, 252, 253, 262, 267, 273, 291, 295 macro/national level, 3 meritocracy, 136, 269 meso level, 3, 58, 59, 61, 67, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 251, 262, 296 Methods and Material Policy, 218, 227 micro level, 3, 57, 58, 59, 79, 140, 160, 179, 180, 225, 229, 235, 236, 251, 252, 259, 262, 264, 267, 273, 278, 291, 295, 296

Index 

 311

military language planning, 113 misalignment, 259, 260, 261 mother tongue, 84, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 137, 140, 187, 217, 219, 228, 268, 272, 273, mother tongue + 2, 49, 51, 62, 63, 71, 72, 78, Mother Tongue Language, 268 multi-levelled actors, 251 multilingual education, 84, 85, 86, 89 multilingual newsflows, 163, 164 multilingual policies, 16o multilingualism, 40, 41, 48, 49, 50, 51, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 70, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78, 79, 86, 92, 93, 94, 157, 158, 159, 160, 163, 165, 228, 272, 302, multi-method approach, 163, 167 multiracial, 132, 272 multiracialism, 136 National Defense Education Act, 119 national identity, 33, 40, 47, 48, 99, 107, 109, 110, 115, 118, 238, 271, 272 national language, 16, 19, 27, 30, 33, 34, 40, 41, 47, 70, 71, 73, 85, 92, 93, 122, 129, 138, 139, 140, 141, 225, 226, 251, 302, 303, 304, national official language, 40, 43, 44 national security, 113, 114, 117, 122, 125 normalisation, 152, 153 peace education programmes, 296 Peace Linguistics, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298 Personnel Policy, 218 plurilingualism, 49, 51, 67, 89 pragmatism, 84, 136, 138, 269 preschool, 268, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 284, 285 preschool education, 273, 275, 276, 285 prestige language, 268 prestige planning, 148, 275 Progression Analysis, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172 race, 34, 131, 132, 133, 137, 138, 140, 142, 205, 269 racial-linguistic order, 131 regional policy-making, 61 regional-official languages, 44 religion, 98, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 269, 296, 305 resistance, 91, 117, 141, 234, 236, 237, 238, 240, 241, 242, 243, 246 securitisation, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 125

312 

 Index

segregation, 131, 183, 191 small and medium-sized enterprises, 151, 159 sociolinguistics of social justice, 183, 198, 199, 200, 208 Spanish, 17, 34, 45, 46, 63, 74, 145, 147, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 237 speakers’ language rights, 43 Tagalog-based Filipino, 85, 92 teacher agency, 247, 248 teaching pedagogies, 296, 297 the EU Constitution, 61, 62, 69 the Lisbon Treaty, 40, 52, 61, 62 the Treaty on European Union, 61 the Treaty on Functioning of European Union, 61 top-down hierarchical process, 253 translation strategies, 165,168, 169, 179 transnational higher education, 194, 195 transnational mobility, 57, 77 tri-national, 58, 61, 76 vernacular languages, 16, 85, 285 Vietnamese-medium-instruction, 221 voice-over translations, 173 Western ideology, 21 working languages, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48