Agency in Language Policy and Planning:

Critical Inquiries

Jeremie Bouchard, Gregory Paul Glasgow, Jeremie Bouchard, Gregory Paul Glasgow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138316188
• eBook ISBN: 9780429849916
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This collection brings together theory and ethnographic research from a range of national contexts to offer unique insights into the nature of agency in language policy and planning. Situated within a broader sociological framework, the book explores agentive processes at work in case studies from around the world, engaging in discussions of such key themes as language and identity, language ideologies, linguistic diversity in education, and language revitalization. Each chapter examines the ways in which decisions made at both the local and national level impact language use and in turn, the dynamic relationship between language use, policy, and practice in these contexts. Taken together, this volume advances our understanding of agency in language policy and planning and directions for future research, making this key reading for students and scholars in language and education, critical sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics.

1 Agency in Language Policy and Planning

A Theoretical Model

Jeremie Bouchard and Gregory Paul Glasgow

The chapters in this volume adopt various approaches to studying agency in LPP, and while most of them converge epistemologically and methodologically, others diverge. This should not be surprising: the study of agency is indeed a very broad conversation about the nature of humans’ complex interaction with structural and cultural forces. What becomes clear through this conversation is that human actions and discourses cannot be fully predicted—unlike the movements of a clock—for they are not subjected to singular causal forces and do not follow a single linear progression over time.

Then again, it would be mistaken to conclude that agency is inherently chaotic and indeterministic, and therefore that accounts of agency are, by default, relativistic. As Williams and Dyer (2017, p. 3) point out, it is possible to explain and predict the social world to some extent “partly because it is rule-based and partly because agents in it act inductively on past experiences, which mostly exhibits a large degree of predictability”. Although change (or elaboration) is a central focus in any sociological endeavor, particularly those concerned with uncovering localized discourses and actions, stability in the social realm also needs to be accounted for.

In this chapter, our goal is to provide a realist approach to studying agency in LPP, largely informed by the works of Margaret Archer, Derek Layder, Alison Sealey, Bob Carter and other prominent realist thinkers. We also aim to explain how the work conducted in the following nine chapters either informs or challenges this approach. To build and reinforce this realist perspective, we first present the social realm and its constituting elements (structure, culture and agency) as stratified. This leads to a discussion of Layder’s domain theory, which provides a more refined view of the social world as stratified.

Equipped with this layered view of society, we then hone in on both individual and collective agency. Even if this central analytical element in our volume is unpacked only midway through this chapter, we believe that a realist understanding of agency is most effectively developed once a stratified view of the social world has been provided. An important aspect of our approach to agency is Archer’s morphogenetic model, which emphasizes the internal conversation as mediating the forces of culture, structure and agency. While this model brings attention to how human agents understand and engage with structural and cultural constraints and enablements in the pursuit of their projects, we bifurcate momentarily from Archer’s theory to consider the theory of bounded rationality, which helps us move away from the somewhat problematic ‘rational agent’ paradigm, a problem often highlighted by Archer. We then propose a model (or analytical flow diagram) of potential use to researchers interested in exploring agency in LPP.

In short, this chapter situates to some extent the following nine chapter contributions within a broader sociological discussion, or as Carter and Sealey (2004, p. 111) put it, “the interface between social theory and the study of language”. It also reveals insight into the complex nature of human communication, of individual, community and national identities and globalization, and provides a unique viewpoint from which to study the production of social life, or as Spolsky (2004) puts it, the full ecology of human life.

1.1 The Stratified Nature of the Social Realm: Core Realist Principles

In this part of the chapter, we discuss the social world as a stratified realm, and in doing so, introduce core realist principles of pertinence to our view of agency in LPP.

1.1.1 Ontology and Epistemology

A broad range of realist perspectives have been developed over the years, and multiple ways of thinking about language and social life have emerged as a result of this intellectual engagement. What unifies these perspectives is the notion that the world exists independently of our understanding of it. Bhaskar (1998, p. 12) sums up the basis for a realist ontology by stating that “the objects of our knowledge exist and act independently of the knowledge of which they are the objects”. Drawing from Popper’s (1972) notion of “knowledge without a knower”, Carter (2000) defines realism as rooted in recognition that our understanding of the social world and the properties of this world are ontologically different. Maton (2014, p. 10) presents ontological realism as recognizing that “knowledge is about something other than itself, that there exists an independently existing reality beyond discourse that helps to shape our knowledge of the world”. In this sense, knowledge is more than a product of our discursive practices. Because ontology can react back to epistemology when the latter ‘strays too far off’, our multifarious constructions of knowledge do not unfold as we please but with regards to the reality both within and beyond the realm of discourse. Sealey and Carter (2004, p. 15) argue similarly thus: “Without objective knowledge it is hard to make any case for improving theoretical understanding or for the epistemic authority of research”. Analyzing educational policy from a realist perspective, Willmott (2002, p. 8) points out that “social reality is not just the aggregation of agential interpretations. If that were true, then we would not be able to explain why some people are strategically manipulated into vicious cycles of debt”.

1.1.2 Material and Discursive Features of the Social Realm

Although realist thinkers do not always provide convergent views, the consensus among them is that distinctions must be made between discursive and non-discursive elements within the social realm, an agreement that underscores a shared emphasis on the distinct and emergent properties of epistemology and ontology. Elder-Vass (2014) emphasizes the distinct and emergent properties of both language and objective reality thus: “If we had no access to the world beyond us we would have no access to communication either. Linguistic communications depend on events that occur independently of what people other than those speaking or writing might think about them” (p. 252), further on adding that “when we use signs, and when we learn signs, reference to the external world is involved. We cannot make sense of the achievement of meaning in actual speech acts without recognising the role of reference” (p. 258). This statement not only brings attention to the importance of notions such as ‘objective knowledge’, ‘material conditions’ and ‘underlying generative mechanisms’ in the production and consumption of discourse, but also reveals that our discursive practices are not entirely self-referencing—that is, operating exclusively within a self-contained and self-motivating discursive realm.

From an analytical standpoint, the distinction between discursive and non-discursive elements in social research—particularly in critical social research—is fundamental to an understanding of causal relationships. Once links have been uncovered between texts, discourse practices and social practices (to use Faircloughian terminology) and the material conditions and underlying generative mechanisms making texts, discourse practices and social practices possible in the first place, it becomes possible to see the effects of one particular force upon another, and how particular patterns of domination and oppression are created and reinforced by human agents. Examples of non-discursive realities influencing discursive processes include socioeconomic status, certain features or aspects of education, such as access to learning materials and classrooms, unequal distribution of power and resources, and of course the physical requirements for the production and consumption of written and spoken texts. Within a realist framework, linguistic processes and non-discursive events happen simultaneously and inter-relatedly, while unfolding independently of each other. As such, the oft quoted Giddensian argument regarding the said duality of structure (not to be confused with dualism) and of social phenomena being ‘mutually constitutive’—that is, his ‘two sides of the same coin’ argument (see Liddicoat, Chapter 5)—is insufficient. As Carter and Sealey (2000, p. 15) point out, “If agency and structure are seen as ‘two sides of the same coin’, it becomes impossible to examine the interplay between them”.

In questioning Giddens’s duality of structure, however, we also recognize its prevalence in research on agency in LPP and in contemporary social research at large. In this volume, for example, Liddicoat (Chapter 5) draws from Giddens’s work and argues that structure and agency are mutually constitutive. Similarly, Vanek et al. (Chapter 10) present interactive agency as inseparable from other determinants, such as constraining educational policies, teachers’ instructional approaches, relationships between teacher and students, and actual behaviors in the classroom. While sympathizing with the underlying intent behind such statements, and while recognizing the influence of Giddens’s work in agency research at large, we believe the following questions remain unanswered in his work: How can the interaction between two distinct social realities—for example, agency and structure—be studied if they are inseparable, or merely two different aspects of the same thing? Why do they share a relationship in the first place? If they are said to be mutually constitutive, what prompts them to constitute one another?

In this chapter, structure and culture are presented as influencing each other only if they possess distinct and emergent properties in the first place. Analytical terms such as ‘inseparable’ and ‘mutually constitutive’ are, for us, deterministic and therefore problematic in the study of causality. It is worth pointing out that the rich and insightful analyses in Chapters 5 and 10 are not entirely dependent on Giddens’s duality of structure theory; instead, they are very much outcomes of awareness that the analytical elements investigated indeed possess distinct and emergent properties.

1.1.3 The Social World as Stratified

The need for these conceptual distinctions highlights a very important feature of realism: its common characterization as a stratified perspective. Generally speaking, the term stratified is used to refer to a structuring of a particular object or reality into layers. Juxtaposed with the adjective social or the noun society, stratified can potentially be (and has often been) understood as referring to social castes, classes or levels, each one with different status and access to particular resources and forms of privilege. In contrast, our use of the term stratified considers society not as a single and unified object but as an entity composed of multiple layers or strata, with the three core social strata being structure, culture and agency. As will be discussed later, these strata are to a large extent related to one another in the production of social reality, while possessing distinct and emergent properties of their own, thus making them irreducible to each other. This viewpoint is evident in chapters by Mirvahedi (Chapter 4), Chua and Soo (Chapter 7) and Choi (Chapter 8), particularly in Mirvahedi’s statement that

every specific sociopolitical and cultural context gives rise to only particular capacities for action. In this sense, both agents and structures are considered real. Though both have an existence in isolation from one another and with distinct properties and powers, they are in constant interaction with each other.

1.1.4 Structure

When we refer to structural processes or realities, we tend not only to describe particular aspects of the social realm but also to refer to ‘things being structured’. According to Sewell (1992, p. 2), “structure operates in social scientific discourse as a powerful metonymic device, identifying some part of a complex social reality as explaining the whole”. As Sewell argues and as this chapter will make clear, however, this vision—although not entirely misplaced—is problematic mainly because of its deterministic undercurrent. Another problem is that it fails to account for the forces that generate structural change and elaboration. In this sense, Sewell’s description of the term as “the tendency of patterns of relations to be reproduced, even when actors engaging in the relations are unaware of the patterns or do not desire their reproduction” (p. 3) seems appropriate, despite the author’s marked penchant towards Giddens’s somewhat problematic theory of structuration. His description of the term also needs to be enriched by reference to systemic patterns of domination and oppression within society, embedded within the said reproduction of patterns of relations.

Similarly, the term culture also tends to be understood not only in nominative terms but also as a transitive verbal process—that is, as objects or processes being influenced by a set of complex ideational structures embodied by ‘culture’. Indeed, structure and culture are often presented in academia as relatively homologous entities, a problem also highlighted by Sewell (1992). To be fair, both strata do share similar properties in that they are both anterior to agency and provide enabling and constraining influences upon it as well as on the social order (Bouchard, 2017, p. 78). Interestingly enough, this notion is also emphasized in Giddens’s work on structuration theory, although by arguing that structures cannot exist outside the practices that constitute them, the author commits an upward conflation—that is, the reduction of structural processes within agentive processes (see ahead for further discussion on conflationary tendencies in particular strands of social theory).

Structure and culture can also be understood as including underlying causes not always perceptible through the senses, causes that depend a great deal upon agency for their existence. However, important differences between structure and culture must be identified to avoid reinforcing, as Archer puts it, the myth of cultural integration, or the notion that culture is an integrated system. Carter (2000, p. 93) explains that “structural [emergent properties] are distinguished by their primary dependence on material resources (physical and human) [while cultural emergent properties] are dependent on cultural and ideational resources; they are the outcome of rule to rule relations”. Examples of structural realities include social classes, socioeconomic orders, education systems, social institutions and so forth. While agents might rely on cultural knowledge to interpret structural forces (Rubinstein, 2001), the latter are not inherently ideational. Manicas (2006, p. 73) explains the emergent features of organizations (as structural entities) thus: “organizations have properties that cannot be ascribed to their members. Bureaucracies, for example, are difficult to dislodge, operate impersonally and are often painfully slow in getting to a conclusion”. In this volume, Choi (Chapter 8) provides a similar interpretation by defining structure as a set of elements or relationships that constitutes a society, as providing constraining and enabling influences upon agentive acts, and as reproduced and/or transformed through agentive acts.

1.1.5 (Language) Policy as Structural Process

Extending our discussion of structure—and introducing a core analytical element in the work conducted in this volume—is a conceptualization of language policy (and policy in a more general sense) as structural process. Although our principal aim in this book is to provide critical accounts of LPP processes in different contexts around the world, which requires us to look into the constraining ideological potential of policy, we also see value in aligning LPP critique with a vision of policy as a temporal event, a performative yet contested reality that often leads to the creation of new webs of meaning (Shore & Wright, 2011). In this sense, policy can also be seen as one of the outcomes of everyday meaning-making processes—that is, as part of agency (see Liddicoat, Chapter 5).

While policy can be a strong organizing force, even an instrument of governmental and institutional control over people, it can also provide a resource for identity work, a symbol for social relations and a resource for people to structure their everyday experiences. Shore and Wright (2011, p. 20) identify two important features of policy. First, policies are not merely implemented by docile agents: once released they acquire distinct and emergent properties because they travel through social and cultural spaces and, in the process, are interpreted in unpredictable ways. Second, policies are interesting sources of information and knowledge about the formation and workings of governance, power and social change. This leads us to observe that the study of agency in LPP is indeed a very rich area of investigation about the nature of language, discourse, ideology, power and, in a broader sense, the stratified nature of social life.

In contemporary policy research, policies are often described as assemblages. Kingfisher (2013) characterizes policy as the emergent product of intertextual and interdiscursive processes, or the combination of knowledges and beliefs within and beyond the limits of policy endeavors. Most definitions of language policy in LPP literature echo these principles. Johnson (2013, p. 117), for example, argues that language policies are “ideologically cacophonous and heterogeneous (containing varying and sometimes contradictory stylistic and semantic values)”. The author states that policy language is often created from compromise since the policy process invol...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Agency in Language Policy and Planning: A Theoretical Model
• 2 Micro Language Planning and Agency in the Context of Bilingual Education Provision in Mozambique
• 3 Language Change and Social Shifts Post-2010 in the Kyrgyz Republic
• 4 Construction of an ‘Ideal Parent’: Exploring the Interplay Between Educational Policies and Azerbaijani Families’ Agentive Responses in Tabriz, Iran
• 5 Constraints on Agency in Micro Language Policy and Planning in Schools: A Case Study of Curriculum Change
• 6 Singapore’s Language Policy: Agentive Responses and Views of Individual Singaporeans
• 7 The Importance of Leadership Practices in Language Planning in Schools
• 8 Structure, Agency and the “Teaching English in English” Policy: The Case of South Korea
• 9 Development, Implementation and Contestation of Language-in-Education Policies in Nunavut
• 10 Exposing Vacancies: Interactive Agency in Adult Education Language Policy
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• List of Contributors
• Index