1.1 Discursive Approaches to Language PolicyâWhy Now?
This volume is a series of explorations of language policy from a discursive perspective. Its chief aim is to systematically explore the interconnectedness of language policy and discourse through what we are terming âdiscursive approaches to language policyâ (DALP). We show that language policy is a multilayered phenomenon that is constituted and enacted in and through discourse (which is defined more closely in Sect. 1.2). Language policy is a fast-growing, vibrant, and interdisciplinary field of inquiry that offers a variety of theoretical frameworks, methodologies, analytic approaches, and empirical findings: the framing sections at the beginning of each part of this volume and the commentary at the end frame the discussion of developments in language policy and especially the role of DALP therein.
Like the field of language policy and planning (LPP), discourse studies comprises a broad range of frameworks and conceptualisations, including diverse theoretical and methodological angles (see Wodak and Meyer 2015). Language policy is not least an ideological phenomenon that constructs, transports, and recontextualises ideologies about the value of languages and their speakers. We argue that in order to account for and analyse the multiple layers of language policy and its concomitant impact, we need to theoretically, methodologically, and empirically engage with policy in terms of both structure and agency, and this is made possible by applying various forms of critical and discursive analysis to language policy situations.
The fields of language policy and discourse studies have been subject to a series of âcriticalâ turns, which have shaped applied linguistic and sociolinguistic research in the social sciences and humanities. Among other challenges to existing approaches, these turns have meant that scholars have engaged with what is going on âbeyond the textâ. Moving to this âmore-than-textualâ realm means that scholars must take up notions of space and time; engage with the visual, the material, and the affective; and look at these from a diachronic and synchronic perspective and in specific social and discursive contexts. We may therefore ask where this leaves the study of language policy as well as of discourse more generally. In an effort to answer this question, the present volume not only offers a valuable theoretical and methodological addition to the scholarly inquiry of language policy from a discursive angle but also illustrates how to turn knowledge gained from research into practical applications, but without losing sight of some of the key tenets of critical language policy research : to expose and seek remedies against social inequalities and injustices, and to mediate and improve communication about and around language policy.
1.2 What Is a Discursive Approach?
The notion of âdiscourseâ is famously slippery. While in some forms of applied linguistics, it can mean something as relatively straightforward as the level of language above the sentence (see, for instance, Stubbs 1983), in critical discourse studies, it has come to be associated with two different ways of understanding the link between society and language. Fairclough (2003) distinguishes between âa discourse â or âdiscoursesâ plural on the one hand, and âdiscourseâ as a noncount noun on the other. The former suggests a particular ideology or âway of seeing the worldâ and is more closely aligned with Foucauldian discourse analysis, while the latter is more akin to the understanding of discourse developed in other critical discourse studies approaches (see, for instance, Fairclough and Wodak 1997, or Wodak and Meyer 2015 p. 5ff for a brief overview): it is essentially a text in its social context, or language treated as a form of social action. While all these understandings of discourse can be found to varying degrees in this volume, it is the latter that particularly characterises the âdiscursiveâ in DALP. Although many of the contributors in this volume are concerned with ideologies, these could be investigated in a variety of ways. Some language policy work that may take account of or at least mention ideologies (for instance, Grin 2013) could not be reasonably described as discursive in nature. The contributions in this volume, by contrast, focus on close textual, contextual, and socio-historical analysis of language policies and associated practices from a critical perspective.
Criticality is the second major strut in the DALP framework. By critical, we mean adopting a problem-oriented approach: questioning what is taken for granted, indicating problematic discursive practices by policy-makers and other elites, and challenging dominant ideologies and normative assumptions. The contributions examine the discursive construction of language policies and their social effects, be they material (in terms of access to resources in particular spaces) or symbolic (in terms of identity politics and language attitudes, and how they change over time), or a conflation of the two. This approach allows us to connect to several themes that are currently resonating more widely within the field of sociolinguistics/applied linguistics, namely language in relation to the neoliberalised global economy, citizenship, education, regional/national/transnational identities/migration, and superdiversity on the global versus the local scale. Again, it is possible to analyse these themes without taking an overtly critical stance (for instance, Spolsky 2004 describes a number of these areas without necessarily critiquing the underlying conditions in the polities he investigates), and certainly without taking a discursive approach; some research is more concerned with economic aspects, or more with the overt content of language policy texts, than with the underlying ideologies. Johnson gives a brief overview of the critical turn in LPP in his framing section for Part I of this volume, but this topic is much more extensively dealt with in Johnson (2013). In summary, while there is now a substantial body of work that can be described as critical in orientation, there is still work to be done, and of course, it is patently obvious that there are still inequalities too numerous to mention in language polities around the world.
1.3 Key Questions for Discursive Approaches to Language Policy
Our decision to develop this volume originated from a conference panel entitled âDiscursive approaches to language policyâ that we organised at the 2014 Sociolinguistics Symposium in JyvĂ€skylĂ€, Finland, and which led to lively debates and interactions. After the initial discussions sparked during the colloquium, we felt the need to take this project further in order to do justice to a range of pressing questions in the fields of language policy and discourse studies, which we had both also started to explore in our own prior research (see, for instance, Barakos 2012; Unger 2013). In this volume, we bring together some of the participants of this original panel along with several additional contributions that augment our understanding of the theory, methodology, and practice of DALP. The key questions our contributors address are:
- 1.How can we rearticulate the meaning and practice of the concepts of âlanguage policyâ and âdiscourseâ?
- 2.What can be gained by bringing together language policy and critical discursive approaches?
- 3.How does discourse frame language policy action and actors and vice versa?
- 4.How do social actors sustain or resist language policy processes in and through discourse?
By putting such questions up for debate, this volume adds to the existing and proliferating body of literature on critical and discursively oriented language policy work. While Ricentoâs seminal (2003) article âThe discursive construction of Americanismâ may be seen as the start of an in-depth engagement of the North American LPP tradition with the largely European traditions of critical discourse analysis, the field has expanded over time, as evidenced by a clearly growing body of critical, discourse-analytic, ethnographic, and anthropological work on policy discourses and practices, by, for instance, Johnson (2009, 2013), Heller (2006), Shohamy (2006), or KrzyĆŒanowski and Wodak (2011), to name just a few and leave many unnamed. There have also been a number of relevant journal special issues and handbooks or edited collections that have, in part at least, addressed issues of criticality and various methodological (see Ungerâs framing section for Part II) issues that are of concern to DALP. For example, a special issue of Critical Discourse Studies on the theme of âEthnography and Critical Discourse Analysisâ includes a highly relevant contribution by Johnson (2011). This special issue is also indicative of the wider âethnographic turn â within both language policy and discourse studies around this period (see also McCarty 2011). Published even more recently, Hult and Johnsonâs (2015) textbook and Ricentoâs (2015) three-volume handbook contain numerous chapters concerned with discursive analyses of language policies alongside other approaches such as corpus or economic analyses. These various works demonstrate the ongoing relevance and need for language policy and discourse scholars to engage with new theories, methods, and practices within and between disciplines.
The scholars generating this body of work have not necessarily all explicitly labelled it as constituting a discursive approach, while some have, of course, operated overtly under this paradigm. In essence, the present volume expands the range of theoretical and methodological approaches within language policy by explicitly proposing that we view language policy through a discursive lens and by offering a more systematic discussion of discursive policy work and research. It also addresses some of the challenges and opportunities that an investigation of language policy from a critical discursive angle invariably raises. Namely, what notions such as text, discourse, and genre bring to the understanding of language policy, and what the nodal points of language policy, ideology, and discourse are?
1.4 Outline of the Volume
The present volume consists of a brief introduction, followed by three main thematic parts with a theoretical, methodological, and empirical focus, respectively. Each of these parts is introduced by short framing sections which provide the context for the ensuing individual chapters. The contributions are written by scholars working on innovative language policy projects. They provide rich theoretical insights, take up new methodological developments, and showcase their empirical applications of DALP. Strictly speaking, each contribution has theoretical, methodological, and empirical components, and the research underlying each chapter could have been used in any one of the different parts. Our reasons for dividing this volume in this way were to give each contributor a chance to reflect on different aspects of their work, without the pressure of presenting a complete theoretical and methodological framework as well as substantial data analysis that characterises most journal articles and book chapters in the field. By focussing mainly on just one of these aspects, we feel the contributors have been able ...