Language policy and planning

Understood broadly as interventions into language practices, language policy and planning(LPP) has
had a long and checkered history. As an academic discipline, however, LPP isrelatively recent in
origin, having gained momentum from the drives toward nationalism andnation building (Wright
2004: 8).The focus of this overview is primarily on developments within LPP as an
academicdiscipline. The modern history of this discipline can be described in terms of three
mainstages (Ricento 2000): (i) an initial stage of optimism in the 1960s and 1970s that the
languageproblems of newly independent states could be solved via the implementation of
rationaland systematic procedures; (ii) a period of disillusionment in the wake of LPP failures
(1980sand 1990s) that opened the way for a more critical and reflexive appreciation of the rolethat
language and linguists play in society; and (iii) in the present period, a growing sense thatLPP needs
to be reconstituted as a multidisciplinary and politicized approach, sincethe issues it grapples with
are complex and represent interests that can pervade multiplelevels of social life, ranging from the
individual to the state and across state boundariesas well.A motif of this chapter is that it is worth
viewing this history of LPP as a dynamic interplaybetween academic concerns, on the one hand, and
political/bureaucratic interests, on the other.The benefit of such a perspective is that it provides us
with a better awareness of the kinds of con-straints faced by applied linguistics as it attempts to
engage with‘real world’language-relatedproblems.So, though it is the next section that specifically
delves into the history of LPP, there is goodreason, even as we move on to the later sections, to also
keep in mind the challenges that arisewhen attempting to marry more intellectual understandings
of language with the practicaldemands faced by both policy-makers and the people whose lived
experiences are affected bysocio-political decisions about language.
It would not be an overstatement to suggest that LPP is in fact gaining in practicalimportance and
urgency because of the way the world is developing. As a branch of appliedlinguistics, there is much that
LPP can do to make a contribution to debates anddiscussions about the role of language in a fast-
changing and increasingly culturally complexworld.Language policy and planning17

One significant challenge for LPP is tofind ways of addressing multiculturalism. Much ofthe recent
theorizing regarding multiculturalism and the politics of identity has come fromphilosophically inclined
political or legal theorists (Benhabib 2002; Ford 2005; Kymlicka 1995;Taylor 1994) rather than linguists.
While such theorizing is undoubtedly valuable, it is usuallybased on an‘outdated empirical
understanding of the concept of language itself’and tends tobe‘unaware of important sociolinguistic and
other research on these matters’(De Schutter2007: 3). Where LPP is concerned, the most prominent
response has been to call for theadoption of language rights (May 2001; Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas
1995). The generalmotivation behind the proposal for language rights is to ensure that an identifiable
group–usually a discriminated or stigmatized ethnic minority–is granted specific forms of protectionand
consideration on the basis of their associated language. The concept of language rightshas had
enormous appeal,finding a broad swathe of support amongst linguists, sociologists,political
philosophers, policy-makers and community activists (Kymlicka 1995; May 2001;Phillipson and
Skutnabb-Kangas 1995). However, this actually makes it all the more criticalthat language rights be
subjected to careful scrutiny (Blommaert 2001; Stroud 2001). Forexample, while language rights may be
useful as a short-term measure, it is not clear that theyare tenable in the longer term. One reason for
this is that there will be parties who have avested interest in maintaining their (usually hard-won)
language rights, and their motivations–such as the desire to cling to political power or to continue
enjoying the benefits afforded bysuch rights–can be quite independent of how effective such rights may
actually have been indealing with discrimination. This means that LPP needs to better understand the
pros andcons of language rights, and where necessary, explore alternative ways of responding to mul-
ticulturalism. This requires combining the insights of social and political theorists with a
moresophisticated appreciation of the nature of language (Makoni and Pennycook 2007; see
alsodiscussion below).The interest in multiculturalism and language rights gains further resonance
because ofcomplications posed by the commodification of language. As Budachet al. (2003: 604,
uppercase in original) point out:in a new world dominated by service and information economies,
globalization engendersa seemingly paradoxical valuing of community and authenticity...In the new
econ-omy...the value of community and authenticity takes on a new shape in which COM-
MODIFICATION is central. At the same time, commodification provokes a potentialuncoupling of
language and community.Speakers and communities are likely to be increasingly caught up in the
contradictionsbetween treating language as a mark of cultural heritage, and as a skill or resource to be
usedfor socio-economic advancement. And this can have interesting repercussions on
specificimplementations of LPP. For example, in Singapore, the policy of multiracialism aims toguarantee
equal status amongst the three official ethnic mother tongues: Mandarin (for theChinese community),
Malay (for the Malay community) and Tamil (for the Indian commu-nity). However, the state has
recently argued that, in addition to heritage reasons, Mandarinshould also be learned in order to take
advantage of China’s growing economy, therebyactively conceding that instrumental value is an
important motivating factor in languagechoice. As a result, Mandarin is now becoming so popular that a
growing number of non-Chinese parents want schools to allow their children to study the language. This
new emphasison Mandarin as a language commodity has led to concerns within the Chinese
communitythat the language is being learnt for the‘wrong’reasons: the language is being treated less
asLionel Wee18

an emblem of local ethnicity and more as an economic resource for conducting businessnegotiations
with China. More generally, these developments potentially undermine the mul-tiracial logic of the
policy, since the equal status that all three mother tongues are supposed toenjoy is compromised by the
fact that neither Malay nor Tamil can be claimed to enjoy thesame level of economic cachet as
Mandarin (Wee 2003).Thus, another important challenge for LPP is to take better account of the fact
that tradi-tional notions of ethnicity and nation do notfit easily with the multilingual dynamics of
latemodern societies, which are increasingly characterized by a pervasive culture of
consumerism(Baudrillard 1988; Bauman 1998), where‘people define themselves through the messages
theytransmit to others through the goods and practices that they possess and display’(Warde 1994:878).
In this regard, Stroud and Wee (2007) have suggested that the concept of sociolinguisticconsumption
should be given a more foundational status in language policy in late modernity,suggesting that this
might offer a more comprehensive account of the dynamics of languagechoice and change.Finally, one
of the most pressing challenges facing the world today is that of global migra-tion and the related issue
of ensuring the wellbeing and dignity of individuals as they moveacross the globe in search of a better
life. As many states work to accommodate the presence offoreign workers, asylum seekers and other
aliens within their territories, the need to come upwith realistic and sensitive language policies will
require the input of LPP specialists. If suchinput is absent, there is a danger that language policies may
unfairly penalize the very peoplethey were intended to help. Maryns (2005) provides one such example
in her discussion of ayoung female from Sierra Leone seeking asylum in Belgium. Even though applicants
are giventhe opportunity to declare what language they want to use for making their case,
Maryns(2005: 300) notes that:Actual practice, however, reveals serious constraints on language choice,
and these con-straints are language-ideologically based: only monolingual standard varieties qualify
forprocedural interaction. This denial of linguistic variation leads to a denial of pidgins andcreoles
as‘languages in their own right.’The effect of ideology of monolingualism is to deny pidgins and creoles
any legitimate pre-sence in the asylum-seeking procedure despite the fact that for many asylum seekers,
suchmixed languages might constitute their most natural communicative codes. Thus, the move toa
foreign country is not simply a shift in physical location; it is also a shift into a locationwhere linguistic
codes are differently valued. And the asylum seeker is expected to accom-modate the foreign
bureaucratic context despite the communicative problems this raises.Maryns (2005: 312) points out
that:The asylum seeker has to explain her very complex and contextually dense case, addres-sing an
official with different expectations about what is relevant and required in abureaucratic-institutional
context. The bureaucratic format of the interview and the timepressure under which the interaction
takes place offer very little space for negotiatingintended meanings.In the particular case that Maryns
observed, the female applicant’s (2005: 313)‘intrinsicallymixed linguistic repertoire’(West African Krio)
was displaced by the bureaucracy’s require-ment that interviews and reports utilize only monolingual
standards. The interview was con-ducted in English and a subsequent report written in Dutch, neither of
which were languagesLanguage policy and planning19

that the applicant was comfortable with. As a result, details of the applicant’s narrative wereomitted or
misunderstood, and the applicant had no opportunity to correct any inaccuracies.Thus, the state
representatives officiating over asylum-granting procedures often conductinterviews with asylum
seekers in contexts where the linguistic codes being used are not likelyto be shared by those whose
communicative needs are greatest. Notice that the problem heregoes much deeper than making
available different languages, such as Dutch, English, Xhosaor Bantu. It involves a general reluctance to
treat certain codes as beingproper languagesinthefirst place because of their mixed heritage. On this
basis, mixed codes become stigmatizedand are automatically ruled out of official consideration despite
the fact that these codes areprecisely what might be needed in order for asylum seekers to gain a fair
hearing.Even when a migrant has been granted permission to stay, challenges to LPP remain.
Forexample, most Western countries have assumed that migrants will assimilate into their newsocieties
by learning the dominant language (and its associated culture). But this assumption isincreasingly being
challenged by the fact that‘the size of minority residential communities’makes it possible‘that many of
their members will be able to live out their lives using only, orpredominantly, the minority language’,
and also by the‘tendency of migrants to maintaincloser and more regular connections with their
countries of origin’(Ferguson 2006: 7).

Translation and interpreting

IntroductionTranslation and interpreting are forms of linguistic mediation that involve rendering
written ororal text from one language to another. As language-based activities that have
practicalimplications, they are often seen as falling within the remit of applied linguistics. Following
abrief introduction and historical survey of thefield, this chapter focuses on some of the mainissues
that have interested both translation scholars and applied linguists in recent years. Itdoes not engage
with the use of translation in language teaching (for an authoritative overviewof this issue, see Cook
2009).Increased globalization, growing mobility of people and commodities, and the spread
andintensity of armed conflicts in recent years have established translation and interpreting
morefirmly in the public consciousness. As both facilitators and beneficiaries of increased
globalinterconnectedness, translators and interpreters have become important economic players inthe
services sector worldwide, with surveys forecasting an average annual business growth of5–7.5 per
cent between 2005 and 2010 (CSA 2004; EUATC 2005) and the global translationindustry turnover
expected to exceed€12 billion in 2010 (ABI 2002). Recent comparablereports on the interpreting
industry estimate the global outsourced interpreting market at$2.5 billion, $700 million of which is
generated by the burgeoningfield of telephone inter-preting (CSA 2008). At the same time, translators
and interpreters have become more widelyrecognized as important political players, with their
involvement in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistanin particular receiving widespread media
attention.Economic clout and political impact aside, the growing pervasiveness of translation
andinterpreting in all domains of private and public life has also heightened the need for a
betterunderstanding of their social relevance. Against the backdrop of the growing dominance
ofEnglish as a lingua franca, translation and interpreting have become central to promotingcultural
and linguistic diversity in the information society and in the development of multi-lingual content in
global media networks and the audiovisual marketplace. They have alsobecome central to the
delivery of institutional agendas in a wide range of settings, fromsupranational organizations to
judicial and healthcare services at community level. Theimportance of translation and interpreting as
tools of empowerment is further evident in the 39
emergence of new forms of intersemiotic assistive mediation; these include subtitling for thedeaf and
hard-of-hearing and audio description for the blind, both of which aim to facilitateaccess to
information and entertainment for sensory-impaired members of the community.

Lexicography
IntroductionLexicography is an area of applied linguistics that focuses on the compilation of
dictionaries(practical lexicography) as well as on the description of the various types of relations
found inthe lexicon (theoretical lexicography). It is neither a new science nor a new craft.
Historiansgenerally agree that thefirst dictionaries can be traced back to the explanations of
difficultwords inserted into Latin manuscripts in the Middle Ages. These glosses evolved into glos-
saries which were sorted alphabetically or thematically and, as Cowie (2009: 2) points out,came to
fulfill a vital function in teaching and the transmission of knowledge. The use of Latinwords to
explain more difficult Latin ones foreshadowed monolingual dictionaries, with theirheadwords and
definitions, while explanations of hard Latin words in Old English or OldFrench can be seen as a
precursor of modern bilingual dictionaries.Dictionaries are primarily compiled to meet practical
needs. They are also cultural artifactswhich convey a vision of a community’s language. The tension
between prescriptive anddescriptive approaches has often made lexicographers uncomfortable, since,
as Atkins andRundell argue (2008: 2), many users perceive dictionaries as‘authoritative records of
howpeople ought to use language’. Modern lexicography is more concerned with a
descriptiveapproach where the lexicographer compiles a description of the vocabulary of a given
speechcommunity.Robert Cawdrey’sA Table Alphabetical(1604) is usually considered as thefirst
printedmonolingual English dictionary. However, the history of lexicography remembers
SamuelJohnson’sDictionary of the English Language(1755) as thefirst modern and innovative dic-
tionary of English. Johnson’s dictionary reflected the need for a prescriptive and normativeauthority
which would serve to establish a standard of correctness. In his‘Plan of a Dictionaryof the English
Language’, addressed to Lord Chesterfield in 1747, Johnson discussed all thecrucial issues which
lexicographers are faced with, even today, when starting a dictionaryproject, ranging from
inflectional and derivational morphology, to pronunciation and etymol-ogy. The representation of
syntactic information (Johnson did not use the modern term‘sub-categorization’) attracted his
attention when he pointed out that one‘dies of one’s woundswhile one may perish with hunger’. He
stressed that‘every man acquainted with our language 53
would be offended with a change of these particles’. Johnson’s preoccupations are still at theheart of
the creation of current dictionaries, especially learners’dictionaries. He was a radicalthinker who was
well ahead of his time and who managed to shed light on the nature of lan-guage and meaning, long
before philosophers like Wittgenstein started addressing the crucialissue of word meaning. He asked
many important questions which are still hotly debated incontemporary lexicography circles. He was
aware of the need to establish clear criteria forselecting words to be included in dictionaries, or for
distinguishing between general languageand specialized terminology. The term‘corpus
lexicographer’did not exist in 1755, butbecause he was thefirst to base his dictionary on authentic
examples of usage, collected fromthe works of English authors, he was definitely a precursor of
corpus lexicography.A monument of English lexicography is undoubtedly Murray’sOxford English
Dictionary(OED), whosefinal section was published in 1928. The original aim of the project,
whichstarted in 1879, was to produce a four-volume dictionary which would record the history ofthe
English language from Anglo-Saxon times, using nearly two million citation forms to trackthe
genesis and evolution of lexical items. Several supplements were published in the twentiethcentury
(thefirst supplement appeared in 1933) and, today, theOEDincludes around 300,000entries defining
over half a million lexical items (Murrayet al. 1933). The electronic version,which corresponds to the
20-volume integrated work, offers powerful search and browsefunctionalities which provide scholars
with exciting vistas to research the history and evolutionof the English language.Historical
dictionaries have been compiled for several other languages, such as for French,the prime example
being theTrésor de la langue française, whose sixteen volumes are based ona huge corpus of millions
of authentic citations from literary texts. It took nearly 150 years tocompile the DutchWoordenboek
der Nederlandsche Taal(WNT), which, with its 40 volumesand 400,000 headwords, aims to provide
an objective linguistic description of the vocabularystock of that language. All these major historical
dictionaries cover general-language words,but also dialectal, jargon and slang terms, as well as
offensive and swear words which are morelikely to be left out from general-purpose dictionaries.

English for academic purposes

What is EAP?English for Academic Purposes (EAP)‘is usually defined as teaching English with the aim
ofassisting learners’study or research in that language’, but is also a‘theoretically grounded andresearch
informed enterprise’(Hyland 2006: 1). Ideas about the nature of language, learning, andteaching all
impact on the theory and practice of EAP (Basturkmen 2006). Hence, the rolesand responsibilities of the
EAP practitioner are manifold:‘needs assessor, specialized syllabusdesigner, authentic materials
developer, and content knowledgeable instructor, capable of copingwith a revolving door of content
areas relevant to learners’communities’(Belcher 2006: 139).EAP instruction takes place with a range of
learners, in a variety of contexts: (i) in highereducation settings in English-speaking countries; (ii) in
settings where English has officialstatus and is used as a medium of instruction; (iii) in settings where
certain school/universitysubjects are wholly or partly taught in English (e.g. medicine); and (iv) in
settings where alltertiary education is taught in the L1, but English is recognized as an important
additionallanguage for study, and where certain learning materials and texts can only be found in Eng-
lish (Dudley-Evans and St John 1998: 35). Although EAP is traditionally associated exclu-sively with
tertiary education, this perception is being eroded, with a recent special issue ofJournal of English for
Academic Purposesdevoted to EAP in secondary education (see Johnsand Snow 2006). EAP should not
be exclusively associated with the non-native speaker ofEnglish either: the increasingly diverse student
population means that some native speakerswill lack the necessary academic communication skills
(Hyland 2006).EAP, together with English for Occupational Purposes (EOP), is a branch of English
forSpecific Purposes (ESP). Depending on the type of academic subject matter, EAP can be fur-ther
divided into more specific sub-types, e.g. English for Medicine or English for Engineering.However, as
Flowerdew and Peacock (2001) argue, the distinction between EAP and EOP isnot always
straightforward as many aspects of EAP are aimed at preparing students for theirfuture careers in their
disciplines. For instance, an English for Engineering course will typicallycover both skills necessary for
academic study (EAP), such as reading engineering textbooksand writing assignments, but also skills for
engineers, such as writing technical reports, whichcan be classified as EOP. Flowerdew and Peacock
(2001: 12) suggest that EAP should be243

subdivided into‘EAP designed to help students with their studies and EAP directed towardsprofessional
preparation’. While both EAP and EOP are carried out at the university, theirgoals are different in
orientation in that the former is purely academic while the latter has avocational dimension.

History of EAPThe origins of EAP can be traced back to the 1960s, when a growing interest in language
as ameans of communication, language variability in context and functions of specialized lan-guages
prepared the ground for the emergence of EAP (Flowerdew and Peacock 2001). How-ever, equally
important were various non-linguistic factors that led to the need for EAP, suchas the rise of English as a
global language.Stages in the development of EAPAccording to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), the
development of ESP (which includesEAP) can be divided into four stages: (i) register analysis, (ii)
rhetorical and discourse analysis,(iii) study skills, and (iv) needs analysis. It is, of course, overly simplistic
to see these stages asdiscrete; they overlap and elements of each stage continue to influence thinking in
thefieldtoday, albeit to a greater or lesser extent.Register analysisThe primary goal of register analysis
was to identify the grammatical and lexical featuresoccurring more frequently in scientific English than
in general English; hence the term‘lex-icostatistics’(Swales 1988). The assumption was that this
information could then serve as abasis for syllabus and textbook design. Indeed, some of thefirst EAP
textbooks were devel-oped on the basis of thefindings of register analysis (see Swales 1988, and Dudley-
Evans andSt John 1998 for more detail). However, it was realized that teaching the grammatical
andlexical items found to be highly frequent in scientific English did not necessarily make
learnerssuccessful users of scientific English. Seminal work from this period, together with a
helpfulcommentary, can be found in Swales (1988). The more recent developments of academic cor-
pora and sophisticated computer-based methods of analysis have renewed the interest in registers,as
discussed in the section on corpora below.Rhetorical and discourse analysisThe early 1970s brought a
growing realization that linguistic analysis needed to take intoaccount patterns above the sentence or
utterance level (Swales 1988). Studies from this periodfocus on textual structure, discourse patterns and
rhetorical functions of scientific discoursewith the aim of providing practitioners with information on
authentic language use in wholetexts (Hutchinson and Waters 1987). Textbooks based on this work
feature material on functionsof scientific discourse, such as description and classification (e.g. Jordan
1990).
Language testing
Brief history of language testingThe Chinese included a significant language element in their Imperial
Examination systemwhich was used to identify suitable candidates for the empire’s bureaucracy and
lasted for over1,500 years before its demise in 1905. Within a few years of this thefirst standardised test
oflanguage (actually of handwriting) was developed at Teachers College, Columbia Universityby
Thorndike (1911). The methodology followed by Thorndike was soon replicated by Hillegas(1912) who
devised thefirst standardised test of English composition. The development of themultiple choice format
by Kelly (1915) revolutionised the newly emerging discipline. Thelinking of standardisation to this new
methodology offered the opportunity, for thefirst time,for mass testing.In 1913, the University of
Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) introducedthefirst formal test of English as a foreign
language, the Certificate of Proficiency in English(CPE). The CPE was heavily influenced by Sweet’sThe
Practical Study of Languages: A Guidefor Teachers and Learners(1899) and was aimed at overseas
learners who wished to study atUK universities. In the same year, the Association of Modern Language
Teachers of theMiddle States of Maryland set up a special committee to explore the potential for mass
testingof modern languages. The so-called 1913 Committee recognised the need for the curriculum
todrive the learning environment though they saw practical limitations to the direct testing ofspeaking
and thus began the move from direct to standardised tests in the USA.As language learning and teaching
became an industry, more and more tests emerged onboth sides of the Atlantic, each essentially
following the tradition of testing which dominatedits place of origin. The early post-World War II tests
that were developed in the UK by259

UCLES (such as the First Certificate in English) followed very much in the footsteps of theCPE, while the
Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), which was introduced byEducational Testing Services
(ETS) in the USA in 1964, was based on what Spolsky (1998)has called the psychometric-structuralist
approach which had developed over the previous halfcentury in the USA.The TOEFL was a significant
test in that it was thefirst major test of English for specificpurposes and thefirst major international test–
the earlier CPE and FCE were essentiallygeneral language tests and never really reached the same scale
of population as achieved bythe TOEFL, though they were to become major international tests in their
own right by thelate 1980s. By this time testing had begun to change, with a growing awareness of the
need fordomain-specific examinations built on the pioneering work of Swales (1971 for example)
andothers on the theory and practice of English for specific purposes (ESP). The TOEFL/FCEcomparability
study (Bachmanet al. 1995) marked the high point of the psychometric-structuralist driven tests. Despite
itsflaws, the study had a major impact on the attitude ofUK-based examination boards towards
measurement (by which I mean the psychometricqualities of their examinations). By the end of that
decade, most examination boards hadbegun to focus on the issue of accuracy (often referred to,
mistakenly, as‘reliability’–a tech-nical term which refers only to the internal consistency of a test paper),
though the emphasisin the UK was always on content.The main current issues in language testingThe
nature of validityAt around the same time as Galton (1879) was championing the early use of more
scientificmethods of measurement in the UK, Edgeworth (1888: 600) began to explore the accuracy
ofsubjective measurement, noting that‘the observations of the senses are blurred by a fringe oferror
and margin of uncertainty’. He went on to propose a procedure for computing test errorbased on‘that
part of the Calculus of Probabilities which is known as the Theory of Errors’.Within less than two
decades, Spearman (1904) wrote what Brennan (2001: 297) saw as thepaper that‘launched
measurement as a distinctfield of inquiry’.The growth of the testing industry in the USA in the early part
of the twentieth century sawa significant rise in interest in the quality of the examinations being
developed and by themiddle of the century, the notions of validity and reliability (evidence that a test is
measuringthe trait or ability its developer claims to be its focus and the accuracy of this
measurerespectively) had been established (e.g. Cronbach and Meehl 1955; Loevinger 1957). At
thistime, criterion (comparison with other measures or descriptions of language), content (theactual
content of the test in relation to a hypothesised model of language ability) and con-struct (i.e. the trait
or ability being tested) were seen as distinct types of validity with devel-opers typically establishing
evidence of just one. Cureton (1950) and later Loevinger (1957)reconceptualised validity, setting the
scene for others (particularly Messick 1975, 1980) todevelop the unitary conceptualisation of validity
which remains dominant to this day.

Learner corpora
Learner corpora, that is, collections of speech and writing by learners of English, are particu-larly
useful for EAP (see Granger 2002). A number of studies have compared corpora ofnative and non-
native student writing, noting differences in the frequency of certain linguisticfeatures (e.g. Ädel
2008; Granger 1998; Hinkel 2002), thereby identifying language that thelearners in question use
significantly more or less often than native speaker counterparts, ormisuse. A good example of a
learner corpus study is Hyland and Milton’s (1997) study ofnative and non-native students’use of
epistemic modal language, which showed that thenon-native writers relied on a more restricted set
of items than their native speaker counter-parts. There are also striking differences in the frequency
of certain items:appear, for instance,is found thirty-three times more often in the native
writers’corpus.

EAP teacher training

In some parts of the world, institutions ask ELT teachers to teach EAP without providingspecialized
training. A discussion of the nature of such training has largely been neglected todate. Notable
exceptions include a volume on teacher training for teaching languages for spe-cific purposes
(Howard and Brown 1997) and articles by Boswood and Marriott (1994), whodescribe an ESP
teacher training course for experienced ELT teachers, Jackson (1998), whoargues for the use of case
studies in ESP teacher training, and Chen (2000), who reports onself-training through action
research.