Language management is going on all the time—from the more obvious institutional attempts to legislate linguistic behaviour and mandate and proscribe language use to the more subtle choices individuals make about which language(s) or language varieties to use when and with whom. This course introduces students to the main issues involved in language planning and language policy and will explore the social and political consequences of institutional attempts to manage language. The course considers how language policy is deeply embedded in beliefs or ideologies people have about language, and examines the sources of these ideologies. It addresses the central question of who has the ability or the authority to make choices where language and its use is concerned, and whose will and whose choices will ultimately prevail. In a world where multilingualism and variation in language is the norm and monolingualism the exception, migration and technological advances have generated new challenges for language policy makers, causing new issues of language choice to emerge.
The core issues to be addressed in this course are: How and why national and official languages are chosen and what this means politically in a society; How language education policy can affect members of a society; How the spread of English as a world language has affected the linguistic ecology of societies around the globe, and how its spread is related to the proliferation of World Englishes; How societies treat indigenous languages; How minority language rights pose challenges for policy makers at the national and supranational level. Data from Australia as well as a variety of world contexts will be used to explore these core issues.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will have the knowledge and skills to:- identify who gets to make the decisions about which language to speak and which variety of language is good or bad, and who stands to benefit from these decisions;
- discuss the degree to which linguistic behaviour can be legislated and language use proscribed or mandated;
- assess whether national language policies can be said to be meaningful or successful;
- explain the complex attitudes people have to language, multilingualism and national identity;
- reflect on and articulate how your own views on language management have developed over the course of the semester.
Indicative Assessment
Tutorial Preparation Tasks, 1500 words total (30%) [LOs 1-5 ]Case study proposal and annotated bibliography, 1000 words (20%) [LOs 1-4]
Case study, 2500 words (40%) [LOs 1-4]
Tutorial participation (10%) [LOs 1-5]
In response to COVID-19: Please note that Semester 2 Class Summary information (available under the classes tab) is as up to date as possible. Changes to Class Summaries not captured by this publication will be available to enrolled students via Wattle.
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Workload
130 hours of total student learning time made up from:a) 36 hours of contact over 12 weeks: 24 hours of lectures and 12 hours of tutorials, and
b) 94 hours of independent student research, reading and writing.
Requisite and Incompatibility
Prescribed Texts
Spolsky, B.,2004 Language Policy, Cambridge University Press.
Majors
Minors
Fees
Tuition fees are for the academic year indicated at the top of the page.
If you are a domestic graduate coursework or international student you will be required to pay tuition fees. Tuition fees are indexed annually. Further information for domestic and international students about tuition and other fees can be found at Fees.
- Student Contribution Band:
- 1
- Unit value:
- 6 units
If you are an undergraduate student and have been offered a Commonwealth supported place, your fees are set by the Australian Government for each course. At ANU 1 EFTSL is 48 units (normally 8 x 6-unit courses). You can find your student contribution amount for each course at Fees. Where there is a unit range displayed for this course, not all unit options below may be available.
| Units | EFTSL |
|---|---|
| 6.00 | 0.12500 |
Course fees
- Domestic fee paying students
| Year | Fee |
|---|---|
| 2020 | $3120 |
- International fee paying students
| Year | Fee |
|---|---|
| 2020 | $4800 |
Offerings, Dates and Class Summary Links
ANU utilises MyTimetable to enable students to view the timetable for their enrolled courses, browse, then self-allocate to small teaching activities / tutorials so they can better plan their time. Find out more on the Timetable webpage.
