An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

5.2 Language planning
5.2.1 Development
Natural resources (deposits such as oil and minerals, water, fertile land and fisheries)
are at the disposal of states and subject to policies of various kinds. Populations are
also resources, their abilities and, through education, their qualifications and skills.
One such ability is the languages spoken in the community and those which the
community wishes to promote. Whether the community has an explicit view of its
language situation or not it will inevitably have a language policy which determines
such matters as which language(s) are to be recognised as the official language(s) of
the state, which languages are to be used as medium of instruction in schools, as the
medium of broadcasting, in the legal system and so on. Official intervention by the
state in some cases requires the institutionalising of a state body which oversees pre -
scriptive issues, bodies such as the Academie Française and the Malaysian National
Languages Board. Even where there is no such official state body there will be some
para-statal body (such as the BBC in the UK), publishing houses and newspapers
that shape attitude and emphasise norms. Further there will be a policy, again
explicit or not, indicating the official attitude towards minority languages used in the
community and determining which languages are to be taught as foreign languages
in schools. Such community (usually national) policies come under the general label
of language planning.
The need for a national language plan is acute in newly formed communities
which are faced with immediate decisions about which language(s) to select as the
official state language. Newly independent states in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were
faced with such a decision. In the main the majority chose to continue with the exist -
ing situation, which explains why so many former British colonies still use English
as their official language, however many other languages may be current within
their borders and however few nationals actually use English as their main means
of communication. Inertia, continuation of their British connection, scarcity of re -
sources to provide the necessary materials (textbooks and other reading materials) in
an indigenous language, unwillingness to compel a choice among the competitor
indigenous languages for selection as the new official language, reasons such as these
have tended to continue the language status quo.
While the need always exists for language planning on a small scale, such as which
languages to offer in a school curriculum over the next period, it is rare, even in the
newly emerging states mentioned above, to be given the opportunity to develop a
national language plan. Such an opportunity did arise in Australia in the 1980s
where Joe Lo Bianco was invited to develop a National Policy on Languages. Australia
was not a newly emerging state, but, like Canada which had some years earlier
produced its own national policy of bilingualism, Australia did need to come to
terms with its new multi-racial (and multilingual) population, following the large-
scale immigration of the 1950s. At the same time it needed to adjust to its geo-
economic reality of being a ‘European’ country in the Asian-Pacific region. And very
late in the day there was the abiding recognition of the injury to indigenous
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An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
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communities whose languages were dying if not dead. What was needed, it was
decided, was an informed view of the linguistic ecology of Australia which would
allow practical and ethical decisions to be made. This is a classic applied linguistics
problem since it required a balance of political, educational and linguistic under -
standing. Such a combination can be found in the report by Joe Lo Bianco published
in 1987 
The National Policy on Languages
.
The activity of language policy formulation is, writes the author:
known as language planning when explicit statements and programs are made
and enacted to respond to urgent problems of a linguistic nature. Choices and
priorities need to be made and set since language pervades all of public and private
life. The context means that the federal nature of Australia, consisting of at least
eight governments, influences the type of language planning possible in Australia.
Therefore it is necessary that broad statements with clear principles be enunciated
so that the language problems which face the country as a whole can be tackled at
the various relevant levels by the appropriate authorities.
(Lo Bianco 1987: 189)
The proposed policy is comprehensive and takes account of what are called the
‘language problems which confront Australia’. These, summarised, are: