Rethinking Language Policy

by Bernard Spolsky

Drawing on four decades of research, Bernard Spolsky presents an updated theory of language policy that starts with the individual speaker instead of the nation. In this book, he surveys the language practices, beliefs, and planning efforts of individuals, families, public and private institutions, local and national activists, advocates and managers, and nations. He examines the diversity of linguistic repertoires and the multiplicity of forces, linguistic and non-linguistic, which account for language shift and maintenance. By starting with the individual speaker and moving through the various levels and domains, Spolsky shows the many different policies with which a national government must compete and illustrates why national policy is so difficult. A definitive guide to the field, this is essential reading for policy makers, stakeholders, researchers, and students of language policy.

276 pages, Hardcover

Published April 20, 2021

About the author

Bernard Spolsky was educated at Wellington College and Victoria University and received a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Montreal.

He has been the head of the English Department, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Director of the Language Policy Research Center at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, where he is currently Professor of English.

Bernard Spolsky has conducted and published research in language testing, second language learning, computers in the humanities, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and language policy. He has been President of TESOL, held a Guggenheim fellowship and a Mellon fellowship, and has been Senior Research Fellow at the National Foreign Language Center in Washington.

He has written several books for Oxford University Press: Conditions for Second Language Learning, Measured Words and Sociolinguistics.

Reviews

[Morgan Brown]

A very good textbook on language policy. Certainly not a "fun read", but very comprehensive and trustworthy.

[Sini]

Recommended as extra material in my language policy class so I was reading it for funsies, but at some point one must ask themselves (and Google) was this man a zionist? I'm picking another book.