Dennis Ager

Image and Prestige Planning

The aim of this paper is to clarify some notions about image and prestige planning. Starting from the Welsh example of language policy aiming to revitalise a language in danger of further decreasing in number of speakers and in centrality to Welsh life, definitions of four related terms are explored: image, status, prestige and identity. Paired relationships are suggested: image is a non-factual version of the semi-factual identity of a society, while prestige is the result of an attitudinal stance towards the semi-factual status of a language within a language ecology. Planning to modify status or identity is often regarded as ‘real’ planning, similar to planning for social or economic change, while modifications of prestige or image require emotional manipulation, like commercial marketing. More detailed analysis of a range of planning examples enables distinctions to be made between image planning as a stage in identity formation and consolidation, and prestige planning as attitudinal change. The differences may also lie in a possible interpretation of image planning as long-term, idealistic and rooted in beliefs of the equality of languages, as opposed to short-term, policy-oriented prestige planning reminiscent of military conflict and a strong awareness of dominance.

Language education for intercultural communication

Introduction, Dennis Ager, et al second language learning in Belgium, Ludo Beheydt foreign language education in Bulgaria, Madeleine Danova, et al portrait of a nation as a language learner, I. Vitanova, et al language learning in England and Wales, Sue Wright second national language learning in Finland, Eero Laine identity, community and language policies in contemporary France, Dennis Ager multilingualism in the German school, Ingrid Gogolin the language situation in Hungary, 1990-1991, Szofia Radnai languages in the Netherlands, Maria Oud-de-Glas, et al from USSR to CIS and beyond, Frances Knowles multilingual education as a factor of interethnic relations - the case of the Ukraine, O. Shamshur and T. Izhevskaya the language situation and language education in Yugoslavia, Ranko Bugarski language education for intercultural communication in Slovenia, Albina Necak Luk new trends in educational policy in the republic of Serbia, 1990 to the present, Svenka Savic and Zlata Jukic conclusion, Dennis Ager, et al.

CONSIDERATIONS OF DEMOCRATIZATION AND ELITISM IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

The year, 1992, has been one of bewildering change in British higher education caused primarily by government planning and intervention which has as its motor a complex political agenda. In this article, the authors concern themselves with one of these changes: the apparent move towards the democratization of higher education. The likely effect of this change is then assessed for all sectors of the British population and in particular for the linguistic and ethnic minority groups constituted by recent immigration into the country.

Europe and the politics of language: citizens, migrants and outsiders

Whorfian hypothesis and the discussion and debate that it has engendered, goes into some detail on the ethnography of speaking and ethnomethodology, and provides an extensive discussion of pronouns as forms of address. Here he starts with the classic study by Brown and Gilman and goes on to more recent work, including the use of forms of address in French Canada, China and India. He concludes this section with a presentation of speech-act theory, again with apposite examples and suggestions for further reading. In the final four chapters (Part 4: ‘Understanding and Intervening’), Wardhaugh discusses the increasingly popular topic of language and gender, the ways in which selfpresentation via speech can stigmatise or disadvantage, and language policy and planning. My own bias is that he could easily have devoted an entire section to each of these three topics but, in all fairness, there is rich material provided here for further discussion. Part 4 ends with a three-page conclusion. Since Wardhaugh’s book is intended as an introductory text, it is important to note that there is an extensive set of references (updated since the previous edition) and a useful index. This is a text that I am likely to try the next time that I offer an introductory course in sociolinguistics.

‘Major’ and ‘minor’ languages in Europe: the evolution of practice and policy in the European Union

Abstract The great majority of European States are multilingual — either because they contain within their boundaries autochthonous minorities who have conserved their language or because they are host to allochthonous minorities with various mother tongues which have been retained. The managing of linguistic diversity within the State has been and continues to be problematic — conservation of difference may cause ghettoization; assimilation undermines the identity and culture of the group which assimilates. These problems are multiplied and magnified in the case of the European Union, not only because of the sheer number of linguistic groups involved but also because of the nature of its power relationships. The management of diversity on such a scale is at the very least cumbersome and expensive. However, the easiest solution — intergroup communication effected through a single lingua franca — is not politically acceptable at the present time. Any of the possible contenders for such a role would meet wi...

Language learning and European integration

Abstract Reviewing concepts of identity and ethnicity, and their applicability to Europe through language, religious and cultural criteria, the author notes that the analysis of any moves towards an integrated Europe must come to terms with both behavioural and ethnographic approaches to difference, and particularly to the contrast between dominance and difference theories. If culture is an internalised system of meanings, Europeans will require a socialisation process, and mode of expression through symbols which relate the individual to others and to himself and which thus create cultural identity, in addition to a language of basic communication—which need not be an official language. Strong self‐awareness, one of Clanets three conditions for successful intercultural understanding, is not fully supported as relevant in two studies of cross‐cultural relations. The special role of language in intercultural understanding is however stressed. The final section of the paper considers a language learning po...