Robert B. Kaplan

Language and language-in-education planning in the Pacific Basin

Contributors. Acknowledgements. Preface. Introduction. Language Planning in Japan. Language Planning in the Two Koreas. Language Planning in Taiwan. Language Planning in the Philippines. Language Planning in Indonesia. Language Planning in Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam. Language Planning in Singapore. Language Planning in Australia. Language Planning in New Zealand. Language Planning in Melanesia. Language Planning in Perspective. References. Appendix A: Maps of the Pacific Basin. Author Index. Content Index. Language Index.

Audience and voice in current L1 composition texts: Some implications for ESL student writers

Abstract Many freshman writing programs use an inductive approach to writing instruction. Students are encouraged to discover form in the process of writing. This approach views the acquisition of writing skills as a tacit, unconscious process we find problematic for students whose first language is not English. Drawing from 10 widely used freshman writing textbooks, our study demonstrates the problem of implicitness which exists in regard to two notions central to writing instruction in the United States: “voice” and “audience.” Both notions, as presented in these textbooks, are predicated on a set of assumptions that do not translate well in L2 classrooms because they draw heavily on shared cultural knowledge that is often inaccessible to nonnative students. Our article calls attention to ways in which textbook presentations of these concepts disadvantage L2 student writers. We propose that a discipline-oriented approach to freshman composition will facilitate an easier grasp of these concepts. Such an approach will expose students to the particularities of specific disciplines and provide a more clearly defined discourse community within which to form their views and responses. Knowing for whom they write will create a clearer sense of audience for these students and enable them to present clearer and strongly individualized voices.

A modern history of written discourse analysis

Abstract The term discourse analysis has been used interchangeably in two separate contexts — spoken discourse (i.e., multiple-source dialogic) and written discourse (i.e., single-source monologic). Such a distinction, however, oversimplifies the situation; while there are obvious overlaps between the two, to some extent each has evolved in its own direction. Written discourse analysis, the subject of our discussion, is obviously closely connected with work in literacy, but it implicates a great heterogeneity of topics and approaches, including at least some from psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Discourse analysis, in the sense in which we are using it, emerged in the early 1970s. A modern history of written discourse analysis is perhaps best covered within a 40–50-year time span. In the course of that time, a number of new and emerging disciplines and research fields have contributed to systematic analyses of the linguistic features and patterns occurring in written texts. At the same time, other continuing disciplines have provided contributions that have been important and are ongoing. It should be fairly evident that any attempt to cover such a broad spectrum of views and disciplines would not be appropriate in a single article. We therefore intend to limit the scope of this paper to analyses of written discourse that explore the actual structuring of the text via some consistent framework. Our goal is to highlight and describe historically the various efforts to find the structures and linguistic patterns in texts that contribute to how they are understood, interpreted, and used. It seems to us that, in order to comprehend what has happened in the context of L2 writing research, it is necessary to understand the extensive work that has been done in discourse analysis.

Genres, Authors, Discourse Communities: Theory and Application for (L1 and) L2 Writing Instructors

Abstract This article discusses ways in which disciplinary practices contribute to the simultaneously rigid and fluid nature of genres and the general importance of sensitizing (L1 and) L2 writing instructors to genre-stability and genre-change. Heightening genre awareness in L2 writing instructors is proposed as a possible “in” toward developing their meta-awareness. Making them reflect on social practices within their discourse communities that contribute to ways in which genres remain stable and evolve will give them a sharper sense of how they, through their participation in the communities, do/do not effect changes.

A further note on contrastive rhetoric

The concept of Contrastive Rhetoric was first articulated in 1966. In the intervening decade, a number of studies have been undertaken to test the basic assumption that the organization of paragraphs written in any language by individuals who are not native speakers of that language will be influenced by the rhetorical preferences of the native language. In retrospect, some dozen studies by a variety of scholars are reviewed. Since the primary assumption appears to have survived analysis, a preliminary taxonomy of syntactic devices operating on inter‐sentence transitions and a framework for the analysis of discourse blocs are developed.

Science, technology, language, and information: implications for language and language-in-education planning

In the last decade, China has emerged from its Isolation and has plunged itself into the world scientific and economic networks. China has, in the course of this development, awakened to the importance of using resources available in the larger world for its own interests. With its massive modernization program, China has sought to lift itself up to scientific and economic levels equal to those of the developed nations. As part of this effort, attention has been given both to the role of the Chinese language (and its modernization; Chinese Language Modernization Conference 1983), and to the role of the English language (Waiguoyu 1982; Ye 1982). Both languages have been recognized äs essential (necessary if not sufficient) factors in Chinas development. Both languages represent resources to be used for modernization purposes. With respect to both languages, however, the specific roles they should play in modernization efforts have not yet been clearly articulated. To the extent that the resources which these languages represent are not explicitly defined and effectively employed, China may face serious difficulties in achieving the goals it has set. This paper will be primarily concerned with two purposes: one is to define the relation between scientific Information and language (in particular, English); the second is to examine what the science/language relation implies for aspects of Human Resources Development Planning (HRDP), which is an integral part of any modernization effort (Galinski 1982: 64). These two issues together serve to define the roles of both English and Chinese in modernization efforts, and t o argue for the position that their use äs resources requires planning.

Language planning and its problems

There is a growing tendency in Asia, as well as elsewhere in the world, for English as a foreign/second language (EFL/ESL) programs to be implemented in the early years of primary schooling. Vigorous testimonials from parents about how their child has learned English from an early age – with the implication that such early language learning should be available to all children – abound. As Eggington (2010, this issue) indicates, when this decision is taken in the ecological context of minority language maintenance, it can undermine the efforts to maintain endangered languages. This parental pressure on educational systems has increasingly led governments to support Primary School English teaching curricula for all students. Additionally, parents are spending large sums of money on private tutoring or out of school tuition. Arguments in favor of early foreign language exposure are often based on the ‘earlier is better’ ESL hypothesis, rather than on sound language policy settings and ample EFL research. In Asia, government policies supporting teaching Primary school English are often framed in terms of the need for a language that permits learners to enter into the global community and the need to compete both with other Asian neighbors and with competitors in other parts of the developing world. These trends raise some questions, which to date remain unanswered, including the following:

The hegemony of English in science and technology

Abstract It is clear that English exercises a powerful hegemony in certain transnational domains, including (but not limited to) the international register of science and technology. There are a number of complex issues created by that hegemony of English. Both proximate and distal causes underlying the hegemony of English are briefly explored. A research project (conducted with the cooperation of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) based on a questionnaire survey of all the members of the relatively small Hungarian Academy of Sciences and of a random sample of ‘Doctors of Science’ in Hungary is reported. Dr. Peter Medgyes collected and analysed the Hungarian data, which has been reported in detail in Kaplan & Medgyes (1992); only a cursory summary is presented here. The data show that the ability of Hungarian scientists to be heard beyond Hungary can be differentiated on the basis of their relative English proficiency. The data also show, incidentally, that 40 years of required Russian study in Hungarian ...

Language Policy and Planning: Fundamental Issues.

For much of the 20th century, language policy and planning has been essentially overlooked except as an academic enterprise, being of serious interest largely only to a small coterie of specialists scattered thinly around the world. Still, at present, only a handful of universities in the world offers anything more than a random course in language policy/planning or simply subsumes the entire field in a couple of lectures in the introductory course in sociolinguistics. In the last decade of the 20th century, real-world events have thrust language policy and planning into prominence. The collapse of the former Soviet Union and the powerful resurgence of language loyalties in various Eastern European polities, the rapid economic unification of a multilingual Europe, changing global patterns of immigration, and global economic difficulties have coalesced to create new linguistic conditions and focus attention on long existing linguistic inequities. These conditions have brought into serious question the western notion of an idealized identity between nation and national language . This volume of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics has attempted to draw together various emerging perspectives on language policy and planning and to examine emerging circumstances in a selected set of illustrative areas:

Language Policy and Planning in New Zealand

In 1992, the author of this paper was invited to New Zealand to work within the Ministry of Education on the development of a New Zealand National Languages Policy. Prior to the arrival of the author, Waite (1992a) had prepared a comprehensive document laying out the language issues in New Zealand (see also Peddie 1991). A search of the documentation available in New Zealand (see, e.g., Kaplan 1981, National Language Policy Secretariat 1989) suggests that the notion of a National Languages Policy has been under discussion in New Zealand for more than a quarter of a century. Largely, that discussion has produced a great number of seminars, retreats, symposia, colloquia, and other meetings, and a plethora of reports, most now overtaken by time.