Innovations in Language Policy and Planning: How to make language matter for others than sociolinguists — The Association Specialists
  1. Schedule
  2. SESSION 2: Sociolinguistic methodologies
  3. Innovations in Language Policy and Planning: How to make language matter for others than sociolinguists

Innovations in Language Policy and Planning: How to make language matter for others than sociolinguists (19410)

Anna Kristina Hultgren 1 , Emma Dafouz 2 , Ute Smit 3 , Beatrice Zuaro 1 , Marion Nao 1 , Peter Wingrove 1 , Dogan Yuksel 1
  1. School of Languages and Applied Linguistics, The Open University, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
  2. Departamento de Estudios Ingleses Lingüística y Literatura, Madrid Complutense University, Madrid, Spain
  3. English Department, Vienna University, Vienna, Austria

Language policy and planning has recently begun to broaden out, perhaps in realization that language does not always feature prominently on policy makers’ agenda (Gazzola 2023; Darquennes et al. 2020). Broader shifts towards a ‘participatory turn’ (Facer and Enright 2016) in the production of knowledge dovetails with this move. Continuing in this vein, this presentation explores how to make sociolinguistic issues matter in policy processes, exemplifying two different approaches to understanding English-medium education in university contexts.  

The first approach, proposed by the interdisciplinary research project ELEMENTAL, borrows conceptual and methodological tools from political science to retheorize the rise of English in European universities (Hultgren and Wilkinson 2022; Hultgren et al. in press, Nao et al. 2023). By linking the drivers of English in European higher education to a series of ‘steering at a distance’ reforms that have sought to grant higher education institutions greater autonomy while putting into place accountability mechanisms, we seek to bring sociolinguistic matters firmly into the domain of higher education governance and public administration. 

The other approach, known under the acronym of ROAD-MAPPING, combines principles from sociolinguistic, ecolinguistic and language policy research to offer a holistic, dynamic and context-sensitive analysis of English-medium higher education. By identifying six core dimensions, namely Roles of English (in relation to Other languages) (RO), Academic Disciplines (AD), (Language) Management (M), Agents (A), Practices and Processes (PP) and Internationalisation and Glocalisation (ING) (for a detailed account see Dafouz and Smit 2020, 2023), the framework manages to make visible the different aspects that need to be taken into account when designing, planning and implementing language policies.  

We conclude that making language visible and explicit in policy processes can ensure that linguistic issues, here English-medium education, are holistically approached, properly understood, and accorded the attention they merit, including by stakeholders other than sociolinguists.