Tollefson, James W., ed. (2001) Language Policies in Education: Critical Issues. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, xiii+350pp, paperback ISBN 0-8058-3601-2, $34.50.
Gabriel Rei-Doval, The University of Birmingham.
OVERVIEW This volume edited by James W. Tollefson represents a new effort to take systematic research in the field of Language Planning and Education. Previous Tollefson's pieces of work (1991, 1995) also approached this area from a wide perspective, integrating the field in a comprehensive framework where main social disciplines were considered. The book consists of 16 original chapters written by specialists in different language situations around the world, including North America, Australia, Eastern Europe, Africa, East and South Asia and the Pacific.
>From different approaches, the diverse authors try to deal with such important matters as the interface between language policy and dominant groups in various societies, the role of language in the promotion or isolation of ethnic groups or the relation between educational system and language promotion.
It is suggested that the volume be used as a textbook in graduate and advanced undergraduate courses on language policy (LP) and language education. Indeed, it might be useful for scholars in different areas such as education, applied linguistics, language planning, critical linguistics or language teaching.
The editor establishes six parts in order to offer different complementary views on the field. After the corresponding preface and list of contributors, Part I offers an initial theoretical overview of LP, focusing on the nature of forces affecting language policies in education and their eventual constraints and alternatives. In chapter 1, James W. Tollefson highlights key ideas recurring throughout the book. In chapter 2, Mary McGroarty considers different approaches and theoretical implications of LP in Education, first noting the limitations of approaches used in language-related fields and then turning to the work of contemporary scholars in political science, philosophy and law. From a US perspective, this chapter illustrates the complicated relationships maintained by forces affecting education.
Chapters in Part II discuss how authorities use educational policies to manage access to language rights and education, and the subsequent consequences of specific programs for language minority communities. Wiley's chapter 3 analyses the unbalanced historical distribution of language rights and educational programs in the United States, considering the mixed bag of official and unofficial policies that have affected both immigrant and indigenous communities over the last three centuries. Burnaby's approach in chapter 4 deals with the French- English debate in Canada, considering in particular the linguistic integration of Ontario's immigrants and the efforts carried out on the east coast of St. James Bay to promote education in Cree language.
Part III deals with the use of language policy by state authorities in order to achieve political and cultural 'governance'; that is, strategies of controlling individuals and groups by state authorities. The focus is not only on the results of particular policies, but also on the nature and capacity of these debates to generate discursive regimes. This is the perspective adopted by Pennycook in chapter 5 to explain the colonial implications of educational system in Hong Kong, historically constricted between British and Chinese empires. Helen Moore's historical analysis of Australian English-only policy in chapter 6 is particularly illustrative of the backward step suffered by that society over the last fifteen years of conservative policies towards immigrants' rights and identity. In chapter 7, Thomas S. Donahue provides a clever analysis of political, legal and discursive struggles on languages in US Arizona, part of a broader problem, the disconnection between the individual and the community in a solipsistic social and educational system, whose constraints are clearly ideologically conditioned. From Donahue's point of view, a society under these circumstances of anomie offers ideal conditions for ideological manipulation to politically dominant groups, who enjoy unbeatable tools to confuse the public and private ideological certainties of the citizens.
Two chapters in section IV consider the contribution of LP in Education to the creation, endurance or reduction of political conflicts among different ethnolinguistic groups. The comparison between the Yugoslavian and the Indian situation aims to offer contrasting insights into such a delicate and intriguing topic. In chapter 8, Selma K. Sonntag depicts the Indian situation and its "three language formula", examining the relationship between the symbolic politics of language and the practical pedagogical import of minority language use in education in the context of North India. A more imperialist national view was promoted by Serbian leaders in Yugoslavia after the death of General Tito in 1980. In a insightful chapter 9, Tollefson considers, first, the role played by ideologies in legitimizing Serbian language policy and, secondly, the depiction of the internationalist strategy followed by the Slovenians before, during and after their political segregation from the Serbians.
Section V explores the influence of global factors such as colonialism, decolonization, the spread of English and the growth of the integrated capitalist economy on local programs and policies in language education. In chapter 10, Florian Coulmas traces the social history of Japanese since the Meiji era, and its role as an element of national unification and dialogue with the West. Particular attention is paid to the symbolic power of its writing system and its reforms, as well as to the contemporary role played by English and the immigrant languages. Chapters 11 by Sue Wright and 12 by Sook Kyung & Bonny Norton are clearly related with the role played by English as an international language. Wright shows in chapter 11 how in Vietnam, despite dramatic experiences with Western countries, international languages have been faithful partners of military and economic Empires, first French, afterwards American, and now both in competition. Chapter 12 deals with the plans and motivations to learn English in contemporary Korean schools. While it seems to be clear for Korean society that English is a useful language of wider communication, some policymakers wonder about the effects of such a decidedly English-led policy on Korean language development and national identity.
In chapter 13, Mazrui examines the role of English as an international language from the African perspective by highlighting its historical colonialist dimension, still present and even reinforced in recent times thanks to university education, the ultimate instrument of cultural westernization. It is particularly interesting to see how English is winning the battle even in countries where, like in Tanzania, bets have been placed on Swahili as a language of wider communication for the continent.
Prior to the conclusion, Part VI is focused on the alternatives of indigenous peoples and other language minorities to develop educational policies and effective programs for their needs and demands, against the important pressures exerted by more powerful social and ethnolinguistic groups. In chapter 14, Teresa L. McCarthy deals with educational programs in the US Southwest and Hawaii, showing the impetus that language demands can acquire even in an imperial English- only country, highlighting failures and achievements in terms of corpus, status and acquisition planning. Following with rethinking indigenous and minority language education policy, chapter 15 analyzes the difficulties of pedagogic programs in the Solomon Islands to preserve traditional values and ways of thinking.
In Chapter 16, Tollefson offers his conclusions and key ideas about the interface between educational system and language policies, focusing on such aspects as language maintenance, revitalization and reclamation programs, as well as the dependence of language policies on sociopolitical constraints.
CRITICAL EVALUATION Language Policies in Education is a highly interesting book for any scholar or student interested in Language Planning and Policy. Its varied chapters give us a multiple view on these topics, showing a multi-disciplinary conception of the referred areas.
The selection of focuses and chapters in this volume expresses "the belief that language policies in education must be understood in connection with broad social, political, and economic forces" (p. X). This led Tollefson to select articles that "move outward from educational concerns of the classroom toward broader social, political and economic issues" (ibid). This theoretical point of view guides the following articles and is especially useful in order to expand the focus and aims of the field. However, articles obviate approaches set in the past such as Fishman's (1991) illuminating debate about the capacity of the educational system for reversing language shift, only briefly considered by McCarty in pages 303-04.
Nevertheless, most of the chapters offer different angles on this polygonal field, leading us to a comprehensive overview. Even for a reader with a scant knowledge in multilingual situations, this book is extremely helpful and formative.
A possible shortcoming could be attributed to the English-led perspective along the book. In almost all the chapters English is in some way the object of analysis. In some of them, as a primary topic (chapters 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14), and in the rest, central attention is paid to its role as a language of wider communication for those societies. While it must be acknowledged that an open-minded perspective has been maintained, the interplay between languages like French, Spanish, German, Russian, classical Arabic or Swahili and minority or indigenous languages could also have been explored. It is certainly the task of the editor to decide what to include in his volume, namely when, as in this case, his aim is not to offer an encyclopedic compilation of language situations around the world, but appropriate exemplification of the main topics in this field. But, in order to complete such a pluralistic, democratic and progressive view of LP in education as the offered by Tollefson, this suggestion might be of interest.
In any case, Tollefson's book is definitely remarkable, showing maximum interest for both students and scholars in Language Policy and Planning in Education. In one word, this is a potential future classic-book in its field.
REFERENCES Fishman, Joshua A. (1991) Reversing Language Shift. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Tollefson, James W. (1991) Planning Language, Planning Inequality: Language Policy in the Community. London: Longman.
Tollefson, James W. (1995) Power and Inequality in Language Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER Gabriel Rei-Doval is a Honorary Lecturer in Galician Language and Culture at the University of Birmingham. In 1999, he completed a MPhil in Linguistics at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain) with the dissertation "A Brief Approach to the History of Galician Sociolinguistics (1967-1997)". In 2001, he received his PhD from the same University with the dissertation "Galician Language in Urban Settings: a view from Macro-Sociolinguistics". Over the last decade, he has worked on research projects as the Sociolinguistic Map of Galicia and the Euromosaic survey on Minority Languages, among others. His research interests encompass Sociolinguistics and Language Planning, Second Language Teaching, Historiography of Linguistics, and Galician and Hispanic Linguistics.
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