ALDERSGATE COLLEGE LANGUAGE PROGRAMS AND POLICIES IN MULTILINGUAL SOCITIES

COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCES AND EDUCATION EROLLE TOLENTINO CARIÑO

LESSON 3: LANGUAGE CHOICE AS THE CORE OF LANGUAGE POLICY

LEARNING GOALS:
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

1. Relate language choice with sociolinguistic context (e.g., location, participants, and topic);
2. Know the eight basic motivations in language planning and hoe these motivations influence language choice;
3. Classify countries’ according to their sociolinguist mix; and
4. Demonstrate through a Language Community Profile that language choice immensely influenced by the beliefs and
attitudes of the people toward the language.

LANGUAGE CHOICE AS THE CORE OF LANGUAGE POLICY

“In a multilingual society, how do people choose language in different

situations?” in the previous lesson, you understood that language choice
differs depending on the domain. More specifically, language choice is
heavily dependent on its sociolinguistic contexts, such as location,
participants involved, and the topic at hand (Spolksy, 2004).

To better understand the relationship between language choice and the sociolinguistic contexts, you will now do a self-survey
of your language choices. Please complete the table below. (20 points)

Domain Topic Setting Participants Language

(what are you (where is the talk (who are you (what languages
talking about? taking place?) talking to?) are you using?)
Give two
examples)

Home
School
Social Media

In the first activity, you have observed (and experience) how individuals choose specific languages in varying situations. On a
macro – level, language choices are done in a far more complex and rigorous manner.

Gupta (1985, in Demeterio & Liwanag, 2014) identified eight basic motivations in language planning that serve as a guide of a
country or state in assigning language statuses followed by a table that shows Philippines languages, their respective
language status, and underpinning motivation.

EIGHT BASIC MOTIVATIONS IN LANGUAGE PLANNING

Anthea Fraser Gupta’s article “Language Status Planning in the ASEAN Countries” listed eight basic motivations that precede
decisions in language planning:

[1] the government’s recognition of the articulated desire of the people;

[2] the cultivation of national identity;
[3] the establishment of a medium for interethnic group communication;
[4] the maintenance of cultural differences between different ethnic groups;
[5] the provision of affirmative support to some disadvantaged groups;
[6] the restriction of some minority groups;
[7] the infusion of power to the dominant group; and

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ALDERSGATE COLLEGE LANGUAGE PROGRAMS AND POLICIES IN MULTILINGUAL SOCITIES

COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCES AND EDUCATION EROLLE TOLENTINO CARIÑO

[8] the establishment of a medium for international communication.

Underpinning Motivations of the Languages in the Philippines Language Status Underpinning Motivation

Language Status Underpinning motivation

Filipino National and co-official language 1 and 2 (unity)
English Co-official language 1, 3 and 8
Regional language Auxiliary official languages in the 1, 2 (in diversity)
regions 4, and 5
Other foreign languages (Spanish, Promoted and tolerated languages 2, (in diversity) 4 and 8
Mandarin, and Arabic)

LANGUAGE PLANNING: Formulation, Codification, Elaboration, and Implementation

These steps or stages in corpus development are also seen as paralleled by policy development, and some analysts
enumerate these steps in language policy planning (Eastman 1983:12):

1. Formulation: setting the goals of the policy. (domains, timetables, territorial extent, etc.)
2. Codification: setting out strategies for the practical achievement of the goals; setting up a legal mechanism to embody
the changes and goals in the legal records.
3. Elaboration: seeing that the language(s) involved may be extended into the arenas specified by the policy goals. In
many cases this may mean that it is necessary to develop new registers where none previously existed.
4. Implementation: providing the authorative backbone (including financial rewards and resources) to achieve the goals,
and the motivation for the use of the language of the policy by the people affected.

What is Sociolinguistics?

Sociolinguistics is the study of the aspects of the relation between language and society. It studies how
language changes from person to person and how language is affected by social class, regions, gender, and
relationship. It is the influence of society on language and vice versa. Sociolinguistics is the study of the complex
relationship between language and society, explaining why we speak differently in different social contexts. Identifying
the social functions of language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning. It also studies how language varieties
differ between groups separated by certain social variables, e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education,
age, etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to categorize individuals in social or socioeconomic
classes.
The language used by the participants is influenced by a number of social factors. What are social factors? What language
people choose to speak in an exchange is determined by social factors:

• The Participants: Ex. age, ranks, relationships.

• The Setting: Ex. at home, in a formal meeting, etc.
• The Topic: Ex. my tennis skills, cooking, exams.
• The Function: Ex. getting a loan, hiring a maid, asking permission to leave the room, etc.

THREE TYPES OF COUNTRIES ACCORDING TO THEIR SOCIOLINGUISTIC MIX

TYPE 1: Ethnolinguistically Homogenous Countries

- It is composed of countries that are ethnolinguistically homogenous. These countries have linguistic minorities but are
usually “geographically or socially marginalized.”
- Ex: Japan, Korea, USA

TYPE 2: Dyadic or Triadic Countries

- This includes countries with two or three ethnolinguistic groups that are equal in number and power.
- Ex: Switzerland, Belgium, Canada

TYPE 3: Mosaic Societies or Multiethnic States

- This covers countries that have five or more ethnic groups.
- Ex: Nigeria, India, Papua New Guinea

Macro Linguistics and Micro Linguistics

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ALDERSGATE COLLEGE LANGUAGE PROGRAMS AND POLICIES IN MULTILINGUAL SOCITIES

COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCES AND EDUCATION EROLLE TOLENTINO CARIÑO

• Micro linguistics - deals with phonetics, grammar, etc. on the individual example level. - refers to phonetics, phonology,
grammar and semantics.

• Macro linguistics - deals with comparative studies among languages, language families, large influences on language
development. - covers sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and other related disciplines.

Sociolinguistics vs. the Sociology of language

Sociolinguistics investigating the relationships between language and society with the goal of a better understanding of the
structure of language and of how languages function in communication.
Sociology of language to discover how social structure can be better understood through the study of language, e.g. how
certain linguistic features serve to characterize particular social arrangement.
*Sociolinguistics is the study of language in relation to society while Sociology of language is the study of society
in relation to language.

LEARNING ACTIVITES:

A. Your task is to replicate the summary table of Underpinning Motivation of Languages using another country. Identify a
country and research on its languages and statuses assigned to them, and the underpinning motivation for the language
choice. (20 points)

Language Status Underpinning motivation

National and co-official language
Co-official language
Auxiliary official languages in the
regions
Promoted and tolerated languages

B. Language Profile- Output

- Your task is to create a short Language Community Profile of a group of people to determine their attitudes toward certain
language. The detailed instructions are listed below:

1. Given that this is a group output, your respondents profile may only involve five individuals. Decide which among
the groups enumerated you will work on.
a. Group of foreigners of the same nationality
b. Group of Filipinos whose L1 is Filipino
c. Group of Filipino whose L1 is not Filipino

2. Use the questions by SIL International (n.d.) to elicit the participants’ opinions and attitudes toward certain
languages.
• For what activities is the first language thought to be inadequate? Give reasons.
• For what activities is the second or third language not thought to be adequate? Give reasons.
• Is it “good’ to speak X language? Why?
• Could someone who speaks only X language get a good job? Why?
• What language do you think that God likes? Why?
• Would you ever use (L2, trade language, national) for…funeral, singing, etc.
• Can you think of a situation in which it is best not to use your mother tongue? Why?
• What is the most useful language to know around here? Give reasons.

3.Prepare a five -minute presentation to share your findings with the class.

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ALDERSGATE COLLEGE LANGUAGE PROGRAMS AND POLICIES IN MULTILINGUAL SOCITIES

COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCES AND EDUCATION EROLLE TOLENTINO CARIÑO

Criteria for Grading the Language Profile:

Adequate Description of Community context 10 points

Quality of Data 20 points

Inclusion of Direct Quotation as Data Support 10 points

Clear and Organized Data Presentation 10 points

Group Collaboration 10 points

Total 60 points

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