Language policy, language planning and standardization
Table of contents
The study of language policy and language planning may be firmly located within that part of linguistics which has been termed ‘applied sociolinguistics’. Many discussions of policy and planning implicitly suggest that the publication of a spate of basic reference works on these topics in the late 1960s and 1970s (e.g. Haugen 1968; Fishman, Ferguson & Das Gupta 1968; Neustupný 1970; Rubin & Jernudd 1971) marks the birth of these activities. However, language policy and related attention to language questions and problems have been ongoing concerns throughout much of recorded human history. What the publications of the 1960s and 1970s mark is the systematic attention to these issues in emerging postcolonial societies and the implicit claim by linguistics that its practitioners are suitably qualified to attend to such applied language matters.