This text describes and evaluates recent language planning and policy in the British Isles. Issues including minority language rights, language resources for the state and the citizen, and problems such as the standard English battle and policy for Welsh and Gaelic are analysed against the background of detailed study of contemporary British society and politics.
Dennis Ager is is Emeritus Professor of Modern Languages at Aston University, UK. His interests lie in language behaviour at the interface between language and society. He is the author of Sociolinguistics and Contemporary French (Cambridge University Press, 1990) and of Language, Community and the State (Intellect, 1997). His most recent books on language policy are Identity, Insecurity and Image. France and Language (Multilingual Matters, No 112) (Multilingual Matters, 1999) and Motivation in Language Planning and Language Policy (Multilingual Matters, No 119) (Multilingual Matters, 2001).
Preface
Acknowledgements
Tables
Figures
Introduction
1. Language Communities
2. Language Attitudes
3. Planning and Policy: From 880 to the 1950s
4. Non-political Language Planning
5. Language Rights
6. Language as a Resource for Citizens
7. Language as a Resource for the State
8. Language as a Political Problem
9. British Language Policy and Planning in Perspective
Appendix
References
Index