Book notice: Do Not Leave Your Language Alone

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Forwarded from Linguist-List

Do Not Leave Your Language Alone: The Hidden Status Agendas Within Corpus
Planning in Language Policy

Published: 2006
Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
                http://www.erlbaum.com/

Author: Joshua A Fishman, New York University

This book, focused on corpus planning in language policy, provides a
broad, integrative framework and also discusses multiple languages in
detail. It provides readers with great familiarity with a wide range of
language cases and at the same time gives them the theoretical tools and
analysis to see how they inter-relate. The novelty of the volume is
twofold: First, it deals with corpus planning alone (modernizing a
language per se), and second, it does so in terms of a systematization of
the often unconscious language status aspirations that both guide language
planners themselves and motivate the lay public (the target population of
all language planning).

Corpus planning is going on all over the world today and inevitably
becomes an expression of the societal goals, ideologies, and aspirations
of the societies and cultures that support it. The implication is that the
distinction between corpus and status planning, which has a long tradition
in language planning research, must be critically re-examined.

Written at an introductory level assuming no prior knowledge of the field,
this book is intended as a text for higher undergraduate and lower
graduate level courses in language planning and policy. It is equally
valuable for researchers in the field of language planning, policy, and
politics, as well as those in sociolinguistics, political science, and
communication studies more generally - that is, for all who are interested
in fostering or limiting human intervention in the language change
processes that are ongoing worldwide. Finally, an introduction to corpus
planning that is full of historical vignettes, good humor, visual
illustrations, and cutting-edge thought!

http://linguistlist.org/issues/17/17-1043.html