[lg policy] CFP: Language Policy, Planning and Agentive Responses

Sat Jan 28 08:53:13 UTC 2017

Language Policy, Planning and Agentive Responses

500-word Proposal: March 1st, 2017

Chapter Submission Deadline (tentative): July 30, 2017

Editors: Dr. Jeremie Bouchard (Hokkai Gakuen University)

Dr. Gregory Paul Glasgow (Rikkyo University TBA)

Summary of proposed edited book

Understanding the degree to which language policy and planning (LPP) either facilitates or hinders people’s situated language use requires specific attention to agency, or in this case the multifarious responses to language policy by human agents. While contemporary research on LPP has revealed that agentive responses can take multiple forms including interpretation, negotiation, reconstruction, reproduction, implementation, rejection, contestation, resistance and of course mere disregard, few theoretical models have been provided to account for particular type(s) of responses in particular settings at particular times. Instead, the current focus on human agency in LPP research has tended to present agentive responses as complex and often contradictory, thus failing to translate research results into the design of more sophisticated theoretical models of human agency. Enriching this focus on agency, however, should not be interpreted as justification for an analytical dismissal of the structural properties of language policy. Quite the contrary: it is a call for LPP researchers to provide clearer accounts of the multiple layers of language policy practices unfolding at national, institutional and local levels. This need for stratified perspectives into agentive responses to LPP is specifically aimed at situating agentive processes within context. In other words, to understand the agentive features of LPP, not only do we need to clarify how language users respond to LPP, we also need to broaden our epistemological scope and provide insight into how they, as reflexive beings, attempt to mediate the forces of structure, culture and agency, as they engage in communicative acts.

In the proposed edited book, our focus on agentive responses to LPP aims to present a fresh understanding of the macro and micro levels of LPP not as two opposing domains inevitably involved in perpetual conflict, but instead as different social strata possessing distinct properties, often moving in different directions, yet also being about each other in complex ways. Our focus on agency is also aimed at clarifying important elements necessary to the improvement and potential success of LPP in specific national, institutional and local contexts. This focus reflects contemporary concerns regarding the nature and roles of LPP within and between nations.

The proposed edited volume seeks chapter contributions with clear theoretical and methodological bases, and which provide a broad range of perspectives, ranging from personal narratives to other empirically-based inquiries into LPP, language conflicts and human agency. Of great value are contributions which look specifically at agentive processes within the domain of policy design. While insight into how human agents respond to policy in context is essential to an understanding of LPP as stratified reality, too often missing are analyses revealing the day-to-day processes of policy design and publication. It is our belief that greater insight into this too often secretive layer of policy is needed so as to understand not only how LPP comes about but also the complex processes involved in formulating language policies within specific linguistic, cultural, social, economic and historical conditions. As editors, we consider this particular research angle as vital to an enrichment of our currently limited understanding of human agency within institutional domains. Also of interest are contributions which deepen our current understanding of the different aspects of agency. These contributions might, for example, explore points of convergence and divergence between individual agency (e.g. what one teacher says, thinks and does) and collective agency (e.g. collective decision making at the local or community level).

Proposals that reflect our particular prioritization of agency in LPP may examine any of the following three strands in LPP, as described by Hornberger (2006):

? Status planning: language officialization, nationalization, standardization, proscription, revival, maintenance, spread, and interlingual communication

? Acquisition planning: planning of language groups, language education, language and religion, language and literature, the mass media, language and work, language reacquisition, shift, and foreign or second language learning and literacy

? Corpus planning: planning related to the standardization of corpus and auxiliary codes and graphization, language modernization and renovation (lexical and stylistic changes), and language reforms (e.g. language purification, simplification and unification)

Although this call for chapters aims to propose a specific theoretical model which can be used in subsequent research to account for particular type(s) of agentive responses to LPP, all methodological and theoretical approaches will be considered. As editors, one of our main tasks will be to clarify the thematic, theoretical and methodological points of convergence and divergence between chapters.

Guidelines for Chapter Proposal Submission

You are invited to submit a 500-word proposal by March 1st, 2017 containing the following information:

? Book section to which your chapter is being submitted (status, corpus or acquisition planning)

? Proposal chapter title

? Author name(s) and affiliation(s)

? Overview of chapter

? 100-word biography for each author

Authors of accepted proposal will be notified by April 1, 2017.

This volume has been discussed with Springer, an internationally reputable publisher. Once chapter proposals are finalized, a full book proposal will be sent to the publisher. Upon acceptance by the publisher, potential chapter authors will be invited to submit full chapters (up to 8,000 words, not including reference list) and will be sent guidelines for preparing chapters along with submission deadlines (as stated above, the tentative deadline for chapter submission is July 30, 2017). Chapters should be original work and should not be submitted for publication elsewhere. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this book project if they so wish. Inquiries and chapter proposals can be submitted electronically (Word document) to the editors (bouchardjeremie at yahoo.com).

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20170128/d2f83faf/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list