37.1100, Reviews: Language Policy: Florian Coulmas (2025)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1100. Tue Mar 17 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.1100, Reviews: Language Policy: Florian Coulmas (2025)

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Date: 17-Mar-2026
From: Leon Grausam [lgrausam at uni-bremen.de]
Subject: Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics: Florian Coulmas (2025)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/36-1811

Title: Language Policy
Subtitle: A Slim Guide
Series Title: Slim Guides
Publication Year: 2025

Publisher: Oxford University Press
           http://www.oup.com/us
Book URL:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/language-policy-9780192874214?utm_source=linguistlist&utm_medium=listserv&utm_campaign=linguistics

Author(s): Florian Coulmas

Reviewer: Leon Grausam

SUMMARY
With this introduction to language policy, Oxford University Press has
added a modern topic to its slim guides series. This volume by highly
accomplished Florian Coulmas is a long, necessary, and easy-to-follow
overview and introduction to a potpourri of issues related to language
policy. It is divided into 11 chapters on vastly different topics
within the realm of policy, polity, and politics. Each chapter starts
off with an insightful quote from outside of linguistics and academia,
showing the importance of the overall topic to agents of culture,
media, politics, society, and economy, while simultaneously serving as
an anchor for the chapter.
The book caters mainly to readers interested in a light introduction
and overview of issues related to the title. In line with the nature
of the series, chapters serve as windows into academic discourses.
Although this series is not mainly designed for experts in the field
and mainly focuses on readers with no prior knowledge, the book
presents important content, even for scholars of linguistics. Each
chapter concludes with a small list proposing further reading.
Chapter 1 opens with the role of language and language policy in
society. Basing this on a historical approach, the author shows that
language policy has always been a “hot” topic. Further, the chapter
showcases where language policy plays a role in everyday life. Ending
the chapter, the author introduces the Policy Cycle Model, showing how
language policy is also part of this circular movement.
In Chapter 2, the author introduces all central aspects and
theoretical foundations to meaningfully engage with the topic further,
like Abstand and Ausbau, status planning, corpus planning, language
shift, and language rights, to name a few. Those small sub-chapters
effectively equip readers to grasp the topic while simultaneously
leaving plenty of space open for questions and self-guided further
reading.
Starting with Chapter 3, the main body of the volume sets off into the
various aspects of language policy. In this chapter, the author
introduces several language conflicts. He shows disruptive moments in
language and political issues while shedding light on single aspects
within those and the political challenges arising from them. The
common theme for all the contexts mentioned is the dangers of
linguistic nationalism, this being one of the biggest threats leading
to language conflicts.
Chapter 4 is dedicated to normalization and standardization. The
author provides a quick historical overview of agents in that field
before further elaboration of the fascinating case of Bahasa
Indonesia. It is emphasized that the Indonesian language policy in
regard to Bahasa Indonesia is quite unique, as after independence the
citizens chose to use their newly gained voice to speak in their own
language, quickly leaving behind old colonial language regimes.
Further, Coulmas provides a comparison to various European contexts
and how different approaches have been employed.
In Chapter 5, language ideologies are explained. The author divides
these ideologies into nationalism, separatism, and purism. It is shown
how those ideologies are different and similar at the same time, with
destructive but also unifying results.  Of course, the infamous
language policy of Güneş Dil Teorisi (Sun Language Theory) in the
context of Turkish language policy must be mentioned here.
Within Chapter 6, readers find an introduction to several agents of
language policy. Those are differentiated by their main goals (e.g.,
writing reform, terminology, dissemination, etc.), exemplifying with
the help of possibly lesser-known institutions like the Pontifica
Academia Latinitatis. Furthermore, he doesn’t fall short in
highlighting the role of European nations and their globalization of
language and the tremendous effects worldwide.
With the previous chapter as an ideal basis, Chapter 7 has
international language regimes as a topic. A central point here is
highlighting the immense complexity of organizing international and
multilateral communication across the globe and how the United Nations
simultaneously succeeds and fails as the biggest and most important
network. Several possible solutions to regulating international
communications are presented while being placed within demands between
symbolism and pragmatism. And as this international communication
costs huge amounts of money, Coulmas interrelates this issue with
economic power. In the end, the author notes that it is language
prestige which it all boils down to.
Again, linking the chapters effectively, Chapter 8 is concerned with
economic aspects of language policy and the wealth of nations.
Beginning, the author compares currency and language as means of
(international) exchange and power. With language being viewed as
human capital (or linguistic capital), this issue becomes even easier
to understand. Furthermore, readers find some shocking statistics
further relating monetary value to language, drawing a picture of
perpetual global inequality.
With people moving (or being moved) across the world, migration and
citizenship become more and more pressing topics; these are treated in
Chapter 9. At first, the author provides a fitting overview of many
issues related to language and migration, with the nation-state as a
central actor deciding about people’s lives. This becomes even more
striking when Coulmas perfectly shows how migrants are passively
affected by (restrictive) nations’ language policies, for example
through excessive language testing.
Chapter 10 treats the highly debated issue of linguistic rights and
language endangerment.  The author shows how the political agenda
changed into a more ideological one, for example, with the European
Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. Starting off with
painting the very grim picture of the current state of world languages
and the United Nations’ reaction with the declaration of the
International Decade of Indigenous Languages, Coulmas presents a
bandwidth of conceptualization of linguistic rights, like language
recognition. With linguistic citizenship being a progressive and
innovative concept of agency in using language, the author highlights
the usefulness of thinking outside the box here.
In the final Chapter 11, the author explains how language policy and
anti-discrimination policies are a topic being very controversially
discussed. With plenty of sensitivities at issue, Coulmas carefully
navigates battlegrounds in a highly unagitated manner. He succeeds in
emphasizing the connection between (anti-)discrimination and language
policy and planning. With this, he displays vividly how central the
role of language can be in even the tiniest parts of everyday life.
EVALUATION
With its broad array of topics, introductions, and issues, this volume
of the slim guides is a unique opportunity for anyone to peek into
language policy. Coulmas overwhelmingly succeeds in presenting a
colorful palette of topics to his readers. He does this by steadily
presenting real-life cases outside of academia that make his
statements feel even more pressing and alive. Furthermore, all big
“battlefields and showrooms” of language policy are presented, leaving
readers with substantial knowledge of plentiful global contexts. While
simultaneously focusing on details of language policy, this volume
never ceases to address the general (language) political climate.
One of the brightest aspects of his work is due to his ability to
connect chapters, issues, topics, and contexts from chapter to chapter
and from example to example. His well-selected and carefully
constructed comparisons quickly make sense to readers and help to shed
different lights on one main topic: language policy.
With this volume being a great introduction for readers without
academic backgrounds or with backgrounds far from linguistics, this
book might not be suitable for an in-depth introduction to language
policy. Used as a starting point for further reading, this book will
find the perfect audience.  However, some few parts feel like mere
enumerations of institutions or facts, making some parts feel hasty,
even for a slim guide,.
Despite these very minor shortcomings, this book can serve as an
introductory overview or quick refresher on topics of language policy.
It is recommended for anyone interested in a scholarly and
simultaneously unagitated and highly critical debate on issues of
language policy across the world.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Leon Grausam is a research associate and doctoral candidate at the
University of Bremen’s Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies.
His research explores the intersection of language activism, language
ecology, and postcolonial language policy, with a particular focus on
the sociopolitical dynamics surrounding indigenous and minoritized
languages. He examines how language ideologies shape linguistic
hierarchies and inform policies in postcolonial contexts, often
engaging with questions of linguistic justice, resistance, and
revitalization.



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