Introduction

This section contains a brief overview of the field of language planning (LP). It begins by describing the origins of the term LP and some of the goals of the activity. There is also a brief discussion of the relevance of LP to teachers.

The term LP was probably first invoked by the linguist Uriel Weinreich in the early 1950s in New York. Weinreich was working in the context of immigrant languages and dialects, in interaction with each other and with English. His famous work, Languages in Contact (Weinreich, 1953), discussed bilingual communication, including the mixing of a fading first language with a replacing second language. Linking anthropology and theoretical linguistics sharpened Weinreich's observations of ties between social phenomena and aspects of language and communication. He noted that speakers in bilingual communities do not keep their languages and dialects separate, but instead produce a hybrid 'interlanguage' as a composite single proficiency that blends features of the available communication forms.

Another sociolinguistics pioneer was the Norwegian American Einar Haugen, who expanded the meaning of the term LP. He studied language change in Norway and the use of Norwegian in America. He produced an influential account of the Norwegian policy to eradicate the influence of Danish on Norwegian. Norway had been united with Denmark and was effectively under Danish control for centuries until 1814, when it was transferred to Swedish control, eventually gaining independence in 1905. As a result, both written and spoken Norwegian borrowed pronunciation and spelling norms from Danish sources. Individual writers and nationalists wanted to develop an indigenous variety modelled on rural Norwegian dialects, which they regarded as 'uncontaminated'. In the course of time, this popular movement became a national policy to produce a distinctive and locally sourced Norwegian mode of expression. Haugen's account (1966) used the term LP for processes of selecting new norms and for cultivating and spreading language change throughout society, from radio weather announcers to elementary school teachers.