In the past five years, several books (Baker 2002, Ricento 2006, Shohamy 2006) and a journal, all entitled Language policy, have appeared, attesting to the interest in this topic. Volumes in this Cambridge series, “Key Topics in Sociolinguistics,” are meant to provide “accessible yet challenging accounts of the most important issues to consider when examining the relationships between language and society” (n.p.). Spolsky's volume explores many of the debates at the forefront of language policy: ideas of correctness and bad language, bilingualism and multilingualism, language death and efforts to preserve endangered languages, language choice as a human and civil right, and language education policy. Unlike the topical collections previously listed, it suggests a sustained theoretical model of what the field might entail.

The book, consisting of a brief preface, 12 chapters, and conclusions, examines language practices, beliefs, and the management of social groups as a focus for the development of a model for modern national language policy and the major forces controlling it. Chap. 1 is concerned with the three components of language policy in a speech community: language practices, language beliefs or ideology, and language planning or management. Language and language policy exist in highly complex, interacting, and dynamic contexts that can be explained by major factors in the sociolinguistic situation and attitudes to it, and by the nature of political organization, as well as other specific reasons and motivations.

Chaps. 2 and 3 explore language policies concerning bad language, good language, and the associated topic of language purification and cultivation. “Bad” language is considered to be dirty, impure, and undesirable, while “good” language is clean, uncorrupted, pure, and highly valued ideologically. For the purpose of communication and socialization, the use of language that can be widely understood and judged positively is encouraged. Therefore, language management deals with language purification, with the aim of helping people to avoid usage of bad, stigmatized, or foreign languages, or stigmatized varieties. Language management also deals with language cultivation or modernization – the improvement of the language variety itself by establishing and modifying the norms of the literary or standard language. (For further discussion of simple and organized language management see Neustupný & Nekvapil 2003).

In Chap. 4, the nature of language policy and its domains are examined and four main features of a theory of language policy are postulated: (a) language policy consists of practices, beliefs, and ideologies (b) that cover all elements of a language, (c) operate within a speech community, and (d) exist as part of a complex ecological relationship. Aspects of the ecological relationship are further illustrated in the seven chapters that follow through the study of language policy situations in a selection of monolingual, dyadic, triadic, and mosaic polities. The chapter also examines the some of the domains in which language policy occurs: the family, the school, religious institutions, workplaces, and various governmental, national, and supranational groups.

Chap. 5 explores the effects of the sociolinguistic situation and national ideology on language policy in two monolingual polities, Iceland and France. In both, the dominant national ideology is monolingual, but the approach the government uses to manage language turns out in reality to be multilingualism. Language policy in Iceland and France is exposed to the other two competing forces – globalization and the associated spread of English, and the growing tendency to recognize that language is a civil and human right – that are explored in the next three chapters.

An examination of linguistic imperialism, English diffusion in the UK, English in the former colonies, the global language system, and globalization in Chap. 6 suggests that the spread of English is not the direct result of a successful policy of language diffusion, but that there is complex multiple causation for its spread (see also Brutt-Griffler 2002). The major factors currently affecting the spread of English come from the changing nature of the world and of its reflected language system, which are not under the control of putative language managers. “These changes, not so much linguistic as economic, technological, political, social, religious and structural, are where we need to look for underlying causes” (90). Since English is a global language, this also needs to be taken into account in the language policy of any nation-state, including the United States and other English-speaking countries, because of its obvious effect in discouraging efforts to teach other languages.

Given the global reach of English, the language policy of its major user, the United States, is complex and hard to untangle. Although language practices there have been and remain multilingual, English dominates both in practice and in American language beliefs. However, language management practices remain decentralized, with the exception of civil rights-driven programs that ensure access to education and federal services for all. This complexity is examined in Chap. 7, where it is noted that under an umbrella of overarching monolingualism, a large number of speakers of minority languages are protected by language rights, or more precisely, by the application of civil rights.

Chap. 8 traces the development and current state of minority language rights. Through an examination of the rights of linguistic minorities, the origin of linguistic rights, and the development of acceptance of linguistic human rights, Spolsky argues that in the latter part of the 20th century language rights emerged as a major factor affecting national language policies, along with the pressures of the local sociolinguistic situation, the drive for national identity, and the challenges of the global language.

Having previously examined the language policy situation in two monolingual polities, Iceland and France, Chaps. 9 and 10 continue to test the theoretical model against actual cases, claiming “that language policy for any independent nation state will reveal the complex interplay of four interdependent but often conflicting factors”: the sociolinguistic situation, beliefs about national or ethnic identity, the pull of global English, and the rights of linguistic minorities (133). This was shown to be the case in Iceland and France, as well as in the polities described in these chapters. The proclamation of a single official or national language often disguises the actual complexity of a language policy; that is, while multilingual in language practice and partly in language management, some nations may prefer to emphasize their monolingual ideologies.

The significance of two, three, or more major languages is recognized in multilingual nations, and Chap. 11 deals with dyadic, triadic, and mosaic polities that have recognized not just the existence but also the claims of more than one language. They have attempted to satisfy these claims by partitioning their linguistic space and assigning a portion to each language. In common with monolingual countries, the diffusion of English as a global language has led to a major shift in the elements involved in their national language policies, with clear signs emerging of the congruence among language situations, beliefs, and ideologies, and kinds of management and planning.

Chap. 12 explores Fishman's (1991, 2000) theory of reversing language shift, with a focus on the critical social and economic factors that are likely to be the major sources of change in language practices and ideologies involved in language shift. When appropriately foregrounded, “they turn out to suggest the relative weakness of language management activities in reversing language shift” (215).

The book concludes with a summary of the “components,” “contexts,” “forces,” and “predictions” of the theoretical model, and asks the two questions: “Will the real language policy stand up?” and “Can language policy succeed?” Spolsky argues that the real language policy of a community is more likely to be found in its practices than its management:

Concerning the evidence for whether or not language policy can succeed, there are few cases where language management has produced its intended results (see North Korea and Singapore in Kaplan & Baldauf 2003).

Spolsky sets as his goal the attempt to understand what language policy is and how it might be influenced. He has tried to identify the structure and nature of policy, to explore many of the debates at the forefront of language policy, and to describe the interactions among its various components. This book does not try to show how to manage language, but is intended to help the reader understand what is involved in such language management. It draws on the author's rich lifetime of experience in working with language policy and is a welcome addition to our attempts to conceptualize the field.