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Foreword: translanguaging LPP

Foreword: translanguaging LPP li.wei@ucl.ac.uk For me, language policy and planning (LPP) is both a field of practical enquiry and UCL Institute of Education, University College London, a field of theoretical enquiry. As a practical field, LPP is about actions; actions that London, England are taken by various agents and agencies on the structure, use and acquisition of language. As a theoretical field, LPP critically assesses these actions and further our understanding of why individuals and society decide to take certain actions at certain times in certain ways with regard to language structure, language use and language acquisition. Ultimately, this will help to further our understanding of society. Crucially, LPP as a theoretical field of enquiry needs to raise critical questions about the actions, rather than simply describing and documenting what the actions are. In doing so, LPP studies need to adopt specific theoretical stances. In the present case, the theoretical perspective that the contributors to this special issue have adopted is that of Trans- languaging. I am grateful to the editors of the special issue for their invitation to write this short foreword to introduce and contextualise the special issue. I want to do so by highlighting what I think the potential contributions of Translanguaging as an analyti- cal concept are to the studies of LPP, with reference to the Greater Bay Are of China that I would describe as an emerging and evolving Translanguaging Space. Keywords: Language policy and planning (LPP), Translanguaging, Language contacts, Sociolinguistics, Translanguaging space, Multilingualism But first, I would like to ask the question why people’s language behaviour matter? I raise this question because the whole field of LPP, whether we regard it as primarily a practical one or a theoretical one, is about managing people’s language behaviour through plan- ning and policy (Spolsky, 2004, 2009). The fact that society, through its institutions, feel the need to manage people’s language behaviour shows that people’s language behav- iour matters, and it matters because of its diversity. If everybody behaves linguistically the same way all the time, there is no need for management, planning or policy. But life is more complex, and more interesting, than that. Here are some basic sociolinguistic facts: 1. no one person uses their language in the same way in all contexts; and 2. no one person uses their language in the same way over their lifetime. Consequently, 3. no two people behave linguistically in the same way in all contexts and over time. © The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the mate- rial. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creat iveco mmons. org/ licen ses/ by/4. 0/. Wei Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ. (2022) 7:43 Page 2 of 4 People’s variable use of their language synchronically and diachronically, results in language variation and change, the core sociolinguistic research. People make choices and decisions, for a specific context at a specific time, of the language they use and the way they use in, in terms of accent, word, style, etc. These choices and decisions are social choices and decisions in the sense that they are influenced by a variety of social factors including, for example, age, gender, educational and cultural background, social group membership, as well as medium, topic and setting of com- munication (see Coulmas, 2013). Of course choice and decision making is a complex cognitive process. But it is essentially social because the influencing factors reside broadly in social environment. The linguistic choices and decisions people make also have social consequences, on their own identities and subjectivities and on other peo- ple’s attitudes towards them. The so-called ‘language attitudes’ are attitudes towards the choices and decisions people make linguistically, which can lead to stereotypes about groups of people (Garrett, 2010). What is interesting is that people’s attitudes towards, or judgements on, others’ lan- guage behaviour are not always and uniformly positive and accepting. Hence we have notions of ‘appropriateness’ and ‘competence’ associated with individuals’ language behaviour. We also tend to categorize language with dichotomies such as ‘formal’ vs ‘informal’, ‘standard’ versus ‘non-standard’, ‘academic’ versus ‘social’, or ‘good’ versus ‘bad’, etc. Such language attitudes have social consequences for individual language users, their social groups, and the languages they use. They, languages and language users, are put on a hierarchy: some gain special socio-politico-economic prestige and privilege, whilst others are minoritized, incompetenced and disadvantaged. Interven- tions, in the form of LPP, may be necessary, though it is not entirely clear how much effort of LPP is typically devoted to challenging and transforming the ideologically constructed hierarchies and norms as it should be. A key factor in language variation and change is language contact. Language vari- ation and change begin with language contact; without contact language will not change, and without change no language can survive. It is important to remind our- selves though that the so-called language contact is contact between users of different languages and language varieties—languages do not get into contact with one another, but their users do; and language does not vary or change itself. It is people, the lan- guage users, who vary and change language! Language contact can result in various forms of bilingualism and multilingualism. Borrowing and mixing are common bilin- gual practices, which are key mechanisms for language innovation and change: new varieties, even new languages, emerge with innovation and change. Typical spaces where language contact takes place, therefore bilingualism and multilingualism and therefore linguistic innovation and change, include (see further Li, 2000): • border regions; • migration, forced or voluntary; • education; • faith, religion, and cultural identification, and • in the twenty-first century in particular, technology. W ei Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ. (2022) 7:43 Page 3 of 4 These are contact zones, or I would call, Translanguaging Spaces (Li, 2011), spaces where different linguistic practices encounter each other and where people interact by drawing on diverse communicative and semiotic means including different named languages, i.e. Translanguaging (Garcia and Li, 2014). In transcending boundaries of various kinds—between different named languages, between language and other semiotic systems, between different educational struc - tures and knowledge systems, between different cultural traditions, Translanguaging disrupts the hierarchies and dichotomies that I have mentioned above, but especially of language status, language attitudes and ideologies and authorities, and power rela- tions that are associated with languages and language varieties. Despite the extensive discussions of the social and cognitive benefits of bilingualism and multilingual - ism, monolingual ideology still dominates much of people’s thinking and societies’ policies. There is still a popular belief that named languages are real psycholinguis - tic realities and bounded structural entities and that mixing elements from different languages is a bad thing. A great deal of LPP efforts are still being made to police language borrowing and mixing and other forms of everyday dynamic bilingual and multilingual practices. Translanguaging argues that all human languages are con- tact languages and emphasizes the importance of pushing and breaking boundaries of various kinds, between named languages and between language and other semi- otic means of communication, in linguistic innovation and change. A Translanguag- ing approach to LPP, as the studies in this special issue demonstrate, highlights the sociolinguistic realities of the communities under investigation and asks the critical question should the LPP actions be aimed at policing innovative behaviours of the multilingual language user in Translanguaging Spaces or to effect change through facilitating, even encouraging, such behaviour. The Great Bay Area is a key strategic area in China’s development blueprint. Its sig - nificance lies in the fact that it exists to showcase the country’s commitment to reform and opening-up and the implementation of innovation-driven policies and initia- tives. Its success depends crucially on deeper interactions and cooperations amongst three regions with quite different histories and systems. Multilingualism is a reality of the Great Bay Area. But multilingualism has rather different connotations to different groups of people in the different regions within the Greater Bay Area due to different developmental trajectories. To fully leverage the composite advantages of the different regions and promote in-depth integration and coordinated development of the Area as a whole, one needs to think creatively and critically how planning and policy, including language planning and policy, can deal with the diversity and difference that exist, to use them as a recourse for further development or to see them as a barrier to development and try to level-up. The latter would risk stifling innovation. Studies in this special issue show that Translanguaging can be a positive facilitator in the social life of Greater Bay Area, through recognising and valuing the multilingual reality of the different places and utilising it as a force of innovation and change, provided that sociolinguistically sensitive and sensible policies are in place through schools, families and other social institutions. It seems to be that this is an important part of the process of confidence building—con - fidence in the sociolinguistic realities of the Area and confidence in its systems and cultures. Wei Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ. (2022) 7:43 Page 4 of 4 Translanguaging also enables those working in LPP, either as a practical field of social actions or as a research topic, to find a new language, a new narrative, for LPP, moving away from managing the structure, use or learning of named languages to interrogating the histories of contacts between people, the political ideologies behind existing policies regarding language and language use, and the impact of policy initiatives on individuals’ lives and society. In doing so, Translanguaging can help to transform the way we see LPP as a promoter for linguistic diversity and contact, linguistic innovation and change, and ultimately linguistic equity and justice. Author’s information Li Wei is Director and Dean of the UCL Institute of Education (UK), where he is also Chair of Applied Linguistics. His work covers different aspects of bilingualism and multilingualism. He is Editor of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism and Applied Linguistics Review. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Academia Europaea, Academy of Social Sciences (UK), and Royal Society of Arts (UK). Author contributions The author read and approved the final manuscript. Declarations Competing interests The author has no conflict of interest to declare. Received: 26 August 2022 Accepted: 26 August 2022 References Coulmas, F. (2013). Sociolinguistics: The study of speakers’ choices. Cambridge University Press. Garcia, O., & Li, W. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, education and bilingualism. Palgrave. Garrett, P. (2010). Attitudes to language. Cambridge University Press. Li, W. (2000). Dimensions of bilingualism. In L. Wei (Ed.), The bilingualism reader (2nd ed., pp. 3–24). Routledge. Li, W. (2011). Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(5), 1222–1235. Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge University Press. Spolsky, B. (2009). Language management. Cambridge University Press. Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education Springer Journals

Foreword: translanguaging LPP

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Abstract

li.wei@ucl.ac.uk For me, language policy and planning (LPP) is both a field of practical enquiry and UCL Institute of Education, University College London, a field of theoretical enquiry. As a practical field, LPP is about actions; actions that London, England are taken by various agents and agencies on the structure, use and acquisition of language. As a theoretical field, LPP critically assesses these actions and further our understanding of why individuals and society decide to take certain actions at certain times in certain ways with regard to language structure, language use and language acquisition. Ultimately, this will help to further our understanding of society. Crucially, LPP as a theoretical field of enquiry needs to raise critical questions about the actions, rather than simply describing and documenting what the actions are. In doing so, LPP studies need to adopt specific theoretical stances. In the present case, the theoretical perspective that the contributors to this special issue have adopted is that of Trans- languaging. I am grateful to the editors of the special issue for their invitation to write this short foreword to introduce and contextualise the special issue. I want to do so by highlighting what I think the potential contributions of Translanguaging as an analyti- cal concept are to the studies of LPP, with reference to the Greater Bay Are of China that I would describe as an emerging and evolving Translanguaging Space. Keywords: Language policy and planning (LPP), Translanguaging, Language contacts, Sociolinguistics, Translanguaging space, Multilingualism But first, I would like to ask the question why people’s language behaviour matter? I raise this question because the whole field of LPP, whether we regard it as primarily a practical one or a theoretical one, is about managing people’s language behaviour through plan- ning and policy (Spolsky, 2004, 2009). The fact that society, through its institutions, feel the need to manage people’s language behaviour shows that people’s language behav- iour matters, and it matters because of its diversity. If everybody behaves linguistically the same way all the time, there is no need for management, planning or policy. But life is more complex, and more interesting, than that. Here are some basic sociolinguistic facts: 1. no one person uses their language in the same way in all contexts; and 2. no one person uses their language in the same way over their lifetime. Consequently, 3. no two people behave linguistically in the same way in all contexts and over time. © The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the mate- rial. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creat iveco mmons. org/ licen ses/ by/4. 0/. Wei Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ. (2022) 7:43 Page 2 of 4 People’s variable use of their language synchronically and diachronically, results in language variation and change, the core sociolinguistic research. People make choices and decisions, for a specific context at a specific time, of the language they use and the way they use in, in terms of accent, word, style, etc. These choices and decisions are social choices and decisions in the sense that they are influenced by a variety of social factors including, for example, age, gender, educational and cultural background, social group membership, as well as medium, topic and setting of com- munication (see Coulmas, 2013). Of course choice and decision making is a complex cognitive process. But it is essentially social because the influencing factors reside broadly in social environment. The linguistic choices and decisions people make also have social consequences, on their own identities and subjectivities and on other peo- ple’s attitudes towards them. The so-called ‘language attitudes’ are attitudes towards the choices and decisions people make linguistically, which can lead to stereotypes about groups of people (Garrett, 2010). What is interesting is that people’s attitudes towards, or judgements on, others’ lan- guage behaviour are not always and uniformly positive and accepting. Hence we have notions of ‘appropriateness’ and ‘competence’ associated with individuals’ language behaviour. We also tend to categorize language with dichotomies such as ‘formal’ vs ‘informal’, ‘standard’ versus ‘non-standard’, ‘academic’ versus ‘social’, or ‘good’ versus ‘bad’, etc. Such language attitudes have social consequences for individual language users, their social groups, and the languages they use. They, languages and language users, are put on a hierarchy: some gain special socio-politico-economic prestige and privilege, whilst others are minoritized, incompetenced and disadvantaged. Interven- tions, in the form of LPP, may be necessary, though it is not entirely clear how much effort of LPP is typically devoted to challenging and transforming the ideologically constructed hierarchies and norms as it should be. A key factor in language variation and change is language contact. Language vari- ation and change begin with language contact; without contact language will not change, and without change no language can survive. It is important to remind our- selves though that the so-called language contact is contact between users of different languages and language varieties—languages do not get into contact with one another, but their users do; and language does not vary or change itself. It is people, the lan- guage users, who vary and change language! Language contact can result in various forms of bilingualism and multilingualism. Borrowing and mixing are common bilin- gual practices, which are key mechanisms for language innovation and change: new varieties, even new languages, emerge with innovation and change. Typical spaces where language contact takes place, therefore bilingualism and multilingualism and therefore linguistic innovation and change, include (see further Li, 2000): • border regions; • migration, forced or voluntary; • education; • faith, religion, and cultural identification, and • in the twenty-first century in particular, technology. W ei Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ. (2022) 7:43 Page 3 of 4 These are contact zones, or I would call, Translanguaging Spaces (Li, 2011), spaces where different linguistic practices encounter each other and where people interact by drawing on diverse communicative and semiotic means including different named languages, i.e. Translanguaging (Garcia and Li, 2014). In transcending boundaries of various kinds—between different named languages, between language and other semiotic systems, between different educational struc - tures and knowledge systems, between different cultural traditions, Translanguaging disrupts the hierarchies and dichotomies that I have mentioned above, but especially of language status, language attitudes and ideologies and authorities, and power rela- tions that are associated with languages and language varieties. Despite the extensive discussions of the social and cognitive benefits of bilingualism and multilingual - ism, monolingual ideology still dominates much of people’s thinking and societies’ policies. There is still a popular belief that named languages are real psycholinguis - tic realities and bounded structural entities and that mixing elements from different languages is a bad thing. A great deal of LPP efforts are still being made to police language borrowing and mixing and other forms of everyday dynamic bilingual and multilingual practices. Translanguaging argues that all human languages are con- tact languages and emphasizes the importance of pushing and breaking boundaries of various kinds, between named languages and between language and other semi- otic means of communication, in linguistic innovation and change. A Translanguag- ing approach to LPP, as the studies in this special issue demonstrate, highlights the sociolinguistic realities of the communities under investigation and asks the critical question should the LPP actions be aimed at policing innovative behaviours of the multilingual language user in Translanguaging Spaces or to effect change through facilitating, even encouraging, such behaviour. The Great Bay Area is a key strategic area in China’s development blueprint. Its sig - nificance lies in the fact that it exists to showcase the country’s commitment to reform and opening-up and the implementation of innovation-driven policies and initia- tives. Its success depends crucially on deeper interactions and cooperations amongst three regions with quite different histories and systems. Multilingualism is a reality of the Great Bay Area. But multilingualism has rather different connotations to different groups of people in the different regions within the Greater Bay Area due to different developmental trajectories. To fully leverage the composite advantages of the different regions and promote in-depth integration and coordinated development of the Area as a whole, one needs to think creatively and critically how planning and policy, including language planning and policy, can deal with the diversity and difference that exist, to use them as a recourse for further development or to see them as a barrier to development and try to level-up. The latter would risk stifling innovation. Studies in this special issue show that Translanguaging can be a positive facilitator in the social life of Greater Bay Area, through recognising and valuing the multilingual reality of the different places and utilising it as a force of innovation and change, provided that sociolinguistically sensitive and sensible policies are in place through schools, families and other social institutions. It seems to be that this is an important part of the process of confidence building—con - fidence in the sociolinguistic realities of the Area and confidence in its systems and cultures. Wei Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ. (2022) 7:43 Page 4 of 4 Translanguaging also enables those working in LPP, either as a practical field of social actions or as a research topic, to find a new language, a new narrative, for LPP, moving away from managing the structure, use or learning of named languages to interrogating the histories of contacts between people, the political ideologies behind existing policies regarding language and language use, and the impact of policy initiatives on individuals’ lives and society. In doing so, Translanguaging can help to transform the way we see LPP as a promoter for linguistic diversity and contact, linguistic innovation and change, and ultimately linguistic equity and justice. Author’s information Li Wei is Director and Dean of the UCL Institute of Education (UK), where he is also Chair of Applied Linguistics. His work covers different aspects of bilingualism and multilingualism. He is Editor of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism and Applied Linguistics Review. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Academia Europaea, Academy of Social Sciences (UK), and Royal Society of Arts (UK). Author contributions The author read and approved the final manuscript. Declarations Competing interests The author has no conflict of interest to declare. Received: 26 August 2022 Accepted: 26 August 2022 References Coulmas, F. (2013). Sociolinguistics: The study of speakers’ choices. Cambridge University Press. Garcia, O., & Li, W. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, education and bilingualism. Palgrave. Garrett, P. (2010). Attitudes to language. Cambridge University Press. Li, W. (2000). Dimensions of bilingualism. In L. Wei (Ed.), The bilingualism reader (2nd ed., pp. 3–24). Routledge. Li, W. (2011). Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(5), 1222–1235. Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge University Press. Spolsky, B. (2009). Language management. Cambridge University Press. Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Journal

Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education – Springer Journals

Published: Oct 6, 2022

Keywords: Language policy and planning (LPP); Translanguaging; Language contacts; Sociolinguistics; Translanguaging space; Multilingualism

References

  • Dimensions of bilingualism
    Li, W; Wei, L
  • Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain
    Li, W