UCL - Politiques linguistiques

[ROM2640]

[22.5h] 5 credits

This course is taught in the 2d semester.

This two-yearly course is taught in 2007-2008, 2009-2010,...

Teacher(s): Philippe Hambye

Language: French

Level: Second

Aims
Main themes
Content and teaching methods
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Aims

By the end of the course, the student shall be able to:
- understand the social, economic and political issues of language planning in mono- and multilingual contexts,
- take a critical stance towards some examples of language policies, relating them to their underlying ethical and normative principles,
- identify useful scientific methods in a way to evaluate the potential or actual impact of some language policies,
- conceive such policies in response to given empirical situations.

Main themes

Several measures in language planning will be presented and explained to the students (policies aiming at promoting bilingualism or language feminization, policies against linguistic anglicization, educational policies regarding language quality, management of language use in multilingual companies, state regulation of language use at work, in advertising, etc.).Cases analyzed will be chosen in a way to meet different spheres of activity (public services, private companies, education system, etc.) and various aspects of language use (language rights, language quality, spelling reforms, terminology, attitudes towards language, etc.). A diversity of linguistic situation will be examined, with a preference for situations involving the French language.

Content and teaching methods

Through the analysis of explicit forms of regulation of language use, the course invites students to think about the diverse ways of implementing language policies and to evaluate the sociolinguistic and political conditions of their realization. It offers a theoretical and analytical framework which could be applied thereafter to other actual situations.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Evaluation will rely upon the student's personnal writing showing :
- his/her understanding of the concepts discussed during the course,
- his/her ability to analyse critically a concrete measure of language planning or to imagine adequate proposals of policies in response to some situation where language matters.
Course material : corpus of recommended readings (papers, book chapters, newspapers, documents from official institutions).