Ideology and Image: Britain and Language (Multilingual Matters)

219 Pages·2003·19.3 MB·English

by  Dennis Ager

Ideology and Image
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS SERIES
Series Editor: Professor John Edwards, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish,
Nova Scotia, Canada
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Please contact us for the latest book information:
Multilingual Matters, Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall,
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http://www.multilingual-inatters.com
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS 124
Series Editor: John Edwards
Ideology and Image
Britain and Language
Dennis Ager
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD
Clevedon • Buffalo • Toronto • Sydney
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Ager, D.E.
Ideology and Image: Britain and Language/Dennis Ager.
1. Language planning-Great Britain. 2. Language policy-Great Britain. 3. Linguistic
minorities-Great Britain. 4. Great Britain-Politics and government I. Title.
P40.5.L352 G73 2003
306.44'941-dc21 2002154985
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1-85359-660-4 (hbk)
ISBN 1-85359-659-0 (pbk)
Multilingual Matters Ltd
UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon BS21 7HH.
USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA.
Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada.
Australia: Footprint Books, PO Box 418, Church Point, NSW 2103, Australia.
Copyright © 2003 Dennis Ager.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the Cromwell Press Ltd.
Contents
Preface vi i
Acknowledgements viii
Tables ix
Figures x
Introduction 1
Society and Language 2
Language Planning and Language Policy 5
Motivation 8
This book 12
1. Language Communities 15
The standard English community 19
Communities using rural and social dialects
of English 25
The territorial communities 32
The non-territorial communities 34
Communities, individuals and
linguistic repertoires 40
2. Language Attitudes 43
Attitudes towards English , 44
Attitudes towards the territorial languages 55
Attitudes towards non-territorial languages 61
3. Planning and policy: from 880 to the 1950s 63
What actors attempted to influence language
for what ends? 63
Social, political and economic aims 7T2
Planners: the state, social categories and
individuals , 74
4. Non-political language planning 77
Individuals and Purism 78
Societies and associations , 84
The publishing industry 87
The Media .87
Dictionaries, grammars and style manuals 90
v
Ideology and Image. Britain and Language
5. Language rights 91
Human Rights Act, 1998 92
Sexism in language 95
Other discrimination in language 97
The maintenance of non-indigenous languages 100
Motivation in rights 104
6. Language as a resource for citizens 107
Adult literacy 107
Clarity in the civil service:
the Plain English Campaign 113
Political discourse 117
The Better English Campaign 119
7. Language as a resource for the state 123
English Language Teaching and
the British Council 123
Foreign languages in education 132
Motivation in resource-oriented language policy .. 140
8. Language as a political problem 143
Standard English and the national curriculum .... 143
Multiculturalism 150
The territorial languages and the European
Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . 158
Wales 160
Scotland 165
Northern Ireland 167
Motivation in problem-solving policy 170
9. British language policy and planning in perspective .... 173
International comparisons 173
Motivation in British LPP 182
Language and power 184
Appendix 189
References 198
Index 205
Preface
The contrast between France and Britain could not apparently be
greater than in their respective attitudes and policies towards
language. The French Academy defends and protects French; the
British Academy has no such role. Language is specifically mentioned
in the French Constitution and the Toubon Law of 1994 declares that
'French is a fundamental constituent of French identity and heritage'.
Yet the British Statute of Pleading confirming English as the official
language of the law dates from 1362, nearly two centuries before the
French equivalent. The 1611 Authorised Version of the Bible, with its
incalculable influence on English culture and language, was
commissioned by royal authority. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, which
'beat forty Frenchmen', resulted in his being awarded a pension from
prime minister Lord Bute. While the French government took until
1992 to alter the Constitution and until 1994 to 'defend' French against
Americanisms in the Toubon Law, in Britain during the 1980s and 1990s
the Secretary of State for Education launched a Better English
Campaign and legislated for 'correct' English in the National
Curriculum. How true is it therefore that the British state has had no
interest in and no influence on English?
In the present study of language planning and policy in Britain I
have deliberately sought to identify the effect of, and motivation for,
the exercise of political authority, and hence social behaviour, on
language and on language behaviour in the recent past. That the
British state and governments have an interest in controlling and
directing language and language behaviour seems to me undeniable.
What is different is how they do it.
vii
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to a number of people for comments on drafts
of this book. Dhruba Biswas helped considerably with issues of
language maintenance. Bernard Spolsky has made helpful comments.
An anonymous reader for Multilingual Matters, too, pointed out the
need to sharpen up the argument and made a number of helpful
suggestions. I am particularly grateful to Joseph LoBianco and Tom
Bloor, who have confirmed the importance of the connection between
language usage and politics, both in the narrow sense of the politics of
language and in more general ways. Joseph Lo Bianco has provided
much help from an international point of view, from his practical
experiences of language planning in a political environment, and from
his deep knowledge of research in language planning and policy. Tom
Bloor, who read the manuscript at a late stage, has helped me clarify
the argument in detail, and has helped greatly with his knowledge of
sociolinguistics and experience in English studies. Many unidentified
and unidentifiable British civil servants, from a number of government
departments, have responded courteously, fully and patiently to
requests, telephone calls and emails, giving information and sometimes
the background to the facts. Annis Ager, as ever, has been an
invaluable help in many ways.
Vlll
Tables
Table 1.1 Left-right, libertarian-authoritarian, welfare
and the Euro: views by class and vote, 1999 .. 18
Table 1.2 Communities with which the UK
population identifies 23
Table 1.3 British identity, 1997 and 1999 24
Table 1.4 Working population by region
and country (2001) 27
Table 1.5 Social class structure and mobility in
Great Britain 29
Table 1.6 Summary indexes of social class mobility ... 29
Table 1.7 Class profiles of men aged 35 and over at the
time of the survey: pre-1900 to 1959 31
Table 1.8 Religious affinities in Northern Ireland .... 33
Table 1.9 1991 Census by ethnic group 35
Table 2.1 Attitudes towards Welsh 60
Table 7.1 First language speakers of
languages worldwide 124
Table 7.2 Speakers of English worldwide 124
Table 7.3 Estimates of native speaker numbers in 2050 126
Table 7,4 Drafting language of European
Commission documents 127
Table 8.1 Enrolments in ESOL classes 156
IX