IDENTIFICATION
OF « GOOD POLICIES » ELABORATED BY
STATES BY ANALYSING THE WAYS IN WHICH COMPANIES
PICTURE MULTILINGUALISM, POSSIBLE ACTION ON
MULTILINGUALISM , AND THE ROLE OF MULTILINGUALISM
IN DEFINING THE IMAGE OF COMPANIES
This paper presents the analytical methods and findings of research conducted by the Glasgow Caledonian University work team from October 2007 to April 2008. The paper will locate its argument in the content of policy, and specifically in the means by which policy outlines action guidelines for the implementation of language goals. For example, a policy that ultimately aims towards equal use between languages within an enterprise might include an action guideline which states that all public pamphlets be bilingual, affording each language equivalent visual representation on the page. In this case, the provision of bilingual pamphlets is an implementation action for an overarching policy goal, which is to enact language equality. When action guidelines are executed they are known as 'policy effects', and the discrepancy between guidelines and effects allows us to determine what differentiates overt language policy from actual language practice and covert policies (Shohamy 2006). In public and private enterprises in Scotland and Wales, the prevalence of language policy that aims toward bilingualism in state majority and regional minority languages (RML) is increasing. In many instances, the policy documents we have selected for analysis not only dictate or guide the nature of linguistic practice within the authoring enterprise, but also seek to promote the use of a minority language that might not otherwise be used in the business domain. As an extension of the need for policy to foster multilingual practice, our policy examples are often highly strategic and contain a variety of individual action guidelines that would promote and ensure the use of the target RML in internal and external corporate practices. The method of data extraction we have used when studying policy has been created to help categorise action guidelines for policy and offers high transferability to other linguistic contexts in which there is written language policy.
This paper presents the analytical methods and findings of research conducted by the Glasgow Caledonian University work team from October 2007 to April 2008. The paper will locate its argument in the content of policy, and specifically in the means by which policy outlines action guidelines for the implementation of language goals. For example, a policy that ultimately aims towards equal use between languages within an enterprise might include an action guideline which states that all public pamphlets be bilingual, affording each language equivalent visual representation on the page. In this case, the provision of bilingual pamphlets is an implementation action for an overarching policy goal, which is to enact language equality. When action guidelines are executed they are known as 'policy effects', and the discrepancy between guidelines and effects allows us to determine what differentiates overt language policy from actual language practice and covert policies (Shohamy 2006). In public and private enterprises in Scotland and Wales, the prevalence of language policy that aims toward bilingualism in state majority and regional minority languages (RML) is increasing. In many instances, the policy documents we have selected for analysis not only dictate or guide the nature of linguistic practice within the authoring enterprise, but also seek to promote the use of a minority language that might not otherwise be used in the business domain. As an extension of the need for policy to foster multilingual practice, our policy examples are often highly strategic and contain a variety of individual action guidelines that would promote and ensure the use of the target RML in internal and external corporate practices. The method of data extraction we have used when studying policy has been created to help categorise action guidelines for policy and offers high transferability to other linguistic contexts in which there is written language policy.
Authors:
Lindsay Milligan
Douglas Chalmers
Hugh O'Donnell
Team coordinator:
Douglas Chalmers
Download:
Here you will find the abstracts of the Work Package 1: Companies, by
clicking the icons below. Each research task
has provided a contribution available also
in downloadable .pdf format.
