A Post-Liberal Approach to Language Policy in Education

By: John E. Petrovic

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eBook | 2 December 2014 | Edition Number 1

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136 Pages

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This provocative defense of language diversity works through the strengths and weaknesses of liberal political theory to inform language policy. The book presents the argument that policy must occupy the space between 'linguistics of community' and 'linguistics of contact' in a way that balances individual autonomy and group recognition while not reifying 'language'. Drawing on the importance of the language/identity link, the author distinguishes between language negative liberalism and language positive liberalism, arguing against the former. This distinction orients consideration of increasingly specific language policy issues, such as official languages, language rights, bilingual education, and uses of language varieties within classrooms.

Industry Reviews

In this provocative book, John Petrovic offers a trenchant critique of current approaches to language policy that tend to be based on a linguistics of community rather than a linguistics of contact. Readers of this book may find plenty to disagree with, but few book-length treatments of language policy are as thorough and probing as this one in dealing with fundamental questions of politics, language, democracy, identity, and education.