Course Schedule: T Th 2:20 – 3:45pm, C119

Office and phone: HM 111 x7567

Office hours: T Th 4 – 5pm

Email: jneu@acusd.edu

There are many elements that can cause tensions within or between groups—a major contributor to conflict is lack of access to resources or unequal distribution of those resources. While we understand how lack of access to land or clean water could cause conflict, another important resource is language. Language is an integral part of identity, and when a language is stigmatized, ignored, or oppressed, the speakers of that language may find themselves stigmatized, ignored, and oppressed. As a resource in society, language use is often planned and policies determined by governments that can mitigate or exacerbate tensions through denying a group their fundamental human rights.

In the U.S., English is the national language. The phenomenon of one country = one language is relatively rare, however, and decisions about which language or languages can be used in education, government, and business are sensitive. This undergraduate seminar will provide students with an introduction to language planning and policy and focus on specific cases to illustrate how language planning or policy is implemented, and the consequences of this implementation. The semester will conclude with a focus on attempts to make English the official language of the United States.

The course will be divided as follows:

1. Introduction to language planning and policy

2. Focus on rights of linguistic minorities

3. Social factors in language planning and policy

4. Re-establishing independence: Estonia

5. "Protecting" a national language: English in the U.S.

6. Presentation of student projects 

Paulston, Christina Bratt (1994). Linguistic minorities in multilingual settings. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Additional readings will be available in a packet at the bookstore. Some readings may be taken off the web from the sites listed in the syllabus.

Course Requirements

Your grade in this course will be determined as follows:

Class participation      15%

Quizzes & exercises   40%

Midterm                     20%

Project & proposal     25%

1. Class participation is critical. Each student will be expected to come to class prepared and ready to contribute to the discussion. A student with more than 3 absences during the term will not be able to get full credit for participation.

2. Satisfactory completion of all assignments on time. Those turned in after the class in which they are due will have 10% deducted from the grade. Quiz dates will be announced beforehand, and make-ups will only be given with a written excuse.

3. The project is a research project and paper that will involve taking a theory and applying it to a real situation. You will have a great deal of flexibility in your topic choice; the main stipulation is that you turn in a 1 page project proposal before starting your project to ensure that your project is feasible and focused. A separate handout detailing the project and paper will be distributed. The proposal is due February 27.

4. Each student will be expected to use the internet for information on language planning and policy and to search web sites for relevant information for projects and class work. Students need to double check information they find on the internet, however, since there is no guarantee it is accurate.

5. Plagiarism or cheating is unacceptable. Plagiarism is taking another’s work and using it in papers or on exams, as if it were your own. Plagiarism will result in failure on the assignment and can be grounds for expulsion. If you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism or cheating, please check with the instructor or a university student handbook.

Note:   indicates reading

    indicates exercise, quiz, or assignment

1/30         Introduction to the course

                Explain exercise for 2/1/01 class and assign teams for exercise

2/1           No class

2/6    Paulston, Chapter 1, "Multilingualism and language policies"

    Exercise from 2/1 due

2/8             Jernudd and Das Gupta (1975), "Towards a theory of language planning" in

                    Rubin,  Joan and Bjorn H. Jernudd, eds., Can language be planned? Honolulu: An

                    East-West Center Book, University Press of Hawaii. (in packet)

    Exercise: Search news sources on the internet for a news article that has appeared

         in the past year in a national or international publication on multilingualism, language

         planning, or language policy (you can do this through the USD libraries web site

         and Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe or however you’d like). Bring it to class.

 

2/13             Discussion of course project

     Universal Declaration of Human Rights     

                    http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html or www.unhchr.ch

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities (adopted by the General Assembly resolution 47/135; 12/18/92) http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/d_minori.htm

2/15      Declaration on the human rights of individuals who are not nationals of the

                      country in which they live --   gopher://gopher.un.org:70/00/ga/recs/40/a40r144.txt

     The Hague Recommendations Regarding the Education Rights of National

                      Minorities (in packet) – see also www.osce.org for information on the OSCE High

                      Commissioner for National Minorities

 

In-class exercise: draft your proposal for legislation (1-2 pages)     

 on the rights of non-native English speakers at U.S. universities

2/20             Discussion on parts 1 & 2

     Quiz #1

2/22      Paulston, Chapter 2, "Social factors in language maintenance and language shift"

2/27            Course project proposal due

     Paulston, Chapter 3, "Ethnicity and nationalism"

3/6    Paulston, Chapter 4, "Catalan and Occitan: Comparative test cases for a

                      theory of language maintenance and shift"

3/8       Paulston, Chapter 5, "Case studies: Tanzania, Peru, Sweden"

3/13    Paulston, Chapter 6: "Language revitalization: The case of Irish"

3/15    Midterm

3/20    Spring break

3/22    Spring break

3/27     Paulston, Chapter 7, "Language regenesis: Language revival, revitalization and

                      reversal"

3/29     Glinert, "The ‘back to the future’ syndrome in language planning: The case of

                       modern  Hebrew" in Marshall, pp. 215-243

If you are interested in this topic, you may want to read the article by Spolsky and Shohamy (1997) located at http://www.biu.ac.il/HU/lprc/ijslpap.htm 

     In-class exercise on language creation/unification

4. Re-establishing independence: The case of Estonia

4/3     Zaagman, Rob (1999), "Conflict prevention in the Baltic states" (in packet).

                    See also,

www.ecmi.de or, more specifically, http://www.ecmi.de/publications/working_papers_reports.htm#Monographs

 

4/5     Neu, Observations on Estonian citizenship exams (handout)

4/10     Jarve, Priit and Christian Wellman (1999), "Minorities and majorities in Estonia: 

                      Problems of integration at the threshold of the EU"  -- in packet, and see 

                      http://www.ecmi.de/activities/tallinn_summary.htm

4/12    Good Friday holiday

4/17     Quiz on articles and discussion from 3/27 – 4/10

5. "Protecting" a national language: English in the U.S.

4/19     Ruiz, Richard (1994), "Language policy and planning in the United States," in

                         Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 14: Language Policy and Planning. 

                         Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

4/24             Video and discussion: "English only in America?"

4/26     Exercise: bring information to class for the debate. You may want to look at

                       different   web sites to collect information to make your point. The below are only a      

                       few of the many you can find on the web that support different sides of the issue.

     In-class exercise: Debate on English only.  For more information, see the     

                      following sites:

http://www.bilingualeducation.org/

http://usbc.org/info/language/0800bilingual.htm

http://www.nabe.org/press/reprints/990630d.htm

http://www.capitolalert.com/voices/schrag/schrag_july28-99.html

http://www.house.gov/cubin/englishonly.htm

http://www.house.gov/barr/o_020700.html

http://www.house.gov/underwood/speeches/english1.htm

5/1            Continuation of debate; debriefing

5/3    Presentation of projects

5/8        Presentation of projects

5/10      Presentation of projects