Language Ecology and Language Ideology
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LANGUAGE ECOLOGY AND LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
An ecological approach to language in society requires investigation of the relationship of languages to each other, to the speakers of those languages, and to the social structures in the society in which the languages are spoken (Creese and Martin, 2003). These relationships are visible in the ways in which languages are used, and in social actors’ attitudes to, and beliefs about, languages. Relationships between languages and their speakers, and languages and societal structures, are subject to their social, political and historical contexts. Language ecologies include the discourse which constructs values and beliefs about languages at state, institutional, national and global levels. That is, ecologies of languages may be better understood when complemented with discussion of ideologies of language. E A R LY D E V E L O P M E N T S
In developing the notion of language ecology, Haugen (1972) argued that the ecology of a language is partly psychological, partly sociological, and is determined primarily by the people who learn it, use it, and transmit it to others. Haugen viewed language ecology as a natural extension of the kind of study pursued in the name of psycholinguistics, ethnolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, and the sociology of language. Haugen defined language ecology as the study of interactions between any given language and its environment, and considered that what was necessary was an analysis of the effect of the social and psychological situation of each language. Haugen saw the value of the language ecology model in the requirement to describe not only the social and psychological situation of a language, but also the effect of this situation on the language itself. Fill and Mühlhäusler (2001, p. 3) argue that the ecological metaphor is useful in illuminating ‘the diversity of inhabitants of an ecology’, and ‘the functional interrelationships between the inhabitants of an ecology’. Fill and Mühlhäusler suggest that the ecological metaphor contributes to our understanding of the diversity of inhabitants in an ecology, the factors that sustain that diversity, the housekeeping that is needed, and the interrelationships between the inhabitants of an ecology. These A. Creese, P. Martin and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 9: Ecology of Language, 27–40. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
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ADRIAN BLACKLEDGE
early developments in the field of language ecology contributed to the development of research theory and method in language policy and planning, linguistic human rights, and language ideologies. It is to the latter of these features of the ecological metaphor that this chapter centrally attends. However, in reviewing major contributions to the field I also briefly consider language policy and planning, and linguistic human rights, as these fields of research are not easily separable from discussions of language ideologies. MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FIELD
Hornbe
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