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Language Problems and Language Planning A corpus-based historical investigation Wenwen Li and Haitao Liu

Beifang University of Nationalities / Zhejiang University

As one of the most authoritative journals in the field of language planning, Language Problems and Language Planning has a long history. In this paper, we describe the development and changes that the journal has experienced in different periods, the characteristics that have remained constant, and the role that it has played in the development of language planning. To this end, we collected information from the first 100 issues of the journal (1977 to 2010) to build a corpus, and then used software to extract different categories of information. Through analysis of these statistics, we found that the journal is in many respects representative of changes in the field of language planning, following trends in the discipline and clearly and accurately reflecting the evolving priorities of language planning over the years. Keywords: language planning, language policy, linguistics, scholarly journals, interlinguistics, Esperanto, LPLP

Since Einar Haugen (1959) first mentioned the term language planning, over fifty years have passed — years in which much significant work has been done. Language planning is a relatively new discipline within sociolinguistics, itself the study of the social forces that influence language change and the kinds of change motivated by social forces (Kaplan & Baldauf 1997). As more and more language issues are emerging with the tide of globalization, it has become a pressing task for scholars to pursue further work on the planning of language, since language plays a crucial role in the political and social life of today’s world. Language Problems and Language Planning (LPLP), one of the most authoritative journals on the topic of language planning, has gone through forty years of growth, having been launched in the very early days of the field. As one of the journals with the longest history in language planning, it provides a useful means by which to trace developments in the field. To that end, the present authors created a corpus from the journal and then used statistical software to compile Language Problems & Language Planning 37:2 (2013), 151–177. doi 10.1075/lplp.37.2.03lil issn 0272–2690 / e-issn 1569–9889 © John Benjamins Publishing Company

152 Wenwen Li and Haitao Liu

figures and tables to analyze characteristics, development and changes in the journal.

Introduction to LPLP LPLP is a sociolinguistic journal published by the John Benjamins Publishing Company, in cooperation with the Center for Research and Documentation on World Language Problems. The main topics of this international multilingual journal are issues of language policy as well as political, economic and sociological aspects of linguistics. It is especially concerned with relationships between and among language communities, particularly in international contexts, and in the adaptation, manipulation, and standardization of language for international use. Articles deal with language policy, language management, and language use in international organizations, multinational enterprises, etc., and theoretical studies on global communication, language interaction, and language conflict. The journal is peer reviewed and listed in several important scientific indexes: Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, Social Scisearch, JCR/Social Sciences Edition, ERIC, INIST, Int. Bibliography of Social Sciences, Linguistic Bibliography/Bibliographie Linguistique, LLBA, MLA Bibliography, Sociological Abstracts, and European Reference Index for the Humanities (John Benjamins Publishing Company). The journal has existed in its present form since 1977. A predecessor journal, called La Monda Lingvo-Problemo (LMLP, “The World Language Problem” in Esperanto), had appeared as of 1969, published by Mouton in The Hague, edited by Victor Sadler (1969–1972) and Richard E. Wood (1973–1976). The journal appeared in principle three times a year. From 1969 to 1977, six volumes (18 issues) were published. In 1977 the title of the journal was changed to Language Problems and Language Planning, and this title was translated into numerous languages on the cover of the journal. It continued to be published by Mouton. The volume numbering began again from volume 1; issues were numbered consecutively. As of 1980, the journal moved to the University of Texas Press. Each year a new volume appeared, and the English-language title LPLP became the sole official title. With issue 1 of Volume 8 (1984), Frank Nuessel assumed the role of Associate Editor and Book Review Editor. As of issue 3 of Volume 8 (1984), Humphrey Tonkin became managing editor. As of issue 1 of Volume 11 (1987), Karen Johnson-Weiner was added as Associate Editor. Volume 13 (1989) was the last to be published by University of Texas Press and the last in which Karen Johnson-Weiner served as Associate Editor. With Volume 14 (1990), John Benjamins (Amsterdam) became the publisher. Probal Dasgupta,

LPLP — A corpus-based historical investigation 153

Klaus Schubert and Humphrey Tonkin were named Editors, with Klaus Schubert also taking on the responsibilities of Managing Editor. Frank Nuessel and Klaus Schubert became Book Review Editors (with Nuessel responsible for North America and Schubert responsible for Europe and beyond). With Volume 20 (1996), number 2, Mark Fettes was added to the editorial team as Interlinguistics Editor. With Volume 22 (1998), Marc van Ooostendorp replaced Klaus Schubert as one of the three Editors (serving also as Managing Editor), and Renato Corsetti was added as Book Review Editor for Europe and beyond. The rest of the team remained the same. Volume 23 (1999) was the last volume in which Marc van Oostendorp served as one of the three Editors. As of Volume 24 (2000), the journal switched to two Editors only — Probal Dasgupta and Humphrey Tonkin, with Humphrey Tonkin also resuming the role of Managing Editor. As of Volume 29 (2005), Federico Gobbo replaced Renato Corsetti as Book Review Editor for Europe and beyond. The present board of editors is composed of Humphrey Tonkin (editor-in-chief), Probal Dasgupta, Mark Fettes, and Sabine Fiedler (interlinguistics editor). The present book review editors are Frank Nuessel and Federico Gobbo. As of 2014, Timothy Reagan will succeed Tonkin as editor-in-chief.

Methodology and findings In this paper, we gathered information on 100 issues from 1977 (Volume 1, Issue 1) to 2010 (Volume 34, Issue 1) to build a corpus. The 100 issues consist of 332 general research articles, 928 book reviews, and 39 interlinguistics articles (in recent years a separate section in the journal). 1. General research articles The 332 research articles cover a broad range of macro-sociolinguistic topics since the journal publishes articles on political, sociological and economic aspects of language, language use, and language policy and language management. Articles are mostly between 10 and 25 pages in length, with a maximum of 47 pages, and an average of 18 pages (the editors’ stated preference is for articles less than 20 pages). Detailed statistical data are shown below. 1.1 Abstracts We counted the word frequency of the abstracts in all research articles; the most frequent words are in Table 1 and Figure 1.


Table 1 and Figure 1. Most frequent words in abstracts Word

Freq.

Word

Freq.

language

1492

status

70

English

251

identity

67

planning

237

economic

65

policy

235

social

65

linguistic

205

official

59

French

124

cultural

54

national

122

South Africa

53

problems

101

ethnic

53

political

99

Spanish

51

education

87

Arabic

48

development

80

African

44

300 250 200 150 100 50

Arabic

African

Ethnic

Spanish

Cultural

South Africa

Social

Official

Identity

Economic

Status

Development

Political

Education

National

Problems

French

Linguistic

Policy

Planning

English

0

(Note: in Figure 1 and later Figures, the word ‘language’ is excluded from the display because of its much higher frequency)

Figure 1 shows that, hardly surprisingly, the most frequent words all reflect basic issues in language planning. We calculated the word frequency of the top twenty words in the abstracts of research articles in three periods, namely, from 1977 to 1990, from 1991 to 2000, from 2001 to 2010. The most frequent words are shown in Table 2.


Table 2. Frequency of the top 20 words in abstracts of research articles in three periods Rank

First Period

Second Period

Third Period

1

language

language

language

2

English

planning

policy

3

French

linguistic

English

4

planning

policy

linguistic

5

linguistic

English

planning

6

problem

education

education

7

national

political

identity

8

policy

official

South Africa

9

political

ethnic

political

10

development

national

African

11

economic

development

world

12

status

French

social

13

regional

group

status

14

speakers

speakers

economic

15

speech

status

development

16

social

indigenous

national

17

bilingual

public

Greek

18

government

Spanish

international

19

group

cultural

official

20

history

identity

Arabic

In the fifty years of development of the field of language planning, the research goals and method of this discipline have changed considerably. These changes are reflected in LPLP. The word problem, for example, ranks high in the first period, and does not appear in the last two. Researchers preferred to regard language as presenting “problems” during the first period: they discussed the language problem in multilingual settings (Harry 1978) and in relation to minority languages (Anderson 1981); they examined language “problems” surrounding Breton (Eerde 1979), Italian (Joseph 1980), Hebrew (Schwarzwald 1988), French (Rensch 1990), and so on. On the other hand, such topics as ecology and diversity rose in importance in recent years with articles on language ecology and diversity in Nigeria (Akinnaso 1989), Mexico (Hidalgo 1994), and South Africa (Reagan 2001, Wright 2004). These shifts in emphasis parallel Ricento’s observation (Ricento 2000) that opinion has shifted from perceiving language planning as a problem-solving exercise to the development of a perspective focused on language ecology and linguistic diversity. The word education does not emerge in the top 20 words in the


first period; however it ranks high in the next two periods. Again this parallels a shift in the field: education plays a more and more important role in language planning, and has become one of the most significant elements in the field. Today, language-in- education planning, or “acquisition planning,” has emerged as a third category next to status and corpus planning, rather than the major activity of ‘Implementation (educational spread)’ as Haugen’s (1983) model for language planning refers to it (Kaplan & Baldauf 1997). Kaplan & Baldauf (2003) suggest that some of the aims of language planning are implemented during the process of education. Kennedy (1983) also expatiates on the relationship between language planning and education. Likewise, the word identity does not emerge in the top twenty words in the first period, and ranks twentieth in the second and seventh in the third. As the first of Ager’s (2001) motivations of language planning and policy, identity arouses increasing attention. Language is a means whereby a nation or a country pursues its ‘identity’ and is also an important constituent of national status (Liu 2007). While the growing frequency of such words as education and identity shows that these issues are receiving increased attention, there are some words that show little difference in rank in the three periods, such as planning, linguistics, policy, since such words relate to the most basic issues in this field. The word English also maintains a high place, congruent with its dominance internationally. 1.2 Titles We counted the frequency of words in titles, with the following result (Table 3). Table 3. Frequency of words occurring more than once in titles of articles Word

Freq. Word

Freq. Word

Freq. Word

Freq.

language

225

Esperanto

7

factors

4

Nigeria

3

planning

49

ethnic

7

first

4

Quebec

3

linguistic

43

Europe

7

globalization

4

revival

3

policy

41

United States

7

Greek

4

rights

3

English

25

official

7

ideology

4

shifts

3

case

21

minority

6

Indian

4

Soviet

3

education

20

international

6

diversity

4

spread

3

South Africa

14

study

6

modern

4

Sweden

3

political

14

African

5

movement

4

Basque

2

problems

11

Canada

5

nationalism

4

Botswana

2

bilingual

11

Catalonia

5

orthographic

4

Catalan

2

French

11

communication 5

system

4

Denmark

2


Table 3. (continued) Word

Freq. Word

Freq. Word

Freq. Word

Freq.

3

sociolinguistic 10

Hebrew

5

American

Ireland

2

economic

10

model

5

European Union 3

Italian

2

Spanish

10

post-apartheid

5

attitude

3

Italy

2

multilingual

10

Arabic

4

China

3

Japanese

2

world

10

aspects

4

Cyprus

3

Mexico

2

perspective

9

British

4

Gaelic

3

Namibia

2

identity

9

children

4

Irish

3

Philippines 2

development

8

Chinese

4

Israel

3

Scotland

2

implications

8

classification

4

Jewish

3

Singapore

2

national

8

conflict

4

Luxembourg

3

Wales

2

Then we extracted the words with frequency greater than 10 (Figure 2). 60 50 40 30 20 10 World

Multilingual

Spanish

Economic

Sociolinguistic

French

Bilingual

Problems

Political

South Africa

Education

Case

English

Policy

Linguistic

Planning

0

Figure 2. Word frequency in titles of all articles with Frequency >= 10

Figure 2 shows that the most frequent words are closely grouped around the core topics of language planning. They can be divided into three basic categories: topics related to language planning, such as policy, education, economic; different languages, such as English, French, Spanish; different countries, such as South Africa, etc. Figures 3, 4 and 5 show the word frequency in each of these categories.

158 Wenwen Li and Haitao Liu 25 20 15 10 5

Education Political Bilingual Sociolinguistic Economic Multilingual Identity National Ethnic Official Minority International Communication Model Post-apartheid Aspects Children Classification Conflict Globalization Ideology Diversity Nationalism Orthographic Attitude Revival Rights Shifts Spread

0

Figure 3. Topics most frequently cited in titles of all articles

The words in Figure 3 can be further divided into several subcategories, though they are all essential and crucial notions in language planning. We selected some of them for additional analysis: 1. The first group refers to the range of language planning, such as, political, sociolinguistic, economic, national, official, international, ethnic. Language planning is no longer a single variable, but has evolved into a multivariable process. Edwards proposed a model based on elements influencing the situation of language, which considered the interaction among population, society, linguistics, psychology, history, politics, geography, education, religion, economy, science, and language users and environment of languages, and worked out 33 variables which could influence situation of language (Grenoble & Whaley 1998). Wiley (2001) shows that the goals of language planning are also influenced by politics and economy. Thus, economic, political, social and ethnic problems closely relate to and greatly affect languages: language planning is part of the study of sociolinguistics, a field that is concerned with investigating the relationships between language and society with the goal of better understanding the social structure of language and how languages function in communication (Wardhaugh 2000). 2. The second group concerns research methods in language planning: model, aspects, classification. 3. The third group covers topics of particular concern to researchers in language planning, such as education, bilingual, multilingual, identity, minority, communication, globalization, attitude, ideology, nationalism. Taking communication as an example, Liu (2007) claims that solving communication problems should be regarded as one of the motivations of language planning, whereas


Ager refers frequently to the importance of communication without including it in language planning. 4. The fourth group concerns language situations and language planning goals, such as diversity, conflict, revival, rights, shifts, spread. For example, Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) give detailed examination to some of the macro goals to which language plans can be oriented, such as language revival and language spread. Nahir (1978, 1984) twice introduces a classification of language planning functions, or goals. The first five functions are language purification, language revival, language reform, language standardization, and 1exical modernization; the second expanded version added language spread, terminological unification, stylistic simplification, interlingual communication, language maintenance, auxiliary code standardization. The articles reveal a trend towards consideration of multilingual issues, language diversity, and language rights. In the following years, researchers emphasized changes in the pursuit of language rights. Coulombe (1993) discussed a theoretical framework for conceptualizing different kinds of language rights and for construing the nature of the tension between them, arguing that there are grounds for far-reaching claims to the protection of language. Faingold (2007) stressed that, although failing to achieve language justice for EU citizens who speak regional minority languages, the 2004 draft of the EU Constitution contains legal language defining the linguistic obligations of the EU and the language rights of its citizens. Increasingly, the maintenance of language rights has become a goal in modern language planning, which no longer just focuses on unification, standardization and modernization of language. For better understanding of the topics of language planning, we calculated the bigram collocations of the titles of articles. Phrases with high frequency are language planning, language policy, national language, bilingual education, language attitude, language problems, official language, education policy, ethnic minority, language conflict, language education, language management, language revitalization, language rights, linguistic diversity, etc. Most of these notions correspond to topics most frequently arising in the discussion above. Figure 4 tells us which languages get most attention. The results show that English, French and Spanish, languages playing an important role in the international world, occur most frequently in the journal, especially English, which stands much higher than all the other languages. It is worth noticing that Esperanto closely follows those three big languages, reflecting a particular interest of the journal. Although a planned language in origin, Esperanto is indeed an international language, an interlanguage, as well as an intercultural language (Liu 2011). Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Greek receive some attention, while Gaelic, Irish, Basque,

160 Wenwen Li and Haitao Liu 30 25 20 15 10 5

Japanese

Italian

Catalan

Basque

Irish

Gaelic

Greek

Chinese

Arabic

Hebrew

Esperanto

Spainish

French

English

0

Figure 4. Languages and language groups most common in titles of articles

Catalan, Italian and Japanese are among the languages covered in individual articles. Figure 5 shows the frequency of countries and regions (there is some overlap) mentioned in the titles of articles. South Africa is first in the list, primarily because of a special issue on South Africa. For the same reason, ‘post-apartheid’ (Figure 3) has high frequency. The post-apartheid situation in South Africa has led to that country reassessing which of its eleven official languages will be used for what purposes (Webb 1994), a complex situation in language policy obviously of interest to researchers. Following South Africa, the United States, Europe, Canada, Catalonia 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2

Figure 5. Countries and areas most frequently cited in titles of articles

Wales

Singapore

Scotland

Philippines

Namibia

Italy

Mexico

Ireland

Denmark

Botswana

Sweden

Nigeria

Soviet Union

Luxembourg

Israel

Cyprus

China

Britain

Canada

Catalonia

Europe

South Africa

United States

0


and Britain all score high, all of them connected one way or another with the role of English, French and Spanish. One of LPLP’s greatest contributions is in the theory of sociolinguistics and language planning. We examined some representative articles in greater detail. Bamgbose (1989) was the first to discuss the general model of language planning in the journal. The paper proposed that earlier assumptions about the nature and processes of language planning needed to be reexamined and revised in the light of new models of language planning and a widening range of language planning situations. It examined the following issues as they affect a model of language planning: types of decisions, the planning mechanism, the role of fact-finding, levels of planning, and status versus corpus planning. The article concludes by arguing that a model of language planning should provide for hierarchical planning as well as four directional possibilities among the elements of fact-finding, policy formulation, evaluation, and implementation. This summary of previous theories and new models was of great importance for later research. Articles in the following issues also discussed models. Mac Donnacha (2000) proposed two new models of language planning. The first model develops a three-level (‘Status Planning’, ‘Language Planning’, and ‘Functional Language Planning’) view of language planning and aims to develop a more strategic approach; the second model, the Integrated Language Planning Model, is related to the second level of language planning, and is designed to facilitate a comprehensive and integrated approach to reinforcing targeted languages. The model disaggregates language reinforcement efforts into two types of activities — primary activities and support activities. Primary activities are those that are designed to directly influence changes in language behaviour. Support activities support the primary activities and each other by managing and facilitating the language reinforcement effort. Cross (2009) provided a new perspective, a sociocultural model for language policy and planning, which draws on recent developments within linguistics that understand language from the perspective of Vygotskian sociocultural theory, and the role of language and other sociocultural artefacts in the mediation of human activity and social practice. The purpose of this viewpoint is to consider sociocultural theory as the basis for a broader meta-theoretical framework to understand the interrelationship between macro and micro analyses of policy and practice within language planning. Payne (2007) presented a conceptual model for foreign language planning, focused on foreign or second language planning at secondary school level. Walsh (2006) discussed the role of language and culture in socio-economic development. The paper laid out the foundations of an alternative approach which posits that all languages and cultures, regardless of their status or numerical size, can be integrated into processes of socio-economic development.


Blommaert (1996) found that the field of language planning could benefit from a critical assessment of its past performances, especially in terms of the construction of a particular discourse on language and society. Concretely, he claimed that during research on language planning, linguistic analysis is “overdeveloped”, while political, economic or sociological analyses remain “underdeveloped”. Clearly, language planning can no longer stand exclusively for practical issues such as standardization, graphization, terminological elaboration and so on. The link between language planning and sociopolitical developments is obviously of paramount importance. Blommaert also asserted that whenever we indulge in language planning, we should be aware of the fact that we indulge in political linguistics. He advocated a more political approach to language planning in which language is one variable on a par with a number of others. Simultaneously, he advocated language planning based on a combination of historiographic and ethnographic approaches. Dua (1996) proposed that language planning and political theory have not yet developed far enough for us to understand the nature and scope of language conflicts, so the development of an explanatory model of language conflicts is needed for viable language policies. Schutter (2007) provided an overview of the emerging debates over language policy and linguistic diversity within political philosophy. 1.3 Authors of articles The articles were written by authors from 46 countries. Figure 6 shows the most frequent. Other countries 40%

USA 34%

USA Canada Australia UK South Africa Other countries

South Africa 4%

UK Australia 5% 5%

Figure 6. Countries of article authors

Canada 12%

(Other countries are Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Israel, India, Spain, France, Ireland, Singapore, Italy, Cyprus, Denmark, Holland, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Sweden, Botswana, Brunei Darussalam, Finland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Switzerland, Algeria, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bengladesh, Brazil, China, Estonia, Switzerland, Hungary, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Pakistan, Poland, Puerto Rico, Sudan, Turkey, and Zaire)


A total of 34% of the authors are from the USA and 12% are from Canada, and a large percentage are from European countries, revealing a strong bias toward these areas of the developed world, perhaps a reflection of the home countries of most of the editorial team. At least 50% of them come from core English-speaking countries (cf. Phillipson 2000). Asia is relatively underrepresented. (We based our numbers on the home institutions of the authors, which may not reflect their countries of origin.) 1.4 Language of articles The articles are written in nine languages: see Figure 7. Other languages German 4% 4% French 11% English French German Other languages

English 81%

Figure 7. Language of articles

(Other languages are Italian, Esperanto, Portuguese, Spanish, Afrikaans, and Polish)

Figure 7 demonstrates that, even in this multilingual journal, English dominates as the international language of the academic world, with an absolute advantage of 81%. In Table 4, we calculated the percentage of languages used in three different periods, namely, from 1977 to 1990, from 1991 to 2000, from 2001 to 2010. Despite the journal’s multilingual policies, they show a trend toward English. Table 4. Language proportion in three periods Language

First Period

Second Period

Third Period

English

75%

84%

84%

French

13%

11%

9%

Other

12%

5%

7%


The articles from 1977 to 1990 were written in six languages, with English representing 75%, while the other languages (German, Italian, Esperanto, and Spanish) took one fourth. Languages of articles from 1991 to 2000 were still six in number, but the proportion of English advanced to 84%, with the other languages (Italian, German, Portuguese, and Afrikaans) dropping to one sixth. The languages of articles from 2001 to 2010 remained at six languages, with 84% in English, while the other languages (Portuguese, Spanish, French, Esperanto and Polish) were still left with only one sixth. However, the numbers for 2011 and 2012 are 13 articles in English and 5 in other languages, which shows a significant move back towards multilingualism. 86% 84%

84%

1991–2000

2001–2010

84% 82% 80% 78% 76% 75%

74% 72% 70%

1977–1990

Figure 8. Change in use of English in articles in three periods

2. Book reviews The 928 book reviews cover almost every aspect of the research field. 2.1 Titles of reviewed books Table 5. Most frequent words in titles of books reviewed Word

Freq.

Word

Freq.

Word

Freq.

Word

Freq.

language

425

history

23

India

11

global

6

English

97

world

22

Asian

10

Arabic

5

linguistic

72

international

22

identity

10

Chinese

5

bilingual

41

Esperanto

21

South Africa

10

France

5

education

39

society

21

conflict

8

Ireland

5


Table 5. (continued) Word

Freq.

Word

Freq.

Word

Freq.

Word

Freq.

policy

37

social

20

diversity

8

Japanese

5

planning

36

ethnic

20

status

8

Mexico

5

Europe

34

national

20

Pidgins

8

Canada

4

cultural

33

Creole

18

dialect

7

Japan

4

United States

33

communication

17

French

7

Yiddish

4

minority

29

German

17

Italian

7

Afrikaans

3

Spanish

27

development

15

right

7

ecology

3

multilingual

26

acquisition

13

Basque

6

Finland

3

sociolinguistic

25

geolinguistics

12

Italy

6

Jewish

3

politics

24

ideology

12

death

6

Slavic

3

We extracted the words with frequency bigger than 20: see Figure 9.

National

Social

Ethnic

Society

Esperanto

International

World

History

Politics

Multilingual

Sociolinguistic

Spanish

Minority

United States

Europe

Cultural

Planning

Policy

Education

Bilingual

English

Linguistic

120 100 80 60 40 20 0

Figure 9. Frequency of words with Frequency >= 20 in titles of books reviewed

As with the articles, the titles express key aspects of language planning, which can also be divided into three kinds: topics, languages, countries. For book reviews, we also calculated the word frequency of these three parts, shown below in Figure 10, Figure 11 and Figure 12. Figure 10 shows us the focus of the books during these years. These topics are similar to those in the articles. Here we selected some different terms according to different categories. The first group concerns the range of language planning, such as cultural, world, global; the second group concerns research methods, such as geolinguistics; the third group covers topics of most interest to researchers in language planning, such as, society, acquisition, status, dialects; the fourth group deals with the situation of languages, such as development, diversity, ecology, death.

166 Wenwen Li and Haitao Liu 50 40 30 20 10 Diversity Status Dialect Right Death Global Ecology

Communication Development Acquisition Geolinguistics Ideology Identity Conflict

World International Society Social Ethnic National

Bilingual Education Cultural Minority Multilingual Sociolinguistic Politics

0

Figure 10. Topics most frequently referenced in titles of books reviewed

Afrikaans

Yiddish

Japanese

Chinese

Arabic

Basque

Italian

French

Pidgins

German

Creoles

Esperanto

Spanish

English

120 100 80 60 40 20 0

Figure 11. Languages most frequently cited in titles of books reviewed 40 30 20 10 Slavic

Finland

Japan

Canada

Mexico

Ireland

France

Italy

South Africa

Asian

India

United States

Europe

0

Figure 12. Countries and areas most frequently cited in titles of books reviewed

Figure 12 shows us the most frequently cited countries in the titles of books. Europe and America still dominate, but Asian countries, such as India and Japan, make up a significant number.


2.2 Language of reviewed books To what extent do the languages of the books reflect the multilingual policies of the journal? The books were written in 26 languages. As with articles, English is highest, at 70%. French and German account for more than 20%. Other languages 9% German 8% English

French 13%

French German Other languages

English 70%

Figure 13. Languages of books reviewed

(Other languages include Spanish, Esperanto, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Catalan, Galego, Latin, Norwegian, Afrikaans, Basque, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Frisian, Galician, Hungarian, Malay, Occitan, Philippine, Polish, and Slovak)

2.3 Timeliness of reviews More than 4 years Within a year 8% 3% 4 years 9%

1 year 26%

Within a year 1 year 2 years

3 years 18%

3 years 4 years More than 4 years

2 years 36%

Figure 14. Timeliness of reviews

Figure 14 indicates that most of the book reviews were published within a very short time and closely followed the publication dates: 83% are within 3 years, 92% within 4 years.


2.4 Language of book reviews Other languages 8% German 10% English

French 12%

French German Other languages

English 70%

Figure 15. Languages of book reviews

(Other languages are Italian, Spanish, Esperanto, and Russian)

Seven languages were used in book reviews: 70% in English, with French, German, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto and Russian following. 2.5 Countries of authors of book reviews Other countries 20% Switzerland 4% Canada 4% France 6%

USA Germany France

USA 59%

Canada Switzerland Other countries

Germany 7%

Figure 16. Countries of book review authors

(Other countries include Spain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, UK, China, Israel, Australia, Poland, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Brunei Darussalam, Japan, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Greece, Brazil, Bulgaria, Denmark, Egypt, Hungary, Kuwait, Luxemburg, Italy, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Tanzania, USSR, and Zaire)

3. Interlinguistics In the final issue of 1996, a new section of the journal was created, called Interlinguistics. While interlinguistics articles had been published in the journal


before this, the creation of a new section, with a special editor, was an attempt to highlight one of the main interests of the editors. The field of interlinguistics has been variously defined. Manders (1950) considered interlinguistics a branch of linguistics, whose aim is to find the best way to solve the problems of planned language. Schubert (1989) concluded that the definition most widely accepted by scholars was simply the study of planned language, a view shared by Blanke (1985). Tauli (1968) defined interlinguistics as the systematic study of the aims, principles, methods and strategy of language planning, including the regularization and development of existing languages as well as constructing regional, domestic and international languages. A good bibliographical survey on interlinguistics can be found in LPLP (Blanke 2003). The core field of interlinguistics is that of planned languages or interlanguages, namely the creation, structure, function, development and application of planned languages, which are languages consciously created in accordance with given criteria for (at least in most cases) the facilitation of international communication (Blanke 2003). Fettes (1997) addresses Esperanto as a promoter of linguistic democracy, serving to protect local and regional languages from the domination of major national languages (Tonkin 2007), offering an ideal means of bridging the traditional gap between language teaching and the social sciences, an approach referred to in the English-language literature as language awareness, but rarely construed to include such goals as awareness of linguistic diversity and linguistic rights. 3.1 Abstracts of interlinguistics articles

European

English

Development

German

China

Zamenhof

Planned

International

Community

Chinese

Linguistic

Interlinguistics

Language

Esperanto

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Figure 17. Word frequency in abstracts of interlinguistics articles

From the statistics of abstracts of the interlinguistics articles in Figure 17, we can conclude that the main focus of this section is Esperanto studies and their relation


to interlinguistics — hardly surprisingly considering Esperanto’s domination of the field as the only widely spoken planned language. Planned language affords good material for the study of language planning. Since language planning aims to optimize human communication, it is extremely similar to the definition and domain of interlinguistics. Planned language is a part as well as an object of language planning. Obviously, interlinguistics has a close relation to language planning (Gobbo 2010, Tonkin 2011). The topic of interlinguistics in China has received considerable attention in the interlinguistics section. Lins (2008) showed how the economic prosperity of Japan and the opening of China, by allowing greater contact with the outside world, gave Esperanto the opportunity to demonstrate more strongly its usefulness as an easily learned means of communication. However, Liu (1998) observed that interlinguistics in China is barely in its infancy. Many problems and a long path of development still await it. Müller and Benton (2006a, b) discussed the complexity of the relationship between language and politics in China, especially in the first half of the twentieth century. They claimed that Esperanto in China and among the Chinese diaspora was for long periods closely linked with anarchism. Even before the interlinguistics section was established in 1996, the journal had published several significant contributions to the field in previous volumes, including a special issue in 1987 on the occasion of Esperanto’s centennial. Blanke (1987) discussed the history and shortcomings of terms which have been used for describing Esperanto, such as artificial language, auxiliary language, constructed language, world language, universal language. Tonkin (1987) chronicled the history of Esperanto, focusing on its origins and development, early attitudes toward its adoption, patterns of use and recognition, the development of a literature in and of Esperanto, the culture associated with the language. Jordan (1987) presented an article on the origins, expansion, and current situation of the Esperanto movement, with special focus on American Esperantists. Julià (1989) explored the concept of language rules and standardization in the context of an exclusively non-native language community. Edwards and MacPherson (1987) conducted a medium-scale sociolinguistic study into preconceptions about invented languages. Schubert (1988) examined the use of Esperanto as an intermediary language in knowledge banks. Dasgupta (1987) discussed notions of ethnicity raised by artificial languages and the ideology of universalism and alternative literature. Harry (1989) explored the development of new genres and a new technical language for Esperanto, particularly in international law and diplomacy; his paper summarized the history of interest in this field over the past hundred years, with the development of the lexicon of the language and its application to legal issues (cf. Gledhill 2000). By treating the phenomenon of Esperanto as a language system, a social movement, and a political ideology, contributors to the interlinguistics section


provided, and continue to provide, an opportunity to examine the social history of the Esperanto movement and its relationship to important issues of identity and culture. 3.2 Titles of interlinguistics articles 25 20 15 10 5 Planned

Chinese

China

Community

Japan

International

Language

Interlinguistics

Esperanto

0

Figure 18. Word frequency in titles of interlinguistics articles

The titles of interlinguistics articles (Figure 18) parallel the abstracts. As a brand name, Esperanto has had some success in establishing itself in the international marketplace. However, the result of an investigation of the word Esperanto in newspapers from Gubbins (1997) showed negative reactions: although Esperanto was once highly visible within European working-class movements, it proved to be quite invisible in the one popular newspaper examined, and it faces an uphill struggle to alter these patterns of discourse. Some surveys referred to in Fettes (1996) suggested that Esperanto functions primarily as a means of informal oral communication, and secondarily, of informal or semi-formal written communication through correspondence and an extensive network of periodicals; the wider use of Esperanto by a significant proportion of speakers is not expected in the short term. As to the goal and function of Esperanto, it was promoted as a solution to the language difficulties of diplomats, linguistic barriers to trade, and the language problems associated with scientific cooperation; and the principal reason for Esperanto is the removal of language barriers between uncomprehending individuals (Tonkin 2000). However, through years of effort, the systematic study of international planned languages remains almost unknown among North American linguists, although the field has continued to develop in Europe and Asia (Fettes 2001). In recent years (2005 and 2006), a survey of recent scholarship shows steady production of studies and reference works in the linguistics of Esperanto, interlinguistics, the Esperanto movement and speech community,


Zamenhof’s biography, the history of Esperanto, Esperanto literature, translation, the teaching of Esperanto, and language policy (Tonkin 2007). Although Esperanto studies are still on their way to finding a place in contemporary linguistics, the unique origins and ideology of Esperanto make it an unusual and fascinating area of research. We believe the topic will go on to be intrinsically important and interesting in future academic study. 3.3 Authors of interlinguistics articles 3% 3% 3%

3% 3% 23%

3% 3% 3% 5% 8%

12% 8% 10%

Germany China Finland Netherlands

Italy UK France Sweden

10% Canada Japan India Switzerland

USA Austria Israel

Figure 19. Countries of authors of interlinguistics articles

According to Figure 19, authors from 15 countries contributed to the interlinguistics section. Interlinguistics articles came primarily from researchers from Germany, with Italy, Canada, and USA following. Two East Asian countries, China and Japan, are among the most studied areas. Lins (2008) pointed out that outside Europe and the Americas, nowhere has Esperanto spread as much as it has in East Asia. For the past hundred years Esperanto has found adepts in China and Japan. The two countries hoped to use Esperanto as a bridge between east and west or they found in it a link to anarchism and communism. Tonkin (2007) indicated an increase in publication on Esperanto and interlinguistics particularly in German and Russian in 2005 and 2006, the years covered by his article.


3.4 Languages of interlinguistics articles 3% 5% 3% 13%

English German Italian Esperanto French

76%

Figure 20. Languages of interlinguistics articles

Articles were written in 5 languages and are mostly in English (76%), with only 3% of them written in Esperanto, the product of a conscious effort on the part of the editors to make such material available to mainstream linguists.

Concluding remarks Our goal was to establish what developments LPLP has reflected, what characteristics it has displayed in different periods and what role it plays in the development process of language planning. In the process of statistical analysis of 332 articles, 928 book reviews and 39 interlinguistics articles in 100 issues, we identified the following important aspects of the journal. First, it reflects key issues of the discipline. The data extracted from the abstracts and titles of articles reveal a high frequency of such words as political, economic, education, diversity, ecology, along with emphasis on particular languages and countries: English, Esperanto, USA, Germany. These emphases change over time. Second, as a multilingual journal, it reveals a shifting pattern of language use. Third, we found that authors from North America and Europe dominate. From the detailed information of the articles in the journal, we found that the content and focus of the journal are constantly changing in different periods, both reflecting and promoting changes in the field. On the one hand, the articles in the journal in different periods indicate the preoccupations of the time and the preference of authors and editors; on the other hand, the journal itself guides direction and reacts to changes in the field. The journal is a fully international journal since it is open to articles written in any language, and the editors particularly welcome articles in languages other than English. In addition, articles have second and third abstracts in other languages, opening the journal to an international and multilingual readership.


At the same time, the interlinguistics section is a feature unique to LPLP. While the stream of articles and books on aspects of language planning and language policy continues, the editors of LPLP stress the merits of a more systematic examination of the role of planned language in a multilingual and globalized world. Particularly and significantly urgent is the need to examine the relationship between Esperanto and language policy.

Acknowledgments We thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and Humphrey Tonkin, the editor-in-chief, for his careful editing work. This work is partly supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 12XXY005 & 11&ZD188).

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摘要《语言问题与语言规划》的发展作为语言规划这一研究领域最具权威的学术期刊之一，《语言问题与语言规划》已经经历了一个长期的发展过程。本文旨在探究此期刊在不同历史时期的研究热点和发展变化、刊物长期以来的特色以及期刊在语言规划领域的发展变化过程中起到了什么作用。文章收集了此期刊100期当中的各类信息内容，建立了一个关于期刊内容的语料库并对此进行统计分析。经过对这些数据的精确统计分析，本文发现此期刊确实在语


言规划的发展中扮演了非常重要的角色，它拥有自己明确而不同于其他语言规划期刊的特点，它自身的发展和变化在一定程度上真实而准确地反映出了语言规划的发展踪迹。

Resumo Evoluado de Language Problems and Language Planning Kiel unu el la plej aŭtoritataj revuoj en la kampo de lingvoplanado, LPLP jam havas longan historion. En ĉi tiu studo, ni priskribas la disvolviĝojn kaj ŝanĝojn, kiujn la revuo spertis en diversaj periodoj, la trajtojn konstantajn, kaj la rolon luditan en la evoluado de lingvoplanado. Tiucele, ni kolektis informojn de la unuaj 100 numeroj de la revuo (1977 al 2010) por konstrui korpuson, kaj uzis specialan programaron eltirantan malsamajn kategoriojn de informaro. Tra la analizo de tiuj statistikoj, la studo trovis, ke la revuo estis/as mult-aspekte reprezentema de la ŝanĝoj en la kampo de lingvoplanado, sekvis/as la tendencojn en la disciplino kaj klare kaj precize spegulis/as la evoluantajn prioritatojn de lingvoplanado dum jaroj.

Address correspondence to Haitao Liu School of International Studies Zhejiang University 866 Yuhangtang Road CN-310058, Hangzhou, P. R. China [email protected]

About the authors Wenwen Li is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Language and Culture, Beifang University of Nationalities (Yinchuan, China) and a Ph.D. in linguistics and applied linguistics. Her special fields of interest are language planning and dependency grammar. Haitao Liu is a Qiushi distinguished professor of linguistics and applied linguistics at Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China). His research interests include language planning, interlinguistics, quantitative linguistics, and dependency grammar.