Individual language advocates and managers

Bernard Spolsky

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

In a theory of language policy, managers are individuals or institutions with authority to require others to change their language practices or beliefs. Advocates are individuals or institutions who want the same result, but lacking any power to enforce, can only try to persuade. Language academies can be managers or advocates. Standardization is often the work of individual language reformers and missionaries, including those who develop writing systems. Advocates can persuade governments to implement language policy: examples are Hebrew, Irish and Māori. Examples of strong language managers are powerful leaders like Atatürk, Lenin, Stalin, and Lee Kuan Yew. But even powerful leaders find it hard to deal with the existence of policies at other levels and to implement unpopular policies.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)511-525
Number of pages15
JournalLanguage Policy
Volume21
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

Keywords

  • Academy
  • Advocate
  • Manager
  • Policy
  • Totalitarian

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