2010/01/01 by Francis M. Hult · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Multilingual Education and Policy #Second Language Learning and Teaching
paper · doi:10.1515/ijsl.2010.011
openalex publication_date 2010/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The ecology of language has been put forward as a useful orientation to the holistic investigation of multilingual language policies because it draws attention to relationships among speakers, languages, policies, and social contexts at varying dimensions of social organization. As such, it is an orientation that stands to facilitate the integration of micro- and macro-sociolinguistic inquiry in language policy and planning (LPP); however, it is not a method. An ecological orientation requires the application of specific methods in order to achieve a holistic picture of an LPP situation. To this end, the present article explores how recent discourse analytic theories and methods that focus on ways in which discursive processes operate within and across space and time are especially well suited to the ecological objective of understanding relationships between language policies and the social actions of individuals.