LanguagePolicy and Planning in
        LanguageEducation: Legacies,
        Consequences, and Possibilities
        TERRENCEG.WILEY                                  OFELIAGARCÍA
        Center for Applied Linguistics                   Graduate Center, City University of New York
        464640th Street Northwest                        Urban Education and Hispanic and
        Washington, DC 20016                             Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages
        Email: twiley@cal.org                            42 Harmon Avenue
                                                         Pelham, NY 10803
                                                         Email: ogarcia@gc.cuny.edu
        This article considers the relevance of language policy and planning (LPP) for language education in
        theUnitedStatesinrelationtothecountry’slongstandingandcontinuingmultilingualism.Inreflecting
        ontheU.S. context, one striking feature is the absence of a guiding overarching explicit national edu-
        cational language policy. Language policies and practices may either promote or restrict the teaching
        of languages. Thus, whether having such a policy would be desirable for promoting the learning of lan-
        guages depends on a number of factors such as the features of the policy and the extent to which it was
        adequately resourced, understood, valued, and implemented effectively, just to mention a few. Explicit
        languageplanningandpolicymakingintheUnitedStates−whenitdoesoccur−tendstobedoneatthe
        state, local, or institutional levels, or within rather limited domains of federal priorities, such as those
        related to defense or national security. Beyond formal policies, implicit language practices sometimes
        havemoreinfluenceonlanguagebehavior.Evenwhenpoliciesareintendedtopromotelanguages,they
        maynotalwaysbewellconceived, received, resourced, or implemented.
          Given some of these issues, it is useful to consider the role of agency in language planning and policy
        (LPP). Even when guided by national or state top-down policy agendas, policies can be interpreted and
        reinterpreted, by policy intermediaries, agents, administrators, or arbiters (Johnson, 2013). Moreover,
        within the context of school language policies, at the level of implementation, teachers, parents, and
        the students themselves help to determine the effectiveness of policies in practice (Menken & García,
        2010). Beyond the schools, parents and stakeholders in the community can play significant roles in cre-
        ating practices that have the force of policy from the bottom up. Given these considerations, this article
        weighs the role of policy and the legacy of past policies and their consequences; assesses some of the
        strengths and weaknesses of current policies and practices, both in schools and families and commu-
        nities; and considers prospects for a more promising future that involves embracing the fundamental
        multilingualism of U.S. society, communities, and families. In so doing, the article reflects on alterna-
        tives to U.S. language education policy that would transcend national conceptions of languages so as to
        leverage speakers’ actual linguistic competence.
        Keywords: bilingual/dual education; bilingualism/multilingualism; education policy; language policy;
        translanguaging
                                                         TRADITIONALCONCEPTSINLPP:CORPUS,
                                                         STATUS,ANDLANGUAGEACQUISITION
        The Modern Language Journal,100(Supplement2016)  PLANNINGANDTHEIRCONTEMPORARY
        DOI:10.1111/modl.12303                           RELEVANCE
        0026-7902/16/48–63 $1.50/0                         LPP has traditionally been seen in somewhat
        ⃝C 2016 The Modern Language Journal              technocratic terms, wherein experts attempt
                   Terrence G. Wiley and Ofelia García                                                                                49
                   to solve communication problems related to                    as coining new terms, reforming spelling, and
                   language diversity. Bright (1992), for example,               adoptinganewscript.Itrefers,inshort,tothecre-
                   defined language planning as “a deliberate,                   ation of new forms, the modification of old ones,
                   systematic, and theory-based attempt to solve the             or the selection from alternative forms in a spo-
                   communicationproblemsofacommunitybystudying                   kenorwritten code” (Cooper, 1989, p. 31).
                   the various languages or dialects it uses, and de-              Corpus planning also includes orthography
                   veloping a policy concerning their selection and              planning, which centers on the creation or re-
                   use; also sometimes called language engineering               form of alphabets, syllabaries, and ideographic
                   orlanguagetreatment”thatisoftenconductedat                    writing systems. Historical examples include the
                   the national level (p. 310, emphasis added). The              reforms of modern Hebrew, Norwegian, and
                   idea that language diversity itself is a problem,             Turkish; the promotion of a common spoken
                   rather than the normal condition of human soci-               form of Mandarin, Putónghuà, in the People’s
                   eties, has often been inherent in traditional goals           Republic of China; along with the simplification
                   for language planning. Offering an alternative to             of Chinese characters and the creation of a Ro-
                   the technocratic problem-solving focus, Cooper                manized written form, pinyin. Efforts to remove
                   (1989) characterized language planning as the                 gender bias in languages are also examples of
                   attempt “to influence the behavior of others with             corpus planning. Examples of corpus planning
                   respecttotheacquisition,structure,orfunctional                also include spelling reforms, such as those
                   allocation of their language codes” (p. 45). He               promoted by Noah Webster (1758–1843) in his
                   added:                                                        efforts to promote an ‘American’ English to be
                                                                                 distinctive from British English (see Wiley, 1996,
                      This definition neither restricts the planners to au-      forelaboration).Althoughorthographyplanning
                      thoritative agencies, nor restricts the type of target     has been largely a consideration for the planning
                      group, nor specifies an ideal type of planning. Fur-       of national languages, it has had implications for
                      theritiscouchedinbehavioralratherthanproblem-              instruction of world languages. One example is
                      solving terms. Finally, it implies influence rather than   thecaseofteachingChineseintheUnitedStates,
                      changeinasmuchastheformerincludesthemainte-                whereprogramshaveincreasinglyshiftedempha-
                      nance of preservation of current behavior, a plausi-       sis from the teaching of traditional characters to
                      ble goal of language planning, as well as the change
                      of current behavior. (p. 45; emphasis in the original)     simplified, or both.
                                                                                   As noted, status planning is focused on the
                   Much earlier, Leibowitz (1969, 1974) had di-                  language itself, rather than on its speakers, but
                   rectly argued that language planning has as its               obviouslythestatusofalanguagehasimplications
                   overt purpose the goal of social control, in-                 foritsspeakers.Conversely,thestatusofthespeak-
                   cluding the use of policies for discriminatory                ers may also have implications for the language
                   purposes. Both the notions of ‘social control’                variety spoken. Status planning is often tied to
                   and ‘influence’ suggest that language planning                the formal promotion of one or more languages
                   has a political dimension of ideological con-                 by national, state, or international governing
                   trol (cf. Fairclough, 2013; Tollefson, 1991; Wiley,           bodies. In the United States, status planning has
                   1996, 2005). From this perspective, the processes             also been linked to formal laws or codes designed
                   of language planning and policy formation re-                 to diminish or restrict the teaching or uses of
                   quire critical scrutiny as they are not neutral in            various languages during times of war (Wiley,
                   terms of the social intents and consequences. In              1996,1998).Statusplanningalsohasimplications
                   other words, some policies themselves can create              for which varieties or registers of a language are
                   problems.                                                     taught. In essence it involves the ‘privileging’ of
                      Conventional views of language planning have               alanguagevariety,typicallyasawrittenstandard.
                   focused on two major aspects of language policy:              This selection thereby influences social judg-
                   ‘corpus planning’ and ‘status planning,’ each of              ments concerning what is ‘proper,’ ‘correct,’ or
                   which focuses on language itself rather than on               ‘preferred.’ When a language is taught with the
                   its speakers. Corpus planning “deals with norm                literature of ‘high’ culture as its object, prestige
                   selection and codification, as in the writing of              varieties become privileged.
                   grammars and the standardization of spelling;                   Prestige also extends to the labels that ascribe
                   [whereas]statusplanningdealswithinitialchoice                 status to languages. In a country such as the
                   of language, including attitudes toward alterna-              United States, where Spanish functions as a com-
                   tive languages and the political implications of              munity, home, or second language for millions
                   various choices” (Bright, 1992, p. 311). Histori-             andwasintroducedintheNorthAmericanconti-
                   cally, corpusplanninghasinvolved“activitiessuch               nentlongbeforeEnglish,itisironicthatitismost
         50                                                      The Modern Language Journal, 100, Supplement 2016
         frequently taught as if it were only a ‘foreign’ lan-      gual context as somehow new or unprecedented.
         guage (García, 2014b; Macías, 2014).                       Over the past three decades, for example, the
            Language‘acquisitionplanning’isconvention-              numberandpercentofthoseage5andolderliv-
         ally the third dimension of language planning,             ing in households where a language other than
         whichhasthemostrelevanceforeducation,since                 English was spoken, rose from 23.1 million (11%
         it typically involves the formulation of policies          of the U.S. population) to 78.4 million (25.6%;
         that guide practice on a large scale, including            based on comparisons of 1980 U.S. Census data
         the determination of which languages will be               andtheAmericanCommunitySurvey2007–2011,
         used as media for instruction (Tollefson, 2013;            5-year sample). It is important to note that each
         Tollefson & Tsui, 2004). Thus, acquisition plan-           external change in global migration flows has of-
         ning has been centrally related to formation of            ten been accompanied by internal debates about
         educational language policies, both in historical          the nature and role of diversity in U.S. society,
         andcontemporarycontexts.                                   and has brought with it questions about the role
                                                                    of language in education. In response to the di-
         THEROLEOFAGENCYINLANGUAGE                                  versity of the present, memories of the distant
         POLICYANDPLANNING                                          past are often imagined to have been more lin-
                                                                    guistically homogeneous. Thus, it is often for-
            The impetus for overt language planning can             gotten that language diversity has always been a
         be either public or private. As clarified by Jahr          major feature of the American social landscape,
         (1992), “LP is usually conducted according to a            and that there is an antecedent history rich
         declaredprogramoradefinedsetofcriteria,and                 with the languages and cultures of indigenous
         with a deliberate goal by officially appointed com-        peoples followed by the intrusion of coloniz-
         mittees or bodies, by private organizations, or by         ers and settlers, entangled with imperial rivalries
         prescriptive linguists working on behalf of official au-   amongSpanish,English,French,Portuguese,and
         thorities.Itsobjectiveistoestablishnorms(primar-           Russian colonizers in the Americas. These were
         ily written)whicharevalidated by high social status;       followed by clashes among the descendants of
         oral norms connected with these written stan-              former colonizers, settlers, and blended peoples
         dards (. . .)” (pp. 12–13, emphasis added).                whofashionedforthemselvesnewlymintediden-
            In some countries there are official, state-            tities as ‘native’ citizens or otherwise legitimate
         sponsored language academies, but in other                 occupants. These newly ‘native’ Americans ex-
         countries, such as the United States, this is              panded the boundaries of the original ‘nation’
         not the case. Weinstein (1979, 1983) makes a               through expansionist wars and territorial annex-
         distinction between two major types of actors              ations while populating the workforce and newly
         in determining societal language choices: (a)              incorporatedterritorieswith‘foreign’immigrants
         governmental planning, which is explicit, official         (Wiley, 2014a). By taking a longer view, policy
         planning, and (b) the influence of key individu-           debates about the role of language in education
         als, whom he calls language strategists. Athirdtype        amidst the multilingualism of the present can be
         of actor, however, may also be strongly shaped             seen as new iterations in ongoing contestation
         or influenced by de facto planners, or ‘arbiters’          andnegotiationofpeoplesofaheterogeneousso-
         (Johnson, 2013), as in the case of key individ-            ciety in a diverse world, shaped by forces of glob-
         uals in state educational agencies, schools, or            alization and struggles related to power, status,
         universities who help to shape or influence the            access to resources, and identity.
         interpretation, implementation, or resourcing of             Language policies can be differentiated in
         educational language policies. A fourth type of            terms of their degree of formality or explicitness.
         agency involves ‘bottom-up’ efforts of stakehold-          Thus, it is useful to distinguish between explicit
         ers in the communityaswellasparentsandfamily               or official policies and those that are implicit
         members. Bottom-up efforts have been particu-              or even tacit. They may also be distinguished
         larly noteworthy among indigenous communities              in terms of their goals or orientations rang-
         (Hornberger,1996;McCarty,2011;Wiley,2014b).                ing from (a) promotion-oriented policies, (b)
                                                                    expediency-oriented accommodations, (c) tole-
                                                                    rance-oriented policies, (d) restriction-oriented
         LANGUAGEPOLICYORIENTATIONS:                                policies, (e) repression-oriented policies, (f)
         OVERCOMINGTHEWEIGHTOFHISTORY                               polices aimed at erasing the visibility and even his-
            Based on a focus of present and recent linguis-         torical memoryofvariouslanguages,and(g)null
         tic data, it is tempting to see the current multilin-      policies, which refer to the significant absences
                                                                    of policies (see Wiley, 2004, for elaboration).
                 Terrence G. Wiley and Ofelia García                                                                 51
                 United States history generally reflects the full    ment (roughly 1914–1925) and its concomitant
                 range of these policy orientations.                  emphasis on English Only gained momentum
                   Within the U.S. context, constitutional factors    bothinresponsetolargeincreasesinlinguistically
                 have worked to moderate what might have been         diverse immigrant populations following the U.S.
                 astrongerfederalroleintheformationofeduca-           Civil War uptoWorldWarI,andtheninresponse
                 tionalandlanguagepolices.ThroughoutU.S.his-          to the alleged threat of enemies during World
                 tory, there has been a tension between so-called     War I. In spite of the influence of the American-
                 states’ rights and those of the U.S. federal govern- ization Movement, local, community-based, and
                 ment (McDonald, 2000). In the U.S. federal sys-      some parental efforts persisted in attempting to
                 tem, some authority or powers are clearly identi-    transmit immigrant and heritage languages after
                 fied in the Constitution as being in the purview     World War I (Tamura, 1993; Wiley, 1998, 2004,
                 of the federal government, whereas others not        2014a).
                 specified are ‘reserved’ to the states. Matters re-     Thelegaltensionsbetweenthoseattemptingto
                 lating to educational polices tend to fall under     restrict instruction in foreign language education
                 reticent powers, unless they conflict with fed-      cametoaheadinalandmarkU.S.SupremeCourt
                 eral laws or constitutional protections. Constitu-   ruling, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923).
                 tionally, federal authority trumps state authority,  Based on the argument that a 1919 Nebraska
                 which has been demonstrated in cases involving       law restricting foreign language instruction in
                 educational access and the requirement for lin-      public schools violated the due process rights of
                 guistic accommodation (see the following discus-     parents guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, in
                 sion on Lau v. Nichols). More recently, however,     a 7–2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled against
                 the U.S. Supreme Court has deferred to the au-       Nebraska’s restrictive policy. Several years later,
                 thority of states in determining the specificna-     in Farrington v. Tokushige, 273 U.S. 284 (1927),
                 ture of educational language policy accommoda-       theSupremeCourtunanimouslyruledinfavorof
                 tions for language minority students (see Moore,     the rights of parents in what was then known as
                 2014).                                               the Territory of Hawai‘i to instruct their chil-
                   Again, among the most salient points to take       dreninforeignlanguagesthroughprivatemeans.
                 away from reflecting on U.S. history is that the     These two cases are significant in providing a
                 country has always been linguistically diverse.      legal basis for the rights of parents to have
                 Fromcolonialtimesthroughthe19thcentury,for           their students learn foreign or heritage lan-
                 example,therewasgeneraltolerancetowardmost           guages. They fall basically within the domain of
                 Europeanlanguages.EnslavedAfricans,however,          tolerance-orientedpoliciesbutdonotcommitthe
                 werenotallowedtospeakortransmittheirnative           state to promote these languages (Wiley, 1998).
                 languages even as they were restricted from be-      Despite the protections denoted by Meyer and
                 comingliterate in English. Colonial era ‘compul-     Farrington,theideologyofEnglishOnlyeduca-
                 sory ignorance laws’ were incorporated into slave    tion as a principal tool of Americanization has
                 codes that were maintained in southern states        had considerable influence on shaping school
                 until the end of the Civil War (1861–1865). Na-      language policies, both in terms of the use of im-
                 tive language literacy was promoted in some Na-      migrant languages in schools and the emphases
                 tive American tribes until repressive policies were  placed on foreign language education. Instruc-
                 putinplacealongwiththeEnglish-onlyboarding           tion in Germanasthemostcommonlytaughtfor-
                 school movement that was instituted in the 1880s     eign language in U.S. secondary schools plum-
                 (Weinberg, 1995).                                    meted following World War I, never returning to
                   Instruction in some immigrant languages, par-      its former status.
                 ticularly in German,wasestablishedearlyonfrom           A half century later, the U.S. Supreme Court
                 the late 17th century. German–English bilingual      passed another landmark case, Lau v. Nichols,
                 education was widely practiced in many areas of      414 U.S. 563 (1974). Lau is sometimes pre-
                 thecountryuntiltheWorldWarIera,whenawave             sumed to have sanctioned the use of bilingual
                 of wartime xenophobia swept the country, result-     education, but it merely established the right of
                 inginwidespreadrestrictionsagainsttheteaching        non-English-speaking children to receive accom-
                 of foreign languages (Blanton, 2004; Toth, 1990;     modations in learning English given its role as
                 Wiley, 1998). By 1919, some 34 states had passed     the mediumofinstruction. Lau did not prescribe
                 restrictionsontheteachingof‘foreign’languages        bilingual education or a method of accommo-
                 suchasGerman,despitethewidespreadpresence            dation (Arias & Wiley, 2013). Nevertheless, from
                 of Germanandotherimmigrantlanguagesinthe             the 1970s into the 1990s, a majority of states
                 general population. The Americanization Move-        implemented some form of bilingual education