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15 - Language and Politics

State Traditions and Language Policy

from Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

By
André Lecours
Edited by
Ericka Albaugh ,
Linda Cardinal  and
Rémi Léger
Ericka Albaugh
Affiliation:
Bowdoin College, Maine
Linda Cardinal
Affiliation:
Université de l'Ontario français
Rémi Léger
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University, British Columbia
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Summary

The concluding chapter identifies three broad contributions of the book: explaining the choices made by states about language; offering explicit historical institutionalist accounts of the politics of language by centering the analysis on the state and using notions of legacies, critical juncture, path dependency, layering, conversion, and drift, among others; and, the further development, leveraging, and testing of the concept of state traditions as a theoretical and analytical focus for explaining language policy. The chapter also synthesizes the important points coming out of the case studies drawn from a multiplicity of contexts, namely that processes of state-making and state-building are central in forging the state traditions that steer linguistic policies towards specific developmental paths; that the specific nature and configuration of political institutions within a state, not only at founding but also as it evolves over time when adjusting to changing societal dynamics and circumstances, heavily condition the choices states make about language; and that political ideas and norms are central to state traditions since they tend to structure both political and policy development by conditioning the choices of political actors, pushing societies into specific paths of linguistic choices at the expense of others.

Keywords

Historical institutionalismstate-makingpath dependencypolitical institutionspolitical ideasnormslinguistic choice
Type
Chapter
Information
States of Language Policy
Theorizing Continuity and Change
 , pp. 289 - 302
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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