Language Policy In Superdiverse Indonesia

Indonesia has an extreme diversity of linguistic wealth, with 707 languages by one count, or 731 languages and more than 1,100 dialects in another estimate, spoken by more than 600 ethnicities spread across 17,504 islands in the archipelago. Smaller, locally used indigenous languages jostle for survival alongside Indonesian, which is the national language, regional lingua francas, major indigenous languages, heritage languages, sign languages and world languages such as English, Arabic and Mandarin, not to mention emerging linguistic varieties and practices of language mixing. How does the government manage these languages in different domains such as education, the media, the workplace and the public while balancing concerns over language endangerment and the need for participation in the global community? Subhan Zein asserts that superdiversity is the key to understanding and assessing these intricate issues and their complicated, contested and innovative responses in the complex, dynamic and polycentric sociolinguistic situation in Indonesia that he conceptualises as superglossia. This offers an opportunity for us to delve more deeply into such a context through the language and superdiversity perspective that is in ascendancy. Zein examines emerging themes that have been dominating language policy discourse including status, prestige, corpus, acquisition, cultivation, language shift and endangerment, revitalisation, linguistic genocide and imperialism, multilingual education, personnel policy, translanguaging, family language policy and global English. These topical areas are critically discussed in an integrated manner against Indonesia’s elaborate socio-cultural, political and religious backdrop as well as the implementation of regional autonomy. In doing so, Zein identifies strategies for language policy to help inform scholarship and policymaking while providing a frame of reference for the adoption of the superdiversity perspective on polity-specific language policy in other parts of the world.

Nation-states manage and simplify diversity through a range of practices, including schooling and the mass media. Some argue that the forces that engender diversity have been in the ascendancy for many years, increasing the need to focus on the social, political, and economic consequences of this diversity. What has become clear from these discussions is that nuanced understandings of diversity are desirable and obtainable through a focus on how this diversity has come about and the role of nation-states in the diversification of social life. In Language and Superdiversity, Zane Goebel explores how diversity has been managed in Indonesia since Dutch colonial times and how these practices have produced more diversity. Taking Inspiration from contemporary linguistic anthropological thought, Goebel explains how ethnolinguistic identity in Indonesia has been constituted, reproduced, and valued over the longue durée, and how bits of these identities are used in everyday talk amongst Indonesians living in Japan, Using a wide range of data, he demonstrates how and why management practices have produced hundreds of ethnolinguistic groups in Indonesia, while Increasing Indonesia's diversity in other ways. For transnational Indonesians living in Japan, earlier participation in these management practices has enabled them to draw upon their knowledge of other ethnolinguistic groups to pull off situated identity work in everyday talk. These knowledging practices, Goebel argues, help build and maintain relationships that are important for this group of relative strangers to survive and thrive abroad. Book jacket.

This book delves into the complex world of language policy (LP) and its implementation, examining it from various angles and contexts. The concept of LP is explored in detail, with different experts offering diverse definitions, from a body of rules and practices to a social construct. LP is shown to encompass everything from government laws to family practices, reflecting both ideologies and beliefs about language use in daily life. The book highlights the distinction between language policy and language planning, emphasizing LP's presence at various levels of society, from governmental laws to family dynamics. It is noted that not all language ideologies and practices necessarily translate into formal language policies. Each chapter in the book examines LP in different contexts, from university campuses to multinational companies, and family settings. The linguistic landscape is explored, encompassing a wide range of language practices and behaviors in public spaces. Various methodologies and analysis models, including the classification of text divisions based on Top-Down and Bottom-Up, are employed to study linguistic landscapes. Chapters delve into specific case studies, such as the influence of English on the Indonesian linguistic landscape and language contestation in a college students' culinary zone. The book also explores the role of the Indonesian language in international corporations in the United Arab Emirates, highlighting the importance of cross-cultural communication. The book aims to provide readers with valuable insights into language policy, linguistic landscape analysis, and sociolinguistic research. It serves as a resource for future researchers in social, linguistic, and cultural studies and offers society members a deeper understanding of specific areas, their language choices, and social conditions. Ultimately, the book serves as an in-depth analysis of language policy and its implications in various contexts, contributing to the field of language studies and sociolinguistics.

This volume analyses the policymaking, expectations, implementation, progress, and outcomes of early language learning in various education policy contexts worldwide. The contributors to the volume are international researchers specialising in language policy and early language learning and their contributions aim to advance scholarship on early language learning policies and inform policymaking at the global level. The languages considered include learning English as a second language in primary schools in Japan, Mexico, Serbia, Argentina, and Tanzania; Spanish language education in the US and Australia; Arabic as a second language in Israel and Bangladesh; Chinese in South America and Oceania; and finally, early German teaching and learning in France and the UK.

This Handbook discusses the theoretical and disciplinary background to the study of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education worldwide. It highlights issues relating to EMI pedagogy, varying motivations for EMI education, and the delivery of EMI in diverse contexts across the world. The spread of English as a teaching medium and the lingua franca of the academic world has been the subject of various debates in recent years on the perceived hegemony of the English language and the ‘domain loss’ of non-English languages in academic communication. Encompassing a wide range of contributions to the field of EMI, the chapters of this Handbook are arranged in four distinct parts: Part I provides an overview of English-medium instruction in higher education worldwide; Part II focusses on EMI in Europe; Part III on EMI in the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa; and Part IV on EMI in the Asian region. The overall scope and level of expertise of this Handbook provides an unrivalled overview of this field of education. It serves as an essential reference for many courses dealing with applied linguistics, English language education, multilingualism, sociolinguistics, and related subjects at many levels of education, including Master’s and PhD-level studies. This Handbook serves as a valuable edition for university libraries across the world and an essential read for many faculty, undergraduate and postgraduate students, educators, and policymakers.

The Oxford Handbook of Southeast Asian Englishes is the first reference work of its kind to describe both the history and the contemporary forms, functions, and status of English in Southeast Asia (SEA). Since the arrival of English traders to Southeast Asia in the seventeenth century, the English language has had a profound impact on the linguistic ecologies and the development of societies throughout the region. Today, countries such as Singapore and the Philippines have adopted English as a national language, while in others, such as Indonesia and Cambodia, it is used as a foreign language of education. The chapters in this volume provide a comprehensive overview of current research on a wide range of topics, addressing the impact of English as a language of globalization and exploring new approaches to the spread of English in SEA. The volume is divided into six parts that investigate, respectively: historical and contemporary English contact in SEA; the structures of the Englishes spokes in different SEA nations; the English-language literatures of the region; approaches to English in education throughout the region; and resources for researching SEA Englishes. The handbook will be an invaluable reference work for students and researchers in areas as diverse as contact linguistics, English as a Foreign Language, world Englishes, and sociolinguistics.

In 1928, members of a young subaltern Indonesian elite pirated the language of the Dutch empire, bringing the Indonesian language into being along with its nation. Today, Indonesian is the language of two hundred and forty million citizens but is the "native" language of no one. Through rich analysis focused on the interplay of language varieties in two remote Indonesian provinces, Other Indonesians describes the unique language dynamic which has enabled the development of modern, democratic Indonesia. Complicating binaries that pit "low" against "high" Indonesian, or "standard" against "mixed," J. Joseph Errington argues that it is precisely the un-ethnic, non-territorial quality of Indonesian that enables its speakers to express themselves as members of a national community. This detailed account locates Indonesian not only within the institutions which give it distinctive value in the nation, but also in the biographies of its young, educated speakers. With a nuanced understanding of national identity, this book shows how careful analysis of Indonesia can provide insight into broader dynamics of postcolonial nationalism in a globalizing world.