Aspects Of Language Planning And Language Policy As A Field Of Study

Language planning and language policy (LPLP for short) is relatively young as a field of formal academic study, dating roughly from the 1960s. It appeared after World War II when some of the new countries gained their independence and needed to solve the problems of language. But during the past four decades, the study of LPLP has developed so fast that it can be considered to be an independent subject in humanistic science. The present paper is a tentative study of the aspects of language planning and language policy.The study will focus on six aspects. After the Introduction (Chapter One), the second chapter introduces the basic terminology in the study, such as Language Planning, Language Policy, National Language, Official Language and so on.Chapter Three deals with the relationships between LPLP study and other fields of study including such relationships of LPLP study with such fields of study as social science, economics, politics, ethnics, human rights and endangered languages.In Chapter Four, a discussion of the methodology in LPLP study is presented, mainly focusing on the case studies of official language policy patterns in different countries, such as China and Japan where there is only one official language for the whole country, such a country as the USA that has no officially recognized official language, and countries like Singapore and India that each have several or even more than a dozen official languages.Chapter Five discusses the goals to attain in LPLP in bilingual and multi-lingual countries, which include both political goals and economic goals, and educational LPLP to achieve the goals.The sixth chapter introduces the famous researchers, academic publications, and organizations engaged in or devoted to the study of LPLP, which are usuallyconsidered to be important factors for the establishment, development and construction of any field of study or branch of learning.The last chapter is the Conclusion of the whole thesis which sums up the major points. The author believes that, with the development of the LPLP study into an independent discipline, and with efforts of political leaders and linguists and experts in different countries all over the world, human beings will finally make or choose the right language policy, strike a balance between economic development and linguistic and cultural development, and solve the language problems that caused so much trouble to them.