The Study On Individual Agency In Language Planning

The literature of language policy planning(LPP)focuses predominantly on the process of policy formulation and the implementation of planning programs,but the individual agency in language planning remains largely unaddressed.With the tremendous changes in Eastern Europe,the language policy of Central Asian countries that are important cooperation partners of China’s One Belt and One Road construction have been adjusted accordingly.After the independence of Kyrgyzstan,a series of macro laws and regulations were promulgated to promote the national language in a positive attitude.The national language policy can not be separated from the relevant institutions and individual actors on the process of language planning for multilingual context.Kyrgyz National University(KNU)is the first well-known comprehensive university founded in Kyrgyzstan.Therefore,this study attempts to reveal the role of individual actors in macro language planning through the description of university staff in different positions.Theories of micro language planning and individual agency in language planning are adopted as the analytical framework to describe the situation of language planning in Kyrgyzstan universities in different stages,analyze the roles of different individual actors in different stages of macro language planning,and summarize the functions and ways of individual actors in macro language planning.This paper makes in-depth interviews with different individual actors,and uses the content analysis method to investigate the performance of individual agency(people with expertise,people with influence,people with power and people with interest)in the five stages(initiation,involvement,influence,intervention and implementation).It is found that,although the state and universities are aware of the importance of the promotion national language,the faculty and staff of colleges and universities as implicit language planners have not fully implemented the current policy of promoting national language,which results from the fact that the formulation and implementation of their own language planning do not fully take into account the demand from individual actors.Therefore,individual actors should play the role of micro language planning,emphasize the guiding role of people with expertise and people with influence on the process of language planning in initiation and influence stages,and consider the suggestions and feedback from people with interest,so as to the state and people with power formulate the long-term development languagepolicies to improve the language planning and policies of colleges and universities.The study can benefit for researchers and educators to understand the present language situations and improve strategies or language planning of their university to meet their own needs.Furthermore,it can help make changes by exploring the roles of individual actors in the process of language policy with the current situation of universities.The shortcoming lies in the fact that the selected research participates is only Kyrgyz National University(KNU),and the interviewees need to be further in-depth and comprehensive.Future research should be combined with more cases for analysis and discussion.