Michele Gazzola & Jeff Bale
Discussing Language Policy & Its Implications
In policy analysis, policy instruments are defined as the means by which governments attempt to induce individuals and groups to make decisions and take actions compatible with language policies. This notion is still not well known in language policy and planning. This presentation discusses the notions of language policy instrument, and propose a taxonomy of such instruments. The taxonomy is then applied to the language policy promoting multilingualism in the federal public administration of Canada and Switzerland. Results reveal that Canada has adopted policy instruments based on financial incentives, while Switzerland focused on policy instruments based on persuasion.
²ÝÝ®ÎÛÊÓƵµ¼º½ the speakers
Michele Gazzola
Michele Gazzola is Lecturer in Public Policy and Administration at the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences of Ulster University UK, and currently Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Ottawa with the support of the German Academic Exchanges Service (DAAD).His research areas include language policy and planning, minority languages, the economics of languages, and multilingualism as a social phenomenon. He worked on different research projects on multilingualism at the University of Geneva, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, University of Leipzig, Institute for ethnic studies in Ljubljana, and he has been teaching fellow at the University of Lugano. He has been external consultant, among others, for the European Parliament and the Swiss Confederation, and the European centre for minority issues. He is editor of the journal Language Problems & Language Planning.
Jeff Bale
Jeff Bale is Associate Professor of Language and Literacies Education at ²ÝÝ®ÎÛÊÓƵµ¼º½, ²ÝÝ®ÎÛÊÓƵµ¼º½. His research uses political-economic, anti-racist, and critical perspectives to analyze language policies in education and in teacher education. Currently, he serves as an Associate Editor for the International Multilingual Research Journal and the Journal of Teacher Education, and as the Coordinator of the Language and Literacies Education program at ²ÝÝ®ÎÛÊÓƵµ¼º½.