Abstract
Language policies are born amidst the complex interplay of social, cultural, religious and political forces. With this in mind, Bernard Spolsky theorises that the language policy of any independent nation is driven, at its core, by four co-occurring conditions—national ideology, English in the globalisation process, a nation’s attendant sociolinguistic situation, and the internationally growing interest in the linguistic rights of minorities. He calls for this theory to be tested (Spolsky in Language policy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004). This paper accepts the invitation by firstly considering the contributions and limitations of Spolsky’s theory vis-à-vis other contemporary research approaches and then applies the theory to the case of Iceland. Iceland is a dynamic locus for this purpose, given its remarkable monodialectism, fervent linguistic purism and protectionism, and history of overwhelming homogeneity. The study finds that all Spolsky’s factors have in some way driven Icelandic language policy, except in issues of linguistic minority rights. Instead, Icelandic language policy discourse reveals a self-reflexive interest in minority rights whereby Icelandic is discursively positioned as needing protection in the global language ecology. Accordingly, the paper examines how Spolsky’s theory may be refined to account for non-rights-based approaches to national language policies.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Affairs, F. (2008). Icelandic business is a global business. Foreign Affairs, 87(4), 13.
Alþingi. (n.d.). Establishment of the Alþingi. http://www.Alþingi.is/kynningarefni/index_en.html. Accessed 11 Nov 2012.
Árnason, K. (2003). Icelandic. In A. Deumert & W. Vandenbusche (Eds.), Germanic standardizations (pp. 245–280). Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Arnbjörnsdóttir, B. (2007). English in Iceland: Second language, foreign language, or neither? In B. Arnbjörnsdóttir & H. Ingvarsdóttir (Eds.), Teaching and learning English in Iceland (pp. 51–78). Reykjavík: Haskolautgafan.
Arnbjörnsdóttir, B. (2010). Coping with English at University: Students beliefs. http://netla.hi.is/menntakvika2010/008.pdf. Accessed 9 Sept 2012.
Arnbjörnsdóttir, B. (2011). Exposure to English in Iceland: A quantitative and qualitative study. http://netla.hi.is/menntakvika2011/004.pdf. Accessed 9 Sept 2012.
Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies (AMIIS). (n.d.). Courses in Icelandic. http://www.arnastofnun.is/page/a_inter_courses_in_icelandic. Accessed 9 Sept 2012.
Berman, R., Lefever, S. & Woźniczka, A.K. (2011). Attitudes towards languages and cultures of young polish adolescents in Iceland. http://skemman.is/stream/get/1946/12394/30759/1/robert.pdf. Accessed 10 Aug 2012.
Blommaert, J. (2008). Language, asylum, and the national order. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/ldc/publications/workingpapers/50.pdf. Accessed 26 July 2012.
Bragason, U. (2001). Attitudes to the Icelandic language. http://arnastofnun.is/page/attitudes_ub. Accessed 1 July 2012.
Cameron, D. (2006). Ideology and language. Journal of Political Ideologies, 11(2), 141–152.
Cogo, A., & Jenkins, J. (2010). English as a Lingua Franca in Europe. European Journal of Language Policy, 2(2), 271–294.
Cramer, J. (2007). English in the expanding European Union. Revisiting berns’ evaluation of “the twelve”. http://ling.uta.edu. Accessed 9 July 2012.
EFTA. (2012). EEA agreement. http://www.efta.int/eea/eeaagreement.aspx. Accessed 15 July 2012.
Einarsdóttir, K.A. (2011). Young unemployed migrants in Iceland: Opportunities on the labour market and situations after the economic collapse with regard to work, social and financial aspects. http://skemman.is/stream/get/1946/7978/20802/1/MA_ritgerd_lokaeintak_til_prentunar_og_i_skemmu.pdf. Accessed 11 Aug 2012.
European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI). (2011). ECRI report on Iceland. http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/ecri/country-bycountry/iceland/ISL-CbC-IV-2012-001-ENG.pdf. Accessed 21 Sept 2012.
Fishman, J. (1971). National languages and languages of wider communication in the developing nations. In W. H. Whiteley (Ed.), Language use and social change. Problems of multilingualism with special reference to Eastern Africa (pp. 27–56). London: Oxford University Press.
Friðriksson, F. (2009). Language change vs. stability in conservative language communities: A case study of Icelandic. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag.
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., Hyams, N., Collins, P., Amberber, M., & Harvey, M. (2009). An introduction to language. Australia: Cengage Learning.
Graedler, A. (2004). Modern Loanwords in the Nordic Countries. Presentation of a project. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 3(2), 5–21.
Hálfdanarson, G. (2003). Language, ethnicity and nationalism: The case of Iceland. In G. Hálfdanarson (Ed.), Racial discrimination and ethnicity in European history (pp. 193–203). Pisa: Edizioni Plus.
Hálfdanarson, G. (2005). From linguistic patriotism to cultural nationalism: Language and identity in Iceland. In A. K. Isaacs (Ed.), Languages and identities in historical perspective (pp. 55–67). Pisa: Edizioni Plus.
Helgason, J. K. (2007). The Mystery of Vínarterta. In search of an Icelandic ethnic identity. Scandinavian-Canadian Studies, 17, 36–52.
Hilmarsson-Dunn, A. (2003). Icelandic: Linguistic maintenance or change? The role of English. Centre for Language in Education: Occasional Paper no 66. University of Southampton.
Hilmarsson-Dunn, A. (2006). Protectionist language policies in the face of the forces of English: The case of Iceland. Language Policy, 5, 293–312.
Hilmarsson-Dunn, A. (2009). The impact of English on language education policy in Iceland. European Journal of Language Policy, 1(1), 39–59.
Hilmarsson-Dunn, A. (2010). the impact of global English on language policy for the media: The case of Iceland. In M. Georgieva & A. James (Eds.), Globalization in English studies (pp. 2–22). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Hilmarsson-Dunn, A., & Kristinsson, A. (2009). Iceland’s language technology: Policy versus practice. Current Issues in Language Planning, 10(4), 361–376.
Hilmarsson-Dunn, A., & Kristinsson, A. (2010). The language situation in Iceland. Current Issues in Language Planning, 11(3), 207–276.
Holmarsdottir, H. (2001). Icelandic: A lesser-used language in the global community. International Review of Education, 47(3–4), 379–394.
Icelandic Human Rights Centre (IHRC). (2011). Submission to the universal periodic review of Iceland: 12th UPR Session October 2011. http://lib.ohchr.org/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/session12/IS/JS1-JointSubmission1-eng.pdf. Accessed 18 Sept 2012.
Icelandic Online (2012). Icelandic online PLUS. http://icelandiconline.is/info/plus.php. Accessed 18 July 2012.
Jeeves, A. (2010). English at secondary school: Perceptions of relevance. Málfríður, 27(2), 4–9.
Jeeves, A. (2012). Learning to write correct English was the most useful thing: Young Icelanders’ perceptions of writing in English. Paper presented at the Conference of the Association of Teachers of English in Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland.
Johnson, D. (2013). Language policy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Johnson, D., & Ricento, T. (2013). Conceptual and theoretical perspectives in language planning and policy: Situating the ethnography of language policy. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 219, 7–21.
Jónsdóttir, H. (2011). To what extent do native and non-native speakers believe that their english proficiency meets their daily communication needs within the business environment? Málfríður, 27(2), 20–23.
Jørgensen, J. N. (2008). Polylingual languaging around and among children and adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism, 5(3), 161–176.
Kachru, B. (1985). Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle. In R. Quirk & H. G. Widdowson (Eds.), English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and literature (pp. 11–30). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Karlsson, S. (2004). The Icelandic language. Exeter: Short Run Press.
Kristinsson, A. P. (2012). Language management agencies counteracting perceived threats to tradition. Language Policy, 11, 343–356.
Kristmannsson, G. (2004). Iceland’s “Egg of Life” and the modern media. Meta: Translators’ Journal, 49(1), 59–66.
Kvaran, G. (2003). Icelandic language policy in past, present and future. Paper presented at the European Federation of National Institutions for Language Conference, Stockholm, Sweden.
Kvaran, G. (2004). English influence on the Icelandic lexicon. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 3(2), 143–152.
Kvaran, G. (2010). The Icelandic language in business and commerce in Iceland. In G. Stickel (Ed.), Language use in business and commerce in Europe (pp. 117–122). Frankfurt: Peter Lang GmbH.
Lefever, S. (2006). English language teaching in Icelandic compulsory schools. Málfríður, 22(2), 9–12.
May, S. (2006). Language policy and minority rights. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy theory and method (pp. 255–272). Malden: Blackwell.
May, S. (2014). Justifying educational language rights. Review of Research in Education, 38, 215–241.
May, S., & Hill, R. (2005). Māori-medium education: Current issues and challenges. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 8(5), 377–403.
Menken, K., & García, O. (2010). Negotiating language policies in schools: Educators as policymakers. New York: Routledge.
Milroy, J. (1992). Linguistic variation and change. Oxford: Blackwell.
Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (MESC). (2001). Icelandic: At once ancient and modern. http://www.iceland.is/media/Utgafa/Icelandic.pdf. Accessed 29 June 2012.
Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (MESC). (2009). Culture. http://eng.menntamalaraduneyti.is/media/MRN-PDF-Althjodlegt/culture2008.pdf Accessed 17 Nov 2012.
Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (MESC). (2012). The Icelandic national curriculum guide for compulsory school: General section: 2012. http://brunnur.stjr.is/mrn/Utgafuskra/utgafa.nsf/RSSPage.xsp?documentId=C590D16CBC8439C500257A240030AE7F&action=openDocument. Accessed 17 Nov 2012.
Ministry of Social Affairs (MSA). (2007). Government policy on the integration of immigrants. http://eng.velferdarraduneyti.is/media/acrobat-enskar_sidur/stefna_integration_of_immigrants.pdf. Accessed 17 Aug 2012.
Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM). (2006). Declaration on a Nordic language policy. http://www.norden.org/en/publications/publikationer/2007-746/at_download/publicationfile. Accessed 4–8 Dec 2012.
Ottosson, K. (2002). Language cultivation and language planning IV: Iceland. In B. Oskar, K. Braunmüller, E. H. Jahr, A. Karker, H. Naumann, & U. Teleman (Eds.), The Nordic languages: An international handbook of the history of the north Germanic languages (pp. 1997–2007). Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyte.
Pennycook, A. (2002). Mother tongues, governmentality, and protectionism. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 154, 11–28.
Pennycook, A. (2006). Postmodernism in language policy. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy theory and method (pp. 60–76). Malden: Blackwell.
Pennycook, A. (2013). Language policies, language ideologies and local language practices. In L. Wee, R. Goh, & L. Lim (Eds.), The politics of English: South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia pacific (pp. 1–18). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Phillipson, R. (2003). English-only Europe? Challenging language policy. London: Routledge.
Phillipson, R., & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1996). English only worldwide or language ecology? TESOL Quarterly, 30(3), 429–452.
Rasmussen, P. (2002). Globalisation. Málfríður, 18(1), 27–31.
Réaume, D., & Pinto, M. (2012). Philosophy of language policy. In B. Spolsky (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of language policy (pp. 37–58). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ricento, T. (2006). Language policy: theory and practice an introduction. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy: Theory and method (pp. 10–23). Malden: Blackwell.
Robert, Z. (2011). Language of instruction. Iceland review. http://www.icelandreview.com/iceland review/daily_life/Language_of_Instruction_%28ZR%29_0_383254.news.aspx. Accessed 7 Dec 2012.
Rögnvaldsson, E. (2008). Iceland language technology 10 years later. Collaboration: Interoperability between people in the creation of language resources for less-resourced languages. Paper presented at the SALTMIL workshop, LREC 2008, Marrakech, Morocco. http://notendur.hi.is/eirikur/english.htm. Accessed 11 Aug 2012.
Sapir, Y., & Zuckermann, G. (2008). Icelandic Phonosemantic Matching. In J. Rosenhouse & R. Kowner (Eds.), Globally speaking: Motives for adopting english vocabulary in other languages (pp. 19–44). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Schiffman, H. (2006). Language policy and linguistic culture. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy theory and method (pp. 111–125). Malden: Blackwell.
Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. Abingdon: Routledge.
Smith, H. (1994). “Dative Sickness” in germanic. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 12(4), 675–736.
Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Spolsky, B. (2005). Language Policy. In J. Cohen, K. T. McAlister, K. Rolstad, & J. MacSwan (Eds.), ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th international symposium on bilingualism (pp. 2152–2164). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Spolsky, B. (2007). Towards a theory of language policy. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 22(1), 1–14.
Spolsky, B. (2009). Language management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Spolsky, B., & Shohamy, E. (2000). Language practice, language ideology and language policy. In R. D. Lambert & E. Shohamy (Eds.), Language policy and pedagogy essays in honor of A. Ronald Watson (pp. 1–42). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Statistics Iceland (SI). (2009). Immigrants and persons with foreign background 1996–2008. http://www.statice.is/lisalib/getfile.aspx?ItemID=9077. Accessed19 Sept 2012.
Statistics Iceland (SI). (2012). Key figures. http://www.statice.is/Pages/1390. Accessed 19 Sept 2012.
Statistics Iceland (SI). (2013). Population by origin and citizenship. http://www.statice.is/Statistics/Population/Citizenship-and-country-of-birth. Accessed 2 Oct 2014.
Svavarsdóttir, A. (2008). Icelandic. In U. Ammon & H. Haarman (Eds.), Sprachen des Europäischen Westens/Western European Languages I (pp. 441–457). Klagenfurt: Wieser Verlag.
The Icelandic Cancer Society. (2005). Preventing cancer across cultures. Paper presented at the NCU Conference, Malmö, Sweden.
Tworek, K. (2010). Motives of migration and types of migration: The case of polish immigrants in Iceland. http://migracje.civitas.edu.pl/index.php/en/motives-of-migration-and-types-ofmigration–the-case-of-polish-immigrants-in-iceland. Accessed 2 Dec 2012.
Útlendingastofnun. (n.d.). Who does not need a residence permit after a certain period. http://www.utl.is/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=100&Itemid=102&lang=en. Accessed 1 Dec 2012.
Whiteley, P. (2003). Do “language rights” serve indigenous interests? Some Hopi and other queries. American Anthropologist, 105(4), 712–722.
Woolard, K., & Schieffelin, B. (1994). Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 23, 55–82.
Ytsma, J. (2000). Trilingual primary education in Friesland. In J. Cenoz & U. Jessner (Eds.), English in Europe: The acquisition of a third language (pp. 222–235). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Zavala, V. (2014). An ancestral language to speak with the “other”: Closing down ideological spaces of a language policy in the Peruvian Andes. Language Policy, 13(1), 1–20.
Acknowledgments
This work was partly supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme, Project Number 223265.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Albury, N.J. National language policy theory: exploring Spolsky’s model in the case of Iceland. Lang Policy 15, 355–372 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-015-9357-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-015-9357-z