Influencing Outcomes

In the last chapter, the possible future directions for hanzi change were examined from a linguistic perspective. However, to plan language is to plan society, and this chapter focuses on the socio-political factors that provide the environmental conditions for programs to be planned and policies to be implemented. As Cooper (1989: 177) indicates, “to understand the impact of any given instance of language planning one must understand the general social context in which it is embedded”. Baldauf (1990: 16) identifies some of the intervening variables which have been suggested as influential in planned language change or language maintenance as they are related to LP. He further points out that “in differing situations, these variables may influence to varying degrees the character and development of language planning policy”.