Language Policy in Britain and France (Open Linguistics Series)

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Language Policy in Britain and France

Open Linguisitics Series The Open Linguisitics Series, to which this book makes a significant contribution, is 'open' in two senses. First, it provides an open forum for works associated with any school of linguistics or with none. Linguistics has now emerged from a period in which many (but never all) of the most lively minds in the subject seemed to assume that transformational-generative grammar - or at least something fairly closely derived from it - would provide the main theoretical framework for linguistics for the foreseeable future. In Kuhn's terms, linguistics had appeared to some to have reached the 'paradigm' stage. Reality today is very different. More and more scholars are working to improve and expand theories that were formerly scorned for not accepting as central the particular set of concerns highlighted in the Chomskyan approach - such as Halliday's systemic theory (as mentioned in this book), Lamb's stratificational model and Pike's tagmemics - while others are developing new theories. The series is open to all approaches, then - including work in the generativist-formalist tradition. The second sense in which the series is 'open' is that it encourages works that open out 'core' linguistics in various ways: to encompass discourse and the description of natural texts; to explore the relationship between linguistics and its neighbouring disciplines such as psychology, sociology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and cultural and literary studies; and to apply it in fields such as education and language pathology. Open Linguistics Series Editor Robin F. Fawcett, University of Wales College of Cardiff

Language Policy in Britain and France The Processes of Policy

DENNIS AGER

CASSELL London and New York

Cassell Wellington House, 125 Strand, London WC2R OBB 127 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011 First published 1996 © Dennis Ager 1996 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Dennis Ager is hereby identified as the author of this work as provided under Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-304-33759-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ager, D. E. Language policy in Britain and France: the processes of policy / D. E. Ager. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 0-304-33759-5 1. Language policy—Great Britain. 2. Language policy—France. 3. Language planning. 4. Political planning. 5. Sociolinguistics. I. Title P119.3.A35 1996 306.4'4941-dc20

Typeset by Textype, Cambridge Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, Guildford and King's Lynn

Contents

Preface

vii

Acknowledgements

x

British and French organisations and abbreviations

xi

1 Theoretical considerations: sociolinguistics, policy studies and language planning

1

2 The development of the standard language

29

3 Language policies: the status of languages in Britain and France

40

4 Constituent, corpus and acquisition policies Constituent or administrative policies Corpus policies Acquisition policies An overview of French and British language policies

54 54 64 67 74

5 The policy process: inputs Literacy Language policy for immigrants

76 77 84

6 The policy process: networks Policy networks The civil service

102 102 104

7 Networks: other participants Governmental advisory groups Interest and pressure groups

118 118 126

VI

L A N G U A G E POLICY IN BRITAIN AND FRANCE

8 The policy process: negotiation Defining objectives and criteria Stages in negotiation

136 136 144

9 The policy process: implementation

155

10 The policy process: implementation and impact Administrative orders The impact of policies

177 177 182

11 Comparisons and conclusions Policy processes in France and Britain Language policies in France and Britain

190 190 203

References

213

Index of names

223

General index

224

Preface

The aim of this book is to investigate how language policies are made in Britain and France, and to compare and contrast the policy-making processes, and to a certain extent the policies, in each country. In order to examine these questions we draw upon the experience of language planning in its attempts to influence language behaviour, and on two main fields of study: policy studies - how governments respond to and manage the political environment; and sociolinguistics - the relationship between language and society. Individuals as well as organised groups have often tried to influence the language behaviour of members of speech communities. Language planners may try hard to specify which language, or variety of language, should be regarded as most prestigious in society, for example by being used in official public documents; which language, or variety of language, should be used in schools, employment or the market-place; whether language change, particularly the development of new vocabulary, can be affected in some way. Using data traditionally derived from the practice of authors, journalists and professional writers, and now, more and more, the recorded spoken language of ordinary people, as well as their own judgements, planners publish dictionaries and grammars to define and circumscribe the language, suggest reforms - for example of spelling or technical terminology - or propose ways of ensuring that 'correct' usage is adhered to. Many language planners aim to help the economic development of a community by planning access to languages of international communication; others are more concerned with the political well-being of multilingual societies. Language planning affects the status of a language or variety of language; the acquisition of language; and the corpus, or structure and forms of language. The study of governmental policy-making in the field of language can be carried out from a variety of points of view, and following many different methods. We have chosen to restrict ourselves to a study mainly concerned with the process of policy-making in each country. Other approaches to policy studies examine the policy environment, institutions conducting

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laguepol

policy, the specifics of decision-making, or the interplay of social forces and groups within society. Although such approaches are important, we have deliberately chosen to adopt a type of policy analysis which in our view best enables us to understand major differences between France and Britain in this field, and to concentrate on some aspects of the planning process conducted by governments. Language can be regarded as a right, as when people say for example 'minorities have rights to use their language', as a resource ('a multilingual society is better placed to communicate internationally, and the diversity of languages within its borders makes it better able to understand the diversity of mankind'), or as a problem ('the youth of today is unable to express itself clearly, to spell correctly or to write a decent letter'). In all these cases, the relationship between language use, social communities and social attitudes, as studied in sociolinguistics and the sociology of language, is fundamental to an understanding of how language expresses the nature of society, and how social cohesion - or the lack of it - is managed through language. Past and present language policies in both Britain and France reflect these social attitudes - society is constructed through language, while language is itself altered and reinvented by society. The policies examined throughout this book cover a range of authoritative government decisions affecting language. Some of these reflect official views on language as a resource: both British and French governments show sometimes excessive - pride in the capacities and characteristics of their language. Some have responded to questions of language rights, particularly in policy towards regional and minority languages. Most policy decisions on the standard language have been made as 'solutions' to language problems as they occur. The case studies include the following: Initiating policy (Chapter 5) Literacy in France and Britain Immigrant languages in France and Britain The role of government organisations (Chapters 6 and 7) Spelling reform in France Spreading English or French abroad The role of interest and pressure groups (Chapter 7) Avenir de la Langue Franâise The Plain English Campaign Policy negotiation (Chapter 8) Foreign language teaching in France The National Curriculum for English and modern foreign languages in Britain Legislation (Chapter 9) The Toubon law in France The Welsh Language Act in Britain

PREFACE

IX

The impact of policies (Chapter 10) Sexist language in France Industrial Language Training Why have we chosen France and Britain? France and Britain have quite different approaches to policy-making in language. In France, questions of language are important topics of debate, and the government feels it right to intervene in language behaviour to the extent of promoting legislation on the vocabulary and expressions which should be used. In Britain, at least until recently, language was generally assumed to be something in which governments had no role; or at least no overt, declared, political purpose in their actions. These differences provoke a number of questions. How has this contrast arisen? How did present language policies develop? What influences the development of a language policy? Why have the British become aware of language as an object of policy? How is language policy made in each of the countries? How do both governments see the role of language and languages at the moment? How do the French evaluate the success of their language policies? Have there been changes in the way the British, or the French, see their language policy? The similarities between both societies are matched in importance by their differences: they share a common history, their cultural origins are similar, their languages represent centuries of interaction, yet their political, social and intellectual structures, approaches and reflexes reflect often fundamentally opposed views on how society functions and on how language operates. Their two approaches to the management of society, which one could loosely characterise as liberal democracy versus constitutional democracy, are widespread throughout the world. The contrasts and similarities between their language policies both derive from, and shed light on, such analyses. This study first examines the contributions which the activities, theories and approaches of language planning, policy studies and sociolinguistics make to answering these questions. We next review, rapidly, the history and nature of contemporary language policies in each country. The main part of the book examines how the policy process itself operated in relation to a number of recent language issues, starting with the initiation of the question, looking at the networks and communities involved in language policy, examining the process of negotiation and concluding with the implementation of the measures decided on. Finally, we conclude with an assessment of the policies, and of policy-making, in the two countries.

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges with thanks the help, documentation, advice and constructive criticism received from a number of British and French people and organisations in the writing of this book. Interviews were granted by the Association for Language Learning, the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office, the Department of National Heritage, the Plain English Campaign, the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, the Scottish Office, the Welsh Office, the Delegation Generale a la Langue Frangaise, the Ministere de I'Education Nationale and by a number of individuals. In Australia, Jo Lo Bianco, Michael Clyne and Chris Candlin provided much-appreciated help during a sabbatical year. In Britain, Annis Ager, Chris Upward and Keith Watson made very helpful and detailed comments. The final version of the book, for which the author takes full responsibility, owes much to these and others who have read previous versions. All translations from French sources have been made by the author unless otherwise indicated. Thanks are due to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: Addison Wesley Longman for extracts from Roberts et al., 1992, Language and Discrimination: a study of communication in multi-ethnic workplaces; Oxford University Press for extracts from Hogwood and Gunn, 1984, Policy analysis for the real world and from Marsh and Rhodes, 1992, Policy networks in British Government; Taylor and Francis for extracts from a chapter by S. Tomlinson in King and Reiss, 1993, The multicultural dimension of the National Curriculum; and the Welsh Language Board for extracts from Recommendations for a new Welsh Language Act, published in 1991.

British and French organisations and abbreviations

British ALBSU ALL BSI CBI CILT DES, DfE, DffiE

EFL ELT ESL EU FCO FL FMI GATT GCE GCSE GNVQ HMI ILT JCLA

Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit Association for Language Learning British Standards Institute Confederation of British Industry Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research Department of Education and Science, Department for Education, Department for Education and Employment English as a Foreign Language English Language Teaching English as a Second Language European Union Foreign and Commonwealth Office Foreign language(s) Financial Management Initiative General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade General Certificate of Education General Certificate of Secondary Education General National Vocational Qualification Her Majesty's Inspector(s) (of Education) Industrial Language Teaching Joint Conference of Language Associations

Xll

LANGUAGE POLICY IN BRITAIN AND FRANCE

LI L2 LINC LLB MFL MLA NALA NCC NFER NGO NVQ ODA

OFSTED PAR PEC PI PPBS SCAA SL SSS WLA WLB

French ACCT AFAL AFL AFNOR AFTERM AILF

AIROE

ALF ATD-Quart-Monde AUPELF-UREF

First (native) language Second (acquired) language Languages in the National Curriculum Languages Lead Body Modern foreign language(s) Modern Language Association National Association of Language Advisers National Curriculum Council National Foundation for Educational Research Non-governmental organisation National Vocational Qualification Overseas Development Agency (formerly Overseas Development Administration) Office for Standards in Education Programme Analysis and Review Plain English Campaign Performance indicator Planning, Programming and Budgetary Systems School Curriculum and Assessment Authority Second language Simplified Spelling Society Welsh Language Act (1967 or 1993) Welsh Language Board

Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique Association Francophone d'Amitie et de Liaison Association Fran9aise pour la Lecture Association Fran9aise de Normalisation Association Fran9aise de Terminologie Association des Informaticiens de Langue Fran9aise Association pour I'lnformation et la Recherche sur les Orthographies et les Systemes d'Ecriture Avenir de la Langue Fran9aise Aide-a-toute-detresse-Quart-Monde Association Internationale des Universites

ORGANISATIONS AND ABBREVIATIONS

CAPES CILF CLAD CLIN CMF CNLCR CNRS CPF CPPN CSLF DGLF DGRCST DLF DOM ENA FEN FLE FLS

GEPE GPLI HCF INLF INSEE IPSOS LCO SAE TOM SOFRES ZEP

Xlll

Partiellement ou Entierement de Langue Frangaise - Universite des Reseaux d'Expression Frangaise Certificat d'Aptitude au Professorial de 1'Enseignement Secondaire Conseil International de la Langue Frangaise Classes d'Adaptation dans 1'Enseignement du Second Degre Classes d'Initiation Experimentales Conseil Ministeriel de la Francophonie Conseil National des Langues et Cultures Regionales Conseil National de la Recherche Scientifique Conseil Permanent de la Francophonie Classes Pre-Professionnelles de Niveau Conseil Superieur de la Langue Frangaise Delegation Generate a la Langue Frangaise Direction Generate des Relations Culturelles, Scientifiques et Techniques Defense de la Langue Frangaise Departement d'Outre-mer Ecole Nationale d'Administration Federation de F Education Nationale Frangais Langue Etrangere (French as a foreign language) Frangais Langue Seconde (French as a second language) Groupe d'Etude sur le Plurilinguisme Europeen Groupe Permanent de Lutte contre ITllettrisme Haul Conseil de la Francophonie Institut National de la Langue Frangaise Institut National des Statistiques et des Etudes Economiques Institut des Prospectives et des Sondages Sociaux Langues et Cultures d'Origine Service des Affaires Francophones Territoire d'Outre-mer Societe Frangaise des Etudes Sociales Zone d'Education Prioritaire

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1Theoretical considerations: sociolinguistics, policy studies and language planning

It is communication, basically through language, that enables human beings to live together in society, to develop and exchange ideas, and to plan for the future. It is hardly surprising therefore that individuals and groups who wish to control or affect how society functions should involve themselves with language. Nor is it surprising that language planning of one sort or another should be an activity dear to the hearts of both revolutionaries and conservationists: both those who wish to encourage change, and those who aim to resist it. Language planning is important in all types of society, too. In families, and in small, monolingual groups, language is the cement that binds people together and the symbol that repels the outsider, and it is important to maintain its uniqueness; in large, multilingual societies, conflicts between different languages often symbolise power relationships between different groups and it is essential for rulers to maintain social control through linguistic control. Two academic disciplines - sociolinguistics and policy studies, as one aspect of political science - have major contributions to make to the study of such language planning. Both disciplines are concerned with human behaviour, and each attempts to find answers to much the same questions. Yet when we try to identify all the complex strands affecting language-related decisions in Britain or France, when we try to see what is most characteristic about them and compare official attitudes and actions, each discipline, by itself, does not provide the most suitable framework, ask all the necessary questions, or ask quite the right questions. Each makes a theoretical contribution, examined below, to clarifying different parts of the 'accounting scheme' Cooper suggested for language planning (Cooper, 1989, 98): What actors attempt to influence what behaviours of which people for what ends under what conditions by what means through what decision-making process with what effect"?

2_


Language planning Actors Much language planning has been carried out by individuals, conducting campaigns or writing textbooks more or less single-handed. Indeed Cooper (1989, 31,183), defining language planning as 'deliberate efforts to influence the behaviour of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of their language codes', rejected definitions of language planning which: restrict language planning to activities undertaken by governments, governmentauthorised agencies, or other authoritative bodies, i.e. organisations with a public mandate for language regulation.

In Cooper's view, such a restriction would exclude a number of the language planning activities he felt properly fell within the field, including those undertaken by individuals such as Ben Yehuda on the use of Hebrew, Samuel Johnson on corpus matters in English, Frederic Mistral on the use of Provencal, or by groups opposing sexist language use. While Fasold (1984, 250) agreed that language planning is an 'explicit choice between alternatives', he suggested that there are two ways this can be done: the instrumental - planners choose a language or improve one, since 'language is a tool' to greater efficiency; or the sociolinguistic - planners try to solve a social problem, taking into account the symbolic value of languages and weighing the social consequences of their choice. Although individuals may have some role in the second, it is difficult to see how they can have sufficient credibility, authority or competence to be successful in the first. In addition, we are left in some doubt as to why these individual actors do what they do, what they represent. Ben Yehuda, Samuel Johnson, Mistral, Cardinal Richelieu may be language planners, but success will only attend their work when it is implemented and turned into language policy, fitting into the social and political environment of the time, becoming part of power relationships and representing social forces or ideology. Language policy, following Fasold's instrumental approach, is thus 'language planning done by Governments' (Tollefson, 1991, 16). Ozolins (1993) considering the 'politics of language in Australia', makes a similar distinction between planning and policy, according to which language planning is a (technical) branch of linguistics describing what speech communities do, whereas language policy is a part of social, and hence of public policy - what governments do. Considering language as an object of social policy in much the same way as money is an object of economic or fiscal policy, Ozolins defines language policy as both political attitude and political action: it is 'broader social and bureaucratic attitudes towards languages and their embodiment in distinct institutional practices, linking official policy to its social and attitudinal context' (xiv). His conclusion is that the study of language policy requires examination of the behaviour of both the speech and the political communities.

THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS

_3

Some French specialists have defined the field differently. Chaudenson (Chaudenson and Robillard, 1989, 24) noted that 'language planning' as a field of study originated among English-speaking specialists involved with the social and economic problems of newly independent States, mainly after the Second World War. 'Language planning' was at first translated directly, by planification linguistique in the French literature, but the connotations both of 'planning' and planification soon became negative following major political errors in newly developing States: 'the planner was seen as a cold, soulless being'. Politique linguistique (language policy) was thought to be too vague a term, and insufficiently concerned with the immediate problems of (re)construction and nation-building, while the expression that French specialists preferred - amenagement linguistique (language management and control) - was chosen because most practical work among French speakers was - and still is - being carried out in the Quebec language movement, aimed at ensuring the survival of French in North America by modernising the language and making it strong enough to resist borrowing from English. Chaudenson kept the three terms, but made distinctions between them according to whether the desired outcomes were long- or short-term. In all cases he saw the agent of implementation as a government or its agencies. He defined politique linguistique ('policy') as all national choices concerning language and culture, specifying general long-term objectives (educational levels, training, employment, function and status of languages, etc.) and founded on an analysis of the starting position. Planification linguistique ('planning') would apply to any long-, short- or medium-term operation aimed at putting the objectives defined by policy into operation, taking into account the means provided and the procedures envisaged. He applied the term amenagement linguistique to the very diverse actions leading to the concrete realisation of operations defined in the preceding two categories, and made it clear that for him amenagement linguistique was not to be confused with corpus planning. Kirkwood (1989, 2^4) similarly saw language planning in a sequence of four stages, from 'Initial Fact Finding' to 'Procedures' - setting goals, devising strategies and action programmes - and 'Implementation' - finding the means. He pointed out that planning was never-ending, with 'Evaluation' following implementation and providing feedback to enable adjustments and changes to the original decisions, and effective change required organisations and governments to be responsible for effective action. The experience of language planning shows, in addition to such distinctions, that language planning institutions, such as the French Academy or the publishers of dictionaries - 'organisations with a public mandate for language regulation' - are significant actors in their own right, even though their credibility may ultimately derive from the State. Many of these studies nonetheless assume a degree of independence on the part of the institutions, particularly when they are associated with or directed by individuals who are not themselves bureaucrats, and the question of the degree of autonomy even bureaucrats may abrogate to themselves is important to disciplines such as policy studies, as we shall see.

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Behaviours The types of language behaviour such actors have tried to influence have been acquisition planning (teaching and learning), corpus planning (the structure of language) and status planning (the functional allocation of languages or language varieties). Language planning activities can usually be classified and distinguished from each other under these headings, and useful distinctions in terminology have followed from clarification of the activities. Acquisition planning can apply to the teaching and learning of first languages (LI), sometimes referred to as native languages, mother tongues or maternal languages, or as vernacular languages; to second languages (SL or L2), which are those used as vehicular languages to enable the learner to participate in his or her society; and foreign languages (FL), those learnt later for a variety of reasons involving communication with other societies, but which are not in normal everyday use within the learner's society. Acquisition planning generally has had clear social purposes in influencing the behaviour of those who will be society's future members. Thus the adoption of a new foreign language in the schools responds to the new political commitments - Swedish and Finnish start to be taught throughout Europe as Sweden and Finland become members of the European Union; Armenian is accepted at baccalaureat level because Armenian is the language of a large immigrant group in France which society should recognise; French must be the language of education in all French schools because it is the language of the State, and only through knowledge of French can social integration be assured. Corpus planning is normally understood as action to improve the ability of a language to respond to change; it is often, though not always, concerned with modernising the word stock of the language. George Thomas (1991, 76-81) discussed corpus planning as social behaviour, examining the attitudes different types of purism revealed. Archaising purism thus demonstrates reverence for the past; ethnographic purism, seeking purer language in folk dialects and in popular and rural forms is one manifestation of the rejection of 'advanced' urban society; elitist purism 'embodies a negative, prescriptive attitude to substandard and regional usage', aiming at promoting the language, values and social ideology of the elite. Reformist purism may involve the repudiation of a foreign model, or of a language associated with former political domination, and requires the planner to modernise, to 'reform, regenerate, renew or resuscitate a language' in order to support a new sense of social belonging. Xenophobic purism derives from a rejection of foreigners or foreign customs. All these motivations, except possibly the xenophobic, 'are intended to have some improvement of the language as an end result', although 'anti-purism' tries to correct the effects particularly of xenophobic purism. Finally Thomas, perhaps at a loss to explain some types of purist action in terms of their effect on social behaviour, also felt that some apparently non-rational actions originated in pure play: 'there are instances where purism is an end in itself, little more than a literary or aesthetic game'. Status planning involves attempts to change the relative prestige in which a


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particular political or ethnic community holds a language or language variety. It is usually carried out to raise prestige, through ensuring that the language is used in some prestigious domains such as those of public life, rather than in non-prestigious ones like the home or the local cafe. Generally speaking, the greater the number of domains of use, and the more significant they are to the public and official life of the community, the higher the status; the higher the status, the greater the prestige that will then be accorded to the language (Mekacha, 1994). The significance of language use depends on the functions to which it, or a variety or code of language, is assigned within such domains. Status planning hence aims at influencing society's functional allocation of language codes. Stewart (1968, quoted in Cooper, 1989, 99-119), listed such allocations as: o: official (politically or culturally representative purposes); p: provincial (provincial or regional official language); w: wider communication (across language boundaries within the nation); i: international (e.g. diplomatic relations, trade, tourism); c: capital city; g: group (i.e. tribe, settled group of immigrants); e: educational; s: school subject; 1: literary; r: religious. Cooper adds two more: mass media and work, and we shall return to the question of domains and functions when considering the contribution of sociolinguistics to identifying types of community as targets of language policy. It is useful to keep clear the distinctions between status, corpus and acquisition policy in order to clarify the types of behaviour it is intended should be influenced, although much language policy is not in practice restricted to one or other of these main types: choosing one language rather than another to be learnt in the foreign language classroom often affects its relative status within society at large, and writing a new dictionary standardising the language as an act of corpus policy - makes acquiring the language easier, or in some cases possible. Indeed, language policy particularly where matters of status are concerned - may often really be a cover for some other type of policy altogether, while social policy - on education, social benefits or voting rights, for example - may well have linguistic consequences. Conditions Cooper's (1989, 93-8) framework examines this topic in depth, suggesting that five aspects of the environment are relevant to actions undertaken in language planning and policy: the situational, structural, cultural,

6


environmental and informational. Situational elements are 'relatively transient conditions or events. . .which have an immediate effect on policy' and are significant for language policy mainly when they concern political change, although technological change has also brought particular problems to light. Structural elements of the French and British environments are 'relatively unchanging features of society's political, economic, social, demographic, and ecological structures': the type of political regime or economic system, the form of government, the economic base, the geographic location and the degree of urbanisation. Cultural elements of the policy environment are the attitudes and values held by groups within the community or by the community as a whole: they include both 'political culture' and cultural institutions such as 'sex roles, marriage, the family, and religion'. Institutions, in this sense, are the socially determined norms of political, cultural, social and economic behaviour. Environmental factors are events, structures and attitudes which exist 'outside the system but which influence decisions within it. . .these include the international political environment.. .policy ideas (borrowed) from other nations, international agreements, obligations and pressures' (Cooper, 1989, 94). A direct example of this is the institution of literacy campaigns in recent years in each country, which have been carried out as responses to initiatives of European bodies and ultimately of UNESCO. Informational aspects of the environment 'refer to the data which are required for good decisions'. It is a well-known feature of much government policy that decisions are often based on flimsy data: the real number of immigrants may not be known for a matter of years, the severity of social problems arising from poor education may not make its effect felt for a generation; policy may be made hastily in response to what seems a crisis, only for it to be discovered later that there was no need to panic. Policy studies How can policy studies best contribute to the study of language policy? How does this aspect of political science deal with the eight questions: of actors, behaviours, people, ends, conditions, means, process and effects? Actors Political actors are generally grouped into three: interest and pressure groups, including political parties and individual politicians; major social forces such as classes or economic groups - which we shall deal with under sociolinguistics below; and the State itself, regarded to a greater or lesser degree as autonomous (Hill, 1993). The influence of politically significant individuals should not be underestimated. Indeed, the influence of a M. Mallen, who happened to hear on television the President of the International Olympic Committee giving the opening speech at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics in English rather


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than in French, an official language of the Olympics, and who telephoned the French Foreign Ministry to complain, brought about such a considerable flurry of diplomatic activity that from the second day everything was in both English and French (Truchot and Wallis, 1986, 194). There is an obvious danger for the policy analyst in cynically regarding policy as the work of powerful individuals. Individuals, particularly politicians, are subject to pressures from their electorate, from party members and policies, and from the ideology which drives them, and although their specific actions may seem to be driven by personal ambition, expertise or concern, the social and political pressures that shape their actions are undeniable. France and Britain differ fundamentally in the structure, nature and characteristics of their political parties: Britain has two major ones, even though each is made up of a range of differing points of view and even organisations; while France has a plethora of parties, which can nonetheless be characterised as right-, centre- and left-wing organisations, and which tend to act as coalitions in government or opposition. The importance of party organisation in the political life of the two countries is fundamentally different, too: Britain has tight party discipline and an unstructured, unregulated system for financing which automatically favours right-wing parties, while France has much looser discipline and (supposedly limited) State funding for political activities. Structural contrasts of this type mean that the role of the parties in the policy process differs greatly from one country to another. There is a danger for the analyst, too, in seeing political parties as the sole driving force behind policies. Although political parties are based to a certain extent on consensus among their members, they are also the forum for debate, discussion and compromise between individuals. Conservative party education policy, for example, changed during the 1980s in quite major ways from one area to another and from one priority to another; although policy pursued in the early 1990s can be traced back to certain key principles outlined in the early 1980s, the principles themselves were established by compromise and are still subject to considerable modification (Knight, 1990; Lawton, 1994). Non-governmental organisations or associations - interest groups and pressure groups - are significant political actors. The United Nations, its dependent agencies and most Western governments now formally categorise Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) in three groups (L'Annee Francophone, 1992, 207): A: those participating in upstream research and preparation, and downstream implementation of policy in concert with the decision-makers; B: those involved in consultation; C: those involved in information exchange. Category A organisations are those which may work closely with the decision-making authority to form a policy network or policy community, within which alternatives are discussed and a common platform arrived at for the development of the policy itself, through a system of negotiation and bargaining (see pp. 136-54). The organisation, recognition, modes of operation and effectiveness both of Category A organisations and of the relevant policy communities differ greatly as between Britain and France, but the concept of a network closely associated with the competent authority in both devising and implementing policy seems to accord well with practice

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in both countries. There is an obvious danger in considering that such NGOs or such communities are representative of the whole of civil society. The cosy - if not sleazy - nature of some policy communities (cf. Smith 1993) and th lack of effectiveness of some issue networks are not always due to the fact that all other citizens are not involved, but in many cases the result of policymaking within such networks is that wider society simply rejects the outcome. In addition to such groups, and quite apart from semi-autonomous agencies or institutions like the French Academy, the state policy machine itself may become an independent political actor, although here the analyst runs the danger of examining policy as though it was divorced from the rest of society: [The State] conceived as [an] organisation claiming control over territories and people may formulate and pursue goals that are not simply reflective of the demands and interests of social groups, classes, or society. This is what is usually meant by 'state autonomy'. (Skocpol, 1985, quoted in Hill, 1993, 86)

One of the major purposes of the New Right and the Thatcher revolution of the 1980s in Britain was to reduce the power of the Establishment, including the state bureaucracy, and to roll back both state involvement in society and the corporatism felt to be characteristic of the autonomous State. What should have happened, whether or not it actually did, was a reduction in the role of the State as autonomous political actor. By contrast, France has maintained a large state sector and a powerful bureaucracy, involved in many aspects of economic life, and potentially at least a formidable political actor in its own right. The danger for the analyst in investigating the role of the bureaucracy in the formulation of policy lies at the level of implementation. The contrast between 'macro' policy, decided by the full policy process, and the 'micro' policy actually implemented by individual bureaucrats, teachers, policemen, editors and journalists is often very great, and there is ample anecdotal evidence to show how individual teachers have avoided and adapted the requirements of formal policy decisions in what they consider to be the best interests of their children, of their own job or of their own community. Autonomy is not a function solely of the formal policy-making bureaucracy, but should, ideally, be identified at these other levels, apparently of implementation, as well (Tollefson, 1991). Behaviours Policy studies, as a branch of political science, are concerned with public policy, defined by Jenkins (1978) as: a set of interrelated decisions taken by a political actor or group of actors concerning the selection of goals and the means of achieving them within a specified situation where these decisions should, in principle, be within the power of these actors to achieve.

Public policy is often regarded as falling into one of four types: distributive, in which new resources are made available to categories of recipients; redis-


9

tributive, in which resources are shifted from some to others; regulatory, in which government prevents or controls activities; and constituent, formulating or reformulating the machinery of government. In a somewhat different typology, 'human service' policies can be classified as those which are universal (universally provided but individually consumed), redistributive, or oriented towards behavioural change (or social control). The concept of 'symbolic' policy - costing nothing but meant to affect behaviour - is similar to this latter type (Lowi, 1972; Austin, 1983; Hill and Bramley, 1986). How an analyst sees these types of policy, and how the analysis of political action is carried out generally, depends on the model of policy-making to which the analyst subscribes. Possible models are usually considered to fall within one of the eight general types italicised below (Dye, 1984). An institutional model, studying social institutions such as the political system or the legal system, or formal organisations such as the House of Commons or the Assemblee Nationals, assumes that policy is the result of the interplay of such institutions and Government. A group model assumes that policy is the result of a struggle for equilibrium among groups, each of which makes claims on the policy-makers. Here, at least three major theories have been proposed: pluralism, corporatism and Marxism (Smith, 1993, 15-47). Interest and pressure groups overtly work for their point of view in a 'pluralist arena', and their success is determined by their numbers, wealth, organisational strength, leadership, access to decision makers, and internal cohesion. Because of the special strength and resources of business, corporatist theory has gone as far as suggesting that 'social and welfare issues are decided in a pluralist arena, while economic policy is conducted within a corporatist arena' (Smith, 1993, 29). The third approach to social group theory is Marxism, which defines the 'ruling class' as the social group which 'owns and controls the means of production and which is able, by virtue of its economic power thus conferred upon it, to use the state as its instrument for the domination of society' (Smith, 1993, 38). An elite model regards policy as nothing more than the preferences and values of the governing elite. A systems model regards policy as the responses of a political system to forces brought to bear on it from the environment. The process model studies how policy is developed or constructed within the political system, in a sequence starting with the identification of a problem or issue and ending with the implementation of a policy response. The remaining models - the rational model, the incremental model and the game theory model - are more statistically oriented approaches to political decision-making. The first assumes that governments choose policies which result in gains to society which exceed costs by the greatest amount, putting aside any other considerations. The incremental model assumes that policy is a continuation of past activities with only incremental variations. The last approach, game theory, analyses rational policy decisions on the basis that they were taken in situations in which two or more participants have choices to make and the eventual outcome depends on the choices made by each of them.

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In policy studies, the systems model of political life, based on the idea that governmental actions both affect and are affected by a physical, socioeconomic and political environment, has provided a useful way of conceptualising the nature of political behaviour. Government actions themselves, taken by the political actors within the political system, directly or indirectly affect the surrounding environment, which accommodates to, or rejects, the policies which have been established in such a way that it remains in overall behavioural equilibrium. This 'feedback' mechanism ensures both that the political system can adapt to changes in the external environment, and that the environment can accommodate to changes both in policy and in any aspect of the system which creates policy, in much the same way that a living being influences and is influenced by its environment. Easton's (1965) systems model, as modified by Jenkins (1978), envisaged a decision system and an organisational network, concerned directly with making (policy formulation) and taking (policy implementation) decisions. This political system exists within an environment which has physical (geographical), political, and socio-economic components. The environment, and changes within it, create demands for the political system to react. These demands, mediated through groups and organisations, oblige the decision system within the political system to create public policy (i.e. make plans) and take action (i.e. implement the plans). The policy outputs from these specific actions themselves have longer-term consequences or policy outcomes. Both the outputs and the outcomes have a feedback effect on the environment itself, and these will affect the demand which inspired the original decision, so the whole process is in a state of constant change. Systems analysis is particularly useful in studying the nature of political change, the impact of feedback and the interrelationship of policy decisions, both with each other and with the forces which affect their creation. It also helps to understand why some policies are acceptable and quickly implemented while others fall by the wayside: it is a dynamic model of political behaviour. It is particularly useful in analysing the outcomes of decisions in France, where the political environment is strongly characterised, for example by the centralisation of decision-making in Paris. People The target of government policy is not always clearly defined in policy studies, particularly when social behaviour is intended to be modified, although in other domains (health policy, revenue-raising, security) the targets may be very precise. As with language planning, it is the 'large aggregates' of civil society whose compliance is intended, at least in a 'topdown' managerial approach which views policy as 'the transmission of policy into a series of consequential actions' (Hogwood and Gunn, 1984, quoted in Hill, 1993, 245). 'Bottom-up' policy studies, examining the impact of bureaucrats, teachers or individuals charged with microlevel implementation, are more concerned with identifying the target or with examining how the target may in its turn affect policy.


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Ends Policy studies examine both unquantifiable outcomes and quantifiable outputs from specific policies, and compare them with the inputs. The origin of policy, however, is generally agreed to lie in the desire of a pluralist society to solve problems as they are raised, or in the necessity to respond to pressure from interest and pressure groups, or in the ideology of the government. Policy-makers have to consider the feasibility of the proposal, too: will it be possible to implement the policy as devised? The feasibility of policies is closely related to environmental factors, in that many political decisions about language give formal recognition to changes in practice which have already taken place. Analysing the objectives of policies takes us into the area of policy content rather than policy process, and it is in this area in particular that the analyst is least likely to be objective. It is also in this area that academic disciplines such as language planning, sociolinguistics and policy studies have least to offer: it is possible to identify the origins, characteristics and intended outcomes of policies, to analyse their effectiveness, efficiency and effect on citizens, but there is no absolute scale of values by which an analyst can decide on the worth of the ends pursued by language policy-makers. Conditions Policy studies is centrally concerned with the environment for policy decisions, as we have seen above when discussing the systems model. All the models of policy-making assume a greater or lesser degree of interaction between the political system and its environment, and all types of policy analysis reflect the need to examine the range of factors impacting on policy, whether these be psychological, economic, social or cultural. But there is little to add to the categorisation of environmental aspects developed above within language planning. Means The implementation of policy is a matter of major importance for policy studies, where the actual power of a government to impose its will depends on its resources. But 'perfect implementation is unattainable', in the sense that the conditions required are practically impossible to achieve (Hogwood and Gunn, 1984, quoted in Hill, 1993, 238-47). That this should be so can be seen merely by listing the conditions required for perfect policy implementation as Hogwood and Gunn see them: The circumstances external to the implementing agency should not impose crippling constraints; Adequate time and sufficient resources should be made available to the programme; The required combination of resources should be actually available;

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The policy to be implemented should be based upon a valid theory of cause and effect; The relationship between cause and effect must be direct and there should be few, if any, intervening links; Dependency relationships should be minimal; There should be understanding of, and agreement on, objectives; Tasks should be fully specified in the correct sequence; There should be perfect communication and co-ordination; Those in authority should be able to demand and obtain perfect compliance. The 'top-down' analysis which evaluates policy implementation by seeing how close to the ideal outlined above a particular example comes, and which essentially sees all other political actors as impediments to the full realisation of policy-makers' dreams, can be contrasted to a 'bottom-up' approach which starts by identifying the implementation structures and processes at streetlevel, assuming that there exists a network of individuals and groups involved to different degrees in implementation. The difference between the two analyses is represented by their central concerns or focuses: 'top-down' analyses measure the extent to which policymakers' intentions are achieved and aim to discover the most effective way of steering the implementation system, while 'bottom-up' analyses measure the strategic interaction among actors in the policy network. Studying the allocation of resources to implement policies is essentially a top-down process. For policy studies, resource power is made up of a mixture of military (or police) might, exercised through coercion and allocated to punish infractions against the policy; economic control, where government manipulates the main levers through which people can survive or better their lot; and symbolic power. This latter is particularly significant in the area of behaviour, depends on the social contract, and is formed of ideology, credibility and legitimacy (cf. Czerny, 1980, 93). A policy that follows the ideology of the ruling group and is consonant with the fundamental beliefs, values and attitudes of that group will be more likely to be regarded as consistent and hence feasible than one which reflects the bargaining power of opponents or the inability of the government to decide. The credibility of a policy, and of the authority attempting to influence it, is the result both of the resources the authority can deploy in support of its own policies (money, time, expertise, knowledge, appropriate discourse) and also of the belief of the governed that the government can actually do what its policy states. To a certain extent, credibility is measured by the bluff factor: if the citizenry believes that the government can do it, it can. Credibility is intimately bound up with the legitimacy of the policy-maker in the eye of the citizen. The legitimacy of a government depends on the respect and deference awarded to it by those its policies affect. In the end, in a democracy, the


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government has been elected by the people to govern, and the right to govern is usually allowed by citizens, unless the government has demonstrated incompetence or corruption, or has exceeded the bounds of consent of the governed. Not all legitimate governments devise legitimate policies, of course, but the assumption usually is that the government represents the will of the society it governs. In the end, the means governments have at their disposal are 'authority, force, violence and bribery' (Cooper, 1989, 85 and 98). Authority derives from government legitimacy; force is the use of punitive measures to enforce regulations and the law; violence is physical coercion through military means; and bribery - perhaps more politely phrased as 'promotion and persuasion' - is the use of incentives. In language policy, authority and bribery are the main means, although in some cases and for some policies regulation is the norm. Process In policy studies, the process model of policy analysis sees policy as being constructed in a number of phases or stages, such as those outlined in painstaking detail by Brewer and deLeon (1983, 20): Phase

Characteristics/uses

Initiation

Creative thinking about a problem Definition of objectives Innovative option design Tentative and preliminary exploration of concepts, claims, and possibilities

Estimation

Thorough investigation of concepts and claims Scientific examination of impacts Normative examination of likely consequences Development of program outlines Establishment of expected performance criteria and indicators

Selection

Debate of possible options Compromises, bargains and accommodations Reduction of uncertainty about options Integration of ideological and other non-rational elements of decision Decisions among options

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Assignment of executive responsibility Implementation

Evaluation

Termination

Development of rules, regulations, and guidelines to carry out decision Modification of decision to reflect operational constraints, including incentives and resources Translation of decision into operational terms Setting up program goals and standards, including schedule of operations Comparison of expected and actual performance levels according to established criteria Assignment of responsibility for discovered discrepancies in performance Determination of costs, consequences, and benefits for reductions or closures Amelioration as necessary and required Specification of new problems created during termination

It need hardly be said that this ideal picture of competent policy-making is rarely met in practice. Quite apart from the necessary compromises caused by confronting the ideal with the chaos of everyday reality, there are three reasons why this picture might not fully match French and British experience of policy-making. The conventional pluralist approach to policy analysis, on which such process models as that of Brewer and deLeon are based, assumes that the groups presenting alternative policies are 'equally open, equally well resourced, and equally heard at the political level' (McLennan, 1989, quoted in Hill, 1993, 60). The task of the policy authority is to set up criteria and processes to make the best choice, usually basing their selection on criteria such as efficiency and the public good, or more general ethical principles such as democracy and natural justice. Operating in an open and competitive 'market', the policy decision-maker must assess the strength of the demands being made by groups, particularly lobbyists, outside government; but 'the independence, penetrability, and heterogeneity of the various segments of the political stratum all but guarantee that any dissatisfied group will find spokesmen in the political stratum' (Dahl, 1961, 93, quoted by Lukes, 1974 reprinted in Hill, 1993, 51) and pluralism hence more or less guarantees democracy. Pluralism, as a theory of power in society, is subject to two main criticisms: that it ignores the 'structured power inequalities' such as those of the class


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system, which form the basis of Marxist understandings of political power; and that it, like Marxism, disregards 'the extent to which the State itself is a source of power' (Hill, 1993, 48). Pluralism also developed in the American context, while French and British political systems differ from this: in the strength of political parties in Britain, which means that lobbying by Members of Parliament on behalf of sectional interests and pressure groups, while widely practised within the policy process, is not regarded as normal and can negatively affect the political careers of individual politicians; and in the strength, continuity and openness of the administrative machine in France, which obliges decision-makers to consider policy within traditional limits and to recognise the existence of a potentially autonomous, self-perpetuating State. In both countries, the structure of political power reflects the 'three-dimensional' view of contemporary critical pluralism: that individuals/groups, social forces and the 'autonomous State' itself all jockey for power (McLennan, 1989). The effect of these criticisms is not to say that the process model is inappropriate, but rather to lead us to question its innate rationality. The concept of a benign policy authority making rational choices with the aim of increasing managerial efficiency and the public good, or following more general ethical principles such as democracy and natural justice, needs to be approached with care. A second reason for questioning the 'simple' process model lies in the nature of language policy itself: since much status language policy is symbolic, the discussions and debates on the topic may often fulfil the purpose of the policy: getting the topic onto the agenda at all is a success, as was frequently noted during the discussion of the Toubon law in 1994. Thirdly, both Britain and France have had governments in power for lengthy periods during the 1980s and 1990s, following policies dictated in general by a radical desire to change society rather than merely to administer. The ideological approach to policy-making may be seen as social conspiracy or social engineering, imposing solutions on problems identified within government as legitimate targets for a political agenda: policies are not easily modified by debate or negotiation outside government, but are the result of policy creation in political fora excluding civil service, pressure groups and the general public. However, much of the rhetoric of government assumes that competent authorities in both France and Britain are indeed responding to multiple demands and multiple proposals from outside government, and that decisions do indeed follow identifiable, legitimate and rational decisionmaking processes, implementing technically feasible solutions within a pluralist understanding of power structures (Cobarrubias and Fishman, 1983; Hill and Bramley, 1986; Ham and Hill, 1993). It will be of interest to see how far this assumption is borne out in practice, and how far rationality or ideology could be identified as possible prime movers for the decisions taken. Effects Gordon, Lewis and Young (1977) describe a continuum of possible approaches to the analysis of public policy as follows:

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Analysis for policy Policy advocacy ('any research that terminates in the direct advocacy of a single policy') Information for policy ('the researcher's task is to provide policy-makers with information and perhaps advice') Policy monitoring and evaluation ('post hoc analysis of policies and programmes') Analysis of policy Analysis of policy determination ('the construction of public policy') Analysis of policy content ('studies of the origin, intentions and operation of specific policies') Within these types, the purpose of analysis may be further defined as mainly concerned with impact, efficiency, or process. One possible purpose - impact analysis - evaluates the eventual behavioural impact of the policy (its outcomes): is the policy ethical, for example? A second - efficiency analysis - measures the change it produces and sees whether the specific policy outputs (increased resources, for example) respond to the inputs: is the policy efficient? A third type of purpose - process analysis - deals with both the effect of the policy on the environment and the system - and their effect on it; and with the process by which policy is created and implemented: is the process effective, and did the output actually change the environment or the system? Any of these analyses is open to the charge of bias by the analyst. Analysis for policy, intended to influence policy-makers, is always less objective than the analysis of policy, and an outcomes-oriented evaluation in particular might attempt to judge the end result of a policy by applying to it criteria of natural justice or ethics, or the values and attitudes of a political or religious ideology. Such an evaluation examines the impact of policies on the quality of life of those affected. It will be concerned with the intentions of the policy, and with whether these intentions are in themselves justifiable. The worth of an analysis such as this depends crucially on the value system of the analyst, and can only make judgements about whether the policy was right or wrong in relationship to whatever value system motivates such an analyst. Since the fundamental characteristic of public policy is that it is 'contested and contentious' (Hill and Bramley, 1986, 138), it is in this type of analysis that most heat is generated, and that the value systems of participants in the policy process need to be identified as well as those of the analyst. While attempting to remain as objective as possible and keeping to the analysis of policy - our intention will be to identify whether and how far ideologies and commitment affect the policy decisions which have been made, rather than approaching decisions from a specific point of view - it is in the analysis of policy content that there is the greatest temptation to discover conspiracies and ill-will, and to allow personal prejudices to cloud judgement. We shall hope in these cases, as far as possible, to adopt the position of the 'reasonable man' without political commitment.


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Sociolinguistics Actors For sociolinguistics, the actors - both those who originate language policy and those whose language behaviour is affected by it - are identified by considering the individual as a social being, defined by such social categories as age, gender, and class, itself defined by such criteria as education and socialisation, income, and insertion into economic and social groups. Early sociolinguistic studies (e.g. Labov, 1966; Trudgill, 1974b) examined covariation: the way in which types of language behaviour in society (the linguistic variable) correlated to membership of such socially constituted groups (the social variable). Later studies have often refined this approach, using concepts such as those of the social network and the linguistic repertoire of individuals and groups. An important social variable is class. Some theories of social organisation, and some types of policy analysis, see the interplay of non-organised social forces, categories or classes as being fundamental to the understanding of social, economic and political behaviour: how society works. At least two such theories of social organisation, exemplified in works by Tollefson and Bourdieu, have been applied to language policy, each theory founded in 'conflictual' (e.g. Marx) rather than 'co-operative' (e.g. Talcott Parsons) sociology (cf. Touraine in Guillaume, 1986). Habermas, Giddens and Foucault are cited by Tollefson (1991, 9-17) as those who have most clearly developed a set of concepts based on 'ideology, the role of the state, and the relationship between social constraint and individual freedom'. In this view, 'power' is 'the ability to achieve one's goals', where these goals are those of groups in relationship with each other through institutional structures which both facilitate and constrain: power is implemented through social structure. Language policy 'is one of the key mechanisms for state control of labour,' which itself is one of the groups attempting to increase its power. The 'State' is 'the apparatus by which dominant groups maintain their power'; dominant groups are those with the widest range of choices open to them, and which are least constrained in the choices they can make. Within the State, unconscious assumptions about social relationships, behaviour and attitudes can develop into an ideology: 'common-sense assumptions help to sustain existing power relationships. As ideology builds these assumptions into the institutions of society, it tends to freeze privilege and to grant it legitimacy as a "natural" condition.. .ideology shapes behaviour.. .yet is inherently conservative.' Once the dominant group has successfully institutionalised its ideology, it has established hegemony ('the successful production and reproduction of ideology'), realised through the 'spontaneous consent' of the people or through state coercion. Linguistic hegemony may be demonstrated, for example, through the 'official invisibility' of linguistic minorities in Britain and the USA, or through unthinking acceptance of American English as the normal language of vehicular communication for French international contacts or even within France.

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Dominant groups 'exploit' others, by excluding them from access to social - and hence economic - advantage. Education - and language policy within it - is thus often used as a mechanism to 'control access to the labour market'. The 'others' are often termed a 'minority', although in numerical terms this may be incorrect: 'minority' refers to 'those with few rights or privileges', rather than to any smaller number of people. The fundamental dimension of this view of social organisation is power, and the struggle between social groups to preserve it or to obtain it is neverending. 'Language policy can be analysed as the outcome of struggle as well as a component in it.' In politics, social groups channel their conflict through governments and oppositions in all aspects of policy and in every domain of political life. Thus 'language policy is one mechanism by which dominant groups establish hegemony in language use' (Tollefson, 1991, 16), a view which is echoed for example in Hodge and Kress 1979 and 1993; Grillo, 1989; and Fairclough, 1989. A modification of this view of social organisation and of the role of political actors within it is the concept of society as a market, in which the competing groups use language as a means of exchange (Bourdieu, 1982). As in the view outlined above, the fundamental dimension is power, and the political actors are more or less constrained in their struggle to preserve or obtain it; but the terminology of 'competition', 'choice' and 'consumer' replaces that of 'struggle', 'dominance' and 'class', while language is not so much the object of policy as the means by which power relationships are actualised. There are two potential dangers for us in these wider interpretations of the term 'political actors'. Firstly it is attractive to see every policy decision, no matter how humdrum, as representing conscious or unconscious manipulation by social forces in pursuit of their class objectives: the analyst can become paranoid in seeing social conspiracies everywhere. Secondly, the analyst can find it difficult to analyse any policy except in terms of predetermined categories and assumptions. For example, the personal circumstances of a significant, persuasive individual or pressure group, the effect of chance, or the conservative influence of established institutions, may be completely overlooked, and modern complex society cannot be easily reduced to a simple struggle for dominance between two opposing forces, particularly if these are classified in terms of nineteenth-century conceptions of blue-collar workers and peasants opposed by top-hatted bourgeois capitalists. It would nonetheless be naive to assume that the motivations for policy decisions are disinterested and divorced from the interplay of social forces, and we return to this question at various points. Behaviours Sociolinguistics - 'that part of linguistics which is concerned with language as a social or cultural phenomenon' (Trudgill, 1974a, 32); 'the study of language in relation to society' (Hudson, 1980, 1) - was often first defined as identifying 'Who says what to whom?', although in recent years its concerns


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have broadened from such correlation studies to wider language-related problems, including attitudes towards language and the implications of language use for society at large: 'Sociolinguistics is the study of collective language behaviour characteristic of social groups' (Baylon, 1991, 12). Nonetheless, co-variation (of linguistic and social variables) has remained 'the heart of Sociolinguistics since its inception more than three decades ago' (Chambers, 1995,xvii). It is hence normal in Sociolinguistics to recognise the existence of a number of language varieties, traditionally distinguished by use or by user (cf. Trudgill, 1974a; Hudson, 1980; Ager, 1990; Fasold, 1990). Varieties can thus be distinguished by time: the English of the eighteenth century or more generally of the past; by geography: the regional French of Alsace or of Lyon; by social category: the English of the working class or of the bourgeoisie; by mode of use or 'channel': written or spoken French or English; by domain of use: scientific or legal French; by function: the French of persuasion or argument, the English of religious observance or of formal presentation; by style: formal, informal or popular French; or by a mixture of these: the present-day formal written English of the middle classes in Norwich. In theory, such varieties could be more and more narrowly defined by their social context, down to the level of the speech act of an individual speaker in a specific context of use. Indeed, the relationship between Sociolinguistics and the sociology of language has been defined in relation both to their main purposes - Sociolinguistics is mainly concerned with the structure of language, while the sociology of language is mainly interested in the structure of society - and to the degree of narrowness of the speech acts involved, ranging from the personal to the stylistic, the social, the sociocultural and the sociological (Chambers, 1995, 11). The links between language and society, and the contribution of Sociolinguistics to understanding these, can be examined in terms of the relationship of types of language to types of social group: official, standard and minority languages may be defined as such because they are representative in turn of the political, speech and minority (often ethnic) communities. But such links may not be simple. In our view, three types of link can be identified: a political one (also often labelled as geolinguistic, geographical, or sociological Sociolinguistics), where the political community attempts to control or manage the language behaviour of citizens; a functional one (also labelled distributive Sociolinguistics, or one centred on considerations of domain or status), where the choice of language or language variety to be used in one function rather than another is determined by the user, using criteria of efficiency or appropriateness; and finally one concerned with the use of, and attitudes towards, language(s) in complex societies (also labelled bi/multilingualism, chronological or ability-oriented Sociolinguistics), where the use of one language or variety is dependent on the interplay of a range of possibilities (Truchot, 1994, 23-6). The links between political, speech and minority communities and language may reflect a complex range of relationships: the political community may attempt to control the standard language or the languages of minorities, while the speech community may reject such political

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interference, or the minority communities may feel that their role should be more political. The sociolinguistic structures of France and Britain; the possibly political relationship between the French or the British speech community and its language; the effect on the relative prestige of languages or language varieties of action by minority communities; and the way in which all three types of community adopt, learn or reject language all underlie the nature of language policy as practised in each society, and are important to understanding both the policies and the way in which they have developed. Sociolinguistics makes fundamental distinctions, too, between behaviour within different communities: the political community confers status on a language as an official language; the speech community selects, codifies, elaborates and then accepts a standard language or language variety (Haugen, 1966); and the minority community's behaviour is necessarily conditioned by relationships of domination or accommodation. In this area, three types of behaviour are possible: conflict, cooperation or compromise, and the nature and extent of these may well characterise language policy and indeed much more within the relevant society (Wardhaugh, 1987). People Political communities It is the political community that decrees a language to be official, and which is affected by such a decision. A language is regarded as 'official' if it meets one of three conditions: it may be defined as such in the country's constitution or laws, as in the case of France (the geopolitical definition); it may be de facto the working language of the country's administration (the functional definition); it may be accepted by the State as a symbol of Statehood (by opposition, for example to a national language, as is the case in many French and British ex-colonies) (the multilingual definition) (Cooper, 1989, 99-116; Kellas, 1991; Paulston, 1994). Governments are legitimately concerned with both the statutory and the symbolic routes to declaring a language as official. But they may also wish to control the functional route, thus creating an official language through specifying its use in the domains of official public life. Britain thus specifies the use of English in the administration of justice, and the 1993 Welsh Language Act closely specifies a range of domains - education, public services, business - in which Welsh may be used, in Wales, on a basis of equality with English, thus making Welsh in effect an official language of Wales although, since English is not legally called 'official', Welsh could not be so designated either. As we have seen, Stewart (1968, quoted in Cooper, 1989, 99) identified a number of public functions where use of a language did not quite ensure its categorisation as an official language: use as a provincial language, a language of wider communication, an international language, the language of the capital city, a group language (i.e. language of the majority or the most powerful ethnic group), an educational language, language as a school subject, a literary language, a language of religion, the language of the mass


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media and that of work. Similarly, Chaudenson (1993, 367-9) in establishing a typology of the situations of Francophonie, particularly in Africa, defined five functions for languages at the level of the State, and agreed that it was the political community rather than any other that determined formal status by decreeing the use of one language instead of another in: official domains; institutional settings (law, administration, justice, local administration, religion); education (educational medium, object of education as LI); the media (written press, radio, television, commercial cinema, publishing); the secondary and private tertiary sectors of the economy (range of use in commerce). However defined, English and French are in no danger in their status as the official languages of the British and French States. But there are three domains of use and functions within those domains, where government policy initiatives to reinforce the official status of the language have either taken place or are likely: in regional use, where the problem of the French periphery continues to present difficulties, and where present policy towards Wales and Scotland might raise further questions about Northern Ireland and some peripheral areas such as the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands; in the language of the workplace, where France has felt it necessary to intervene to defend French against domination by English, and may do so even more strongly in the future; and in the status of minority languages, where high numbers of speakers of minority (immigrant) languages pose problems of language maintenance for the relevant communities, and where these themselves often hence adopt political roles. Speech communities It is the speech community that accepts and hence defines a language as the standard. The simplest definition of a speech community itself is that it consists of all those who use the same language: all speakers of French or English. Both French and English are however languages used widely outside France and Britain, and by no means all users of English or French make use of the same regional, social or functional variety of English or French to meet their communication needs. Speech communities are hence usually defined by the degree to which they share language and cultural norms or 'rules of interpretation', and by the degree of intensity of internal communication (Hudson, 1980, 27; Fasold, 1990, 41-2). We can hence define 'wider' and 'narrower' speech communities: the wider French speech community shares common ways of structuring experience through French, even though its members may live thousands of kilometres apart, may be bi- or multilingual in other languages in addition to French - and may not have the other languages in common, while the narrowest speech community - the family shares particular quirks of expression or meanings given to particular words,

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and often uses a language which is practically incomprehensible to other nearby families. Interaction among the wider community may be infrequent and channelled by TV, radio or the Press, while family members speak and write in a close-knit community. Another way of defining the (narrow) speech community is to use the concept of the social or communication network (Milroy, 1980; Scott, 1991; Chambers, 1995, 66-83). In this approach, the network is identified through links between individuals such as friendship, work relations, living in the neighbourhood or family ties, while the linguistic connection is measured through the use of a linguistic variable, and through the nature, frequency and intensity of the linguistic relationship between individuals. In larger groups, one speech community can be distinguished from another by its integration through linguistic interaction, or by the way it defines who belongs or who is excluded through the pattern of the network's language use. However identified, the speech community uses the standard language it has identified as such for itself, and, along with this, a number of other language varieties such as regional or social dialects. The implication of such variation within the standard language is that individual members of the speech community have available a linguistic repertoire, and are not confined to the use of one language, one variety of a language, one type or style of language (cf. Mattheier, 1994, 137-45). The term 'standard language' is also reserved for a language - or, more correctly, one dialect of a language - which has passed through the four stages identified by Haugen (1966; 1983; see also Garvin, 1993; Lodge, 1993): selection, codification (of grammar, spelling, the lexicon for example), elaboration (to ensure it can cope with all the functions for which it is to be used), and acceptance (by the relevant community). Although Haugen saw a difference between two social processes (selection and acceptance) and two linguistic ones (codification and elaboration), all controlled by the speech community, language policies, in the sense of the deliberate acts of the political community, can affect - or be intended to affect - any of them. But successful language policy in this area tends to follow the decisions of the speech community: the Edicts of Villers-Cotterets in 1539, imposing French as the language of the law courts, followed what was by then widespread practice; the French Academy declares frequently that its task is to follow usage, and its failures have occurred when it did not. The process of selection of one dialect rather than another to act as the standard language has long been completed for both British and French. But the process has left scars, with different attitudes in the two speech communities towards intra-language variation (Hudson, 1980, 21-72; Fasold, 1990, 223-68). Much French language policy, for example, is concerned with the possible threat to the standard language caused by 'dialectal fragmentation': it is feared the language may disintegrate if regional varieties are given any formal status. In the social process of selection, speakers of the 'losing' dialects, whether regional or social, have in essence two choices: they can continue to use their own dialect for intimate and private domains and adopt the standard forms for use outside the home; or they can adopt the standard forms completely and reject the minority form.


23

Either way, they will be cut off or 'alienated' from the form of language they used before. This process is undeniably a form of domination by the social elite, and in some analyses based on conflict sociology (e.g. Grillo, 1989) represents 'symbolic violence' against subordinate groups, who oppose the violence in ways reminiscent of the (social class) struggle - not solely for language and for the culture it represents, but also in the economic and political domain, for control of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Subordinate groups, like all other groups, manifest their unity through their use of language, and face inequality when deprived of the use of their language in all domains of life. The social hierarchy imposes language as well as political and economic domination, and the links between these forms of exploitation are close. Much work in French and British sociolinguistics is concerned with the nature of such domination - whether of regional or social varieties - and with the reaction to it of subordinate groups. A dominant language variety has high prestige, while a subordinate variety is deemed to be socially inferior. The French terms valorisation - giving greater value - and minorisation relegating - encapsulate the social processes involved. For Milroy and Milroy (1985, 23), the most important stage in the development of the standard language is nonetheless that of codification, which aims to ensure fixed values for the counters in a system. In language, this means preventing variability in spelling and pronunciation by selecting fixed conventions uniquely regarded as 'correct'.. .The whole notion of standardisation is bound up with the aim of functional efficiency of the language.

On this analysis, too, those members of the speech community who do not master the standard language are unable to deploy the most efficient means of communication - and hence of social and economic advancement. In terms of a market analysis, they do not possess adequate linguistic capital and cannot enter the processes of exchange to their own advantage; they are disadvantaged socially and economically as well as linguistically (Fasold, 1990, 242^; Coulmas, 1992). 'Elaboration', the third stage, is the addition of new terms, structures and modes of discourse to cope with new and changing realities, and hence the development both of new vocabulary and of varieties of the language enabling it to respond to a full range of functional uses. Elaboration therefore works, to an extent, in the opposite direction to codification, although the new terms and discourses enter the codification process itself in order to create a language capable of being used in the new domains in a fixed and standardised way. Once the standard language has been duly selected, codified, and elaborated it must be accepted and maintain its position by fulfilling at least five functions or purposes for its speech community (cf. Garvin, 1993). It must unify the community and strengthen solidarity; it must separate this community from others and thus exclude members of other speech communities; it must confer prestige on the community and on the individual who masters it; it must act as a frame of reference for ideas of linguistic

24


correctness; and it must enable its community both to participate in a full range of subject areas or domains such as science, culture and technology, and also to keep up with and develop modern and changing thought and practice. As a consequence of fulfilling these functions, speakers of the standard language adopt measurable attitudes towards it: they are loyal to it; they have pride in it; they are aware of- and defend - its norms of usage; and they desire to participate, both in the full range of activities of human life and also in modern developments, through its use. These attitudes are often contradictory: purism - the defence of norms - attempts to keep the language static, while the desire to participate means that the community must accept change in the language. The contradictions are neatly summarised in Thomas, G. (1991, 53) as a tripartite tension between 'polyvalency' (use of the language in any social function it is required to fulfil), 'elasticity' (modification and modernisation), and 'stability' (resistance to major change). It is tensions such as these that provoke many language problems and give rise to policy decisions: how far should the desire to stabilise be officially supported, in the knowledge that the consequence may be stagnation? How far should modernisation of the language (in its spelling system, for instance) be resisted? Should modernisation through language borrowing be rejected, while modernisation through semantic shift is accepted? Minority communities The third type of community is the language minority or minorities (Edwards, J., 1994; Paulston, 1994). Minority communities are speech communities in their own right and are often also ethnic communities, although, in France and Britain as elsewhere, 'pure' racial origin and 'pure' ethnic links are misnomers. Some language minorities may form (local) political communities with a degree of local administrative power, but in no case do they function as fully autonomous political communities with powers equivalent to those of the State; indeed, they are defined as minorities in relation only to the political community within which they exist, so the German-speaking community in Alsace can be thought of as a minority in France despite the existence of the large and powerful German State across the border. Linguistic minorities are traditionally placed in two categories: those which are indigenous to the country and therefore have an established regional and territorial base, such as Welsh or Breton; and those which have no territorial base - usually recent immigrants such as those from Hong Kong or Algeria, although Gypsy and Jewish communities are examples of wellestablished non-territorial communities in both countries. Bilingual or multilingual political communities are those in which more than one language is used. This does not necessarily mean that every citizen is bilingual (individual bilingualism); societal bilingualism, in which two or more languages are used, often by monolinguals, within the same political community, is more widespread (Hamers and Blanc, 1989). Switzerland, with three official languages and one national one (Romansh), and Belgium, in which both French and Flemish (Dutch) are used, are classic examples of


25

societal bilingualism. Individual and societal bilingualism are the extreme points of a continuum. Wales, for example, is a political community with official societal bilingualism, but it would be rare to find a monolingual using only Welsh living and working in Wales. The problem of terminology is acute, since many of the terms which are used to describe bi- or multilingualism have connotations of inferiority or superiority. Liidi (1994, 157) thus considers that the term mother tongue/'langue maternelle should not be used at all, and that four criteria should be used to distinguish the terms he proposes: 1. chronology of acquisition: L1-L2-L3 or first-second-third languages; 2. use: language of habitual use vs. learnt language(s); family, work, vernacular, and vehicular languages; 3. degree of mastery: main vs. subsidiary language; 4. topology: local, national and international languages; language of origin and language of adoption. State language policy towards minority communities often derives from, and is quite normally met with, the three types of behaviour we have mentioned above - conflict, cooperation or compromise. Policy on such matters as whether or not the minority language may be used in commerce or education, whether, and how, language policy - or the lack of it - coincides with political, economic or social policy towards minority communities, and whether the political community has any right to control language use within the minority community is often controversial. The attitudes of the political community towards minority languages tend to fall into one of three possible categories: language is considered to be a problem, a right or a resource (Ruiz, 1990). For governments, the language of a minority is most often regarded as a problem: recognition of the minority language has to be reconciled with the views of the majority, educational policy has to be funded, language policy must coincide with general social policy, research may have to be funded to identify the 'best' solution. A language problem can often be a symbol of problems in other areas of life: language policy may be a surrogate for economic or social policy. Indeed, for conflict sociology, 'the politics of language is a function of regionalism, which is treated as a function of the economic system, and, in particular of the economic, and political relationship between core centres and dependent peripheries' (Grille, 1989, 8). The minorities themselves normally regard the use of their language as a human right, which they frequently attempt to convert into a legal right: the right to obtain services from the State in one's own language, to have one's language taught in the schools, to have one's identity recognised through obtaining a recognised formal status for the language. By contrast, the presence of a number of different languages within a society, and the multicultural richness of diversity, is sometimes presented as a national resource, available for use in foreign trade, in educational advantage or in the development of cultural advantage. The range of languages available to a society is a demonstration of human diversity, and as such a resource on which that society can call.

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Ends For many researchers in sociolinguistics the purpose of attempts to influence behaviour can be simply characterised as either to ensure or to prevent dominance. Social group allegiances hence dictate attitudes towards language, and any policy measures on language can be simply allocated to the defence or rejection of the dominant position of a particular social group. To a certain extent this approach is present also in certain models in policy studies: elites adopt policy measures in order to remain elites, while marginalised social groups similarly adopt language protection or promotion measures in order to demonstrate their rejection of dominance. Sociolinguistics has another set of explanations also, which might be summarised as identity, image and inequality (Ager, 1990; Tollefson, 1991). Protecting the identity of the group - the nation, the ethnic group - has long been a strong motivation for policy towards language, and lies at the heart of French defensive measures. Projecting the desired external image can be as strong a motive: policies of multilingualism, of apparent openness towards foreign languages, as in France's European multilingualism policy of 1994, can be representative of a wish to appear to lead a diverse international organisation, the European Union, rather than to hide behind a restrictive Francophone policy. (Social) inequality is a strong motive for language action, either to ensure it continues or to reject it, and is closely associated with the rejection of language insecurity. Process Language, and action intended to affect language use, is a difficult and sensitive area. There are two main reasons for this, and interactional sociolinguistics has much to contribute in understanding the difficulties (Hudson, 1980, 106-37; Ager, 1990, 194-217; Fasold, 1990, 1-179). Language is the expression of the personality of every human being. Everybody uses language; nobody is excluded from concern with communication. The way we speak is intimately connected with our worldview and our perception of relationships and structures, and reveals the ideology or system of thought which lies behind our perceptions. Any attempt to regulate or control such an intimate and personal matter as the way we speak, what we say or to whom we say it must necessarily be seen as in some sense an attack on us and on our identity as individuals. Secondly, language is an instrument of communication as well as an object for policy action. Language policy, like any government policy, has to be expressed in language, defended and attacked in language, so language can be involved in policy measures as a means for achieving policy ends. 'Meaning' does not depend solely on denotation or reference, but has at least two other aspects, commonly labelled as 'pragmatic' and 'social' meaning. 'Social' meaning enables the recipient of a message to identify the social role, ways of thinking and underlying beliefs of the speaker or writer, while 'pragmatic' meaning enables the speaker or writer to adapt and influence the presentation he or she makes in order to produce the desired effect, selecting


27

different words and phrases in order to ensure that both an overt and a covert message is received as intended. Competent political orators will hence use 'discourse practices' which ensure that all three types of meaning are conveyed: referential (what is said), social (the authority with which it is said) and pragmatic (to ensure that the effect of the message gets across). In much speech, however, the speaker is comparatively unaware of the ideology or world perception which lies behind the words he or she is using. Social and pragmatic meaning together depend on a particular context, made up of the wider and immediate situation of the utterance. The speaker, communicating within that context, is necessarily constrained by it and expresses a predetermined attitude dictated by their own education and socialisation, and representing the particular set of beliefs, values and opinions which they have adopted. It is for this reason that incomprehension is often created: recipients of messages simply do not comprehend the message they hear because they do not share the perception or ideology of the speaker. One approach to the difference between these three types of meaning is that of 'social semiotics', based on functional approaches to language (Halliday, 1978, 1985), which has had considerable influence on many linguists working on English. Here, language is thought to have three basic functions: expressive (i.e. social or interpersonal), conative (i.e. pragmatic or textual), and referential (or ideational). The 'discourse practice' of the individual speaker or writer is constructed to achieve the purposes he or she has in mind. Analysts can identify how language use reflects the speaker's purposes and underlying ideology and perspective through his or her choices in language and through the value placed on some means of expression as against others (cf. Fairclough, 1989; Hodge and Kress, 1979/1993; Roberts et al., 1992;Tollefson, 1991). How do discourse practices affect public policy? In two main ways: first by the deliberate adoption of certain discourse practices to justify, support or indeed formulate public policy. A 'slant' or 'spin' can be given to policy by applying terms like 'racism' (in talking about the National Curriculum choice of foreign languages to be taught in schools), or qualite of language, in describing measures to restrict the use of certain terms in advertising. Second, policies themselves can become 'legitimate' or 'illegitimate', through their presentation, description or defence in 'legitimate' or 'illegitimate' discourse practices. In essence, the discourse practices of the ruling elite (i.e. the government of the day) represent 'legitimate' language, whereas those of powerless groups in society are 'illegitimate'. Here, the perceptions and world-view of speakers present the matter as necessarily categorised in terms of the one world-view; other perceptions are not regarded as worthy of discussion, or are simply ignored. The imposition - and acceptance by the speech community - of such discourse practices, in such a way that they become the legitimate norms according to which public life is seen, discussed, and changed, is usually described as hegemony and makes it very difficult to formulate policy in any other terms.

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Language policy: the contributions of sociolinguistics, policy studies and language planning In summary, the most helpful concepts deriving from sociolinguistics, policy studies or the experience of language planning include: Actors: social categories (sociolinguistics); pressure and interest groups (including political parties and individuals), social forces and the State itself (policy studies); and agencies (language planning). Behaviours: geopolitical, functional or chronological links between language and community; domains and functions of language use and language varieties; practices of conflict, cooperation or compromise (sociolinguistics); models of policy formulation and policy analysis; equilibrium of the social system (policy studies); status, acquisition, or corpus policies (language planning). Which people: the political, speech and ethnic communities; network integration; official, standard and minority languages (sociolinguistics). What ends: dominance; identity, image and inequality (sociolinguistics); equilibrium - in pluralism, response to pressure, ideology - in Marxism (policy studies). What conditions: situational, structural, cultural, environmental and informational factors (policy studies, language planning). What means: resource power (force, economic power, symbolic power ideology, credibility and legitimacy) (policy studies). What process: discourse practices of persuasion; legitimisation of discourse practices (sociolinguistics); policy-making sequence (initiation, estimation, selection, implementation, evaluation, termination) (policy studies). What effect: impact, efficiency or effectiveness (policy studies). These concepts and insights will recur throughout the book, which is structured around the policy-making process as defined in policy studies. First, we review the development of the standard language in Britain and France, and then we describe the existing policies each country operates.

e

2 The development of the standard language

Our purpose in this chapter is to examine how the speech communities in France and Britain came to choose particular forms of language to act as the standard, and then how the standard language came in each case to act as the de facto official language for the two political communities. We have noted above these distinctions between a standard language as the language of the speech community, and the official language as representing the political community. In essence, the standard language responds to the desire for efficiency: it enables members of the speech community to function with a common range of meanings - and yet to participate in a range of domains, and to constantly modernise their range of expressions. The official language responds rather to the need for prestige, enabling the political community to be and remain unified, to mark its boundaries with other such communities, and to have a basis for its ideas of correctness, of what is right and wrong in language. The distinction between a speech community and a political community, and between the purposes of the linguistic means of communication for each, is often unclear. Nonetheless, the distinction we have drawn between standard and official languages, although it may seem pedantic, has affected the status and role of both English and French. In Roman Europe, the use of Latin as lingua franca developed as political control was established by Rome; but as the Roman Empire collapsed, the need for a common official language disappeared as political communities became smaller: dialects developed and were used for all purposes within smaller geographical areas. As the political communities increased in size again after the Dark Ages, the increased number of speech communities within them created problems for efficiency of communication: political and linguistic boundaries often did not coincide. The history of the development of standard French and standard English represents the process of matching, more or less, the speech and political communities through geopolitical, functional and chronological links. But the match has rarely been perfect, and the boundaries are often indistinct.

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To some extent, the four processes by which standard French and standard English have been created over the past thousand years or so followed each other: once a particular dialect was selected it had then to be codified and standardised in order to be usable; to enable it to be used in a number of functions and in a number of domains it had to be elaborated; and finally it had to be accepted as fulfilling the needs of both the speech and the political communities (Haugen, 1966, 1983; Baugh and Cable, 1978; Lodge, 1993). Selection The dialect of the He de France (francieri) was by no means an obvious choice to act as standard for the developing territory of the kings of France over the period from 850 to 1300. In the variety of dialects left in northern France after the fragmentation of the Gallo-Roman period both Picard and Norman had as much social, cultural and economic potential; indeed Norman was the language of the English court which laid claim to much of France. In the south, more than one of the dialects of the Langue d' Oc - the Gallo-Roman which had followed Latin had divided into the Langue d' Oil in the north and the Langue d'Oc in the south - could boast cultural potential, and lemosin was approaching the point of becoming a preferred choice both for literature and for administration, although the lack of a single administrative centre held back any clear preference between the southern dialects. Why then wasfrancien selected? The answer must be, principally, that it was the language of power. The conquest of a region by the French kings took many forms, only some of them involving military attack - as in the case of their religious crusade against the Albigensian heresy, where the cruelty and thoroughness with which the armies of the north imposed their will on the south in 1230 and following years meant that domination was absolute and any future for the southern regional languages became inconceivable, particularly for the leading social groups who became the interpreters between the conquering French speakers and their civilisation and the local, increasingly rural, populations. But in the case of Brittany, Anne, the duchess, was forced to marry Charles VIII, King of France - admittedly as the result of a French invasion in 1491 - and married Louis XII, his successor in 1498 as the result of a clause in her first marriage contract which insisted on such a union, so the process was political and diplomatic as well as military. Their daughter Claude, the last duchess, brought the dukedom as her dowry to the next king of France, Francois I in 1532, and while Breton retained its role, for a time, as a regional official language, it was used less and less by the elite. How far wasfrancien in fact selected? Only, at first, as the language of the elite: local populations across what would become France continued to speak and use regional languages and dialects until well into the present century. But the standard language had to be understood and used in contacts with the administration, if any literature was to be read — in fact if any writing or reading was to be done - and in commercial or financial contacts with other areas of the growing royal domain. Except for occasional decrees such as the Edict of Villers-Cotterets in 1539, it was not a requirement of the French

DEVELOPMENT OF THE STANDARD LANGUAGE

31

power thatfrancien be used, so the eventual selection was carried out by the prestige of power rather than by its actual exercise: the process was one of ideological and cultural domination, rather than one of political or even military domination. Many factors were involved (cf. Lodge, 1993, 85-117; Battye and Hintze, 1992, 15): demography - the concentration of populatio in the Ile-de-France; economics - the agricultural and commercial wealth of Paris and its surrounding region, and the production of printed books there after the invention of printing in the late fifteenth century; and the cultural pre-eminence of Paris too, with the royal court acting as a magnet for poets, and the Sorbonne attracting prestige as a centre for education. In England, the dialect which had probably gained ascendancy after the arrival of the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes from 449 until just before the Norman Conquest was West Saxon, which had achieved the status of a national preferred literary form and, as the language of Alfred the Great, was politically important if not pre-eminent. The Norman Conquest of 1066 however - the 'most significant historical event' in the history of the language (Finegan, 1987) - prevented the selection of a pre-existing dialect of English as the standard, and might well have imposed Norman French as both standard and official language on the conquered populations. Indeed, Norman French was the official language for at least a century and a half after 1066, a period during which diglossia characterised the country and individual bilingualism is not thought to have been very widespread. The turn of the linguistic tide is usually dated as 1204, when King John lost Normandy and he and successive kings were forced to concentrate on their possessions in Britain. After this time, and particularly after the Black Death of 1348, English became more widespread and gained prestige. Following the Statute of Pleading of 1362, which required English rather than French or Latin to be used in the law courts, 'English again became the language of England and of her literature' (Finegan, 1987, 84). By 1362 'English', heavily affected by the impact of the French and then the Anglo-Norman dialect of the conquerors, was in fact already the spoken language of the courts, although Latin was retained as the language of written record. But which dialect form of this new 'English' would be selected? Throughout the period 1400-1600 the five regional dialects (Southern, South-Eastern, West and East Midlands, and Northern) all continued to be used, with 'important Middle English texts in every one' (Price, 1984, 175 By about 1470, however, most writing seemed to reflect East Midlands usage. The process of dialect selection in England was probably based on bureaucratic practice (the language of the king's clerks) in addition to literature (Chaucer), education and learning (Oxford and Cambridge), political power (the London Court) and the prestige of the written form (afte Caxton's invention of the printing press in 1476), so the selection was as much social as political, and certainly not so 'military' as that of France (cf. Grillo, 1989, 155-62, who characterises the influences as 'Chaucer, Chancery and Caxton'). There was, of course, no question of selecting any of the regional languages, even in Wales, Scotland or Ireland. The aim of converting Catholics to Protestantism was one of the main motivating factors for the

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L A N G U A G E POLICY IN B R I T A I N AND FRANCE

spread of English into these countries, although it was by no means the only one. The education of the masses, for example, was thought to be hindered by their use of indigenous languages, so even as late as the 1847 'Blue Books' (reports of the Commissioners on the state of education in Wales), officials could cheerfully state that 'the Welsh language is a vast drawback to Wales, and a manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people' (quoted in Grille, 1989, 87). Religion and education were, however, inextricably linked: if for some, progress could only come through the use of the standard language, for others, using the standard language meant rejecting their identity. Throughout Britain churches and groups such as the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, the Irish 'Hedge Schools', and the Edinburgh Gaelic School Society, made the Bible and other texts available in the local language, and taught in Welsh or (Irish and Scottish) Gaelic, keeping the indigenous languages alive, in some cases even against the law (teachers of Irish were proscribed in Ireland until 1792). The Education Acts of 1870 and 1872 ensured more direct state, rather than religious, involvement with education, although the system was locally managed and controlled. Neither Act made provision for teaching in languages other than English, although local codes of practice made provision in Welsh, Scottish and Irish Gaelic possible in the elementary and later in the intermediate schools. Codification Codification was deliberately required of the French Academy by the King's Minister Cardinal Richelieu, and this formal recognition of state involvement came in 1635, in a general climate of systematisation and linguistic control, as evidenced by the publication for example of the Remarques sur la langue franâise (1647) by Vaugelas (1585-1650). Codification of the language under the influence of such Court grammarians was increasingly based on the notion of good usage: Malherbe's test of good French was that language should be comprehensible by the common people, the hay porters in the Portau-Foin, but later in the century Vaugelas' model - the 'soundest part of the Court' - was more clearly associated with the power of the State and its courtiers. Vaugelas' work was originally intended to become incorporated in the Academy's dictionary and grammar, and was indeed a deliberate contribution to state-managed codification. Codification, the rejection of dialect and specialist terms and the reduction of the language to an efficient, usable instrument, was carried out by many different hands, although the most visible forms were those affecting literary and courtly language. The work has continued since the seventeenth century, with the result that the standard dictionaries (particularly that of Littre, first appearing between 1863 and 1872) and grammars (particularly Grevisse, first appearing in 1932) are supported by constant declarations on good usage by the relevant authorities, principally the French Academy, but including professional newspaper columnists - for example Cellard in Le Monde. The systematic, thorough and complete codification of modern standard French is


33

far more evident and far more the result of deliberate intervention than is that of either British or American English, and the effect of this on all aspects of French language policy - particularly in the use of French abroad - is very marked, in that protection of this highly codified language is a principal objective of policy. The codification of English took place also from about the sixteenth century, through the publication of dictionaries and grammars, many of them intended to teach the language to rural squires or to the 'Welsh gentry' after the 1536 Act of Union between England and Wales. Written standard English was codified through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although Jonathan Swift's 'Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue' appeared in 1712, the grammar of Bishop Lowth in 1762, and Samuel Johnson's dictionary did not appear until 1755. Throughout this codification process three influences were again paramount: the king's English, in the form of the administrative and legal language; literary English, in the form of the language accepted as that used by great literature and used for printing and publishing; and 'Oxford English', or the English of education and the Church - its main provider. At no point in this process was the State openly involved. Codification also affected the spoken form of the standard language. 'Received pronunciation' was codified through the influence of education, particularly that of the nineteenth-century public schools, followed from the early twentieth century by cinema, radio and television ('BBC English'). Nonetheless it is estimated that only 3-5 per cent of the population of Britain speak received pronunciation today (Trudgill and Hannah, 1982), and hence this particular form of the spoken language is 'accepted' by society only in the sense that it is widely understood. Codification of English has produced at least two standard languages - the British and the North American, although the differences between the two are matters of pronunciation and the lexicon, rather than affecting anything more seriously structural. Any work by an academy to codify either of the two standards 'has been consistently rebuffed, and any suggestion of an international academy would almost certainly be met with international ridicule' (Finegan, 1987, 101), so the two codified norms have separate existence, with separate authorities being consulted - Webster's Dictionary (first edition 1828) for America and the Oxford English Dictionary (first instalment of the first edition 1884) for the British. Elaboration The extensive codification to which French had been subjected in the seventeenth century eliminated from literary language much of the extended vocabulary, particularly that relating to rural, socially unacceptable or overly technical matters, which had been introduced in the fifteenth and sixteenth. The influence of the Court, the rules of politeness and elegance, all contributed to creating a refined, limited vocabulary - at least for literature and to limiting its size. The needs of technical, military and diplomatic

34

L A N G U A G E POLICY IN BRITAIN AND F R A N C E

growth, however, meant that the vocabulary had to continue adding new terms, often, significantly, through borrowing words and expressions from Italian, Spanish, and Arabic. The most important work deliberately aimed at ensuring the lexical elaboration of French was Diderot's Encyclopedic of 1751-72, which intended to record details of both the practice and the relevant terminology of new sciences and technologies - particularly the latter. In later years, French has borrowed extensively, not merely from the traditional sources of Latin and Greek, but now, mainly, from English. In English, 'generally speaking, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the centuries of vocabulary expansion in response to the need for functional elaboration of the developing standard - in science, philosophy and literature' (Milroy, J., 1984, 13). Like French, English borrowed extensively - from French in particular, from which language it took not merely vocabulary items but also a range of derivational systems of prefixes and suffixes. In science and technology, English borrowed, and still does, extensively from Latin and Greek, although 'mastery of the Latinate vocabulary of English is difficult and requires the support of a strong educational system' (Milroy, J., 1984, 28). In both Britain and France, first the Industrial Revolution and now later revolutions in communication, in computers and in social organisation have forced the inclusion of much new terminology, and of whole ranges of new functions in the language: from the discourse of management to that of negotiation, from Marxism to Adam Smith. In more recent times, both Quebec and France have deliberately set out to increase and enrich the vocabulary of French in order to ensure that it has the means to describe changing reality in French (particularly in technical terminology) and the ability to 'create in the language'. A strong motivation for this work is the belief that French scientists will not be able to create new science if they cannot name their new techniques and discoveries within their own language, but will be forced always to follow scientific creativity within another system of thought and expression (cf. Etat, 1993, 214). The continuing elaboration of the standard language gives it its 'elasticity'. It is this elasticity which enables the language to modernise and develop, to represent new realities and convey new ideas, and allows its speakers to contemplate change. Both French and English can and do modernise the wordstock, but there are both linguistic and socio-economic reasons why the effectiveness of elaboration is different, and why in general English is thought to enable users to create and change with greater ease than does French. English is recognised as a language in which it is easy to innovate: 'the productivity of word-formation has, over centuries, been a major factor in providing the huge vocabulary of English' (Bauer, 1983, 63: all examples in this paragraph). In English linguistics 'creativity' can be classified as falling into two main types (Leech, 1974, 35-8): lexical creativity (neologism) and semantic change, including such phenomena as metaphor. The former includes compounding, of which two main categories are compound nouns, formed from two or more nouns in apposition (e.g.: battered baby syndrome, domino theory) and compound adjectives (e.g.: card-carrying, machine


35

readable, solid-state, broad-brush). The looseness of the precise semantic relationship between the elements enables numerous new creations, and gives greatflexibility- but an associated lack of precision - to additions to the wordstock. Prefixation (e.g.: disinformation) and suffixation (institutionalisation, unstoppable) are also productive. Conversion - the use of a noun as a verb, or more generally of any 'member of a form class as though it were a member of another form class' - very widespread in usage, is another example of the flexibility of English (e.g.: noun to verb: to leaflet; verb to noun: an interrupt; adjective to noun: a gay, a given; others: he downed his beer, he has a down on me, the down train, down-sizing). Semantic change - the change in meaning of existing words - has also enabled English to modernise, particularly in new technologies, where new devices or techniques can be named easily and simply (e.g., in computing: mouse, chip, disk). But English also has a very wide range of synonyms, has borrowed extensively - but from a range of languages - and is still actively doing so (e.g.: taco, teriyaki, ikebana). The net result is a wide, abundant and growing stock of lexical items with which to name, discuss and develop the modern world. 'The diffusion of American technologies during the twentieth century likewise diffused English words for those technological bits and bytes. So, too, in other arenas, where the artefacts of culture have borne English words with them in their travels, from jeans to discos' (Finegan, 1987, 79). There is no doubt that the spread of English worldwide is dependent not merely on its history as the language of English emigration, empire and trade, but also on the continuing economic and political domination of English-speaking countries, among which the United States of America is foremost in power. Nonetheless, the language is acceptable for many peoples in the world because it is not, or is no longer, associated with political conflict. As the language of an external group, it has no local political significance in Belgium or in India, where it is regarded as a language of practical use. For all these reasons, additions to the lexicon are welcomed by most English speakers, in Britain as elsewhere. French contrasts with English: the language finds it very difficult to create new lexical items. Traditionally, in French linguistics new vocabulary elements are classified as semantic (involving a change in meaning of existing words) or creative, the latter involving compounding (including prefixation), derivation, ex-nihilo new word formations or borrowings from other languages. Examples of semantic change (all examples from Noreiko, 1993) include: the extension of the meaning of an existing term, including metaphor (la puce, originally 'flea', now computer chip), widening meaning (lecteur, originally 'reader', now used to indicate a variety of electronic data capture instruments). Creative change includes new combinations of words in apposition (bande son for sound track), or new compound words (radio-reveil for radio alarm). Some derivational suffixes - there are many of them in French - are more productive than others (-eur and -iste: repondeur (answering machine) and publiciste (press agent, 'handler')), -iser for verbs (credibiliser for 'make someone credible'). Word elements such as tele (telecommande remote

36


control), auto (autoradio car radio; autocollant self-adhesive and autofocus automatic focus - i.e. three different meanings for the same prefix), or bus (abribm bus shelter) recombine to give any number of new terms. Truncation (une pub for une publicite advertisement), and the use of acronyms (SMIG Salaire Minimum Interprofessionnel Garanti or minimum wage) often lead to the creation of entertaining new terms. Completely new creations, with no basis in the existing language, are rare in French. Conversely, borrowing from other languages is characteristic of French. Despite the range of examples of lively new creativity in certain subject areas, and in the vocabulary of exciting new areas - computers, pop music, youth culture - most commentators consider that the French language innovates only with difficulty. They fear that the overall size of the French vocabulary is in fact declining (de Broglie 1986), or at the very least that new creations are restricted to limited subject fields, and that French is being forced to innovate through borrowing alone. French has found it difficult, too, to use the linguistic resources of its former empire: although some words in contemporary French derive from Arabic, from African languages or from Quebec French, and there is some evidence that inner-city youth culture in particular is adding to the word-stock, these new terms are not easily accepted in the dictionaries or in polite society. A fundamental part of the difference between French and English, however, lies in the extent to which further elaboration or modernisation is contradicted by codification: how far the language may adapt to new circumstances or widen its polyvalency. Codification works in parallel with elaboration, constantly systematising and defining the new terms; but since the codification process has gone farther in French than in English, and since the characteristic of 'stability' is prized more than that of 'elasticity' in French, codification has led to stultification there. The belief that the French Academy or the Terminology Commissions must scrutinise and approve all new words and expressions, that French has already achieved perfection and is already the perfect instrument in which to convey human thoughts appears to militate against elaboration. Martinet (1969, 29; quoted in Noreiko, 1993, 173) notes how the French have been 'trained to obey, to respect precedents, not to innovate: they don't dare manufacture a compound word or create an unusual combination'. Quite simply, too, French is the language of France and France is the undeniable guardian of its uniqueness; the general refusal of its speakers to innovate within the language maintains its 'quality'. Hence the necessary elaboration of the language, at least in its word-stock, has to take place outside the language, through borrowing: yet it is the borrowed terms which are then rejected and opposed by the guardians of the language - and, indeed, by many speakers. Acceptance Both French and English have been accepted - to a certain extent, as we shall see - by their relevant speech communities as standard languages. The speech community 'accepts' the standard language by using it in a variety of domains in preference to other regional, social or functional dialects. These


37

domains are public, in the sense that they lie outside private, domestic, intimate family concerns. For work, for the market, for commercial relationships, for aspects of social interaction such as religion and community life, the standard language becomes more and more necessary as society becomes more complex. For the private domains, however, regional and social dialects other than the standard form are still acceptable, although the extent to which they survive is often surprising, in the face of the media and other pressures disseminating the standard. In both countries it is only within the last century that the standard language has become so widespread. This is partly as a result of increased and improved communication, arising from transport improvements, the printed, and later audio-visual media, and the increasing complexity of society, and partly also as a result of greater democracy, which needed a common language to persuade and influence the voter. It was not until the last third of the nineteenth century that monolinguals, speaking only regional languages and dialects, could no longer manage in France: Lodge (1993, 202) notes that the proportion of non-French-speaking monolinguals, probably as high as 46 per cent in the Gregoire survey of 1794, had dropped to 25 per cent in 1863 and most had become bilingual by 1927. The enormous nineteenthcentury educational investment, the constant and coherent policy of integration into the nation-State through an effective and prestigious administration, coupled with a number of other factors such as political centralisation, economic change and the succession of wars and the mixing of populations this caused, has by now brought about what is generally regarded as a unified, linguistically homogeneous State, where the standard language is widely accepted and used. In Britain, the main regional language, Welsh, never dropped entirely from use although throughout the nineteenth century it came under constant attack (Grillo, 1989). Regional dialects such as those of Yorkshire and Devon were also the subject of considerable local pride, although again improved education brought them under considerable pressure. Educationists indeed demonstrated two opposing beliefs about the purpose of education, both leading to the conclusion that regional dialects must disappear: from one point of view, regional dialects were symbols of opposition to authority and must hence be crushed, while from the other, they had the effect of disenfranchising the poor and the disadvantaged, preventing them from gaining access to power. Whether the intention was to hinder or to help their economic and political emancipation, regional language speakers were to lose their regional identity. The acceptance of standard language throughout the British speech community is by no means general, and much of the debate over questions of identity, of the teaching of the standard language in a national curriculum, over 'sloppiness' in language use, and over the assimilation of immigrant communities through language is related to intra-language variation and to social dialects. Gillian Shephard, Secretary of State for Education, put the case for accepting standard English as an entitlement for all citizens succinctly at the Conservative Party Conference in October 1994, and indeed repeated the message at the 1995 conference:

38


For too long we have been too slack in our treatment of English. And we have impoverished our children in the process. That is why the National Curriculum . . . puts the emphasis firmly on standard English. Children must be able to master these essential tools if they are to express themselves clearly and make their way successfully in the world.

The opposite point of view was expressed by Alan Howarth in an article in the Guardian (15 October 1994). A former Conservative Minister of Education, he noted that 'the prosperous are nervous about the poor' and described the concern with standard English as 'cultural authoritarianism', based on potentially 'ugly and dangerous values': 'Presumably if the underclass and immigrants won't understand about subordinate clauses and the subjunctive mood, they are beyond the pale.' His distaste for some of these feelings may have contributed to his departure from the party in October 1995. Social dialects - the language of the working class in particular - are hence rejected in Britain by the elite, although much work in sociolinguistics has been devoted to trying to understand how far social dialects can be identified, how far they are determined by social circumstances and how efficient and effective they are in conveying a wide range of meaning (Labov, 1966; Trudgill 1974b; Chambers, 1995, 250-3). Of the three traditional nonlinguistic variables with which language use is correlated - age, sex and class - it is class that has provoked most discussion, and it is in discussion of class that both the value systems of sociolinguists and those of the elite - and particularly politicians - can be most clearly identified. Much of the dislike for standard English in Britain can be traced to a dislike for the elite thought to use it, and conversely much of the dislike for non-standard social dialects derives from a dislike for such social groups, symbolised by their language. In this respect, there are noteworthy, and traditional, differences between class-ridden Britain on the one hand, and France on the other, where such differences are commonly said not to be so extreme. Sociolinguists themselves could be said to be occupied with class in Britain but with regional variation in France. It is not just in relation to social dialects, nor to regional languages and dialects that the standard language must be accepted as having a special role. The speech communities' attitudes towards functional language varieties, too, may reveal the connotations associated with them. One less usual example of this is the language of the workplace, which is such a functional variety, and typical concerns here may be that the language of management instructions, negotiations, workplace communication generally - may demonstrate not merely the inevitable distinctions to be made between the manager and the worker, but may also convey more or less hidden messages of discrimination - particularly racial or gender discrimination (cf. Roberts et al., 1992). Policy solutions to such a situation may include training both the worker - to understand the nature of the language which 'manages' his work - and the manager - to ensure that human rights are not, intentionally or unintentionally, attacked through inappropriate language use. More widely, functional varieties such as the language of the law or of religious observance


39

are easily identifiable, notably different from the standard language and carry the connotations of their respective contexts of use. The speech communities using English and French outside Britain and France have also made their decisions about the nature of the standard language they will accept. In general, the French-speaking countries, now often collectively called Francophonie, tend to regard Parisian French as the norm and as the standard to be aimed at within their own political communities, while Anglophone countries have generally rejected British English and developed their own local norms and standards. The undeniable fact is that France contains about 50 per cent of the world's French speakers, and that in many Francophone countries the language is only spoken by less than 10 per cent of the total population - the educated elite - so the standard Parisian norm retains a prestige and an international role as the accepted variety for public purposes including diplomacy. In the international political community - for example in organised Francophonie - the need for respect for languages and varieties other than the standard, and for multilingualism generally, is now a constant theme; but it is only fairly recently that policymakers seem to have accepted that the preservation of French may depend on the preservation of multilingualism, which implies a right for other languages to be used, rather than insisting on Parisian French alone. For the speech community at large, the shift has not yet been made, and standard Parisian French retains its supremacy. Of the world Englishes, only American English itself contains many internal dialects. The Australian, American and British standard Englishes are probably equally acceptable in diplomacy, and certainly English speakers in most parts of the world are prepared to accept approximations to their language much more easily than French speakers. By contrast to French, the English speech community worldwide is perhaps more tolerant; but then perhaps it has to be, since Britain is by far in the minority of world English speakers. How similar to each other are Britain and France in respect of the standard language? Both accept their standard language, both feel pride in it, both agree that it fulfils the needs outlined by Garvin (1993). But there are differences. The danger each community feels does not seem to come from the same quarter: for France, the standard language seems to have achieved its perfection in the eighteenth century, and if it is under attack, this comes from a mixture of Americanisms and modernity generally and from regional languages aiming to break up the integrity of the speech - and possibly the political - community. For Britain, the danger is social: if the standard language is under attack, it is from social classes and groups who do not share the assumptions and attitudes of the elite. Although there may be an element of regional conflict, it is between the north and south of the country and is closely associated with social conflict. The political communities in each case, as we shall see in the next two chapters, have expressed their policies, and their degree of acceptance of the standard language, in different ways.

3

Language policies: the status of languages in Britain and France

The status of French Four main pieces of legislation, currently still valid but originally adopted in 1539, 1794, 1992 and 1994, represent official policy towards the status of French. Minor legislation and administrative decisions also promote the use of French in specific domains.

1539 The first language-planning law in France, formally accepting French as the official language of a major domain of state activity, is generally thought to be Article 111 of the Edicts (Ordonnances) of Villers-Cotterets, agreed by Fran9ois I in 1539. This required French ('and not otherwise') to be used in oral presentations, in legal documents such as contracts, and in judgements rendered in French courts - a practice which had in any case become much more common as political power was extended through conquest. Ten years later, in most regions - and even in some which the French king did not yet rule (Beam and Savoy for example) - French had ousted Latin and the regional languages in the legal role (Brun, 1923). There is little doubt that the objective of this policy was 'political control through administrative efficiency' (Lodge, 1993, 127). The use of three languages - French, the regional language (particularly Occitan) and Latin was cumbersome, and using French alone was efficient and also served the useful purpose of increasing the social power of speakers of the northern French standard. One of the main consequences of the Edict was that the notables and the men of law in each of the villages and towns where regional languages were spoken became interpreters, not merely of the language, but also of the political and social power. Their role became that of an intermediary who could gain access to benefits and advantages, as well as to the righting of

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wrongs and the interpretation of the law governing disputes and public order. One major characteristic of French political life is the extent to which this role of intermediary and local notable has remained effective today: the local politician is the person on whom the local community relies to gain advantages for the town, the region and the village, and his personal reputation depends on what he can obtain for the region from the distant central power. A number of official texts had appeared prior to 1539, most of them banning the use of Latin in courts but still allowing the use of the regional language (Grau, 1992; Judge, 1993; Lodge, 1993). After 1539, too, there were edicts in 1563 reiterating the requirements of 1539, and one of 1629 extending the prescription to the ecclesiastical courts. As French territory expanded by conquest, marriage or treaty, the provisions of the 1539 Edict were extended to new regions: to Beam in 1621, to Alsace in 1685, and thence to all the colonies in turn as expansion started through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Insistence on the use of one language, French, was part of the overall centralisation of power in the French State. After the creation of the Academy, and throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the centralising power of Paris was felt by all sections of French society. The aristocracy suffered through the necessity to be part of the royal Court and to be seen there, particularly when the Court moved to Versailles with its elaborate and expensive ritual, which drained power and resources from the regions. The (nearly) civil war of the Frondes of 1648-52 was one of the last attempts of the regional aristocracy to stem such centralisation. Protestantism, which could have challenged royal authority through its beliefs in individualism and through its work ethic was effectively stopped by the Revocation, in 1685, of the Edict of Nantes which had permitted religious tolerance since 1598. The bourgeoisie, slowly gaining financial and legal power, was controlled through both social and more simply fiscal means. The systematic codification of French paralleled these processes of centralisation and state control and ensured that the language was sufficiently standardised to act as instrument of control. Court grammarians such as Malherbe and Vaugelas more and more dictated usage. Just before the French Revolution written standard French had become an international language, used for diplomacy and the arts in Germany and Russia; it had been codified and regulated to an extent far beyond that which applied to any other European language, even though academies existed in some. 7794 The French Revolution was to see what is generally agreed to be the second piece of legislation on language status, the decree of 1794 imposing the use of French throughout French territory. In fact, Grau (1992, 95) points out that five decrees or instructions were involved: the conversion of private schools into state schools in which the language of instruction was to be French; a decree to enforce this language use; a decree banning the use of 'German' in Alsace; a decree to ensure that the population would not be 'abused' through

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the use of regional languages; and finally the decree enforcing the use of French for the legal decisions of the new power. The motivation was different from that of the kings of the Ancien Regime, even though the net effect may have been very similar: the revolutionary leaders wanted to ensure that all citizens could gain access to Liberty, and that the power of the Church, of local aristocrats and landowners, and of other forces of fragmentation, could not prevent citizens from understanding the true nature of the laws and declarations emanating from Paris. Republican ideals such as secular education, education in one common language, and the centralised system of diplomas, qualifications and curricula aimed to serve the Republic and the Revolution. Regional languages were banned, not through any dislike of the languages, but through hatred, fear and suspicion of what they symbolised. The report by Barere in 1794 to the new Assembly was clear: 'Federalism and superstition speak Breton', 'the counter-Revolution speaks Italian, fanaticism speaks Basque'; the 'crowd of corrupt dialects, the last remnants of feudalism, must disappear: the force of events dictates it'; 'among a free people language must be one and the same for all' (quoted in Lodge, 1993, 214). French was the language of freedom, of universal values, the doorway to the future and to individual development. Judge (1993) notes a difference between pre- and post-revolutionary policies, in that 'early linguistic legislation . . . was simply part of the legal process of codification' while from the Revolution onwards 'linguistic policies became part of political ideologies and were implemented mainly through education and governmental establishments' (23). Grau (1992) notes three decisions of the Appeal Court (Cour de Cassation) in 1830, 1859 and 1875, all reinforcing the use of French in legal documents. One of these had relevance to Corsica, and it is worth noting the view of the court that 'There is no distinction to be made as between Corsica and the rest of French territory.' The court went so far as decreeing that legal documents not written in French had no validity, even in areas like Corsica which had not formed part of France before the Revolution. The revolutionary wish to see all French citizens understanding 'the language of liberty' - Parisian French - and using it in their daily lives was nonetheless mainly implemented through legislation enforcing education in French, and in French alone. In 1794 it was required that a teacher of French be installed in every commune in those areas where regional languages were used, but even by 1832, when primary schools were established and the official orthography adopted for use therein (Judge, 1993, 14), there were insufficient teachers to provide for everybody. In 1881 the Education Minister Jules Ferry decreed by ministerial order that French alone would be used in all the schools, which would be obligatory, free, and secular so that all children, on the same basis, could have access to knowledge and to the social advance to which that knowledge led - provided access took place through the medium of French. French was thus both the medium of education and an object of education, and it became the duty of the Ministers of Education and all the teachers, particularly in the primary schools throughout the land, to ensure that regional languages and local dialects were systematically excluded from the

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school grounds. Methods used to implement this at microlevel, in the classroom, included ridicule (children speaking local languages were forced to wear a symbole, often a card hung round the neck, or a special cap), the systematic exclusion of reference to local culture and the systematic denigration of local customs. The most typical method however was that of positive support for 'French' culture, on two grounds: its role in forming the nation, and its role as window to progress: Trench, the national language, must come before the others. It was and is the vehicle for all ideas of liberty and must be spread as much as possible' (Georges Leygue, Minister of Education in 1902). Even as late as 1925, the then Education Minister, A. de Monzie, could openly declare that 'Non-religious schools cannot shelter languages competing with French' (quoted in Martel, 1992). Indeed, President Pompidou is famous for his remark as late as 1972 that 'there is no place for regional languages in a France which is destined to play a fundamental role in Europe'. As France expanded its colonial empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it insisted that newly conquered countries also adopted its language along with its laws. Only the laws and language created in Paris were acceptable for the administration of the colonies, and only those colonial subjects who were prepared to accept this could participate in the political life of their own countries. But once they did accept this, they could become full members of the French community, and the fact that colonies might be situated thousands of miles from metropolitan France was no barrier to their integration into the nation-State. Today there are still four overseas departements within the Republic (Guyane, Guadeloupe, Martinique and La Reunion) which may not use any language other than French for official and administrative purposes, although the situation is different for the overseas Territories (TOM) in the Pacific (Ager, 1996).

1992 As a consequence of France's acceptance of the Maastricht Treaty on the expansion of the European Community and its conversion to a European Union, some changes were necessary to the Constitution. Taking advantage of this, one new language clause was inserted into the Constitution to make French formally the official language of the Republic: 'The language of the Republic is French'. Although this would appear to be merely a symbolic act confirming the official status of French, it has a number of consequences, particularly for the use of the defined official terminology by public servants, and for those areas of France - particularly the overseas departements - where French is not th first language. Declaring French to be the official language means that the administration of the State must use French in its official business, and, in the interpretation of some, that no other language may be allowed in dealings with any part of the State. Potentially, this law has severe consequences for citizens who do not master French, for all the industries and enterprises which are partowned by the State - and potentially even after privatisation - and for all those businesses and private organisations which deal with any part of the State.

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1994 The fourth main French law on language status was first passed by the Parliament in 1975, sponsored by the two Members Messrs Bas and Lauriol, and was replaced in 1994 by the 'Toubon Act', so named after the Minister for Culture and Francophonie, Jacques Toubon. The 1975 Bas-Lauriol Act had insisted that French be used in commerce and the workplace, the media and generally in public places, in addition to the public service. The law required that French be used in all matters affecting consumers, and charged the Ministry for Consumer Protection with applying it. This law came under considerable attack from the European Commission, which regarded its provisions as particularly offensive to the concept of free competition across national borders. It had to be modified by ministerial circular in 1976 and again in 1982, in order to conform with European law and the provisions of the Treaty of Rome, enabling imports from EC countries to avoid its provisions while maintaining them for imports from elsewhere. Nonetheless, the 1975 law was universally regarded well before 1994 as being ineffective. The punishments involved for infringing its provisions were small, the authorities charged with implementing it often found difficulties in interpretation and demonstrated little enthusiasm for adding to their burdens in a difficult area, while it was not possible easily to decide who was the offended party with the right to institute proceedings (Faure, 1986; DGLF, 1994). The replacement of the 1975 Act by the Toubon Act of 1994 - which is further discussed in Chapter 9 below - had been eagerly awaited by those active in pressure groups. Two attempts had been made to propose replacements: one in 1984, by Georges Sarre, a Socialist Member of Parliament, and another in 1993 by Mme Catherine Tasca, the Socialist Minister for Consumer Affairs. Neither reached the point of being discussed in the Parliament. The Toubon law makes the use of French obligatory in five domains: consumer protection, in that French must be used in the designation, offer for sale and advertising of goods, products and services - except for foreign or regional specialities like 'Whisky' or 'Kouglof. Decisions on what is or is not French are left to the judge in any disputed case. The second domain is employment, where French must be used in contracts, advertisements, internal standing orders, agreements, and in any document affecting workers, except where such documents are received from abroad or concern foreign workers. The third domain is education, where French must be used as the medium except in teaching foreign or regional languages, and in specialised schools. The fourth domain is audio-visual communication: French is obligatory in programmes and advertisements. The use of French is also obligatory in colloquia, congresses and events held in France. The Toubon law also makes use of the official terminology obligatory for civil servants and those exercising a public role. Contraventions of the law are punishable by fines and indeed imprisonment, determined either through the employment legislation or through the application of the Penal Code. By

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comparison with the 1975 Act, it considerably strengthened enforcement and instituted heavy fines for non-compliance. In addition to the laws on status, there remain in force at least three ministerial circulars requiring the use of French in certain fields or otherwise imposing obligations: one dated 30 December 1976 on the use of French in teaching and research; one dated 22 September 1981 on the organisation of colloquia and congresses in France; and one from Prime Minister Balladur's office on 20 April 1994 on the use of French by public agents. The provisions of the first two have to a certain extent been overtaken by the Toubon law, while the third was intended to ensure that the annual appraisals of public servants took into consideration their use of, and attachment to, good quality French. The status of regional languages in France The gradual weakening of regional languages over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did not come about solely through the impact of status policy for French, accompanied by systematic public denigration of the regional languages. At least two other influences were involved: firstly the mixing of populations across France through the influence of better roads and new means of transport such as the railways - and the consequential growth in commercial relations between linguistic areas. The wars of 1870 and particularly 1914-18, when conscription obliged young men to move away from their villages and to communicate in French, also had an effect. As the nineteenth century progressed, civil servants - particularly teachers - were deployed across the country to fill available posts, breaking the continuity of (non-French) language usage in classrooms. Secondly, the increasing efficiency of the French administration was based on and required greater and more widespread knowledge of the standard language, following Napoleon's institution of a nationwide system depending on the examination of candidates in formal written tests. Even postmen had to prove that they could write as well as read French, and promotion of any sort within the civil service required linguistic ability, demonstrated by answering examination questions which had been centrally designed, and which were centrally checked in a uniform way across the country. The system meant that gradually language differences decreased, or at least that a common form of French was adopted for communication. By early in the twentieth century the regional languages were supposed to have all but disappeared: Dauzat, writing in 1927, considered that local dialects and languages were merely a 'recognition signal for people from the same area' and served no practical purpose. Perhaps because they were no longer a real danger, perhaps in response to strengthening autonomy movements in the 1920s in both Brittany and Alsace-Lorraine, some weakening of the absolute ban on regional languages and dialects was evident between the wars of 1914-18 and 1939^4-5. Thus in church schools, education in and through Breton was allowed from 1930; in 1938, optional courses in Breton were made available in state primary education outside

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normal classroom hours. The autonomy movements reached their peak during the Second World War, when there was encouragement, by both Germans and the Vichy regime, for a degree of independence for the regions: a battalion of Breton 'freedom fighters' was even formed within the German armed forces. After the Second World War, and due to the ambiguous nature of relationships between Paris and the regions which had prevailed during the Occupation, both Alsace and Brittany found themselves subjected to intense pro-French pressure. The pressure aimed both at raising the prestige of French and strengthening the concept of belonging to a unified State, and also at lowering the prestige of local and regional symbols, including language. Indeed, German was banned from local schools in Alsace altogether for a period, the Press had to be at least bilingual, and the movement of civil servants into and out of Alsace strengthened. Any move by Breton interests to counter the bad impression left by the attempts at independence, and the antiFrench actions of Breton autonomy groups, fell on deaf ears until 1951 and the Deixonne Act (see pp. 68-70 below). Slowly since then, a limited status, particularly in education, has been restored for the regional languages as the Deixonne provisions were extended to regional, and eventually some nonterritorial languages other than French. The election of Mitterrand to the presidency in 1981 had been expected to lead to legislation on the status of the regional languages almost immediately, since Mitterrand as candidate had declared his support for regionalism: the 56th of his 110 Manifesto 'Proposals for France' was that 'the promotion of regional identities will be encouraged, and regional languages and cultures respected and taught'. But this apparent support in fact meant that, for the Socialists too, regionalism had been reduced from a political and economic movement to a cultural and linguistic one, based on the recreation of the past: regional languages had been 'relegated to the museum'. Giordan's report (Giordan, 1982), although it made a number of recommendations to correct the 'historical wrong' that had been done to cultural minorities, was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, and the more political of the suggestions were ruled out of order. The report declared that to repress, devalue and marginalise other languages is part of an inhuman logic of elitist cultural imposition, in contradiction with the right to be different and the democracy of social and cultural life. (Giordan, 1982,45)

And Giordan's proposals went far beyond a language policy: he tried to define language policy through defining a cultural policy, which itself would be dependent on, but also act as a motor for change in, an economic and social policy for the regions. In 1983, at the same time as the reformulation of the state language organisations, a Cornell National des Langues et Cultures Regionales was created and a number of minor adjustments were made to educational practice for the regional languages: provided the candidate also offered another subject, teachers could obtain a teacher's qualification in Breton - the CAPES (Certificat d Aptitude au Professorat de I Enseignement Secondaire);

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bilingual road signs could be erected with the agreement of, and at the request of, local government. But the expected major legislation on the formal status of regional languages was not forthcoming, and the decade from 1981 to 1991 was one of lost hopes for the regionalists, and Giordan could only deplore his view that the proposals contradicted the political choices the Socialists had made. He noted sadly in 1992 (139) that the National Council for Regional Languages and Cultures had met three times in six years and its influence had been negligible. The only positive factor he could detect was that at least regional cultures were no longer regarded as degrading the national identity. In the debates on the Toubon Act of 1994, and evidently somewhat to the surprise of the minister, Jacques Toubon, parliamentary discussion supposedly on the status of French in fact turned on the future for regional languages. This was particularly the case in debate on the Article imposing French as the language of education, where 'exceptions justified by the needs of teaching regional languages and cultures' were eventually included, in addition to the general Article affirming that the 'dispositions of the present law apply without prejudice to legislation and regulations concerning regional languages in France and do not prevent their use' (Law 94-665, 4 August 1994). France has not signed the European Charter for Regional Languages. As a result of the discussions on the Toubon law, however, educational policy for regional languages is now much more sympathetic to their case. Despite the provisions for education, there is no law on the status of any of the regional languages in France, although bilingual road signs may be seen in Brittany and in some regions of the South. The standing orders for radio and television (particularly France 3) do however contain specific obligations to provide broadcasts in regional languages. The status of English Britain has traditionally been little involved with questions of language. Insofar as the countries of the Union other than England are concerned (Wales, Scotland and Ireland) English was imposed through sociolinguistic processes affecting the social order, religion and education, rather than through legislation on status. We have seen above that it was the practice of the elite in the speech community, rather than government policy in the political community, which confirmed a particular variety of English as the standard language in England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and that the eighteenth-century codification of the language was essentially left to individuals. Although the elaboration of English was helped by some degree of government intervention, it has never been officially accepted by statute as the language of England, let alone of the other parts of the United Kingdom or the British Isles. Nonetheless some legislative measures have been involved in these processes. The 1362 Statute of Pleading - ironically, written in Norman French, which continues in some fixed phrases today at Court and in Parliament - imposed English as the language of the English courts. In

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Ireland in particular, local legislation, of 1360 and in the fifteenth century, exhorted the use of English, although it did not generally go beyond exhortation to instruction. The 1536 Welsh Act of Union imposed English as the language of administration, the courts and the records in Wales. The Statutes of lona of 1609, and James VI of Scotland's Acts of 1616 also imposed English in education in Scotland. The official language thus did not become the subject of systematic government attention until recent interventionist governments have made it their business to involve themselves and to raise the profile of official control, particularly of the educational curriculum. Most recent governmental language policy has therefore been conceived in the framework of educational policy, both for English and for foreign languages. Government involvement with the official language outside education has seemed to be limited to matters of efficiency in communication, and even there has been in effect limited to advice and persuasion. Thus governmental support for the Plain English Campaign, and for the use of plain English in the civil service in particular, has been strong, but has taken the form of exhortation and financial support for competitions and awards across the government departments, and for the use of approved forms of writing in line with the 'Charter' approach to delivering services oriented towards the need of the 'consumer' (Charter, 1992). There have, too, been some attempts at raising the status of 'correct' English as a normal means of communication in the population at large, again through exhortation rather than action. Gillian Shephard, Education Minister, did not limit her speech at the Conservative Party Conference to English in the schools, but hoped that the country at large would become more aware of the 'dangers' threatening English. Business, for example, should support the use of the standard language: 'the ability to communicate clearly is not only a compliment to our great language but also a vital skill. I want organisations like McDonald's and High Street banks to tell us how important clear communication is.' (Shephard, 1994) In education, English is a compulsory subject of the National Curriculum at all stages. Its status in the development of national consciousness and British identity has been the subject of considerable debate and discussion, not to say heated argument, during the 1980s and particularly since the passage of the 1988 Education Reform Act, which imposed the National Curriculum, and the years since which have seen the details of the curriculum develop. In 1995, one of the purposes of teaching English is expressed as follows, in phraseology which clearly expresses an approach based on concepts of language policy as a right and an entitlement, and seems less concerned with acquisition than with status policy: General requirements for English: Key Stages 1-4 2. In order to participate confidently in public, cultural and working life, pupils need to be able to speak, write and read standard English fluently and accurately. All pupils are therefore entitled to the full range of opportunities necessary to enable them to develop competence in standard English. (A/CO, 1994)

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The status of regional languages in Britain In Wales, Scotland and Ireland - and indeed in Cornwall (the last native speaker died in 1777) and the Isle of Man (where the last native speaker died in 1974) — the indigenous languages have generally given way to English without the benefit of specific policy decisions: in Scotland in 1900 6 per cent of the population was Gaelic speaking, in Wales the majority still spoke Welsh, while in Ireland about 5 per cent spoke Irish. The decline accelerated through the early years of the twentieth century, although since approximately 1970, except in (southern and less so in northern) Ireland, indigenous languages are regaining some ground (Grille, 1989). The processes involved are classic in sociolinguistics. In Scotland, for example, the aristocracy, speaking English, differentiated itself from the tenantry and labourers speaking Gaelic - in the south from the twelfth century and in the north after the 1745 defeat of the Highlanders and particularly during and after the nineteenth-century clearances. The towns spoke English, commerce was conducted in English, even in areas where the rural population has maintained Gaelic. By 1991, 69,510 people aged 3 or over (1.4 per cent of the Scottish population) were still able to speak, write or read Gaelic, with speakers concentrated in three of the eight Regions (Western Isles, Highland and Strathclyde). The legal position is that Gaelic is recognised in provisions for small landholders (where one member of the Land Court, and one of the Crofters Commission, must be Gaelic-speaking); in the Nationality Act of 1981, where a knowledge of Gaelic (or English or Welsh) satisfies one of the conditions for naturalisation as a British subject; and in local government, where some forms may be prescribed in Gaelic and bilingual road signs may be erected (although Gaelic is not specifically mentioned). The Broadcasting Act 1990 required the Secretary of State for Scotland to support a Gaelic Television Fund to finance Gaelic-language television programmes. These legal provisions do not make Gaelic an official language, however (Gaelic in Scotland, 1994). Despite this lack of official status, considerable monetary support-£1.934 million in 1994-95 - for education in and of Gaelic is now available from central government, although the money has been transferred away from local government, and grants only cover 75 per cent of the anticipated cost. There is also fairly large-scale subsidy of Gaelic organisations (a total of nearly half a million pounds in 1994-95), particularly to Comunn na Gaidhlig, set up in 1986 with government funding to act as the 'main advisory and executive body on Gaelic', while £8.7 million is provided through the Scottish Office Education Department to Gaelic television, and there is additional funding through the provisions of the 1985 National Heritage (Scotland) Act. Community action to increase the use of Gaelic consists of a mixture of adult education classes, especially for parents; informal activities for children in the medium of Gaelic; and local festivals. Overall, 'the results of efforts being made to combat the decline in the use of the Gaelic language give cause for some optimism', 'the extensive range of initiatives taken by education authorities and Gaelic organisations has been

50


well supported by funding from national government', and there is 'increased awareness and use of Gaelic' (PGES, 1994, 6). In Wales, the Anglicisation of the elite led to the maintenance of Welsh mainly in the northern and western parts, and in rural counties in the centre and the south. The land-owning Welsh gentry emerged as a social force in the fifteenth century, gaining power - in English - after the 1536 Act of Union with England. English, as the language of economic progress and social success, had, and has, great prestige, but the continuing power of local (internal) government, conducted in Welsh, has meant that Welsh, by contrast with Scottish Gaelic, has not disappeared from the prestigious domain of political power. Indeed, the language has been somewhat surprisingly maintained: although the 1991 census showed that some 18.6 per cent of the Welsh population spoke Welsh, compared with some 18.9 per cent in the 1981 census, 'a more recent survey has shown the percentage of young people who speak Welsh has grown to nearly one third, compared with 21.5 per cent of the total population which is Welsh speaking' (Jones, 1993, 2). The Guardian claimed that by 1994, 30 per cent of young people spoke the language (Guardian Weekend, 30 June 1994), and it seems clear that the 'decline in the numbers of Welsh speakers in Wales has been stemmed' (Jones, 1993, 2). The teaching of Welsh had been fully recognised from 1907, although not implemented to any great degree until much later. The 1944 Education Act allowed the establishment of Welsh-language primary schools, and by 1974 62 were open. Since then, more have opened, and some counties are now fully Welsh in their educational practice, in secondary as well as primary level; the University of Wales, particularly at Aberystwyth, offers courses through as well as in Welsh. But the official restoration of Welsh had to wait until the Welsh Language Act of 1967, which repealed the language element of the 1536 Act of Union. The Welsh Language Act, 'the only explicit legislation in the UK concerning language rights' (Stubbs, 1991, 227), asserted the 'equal validity' of English and Welsh and gave both languages equal status in legal proceedings - in Wales. The 'territoriality principle', that Welsh is usable only in Wales, meant that a Welsh speaker had no linguistic rights to the use of his language anywhere else in the United Kingdom and could not, for example, make speeches in the House of Commons in Welsh. Since the 1970s, however, and with the development of Welsh media, particularly television, Welsh has regained considerable ground in the country, although in 1988 only 13 per cent of young primary age schoolchildren were fluent in the language. In 1979, among its many other commitments, the Conservative party promised the establishment and funding of a Welsh-language television channel - S4C - and this was established in the early 1980s, after the threat of a hunger strike by the then Chairman of Plaid Cymru, Gwynfor Evans. In 1985 a proposal was developed for stronger legislation than the 1967 Act. This led to the creation of an advisory board in 1987, to advise the Secretary of State for Wales on possible legislation for Welsh. A Welsh Language Board, slightly more independent, was established in 1988. Legislation making Wales officially bilingual is now enshrined in the Welsh Language Act of 1993 (1993c. 38), which received Royal Assent on 21

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October 1993. The main differences between this and the 1967 Act are the overt declaration of the status of Welsh, the establishment of a new Welsh Language Board with strong powers, and specific requirements for compliance. The Welsh Language Act is an example of overt status planning - a declaration of co-officiality. It is, however, eminently practical and even pragmatic, concentrating on the duty of a range of public bodies to prepare their own schemes for introducing Welsh, rather than relying on general statements of symbolic import. It is, as the Act itself says, an Act to establish a Board having the function of promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language, to provide for the preparation by public bodies of schemes giving effect to the principle that in the conduct of public business and the administration of justice in Wales the English and Welsh languages should be treated on the basis of equality, to make further provision relating to the Welsh language, to repeal certain spent enactments relating to Wales, and for connected purposes. (WLA, 1993)

In carrying out its task, the Welsh Language Board has a free hand - 'may do anything which is incidental or conducive to the performance of its functions', although it was prevented from making financial commitments (grants or loans, giving guarantees or acquiring/disposing of land) without reference back to the Secretary of State. The Board had to decide to which public bodies providing services to the public in Wales it should 'give notice'. These bodies would then be obliged (Section 5) to (1) prepare a scheme specifying the measures which it proposes to take, for the purpose mentioned in subsection (2) below, as to the use of the Welsh language in connection with the provision of services. (2) The purpose referred to in subsection (1) above is that of giving effect, so far as is both appropriate in the circumstances and reasonably practicable, to the principle that in the conduct of public business and the administration of justice in Wales the English and Welsh languages should be treated on a basis of equality.

The Board had to prepare guidelines as to the form and content of the language schemes. The public bodies had to submit schemes to the Board for approval (Section 14), and the schemes had to contain both a timetable for implementation and 'ways in which the public body will ensure that the scheme is publicised'. The Board was required to carry out investigations if public bodies did not seem to them to be developing or implementing schemes; to investigate complaints of non-compliance ('failure of a public body to carry out a scheme approved by the Board') and to involve the Secretary of State if any public body 'has failed to take any action recommended in a report' by the Board. In addition to the establishment of this powerful Welsh Language Board, the Act made a number of direct provisions for the use of Welsh in certain domains. In legal proceedings (Section 22):

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(1) ... the Welsh language may be spoken by any party, witness or other person who desires to use it subject... to notice; and any necessary provision for interpretation shall be made accordingly. (2) Any power to make rules of court includes power to make provision as to the use, in proceedings or having a connection with Wales, of documents in the Welsh language.

Similarly, oaths and affirmations could be made in Welsh, and interpreters and translators had to be provided. Statutory names (of a body, office or place) could be in Welsh as well as English. A particularly wide-ranging provision (Section 26) was that the form of any document, and any form of words, specified in an Act of Parliament, could be prescribed by the relevant Minister in Welsh. Separate forms, and separate forms of words in Welsh, could be prescribed. Provision was made (Sections 28 to 33) for certain documents relating to industrial and provident societies, companies, credit unions, and charities to be in Welsh. The (revised) Welsh Language Board was established in January 1994 under the chairmanship of a former Chairman of Plaid Cymru, Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas. It was allocated a total of £1.86 million for 1994-95, of which about £600,000 was available for language projects. Outside the provisions of the Welsh Language Act, the National Curriculum requires Welsh to be taught in Welsh schools, and education to be offered through the medium of Welsh. The statutory orders make this available in three forms: Welsh medium education, Welsh mother tongue teaching and Welsh as a second language. All children in Wales must undertake one or other of these forms of education. As with other subjects, attainment targets are specified for the key stages, and the curriculum has the force of law. From 1922, Irish, declared as the official language of Ireland, was compulsory in education in the Irish Free State - it was necessary for matriculation until 1973 - but has since declined massively. The situation in Northern Ireland is one of the reasons why Britain, like France, had not by 1995 signed the European Charter for Regional Languages. By contrast with the general decline in the learning of Irish in Ireland, there is some evidence that the nationalist conflict in the North led to a small revival of interest in the language. Clearly, here, the language has become a symbol of political feeling, rejection of the status of English and a desire to become more Irish than the Irish. How the situation will develop if a solution to the conflict is eventually agreed is unclear, but the expectation must be that Irish will follow the same line of slow decline that it has already adopted in the South. Although it would be too simple to say that Britain has no official policy towards linguistic minorities other than the indigenous ones in Scotland and Wales, there is no overarching statement on multiculturalism or multilingualism either at the level of the status of languages or in education. Provision for linguistic minorities arising from immigration hence tends to fall within the ad hoc practices of individual ministries and public services. Such practices as do exist in status policy are mainly confined to educational practice - bilingual schools, special provision of English as a second

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language - and often rely on local circumstances and microlevel policy rather than on any overall approach to the situation. Outside education there is practical acceptance of the need to use some languages in order to communicate with minorities, although no formal distinction is made between indigenous and non-indigenous languages. Many local authorities provide material written in community languages; hospitals and the social services similarly inform their 'clients' and 'customers' of their activities; forms, including forms and other documents distributed by the central government are available in languages other than English. A list of the provisions was provided as part of the Citizen's Charter initiatives in 1992 (Charter, 1992), and included summaries of the Citizen's Charter itself in English and Welsh and up to 12 other languages; education leaflets on subjects such as testing pupils and the role of school governors, recently published in nine languages; HM Inspector of Schools in Scotland reports on some Scottish schools in Gaelic as well as in English; inspection reports on schools teaching through the medium of Welsh in both Welsh and English; all Welsh Office Charters and information guides published in Welsh and English; many police forces providing information in a number of languages on how to report racial violence; many hospitals in England, Wales and Scotland maintaining a list of people who can speak a foreign language and who are prepared to act as interpreters; Ordnance Survey surveyors carrying translations of their certificates of appointment in Urdu, Hindi and Panjabi. Taking credit for the actions of a number of public bodies, the Citizen's Charter booklet also noted that Gwynedd County Council had published a range of bilingual leaflets on each of its main services, setting out standards of service and main contact points. Bold print and audio cassette versions were also available. Like France, Britain has not signed the European Charter for Regional Languages. But, unlike France, there is formal legal provision for the status of at least one regional language, and practical acceptance of the status of others.

4

Constituent, corpus and acquisition policies

Constituent policies are those concerned with the various agencies, institutions and organisations established by - or in some cases supported by - the State in pursuance of its aims. France has a well-developed liking for such bodies, and this desire to establish authorities is not visible to the same extent, in this field at least, in Britain. Similarly, policies attempting to define and regulate the language itself are very evident in France, and nowhere near so widespread in Britain. It is perhaps only in acquisition policies concerned with the teaching and learning of languages - and then only in comparatively recent times - that Britain seems to have approached France in the level and nature of its governmental activity. CONSTITUENT OR ADMINISTRATIVE POLICIES Constituent policies for French The French Academy The French Academy, founded at first as a private club in 1634 but formally recognised a year later when its Constitution and aims were registered by the Paris Parlement, was charged by Cardinal Richelieu with work on French: 'to make it pure, eloquent and capable of treating the arts and sciences', which it was to do through publishing a Dictionary, a Grammar, a Rhetorics (i.e. description of styles and manners of speech: 'discourse' in modern parlance) and a Poetics (i.e. description of literary rules). The aims and purposes of the Academy were from the beginning therefore concerned both with codification and also with elaboration, and the Academy was a state organisation, its aims and purposes reflecting those of the political power. The extent to which the Academy was controlled by the State can be seen in Richelieu's requirement that it publish its (negative) 'views' on Corneille's

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'le Cid\ regarded by Richelieu as glorifying duelling - then officially banned - and the Spanish - against whom the French were at war (Castries, 1985). The Academy is the oldest and still the most respected of the numerous institutions charged in differing ways with developing, and in some cases implementing language policy in France. Its status is that of an organisation established by and funded by government, with aims dictated by government; but its format is that of a meeting of forty 'immortals', chosen - by government, it is true - for their eminence in literature and the arts, supported by a Permanent Secretary and by a small professional staff. It is formally under the 'protection' of the President of the Republic, rather than being a direct agency of government. It spends considerable sums in awarding literary and language prizes, makes recommendations to government - and elsewhere - and responds to invitations, from government, to provide an opinion, and to this extent its remit has been somewhat modified - and weakened - since the original charge given it by Richelieu. By the nature of things, members are elderly, and rarely professional linguists. The Academy has consistently taken the view that its role is not to prescribe but to record usage, although in fact it early set itself fairly strict rules as to the words it would not include in its Dictionary. It excluded, first, 'archaic and so-called "low" words (familiar, vulgar and slang words); secondly, newly-created words; and finally, technical terms from most spheres of activity (with the notable exception of certain noble arts such as fencing, horse-riding, hunting, etc.)' (Battye and Hintze, 1992, 25). In addition, 'gasconisms' or regional words were systematically kept out, so that official French vocabulary soon lost its wealth and creative power. The Academy did not take long to realise that the 'Rhetorics' and the 'Poetics' were impractical. Today the Academy continues to revise its Dictionary, more or less following the original rules to identify words to include, and to publish the results of this work: earlier editions appeared in 1694, 1718, 1740, 1760, 1798, 1835, 1878, and 1935, and the first part of the ninth edition appeared in 1986. The work is slow, since it is done through a committee and the results must be approved in formal sessions of the full Academy, meeting for a couple of hours on Thursday afternoons. The Grammar appeared in 1932, to almost universal condemnation, and the Academy has not attempted a new version since. Partly this is because linguistics has become a specialised and technical subject, unsuited to absorbing or reflecting the general opinions of even gifted amateurs, and there is no doubt that the scientific basis for the Academy's Grammar was weak; and partly because descriptive grammars no longer attempt to prescribe or help choose between alternative syntactic formulations. Neither, indeed, can the Academy achieve the measure of agreement in syntactic matters that it can in lexis. In policy matters, the Academy rarely initiates, although it - or at least its Secretary (currently Maurice Druon) - gives both official and unofficial advice on proposed policy changes, as Druon noted in Le Figaro (4 August 1994). To a certain extent, the Academy often acts as the first test of wider public opinion after political groups, the policy community formed of bureaucrats and pressure groups, and the professionals of the Delegation

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Generate a la Langue Frangaise have worked through the development of new policy initiatives. Nonetheless, the Academy is made up of public figures generally favourable to policy involvement and to control of the language through governmental action, and despite the respect in which it is held, its advice and approval have often been severely criticised when policies have become more widely known. This was the case in 1986, when the reforms of sexist language were made known; in 1990, when spelling reform was first welcomed by the Academy, and then, at a second session, somewhat shamefacedly revised; and in 1994, when approval for the Toubon law was strong before the parliamentary debates, and somewhat modified afterwards. The Academy's very nature makes it a somewhat conservative and amateur institution, venerable and respected by the general public, but not regarded by professionals as capable of carrying out vigorous or well-founded linguistic research. It is often regarded as irrelevant to real language policy-making. Druon pointed out (Le Figaro, 4 August 1994) that the Academy as an established institution nonetheless had certain advantages. In his view it was an error to set up many and varied organisations which busied themselves in French, while 'there exists for this very purpose an organisation - a really official one - which is usually derided but which, in the end, is reasonably effective, and costs the State a lot less'. Over the 30 years to 1995, constituent policy under a number of Presidents and Prime Ministers had certainly been active. Policy changes in the twentieth century Between the two World Wars one additional language organisation had been set up to work with the Academy and to carry out corpus policy in a rather more systematic fashion - the Office de la Langue Frangaise, founded in 1937. In 1957 this was replaced by the Office du Vocabulaire Frangais (Bengtsson, 1968, 29-37). In 1966, as an act of constituent or administrative policy, General de Gaulle by Presidential decree instituted the Haul Comite pour la Defense et I Expansion de la Langue Frangaise, as a Committee of 25 personalities, managed by Secretary-General Philippe Rossillon and presided over, and reporting to, the Prime Minister. 'Expansion' was later changed to 'Promotion'. The mission of the High Committee, which was supported by a comparatively generous budget and professional staff, was to examine ways of defending and extending the use of French, a role which changed somewhat in 1973 when the name was changed again to Haul Comite de la Langue Frangaise, to reflect rather less neo-colonial aspirations. In 1966, too, in the same year as de Gaulle visited Quebec and gave a speech 'recognising' the Quebec independence movement, a Comite International de la Langue Frangaise was created. Three reports led to the setting up of the 1966 Haul Comite: one on anglicisms in French, one on French (language and influence) in international organisations, and one on the former colonies and countries of the Union Frangaise, and France's relationships with them. Hence the title and purposes of the Haul Comite: it was to defend French in France, and to ensure the


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expansion of French abroad, as an international language of communication. According to van Deth (1995), the basic problem which de Gaulle identified was that of the increasing power of English, as the language of the United States of America. Rossillon, a republican and nationalist, clearly saw that a frontal battle with English would be lost, and decided that the best option was to form alliances with other European languages, and, at greater distance, with all languages other than English. Language policy hence had three aspects: the defence of French from English; cooperation with other languages, and hence both diversification of language teaching in France and respect for other languages (apart from English) outside it; and corpus work on French. Under President de Gaulle and President Pompidou, both interested and concerned by the language question, other governmental organisations followed, concerned with French (and France) abroad: Le Comite de la Francophonie, chaired by the Prime Minister, in 1973; the intergovernmental Age nee de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique (ACCT) in 1970, whose brief is mainly to act as an executive agency implementing aid or cooperation programmes, although much of the pressure to establish this organisation, and much of its funding, came from Quebec and Canadian interests anxious to establish Canadian influence in Africa. Giscard d'Estaing, President from 1974 to 1981, does not appear to have been greatly interested in the language issue, although Chirac (Prime Minister from 1974 to 1976) was. Michel Bruguiere, appointed to act as Secretary-General of the Haul Comite in 1975 at the age of 35, was impressed both by the necessity to diversify the teaching and use of languages in France - in order to avoid domination by English - and by the need for an effective corpus policy on the Quebec model. As a result, the Terminology Committees were strengthened, the Association Franâise de Terminologie (AFTERM, the French terminology bank and part of the French industrial standards organisation Association Frangaise des Normes - AFNOR) was created, and a law devised to regulate the use of languages. It was decided that this law the Bas-Lauriol law of 1975 - would take the approach of defending consumers and ensuring their right to information - in French. President Mitterrand came to power in 1981, and Stelio Farandjis, a personal friend of the President, was named as the new Secretary-General of the Haul Comite. Some considered Farandjis ignorant both of the subtleties of language policy and of the diplomatic niceties that 'Defence' and 'Expansion' might entail (e.g. van Deth, 1995). In 1983, after problems on the international level in attempting to establish common European approaches in the fight against English, and a report by Roger Fajardie consequent on the Giordan report of 1982, examining the relationship between French and regional languages, the Haul Comite was split: the Gaullist organisations were restructured to produce a Haut Conseil de la Francophonie (Secretary-General: Stelio Farandjis), a Comite Consultatif de la Langue Frangaise, and a Commissariat General de la Langue Frangaise (Commissaire: Philippe de St Robert) together with a Conseil National des Langues et Cultures Regionales. On the international level, the renamed Conseil International de la Langue Franqaise and the ACCT continued.

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The Commissariat de la Langue Frangaise was headed by a major public figure, Gaullist politician and author Philippe de St Robert. St Robert wrote a detailed and revealing history of his experiences as Commissaire (St Robert, 1986) which showed rather more clearly than most politicians and civil servants would have liked the nature of the problems he faced: lack of resources, but mainly lack of political influence over the major decisionmakers in Parliament and the Government. His conclusion was that if a policy was to be made, it should be provided with proper means of implementation from the start, and that in the difficult area of behaviour modification, support from major government figures was essential. During his period as Commissaire, however, considerable progress is said to have been made, and he left the post only as a consequence of internal bickering, particularly the attempts of the new Minister for Francophonie, Mme Michaud-Chevry, to obtain the resources of his Commissariat, as well as their personal dislike of each other. Neither the Comite Consultatif nor the Conseil National des Langues et Cultures Regionales could be said to have been very active: they met from time to time, but there was little practical follow-up work. Terminology Committees had been established from 1970 on in most ministries as a result of the Bruguiere interest. They were given professional support from the Commissariat after 1983, and were reorganised in 1986 following the problems encountered in the attempted reform of sexist language. In 1989, after the presidential and legislative elections of 1988 had restored the Socialist Party to power, a further restructuring took place, creating the Conseil Superieur de la Langue Frangaise (replacing the Comite Consultatif) and redefining the role of the Delegation - which replaced the Commissariat in name - and its relationship to terminology (Decree 89-403). Even more grandiose plans had been made at this time, which were intended to lead to the setting up of a Translation and Terminology Centre (the Centre Jacques Amy of}, but these were not to be realised. In 1993, after the change of government, a decree (93-797) 'clarified' the duties of the new Minister of Culture and Francophonie, ensuring that the work of this ministry included preparation for summit meetings of Francophone heads of state, control of the Delegation and, for the first time, ensuring the help and cooperation of the cultural relations sections in the Foreign Affairs, Cooperation, Education and Higher Education Ministries. In 1995, again, after the election of the new President Jacques Chirac, the Minister for Francophonie was attached to the Foreign Office and separated from Culture, so the government machine has seen considerable change in this area. What has stayed, and now seems to be an established part of political life, is that both Francophonie - in its various meanings - and language, in the sense of the protection of French, are matters requiring governmental and state interest and concern. Haut Conseil de la Francophonie The Haut Conseil was established by decree on 12 March 1984 (84-171) and had its first meeting in February 1985 (see also Ager, 1996). Chaired by the


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President, its first vice-president was Leopold Sedar Senghor, a major African politician, and its membership included literary, scientific and cultural figures from Belgium, Switzerland, Africa, the Indian Ocean, southeast Asia, the Arab world and Quebec. Its secretary-general was Stelio Farandjis, and the Council is charged with relationships with Francophonie and the French-speaking world: to 'define the role of Francophonie and the French language in the world'. It publishes an annual report (Etat de la Francophonie), which gleans extensive information from French diplomatic and consular services, from special surveys, from a range of experts and consultants, and from the regular meetings of the Conseil itself. The Haul Conseil also has a role as one of the organisations preparing, from the French President's point of view, the international summit meetings of Francophone heads of state. From the point of view of the government, preparatory work is conducted by and through the Minister for Culture and Francophonie, but also by the Foreign Office through its Service des Affaires Francophones (SAF) and the Direction Generate des Relations Culturelles, Scientifiques et Techniques (DGRCST). Francophone Summit Meetings The regular international summit meetings of heads of state and government of French-speaking countries, the first of which was held in Paris in 1986, now take place every two years and are held in different parts of the world in a pattern similar to that of the Commonwealth. Reformulations of the secretariat and other support mechanisms for these meetings after the session in Chaillot in 1991 have led to a four-level institutional structure: the summit meeting itself, meetings of ministers (Conferences Ministerielles de la Francophonie} to discuss specific issues relevant to their ministry in the intervening period; a Conseil Permanent de la Francophonie, elected at the summits and consisting of the personal representatives of fifteen heads of government, and at the executive level, the ACCT and the non-governmental association of universities partly or fully using French (Association des Univer-sites Partiellement ou Entierement de Langue Franqaise (AUPELF}}, together with other 'operators' such as TVS, brought in for specific agreed actions (Lettre de la Francophonie, 1993, 65). Conseil International de la Langue Franqaise The Conseil International de la Langue Franqaise continues in existence, is international in constitution and membership, and works in conjunction with other Francophone countries on a more practical and advisory level than the Haut Conseil. While it gave priority to work on spelling, grammar and linguistics; terminology, lexicology; training material for the Third World; the oral tradition; and the dialogue of languages and cultures, its main task was: to enrich the French language and to support its spread by managing the resources of the French language and organising communication with foreign languages. (CILF Publications Catalogue, 1993)

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Conseil Superieur de la Langue Franqaise The contemporary Conseil Superieur de la Langue Franqaise was created in 1989 (Decree 89-403, 2 June 1989), following in the steps of the Conseil Consultatif de la Langue Franqaise. Made up of from 19 to 25 members chosen for their competence and the services they have rendered to 'the knowledge, study, diffusion and good use of French', it was to be chaired by the Prime Minister, and the vice-chairman was Bernard Quemada, an academic linguist. Its mission is to 'study, within a broad framework of the general orientation defined by the President and the Government, questions relative to the use, improvement [amenagement], enrichment, promotion and diffusion of French in and outside France and policy towards foreign languages'. The Council 'makes proposals, recommends forms of action and gives its opinion on questions referred to it by the Prime Minister or by the ministers for Education or Francophonie\ Quemada's view of his duties was to provide research, consultation and the development of proposals for action. This role was particularly important as the Government proposed a new law, demonstrating its vigilance for the language. Quemada noted that language laws were ineffective unless they received, in addition to strong institutional measures, the support of civil society and the agreement of the public, and said quite clearly that it was up to the Council to promote French, give added value and lustre to it (Breves, 1994). The specific studies in which the Council was engaged in 1994 covered the following topics: maintaining the quality of French; developing European multilingualism; modernisation and enrichment of the language to enable the language industries to produce in French; improving the image of French and its vitality and spread, and helping the French to understand what was at stake in culture, the economy and in society generally. The Council's membership was revised in September 1993, and the new Council was formally installed on 8 March 1994. It consisted of ex officio members (the Ministers of Education, of Culture and Francophonie - after 1995, the Minister for the French language - the Permanent Secretaries of the French Academy and the Academy of Sciences), and of 23 members nominated for four years by the government, including both French and Francophone journalists (Emmanuel Todd), sociologists (Raymond Boudon), linguists (Claude Hagege) and historians (Alain Decaux). The Council's membership and functions are for all practical purposes within the remit of the Minister for French, i.e. the Minister of Culture, although the Prime Minister chairs. In order to ensure some coordination between the relevant ministries concerned with language questions, Decree 89-403 also established an interministerial committee, formally of ministers but often


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consisting of their senior civil servants, from the Ministries of Education, Foreign Affairs, Industry, European Affairs, Culture, Communication, Research, Cooperation and Francophonie, together with others 'as needed'. Delegation Generate a la Langue Franqaise The role outlined in 1989 for the Delegation, which has replaced the former Commissariat, was to 'promote and coordinate the action of administrations and both public and private organisations which assist in the diffusion and good use of French particularly in the domains of education, communication, science and technology'. The 'delegate', heading the Delegation, is appointed by the Council of Ministers after nomination by the Conseil Superieur and acts as a sort of watchdog for language interests, being kept informed of, and encouraged to comment on, budget allocations for the Conseil, planned expenditure and audit reports, and bringing matters to the attention either of the Conseil or of the ministerial committee which is likely to have more executive power (Decree 89-403). The minister in 1994, Jacques Toubon, expressed a wish that the Conseil should work more closely with the Delegation, and that the Delegation should have a greater role in the implementation of recommendations contained in reports submitted to the prime minister (Breves, 1994). As a result, Breves itself is now the newsletter of both Conseil and Delegation, rather than just of the Delegation, and the advice which often used to be generated within the Delegation is now at least filtered through the Conseil. By 1994, the Delegation was headed by Mme Anne Magnant, a professional civil servant, and in this the Balladur government deviated slightly from the precedent set by the previous government which had nominated Bernard Cerquiglini - an academic 'fonctionnaire' - to the role. Its task is to act as the 'secular arm of the Conseil Superieur, and to coordinate all governmental actions in favour of French' (Prime Minister, quoted in Breves, 1994). One of the Delegation'?, main functions is to disburse subsidies and grants to the language associations, a task which gives it great power. It also acts as the main coordinator and controller of corpus policy through the Terminology Committees, for which it provides lexicological expertise. Commissions de Terminologie A similar presidential decree to that setting up the 1966 organisations also instituted Terminology Committees to be established, eventually, in each ministry as from 1970. Their role (reiterated in March 1986: Decree 86-439) was to identify gaps in French vocabulary in the specialist terminologies of their respective ministerial areas of competence, 'to collect, propose or revise terms and neologisms by making use of the wealth of Francophonie [this phrase was added in 1986], and to disseminate official terminologies' (Breves, 2, 1993). The intention - corpus planning in the clearest possible way - has been followed through consistently since so that in 1993 there were about twenty such committees, with forty specialised subcommittees, whose work was

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coordinated, supported and followed up by the Delegation. These committees were composed of French and Francophone personalities, journalists, experts and linguists, working in cooperation with Francophone political institutions, and in particular the Office de la Langue frangaise in Quebec, the Secretary of State in Canada, the French community in Belgium, the ACCT, and the Federal Chancellery in Berne (Breves, 2, 1993). One of the Commissions has a 'general' brief, and considers terminology which does not affect any one particular specialist area, or which affects them all, such as 'post-it' (colle-notes], 'prime time' (heure de grande ecoute). The result of the discussions within these Commissions is disseminated through decrees or Arretes, the formal ministerial orders published in the Journal Officiel. From time to time larger collections of the new terms are published (e.g. Dictionnaire des Termes Officiels, 1994). Conseil National des Langues et Cultures Regionales The Conseil National des Langues et Cultures Regionales, chaired by the Prime Minister, was formally established in 1985, partly as a response to the pressure throughout the 1970s from regionalists and to follow Mitterrand's promises to them. In the six years to 1991 it had met three times, with 'negligible influence' (Giordan, 1992, 138), as we have noted in Chapter 3 above. The situation in 1995 It will be clear that many official bodies concern themselves in different ways with the French language, and that there is huge potential for conflict between ministries, and indeed between personalities. The period of 'cohabitation' from 1986 to 1988 was notable for the squabbles over control of policy towards Francophonie, and indeed towards foreign affairs in general, between the President and 'his' Haut Conseil and the government, and disputes over language policy and its relationship with foreign policy between the government and its ministries. Mme Lucette Michaud-Chevry, then Minister for Francophonie, fought hard to obtain the services and resources of the Commissariat and to detach it from the lofty heights of the Prime Minister's office, so that there were battles not merely between President and government but also within the government. The 1993 'clarification' of the role of the Minister for Culture and Francophonie (Decree 93-797) was intended both to underline the major role of the government rather than the presidency in language matters, and to ensure better coordination of language-related affairs, both within and outside France, although the underlying conflict between president and government over foreign affairs remained, although to a much lesser degree than in 1986-88. Article 5 of the decree noted: The Minister for Culture and Francophonie, by delegation from the Prime Minister, is responsible for matters relating to the enrichment and use of French. In liaison with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and other interested Ministers, he co-


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ordinates actions aimed at the spread of Francophonie in the world. To these ends: 1. He conducts co-operation policies with international organisations supporting Francophonie [a vocation francophone]. 2. He proposes measures, organises and directs the action of those administrations concerned. 3. He participates in the definition of actions to be carried out by the State and by interested organisations for the development of Francophonie and the French language.

By late 1995, the battle had been 'resolved' in favour of separation: Francophonie was associated with Foreign Affairs, and the French language with Culture, so M. Philippe Douste-Blazy, Minister of Culture, took on responsibilities for the Delegation (Breves, 3rd term 1995). Constituent policies for English Although nothing like the number or range of official French language organisations exists in Britain, some ministries have de facto responsibilities in the field. The Foreign Office takes overall responsibility for the British Council and for funding the BBC World Service for example, and together with the Overseas Development Administration takes responsibility for financially supporting much cultural diplomacy, including language-related matters, abroad. On 29 March 1995 the Foreign Office thus funded a major conference to re-examine Britain's world role, and one of the conclusions identified the importance of English language, closely associated with cultural diplomacy. Nonetheless, all teaching of English as a foreign language is now supposedly self-financing, and government no longer even officially recognises English language schools as efficient as it did until the early 1980s, through either the Department of Education and Science or the British Council. Furthermore, the conference soon turned out to be the then Foreign Secretary's swan song, and more a celebration and defence of his views than any significant indication of future policy. Indeed, the Foreign Office is so cautious about its role in a Britain torn by controversy within the governing political party about the country's role in Europe that it positively refuses to promote the use of English in international affairs, and sees action on this as potentially offensive to non-English-speaking countries. The Department of National Heritage - the logical equivalent of the French Ministry of Culture - does not include language policy among its responsibilities directly, although cultural policy and matters affecting language quality in the media, often interpreted as 'decency', are monitored. The Home Office, and indeed other ministries, are aware of the implications of the lack of a language policy, implications which were sharpened with the creation of the Charter initiatives after 1990, when the question of a possible deliberate policy for the provision of government services in languages other than English began to be raised. The Cabinet Office took responsibility for encouraging the use of Plain English throughout the civil service, and indeed more widely, when the topic attracted Mrs Thatcher's attention in the early

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1980s. The Department for Education, through the prescriptive National Curriculum, also finds itself taking de facto responsibility for much language policy, and the minister, whoever he or she is, is often to be heard making pronouncements not merely on acquisition policy but also on standard English or on the desirability of society generally using effective communication (Shephard, 1994). But none of these problems has provoked a specific structural or administrative response apart from setting up the occasional committee, and much government policy continues to be made ad hoc, often through the agency of NGOs or departmental bodies. One of these, the British Standards Institution, for example, recognises that it too might be concerned by questions of language codification - in regularising spellings, for example. It works with the International Standards Organisation (ISO) which, through its Joint Technical Committees (JTCs) has responsibility for standardising terminology anyway. A number of the JTCs have more general relevance to language, while 37 and 46 are specifically concerned: 1. Information technology; 19. Preferred numbers; 37. Terminology; 46. Information and documentation; 68. Banking and related services; 69. Applications of statistical methods; 81. Common names for pesticides and other agrochemicals; 145. Graphical symbols; 171. Document imaging applications; 187. Colour notations; 211. Geographic information/geomatics (ISO, 1995).

CORPUS POLICIES Corpus policies for French It is the duty of the Academy to record and recommend usage, of the Conseil Superieur and the Delegation to advise on and to prepare language policy across government, and of the Terminology Committees to create - or at least to define - individual words and expressions which must obligatorily be used by all those working for the State, including those concluding contracts with state bodies. The Academy's work is recorded in its Dictionary, of which the ninth edition is under publication during the 1990s. The work on syntax and on other aspects of usage is recorded less systematically, being found in occasional declarations, comments or statements. The work on spelling reform in 1990 (see pages 119-25 below) was formally placed under the control of the Academy, and the final recommendations - which did not record usage, but suggested changes were published by the Journal Officiel in the category of Administrative Documents, with no legal status. The changes were nonetheless recommended for use by dictionary makers and publishers, although it is rare to find a publisher using them. The vocabulary of different fields, as prepared by the Terminology Committees and approved by ministers, is an official terminology. The Commissions are charged with 'enriching' their terminology, although in


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most cases this has been interpreted as a duty to remove American words and phrases and replace them with more acceptable French terms. Since the terms are officially approved and form part of ministerial orders, their use is prescribed in all official documents. Such official documents are not just those written by civil servants, but include for example all government contracts, including tenders and other documents intended to form part of government decisions. Even more significant is the requirement that these terms be used - by those who set the examinations, those who correct them and by the candidates - in all examinations for entry to specific grades of the civil service and all examinations for promotion within the civil service. The Ministry of Education, from time to time, specifies terms and grammatical forms which may be deemed to be correct or incorrect in state examinations. A major list of such Tolerances appeared in 1901, and there have been further lists since, although it has to be said that in practice it seems doubtful whether markers are sufficiently tolerant (Gueunier, 1985). The 1994 edition of the Dictionnaire des Termes Officiels listed six pages of 'legislative and regulatory texts relating to policy towards French in France'. While most of these represented constituent policy, setting up or modifying Terminology Committees, and some were laws, there remain in force 49 decisions and two Circulars (sexist language and judicial language) affecting corpus policy, dated from 12 January 1973 to 4 November 1993. The 19 domains covered by the Committees up to the date of publication of the 1994 Dictionnaire were aerospace, agriculture, audio-visual, advertising, defence, economy and finance, education, electronic components, health, informatics, marine, nuclear engineering, oil, sport, space, telecommunications, tourism, town planning and transport. The body of the dictionary is given over to the results of the recommendations. It is impossible to give details of all the decisions made, but in general a definition is provided for a French term, together with an English version, and the dictionary often provides both in order to identify which term the writer should use, assuming that the normal understanding in the specialist jargon involved might well be that the English term would be widely understood. The French word poursuite, for example, is subject to at least two definitions in the fields of space technology and defence. In both cases it corresponds to the English 'tracking', but has slightly different connotations in each field. In defence the main concern is with the tracking methods applicable to a single object such as a missile ('by magnetic, optical or other means'), while in space technology poursuite applies to tracking one or many variables of a space vehicle at a distance, in real time and continuously, and is applied to word groups such as 'tracking antenna', 'tracking filter' or 'frequency tracking' (Arrete de la defense du 12 aout 1976. Journal Officiel, 9.11.1976; Arrete des techniques spatiales du 12 Janvier 1973. Journal Officiel 18.1.1973). The main aim of the Circular of 24 September 1977 on judicial language was to make it 'clearer, more modern, more understandable and more French'. This it did by recommending the avoidance of Latin terms, the adoption of the official terminology as approved by Terminology

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Commissions, the avoidance of foreign expressions not contained in such lists, or, if they were used, 'preferably following them by their meaning in French or using a French equivalent and using the non-translated terms in brackets', and by avoiding outdated, discourteous, unclear or ambiguous terms. The use of 'empty or unnecessary' terms was also to be avoided in order to render one's manner of speech 'easy for the uninitiated to understand'. Ways of presenting the names of jobs, functions, grades and titles in a nonsexist fashion were described in a Circular of 11 March 1986. A third Circular of 20 April 1994, from the Prime Minister, on the use of French by public servants, and on the methods by which their 'interest and zeal for French' would be taken into consideration in their annual appraisals, is an indication of the seriousness of the Balladur government's approach to matters of language. Seven instructions, extracts from which are included below, were given by the Prime Minister: 1. Every public agent (i.e. civil servant, but also individual employed by the State, including teachers, etc.) must conform with the general principle, included in the Constitution, that 'the language of the Republic is French'. 2. The widest dissemination must be given to the terms approved in terminology decisions applicable to your ministerial department. 3. Documents or publications made or distributed by your services must not be in breach of legislative or regulatory conditions relative to the use of French. 4. In training programmes, the attention of public agents must be drawn to the importance of French, whether in written or spoken expression or in the respect of the legal rules governing the use of French. It is desirable that among those elements taken into consideration in agents' appraisals, be included the interest taken and the zeal each shows in respect for French. 5. In their contacts with foreign persons or bodies, agents under your authority must scrupulously conform with the rules relating to the use of French in international relations. The widest distribution will be given to these rules, through the Prefects for local authorities and to those who represent the economic world. 6. In cases where foreign languages are used in addition to French, no one of these must be systematically preferred. 7. Legislative provisions relating to grants and subventions mentioned in the law of 31 December 1975, and any which are substituted for those, must be carried out. The main problem inherent in corpus policy of the French type, and in both the lengthy procedure involved in arriving at the decisions and in the regulatory nature of the decisions, surrounded as they are by the full panoply of the State, is that the terms necessarily become dated: some of the earlier decisions dating back to the 1970s now look woefully inappropriate, while the vocabulary of fields like informatics and electronics changes so quickly that the decisions dated even ten years ago are now irrelevant in that the


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devices so laboriously identified and named no longer exist. There may also be a problem of implementation. A survey conducted in 1978 (Fugger, 1979) showed a considerable degree of ignorance among public servants of the terminology decisions then in operation: 15 per cent of the sample prepared to implement them, 46 per cent prepared to reject them, 30 per cent ready to decide on use according to the context, and 9 per cent not answering. The campaigns of public awareness that have been conducted since, the extensive public debate about the Toubon law in 1994, together with the Prime Minister's Circular of April 1994 in which he reminded ministers of their duty to ensure that their ministries used the terminology, may have ensured greater compliance more recently, although the 1994 report by the Delegation on the implementation of the 1975 language law does not support this view. Corpus policies for English On corpus matters, proposals for governmental support for academic initiatives in the creation of a British Term Bank on the model of what has been developed in Canada or France, have been refused, and work on terminology is therefore handled either through independent publishers of dictionaries, or, for scientific and technical terminology, through the work of the British Standards Institute (BSI) working with the International Standards Organisation (ISO) to standards and practices it has itself identified. There is no direct governmental involvement in dictionary creation, in the writing of grammars or in matters such as spelling reform, although indirect support may be given through agencies such as the Research Councils and through the specification of elements of the National Curriculum in language. This support however is for the academic research involved, and is usually oriented towards methodology - the use of large-scale computer corpora, for example — while the guidance in the National Curriculum remains somewhat vague. ACQUISITION POLICIES The teaching of French in France The teaching of French has been a matter for the State since the Revolution. During the whole of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, successive Ministers of Education have provided guidance, instructions and advice to schools on the overall curriculum, on language teaching, both of French and of other languages, and the detail of policy descends to indicating which faults of grammar and spelling should be accepted, and which refused, by those who mark schoolchildren's work. Current policies on the teaching of French are contained in the Programmes for each year of education, published annually, together with the occasional lists of Tolerances containing information on what can and what cannot be accepted in

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examinations. The Toubon law of 1994 also made a specific point about education policy: firstly, that 'mastery' of French and knowledge of two other languages formed part of the fundamental objectives of education. Secondly, it was announced by the Minister for Culture that the French presidency of the European Union in 1995 would be used for other initiatives on language learning, in particular that it was hoped to gain agreement that every European child should study two foreign languages. The teaching of other languages in France In 1951 a modest law, introduced by M. Deixonne and known by his name since, gave a limited status in education to four of the regional languages (Basque, Breton, Catalan, Occitan). These could be taught in the public education system for up to three hours per week as part of the provisions for general education; but they could form part of the examination system only as optional extras, not counting for example towards the moyenne or overall grade awarded for the baccalaureat, and could therefore count only in minor ways to certifying the child's education. The law was permissive: it did not insist that education was provided, nor did it make available additional resources. It had to wait a further eighteen years before it was applied in any significant way: the ministerial letter giving effect to its provisions is dated 1969, and it was not until 1970 that achievement in the regional languages was included in the moyenne or overall score for the diploma. The provisions of the Deixonne law were extended to Corsican in 1974, and have been slowly extended to other regional languages since. But from 1958 to 1981 the governments and presidents in power had generally resisted structural economic or political devolution of power, and their policies were 'limited to a few concessions through accepting Cultural Charters, or timid educational measures' (Giordan, 1992, 134). Formally, the legal situation for the teaching of regional languages is now as follows: In the colleges: One hour of optional teaching from 6e to 3e\ Three hours of teaching for 4e and 3e. The subject may be included in the curriculum as an optional or main component, as for other elective subjects. In lycees: Regional languages may be taken as optional or main subjects for the second or third foreign language; For the baccalaureat, regional languages may count as optional or main subjects according to the type of baccalaureat; The languages which may be studied and assessed, in academies where a competent examiner can be found, are: Basque, Breton, Catalan,


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Corsican, Gallo (the language of the region bordering Brittany: only the oral examination is available at baccalaureat level), Occitan (in seven dialects: Auvergnat, Gascon, Languedocien, Limousin, Nissart, Proven9al, Vivaro-Alpin), Moselle and Alsace regional languages (oral examination only), Tahitian, four Melanesian languages (Aije, Drehu, Mengone, Paici). Special provisions, effective from September 1994, have been made for Basque and Breton bilingual schools, enabling the State to pay teaching staff (Le Figaro, 10 August 1994). The following figures of enrolments for 1992 were quoted in the Senate debates for 13 April 1994 by M. Toubon: Alsacien: 82,432 students in elementary and 66,826 in secondary; Basque: 4,563 students in elementary, and 2,193 in secondary; Breton: 7,343 students in elementary and 4,000 in secondary. In addition, 800 students are following bilingual Breton-French courses; Catalan: 8,569 students in elementary and 1,562 in secondary; Corsican: 11,749 students in elementary and 5,183 in secondary; Occitan: '7 or 8 languages, from Auvergnat to Proven9al': 62,579 students in elementary and 9,270 in secondary. Some provision is also made for the languages of some non-indigenous linguistic minorities through a programme for teaching languages and cultures of origin, mainly in primary schools (Varro, 1992; Ager, 1994). This affects the languages of the countries from which immigration came during the 1960s to the 1980s; it started in 1973, and is in part funded by the 'sending' countries themselves, who provide the teachers and materials. Provision is made for Arabic (by Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia), Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, and Serbo-Croat, although since this latter language was supported by the former Yugoslavia it has now been divided into Serbian and Croatian and support is disappearing. A limited number of bilingual classes also exist, with about 500 students in 1990-91 (Varro, 1992). There is no policy or legislation on the status of these languages outside education, and they have in effect been ignored by the State until recently. In 1994 however, as part of the review of foreign language teaching, three principles were enunciated for the selection of languages other than French to be taught in the education system, and these included respect for 'languages belonging to foreign communities strongly represented on the national territory' (Bulletin Officiel 8 December 1994, 45, 3285); these include Arabic, Polish, Portuguese, Armenian, Turkish and Vietnamese - the latter three added in 1994. The remaining principles outlined in the Bulletin Officiel were the official languages of the European Union, and 'languages widely used internationally'. Twenty foreign languages may thus be taught and

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examined in French schools from 1995: Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Modern Greek, Modern Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese, in addition to the regional languages (which may be selected to fill the foreign languages requirement of the curriculum) and to the special provision for (immigrant) languages and cultures of origin. In secondary education, at least theoretically, if a large enough group can be recruited (8-15 pupils), any language can be provided, and there is provision for teaching by correspondence if local teachers are not available, so these criteria may be overturned in certain cases. A recent experiment on primary school teaching of foreign languages has been successfully concluded, and foreign languages are available to all primary school children as from 1995. The teaching of English in Britain It is in this area that recent British governments have been most active in recent years, slowly developing a national policy for English whose aims and purposes are mixed: to improve the learning and teaching of the language but also to ensure that a certain type of English - and the associated cultural 'baggage' - is transmitted through the schools. The Bullock Report of 1975 had advocated an awareness of and sympathy for the 'linguistic and cultural diversity' of children, meaning by this 'the language and culture of the home', which 'no child should be expected' to 'cast off as he crosses the school threshold and the curriculum should reflect those aspects of his life'. This attitude of respect for social as well as cultural diversity, elevating working-class culture to the level of that of the elite, had changed somewhat in the Swann Report of 1985, which saw standard English as having a major role in unifying the country. The process continued in the Kingman Report of 1988, which outlined four reasons for supporting the teaching of standard English (defined as an 'overarching' variety) to all pupils: it contains the best of the national heritage, it is the language all Britons have in common, it is the only variety not associated with territory, and it is that best suited for the transmission of culture, for literature and for literacy.

1988 The 1988 Education Reform Act required the Secretary of State to make orders specifying the content of the National Curriculum, in English as in other subjects. Just prior to the passage of this Act, the Kingman Report had given some idea of the direction the debate would take and of the way in which policy towards the teaching of English would reflect the concerns of national identity and 'return to basics' characteristic of the government of the day. The Kingman Report was followed by National Curriculum draft orders ('Proposals') in 1989. These were revised in 1990, 1992, 1993 and again in 1994. Their general orientation was to ensure that standard English would be


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consistently taught and that the 'canon' of great writers in English would be a necessary component in every child's education.

1994 The general thrust and purpose of the English curriculum after 1995, after its major changes, the battles that have been fought over the succession of Reports - Bullock (1975), Swann (1985), Kingman (1988), Cox (1989) and succeeding working parties - is to include more emphasis on grammar, spelling and punctuation; a clear and more rigorous requirement for pupils to be taught written and spoken standard English; with proper attention to correct English as a requirement across the curriculum for the first time; more emphasis on high quality literature. (DfE Press Release, 13 October 1994) Generally speaking, the changes which have taken place in pursuance of Conservative education policy since 1979 have aimed at establishing exactly these principles, in opposition to what has often been presented as the wish of the teaching profession for less prescription, a free choice of reading, greater attention to language variety and to knowledge about language, and a desire to weaken the link between English language and the English nation (i.e. to aim for a multicultural understanding, rather than a specifically English one). The general requirements for English are introduced in the 1994 orders (NCO, 1994). According to these, 'English should develop pupils' abilities to communicate effectively in speech and writing, and to listen with understanding. It should also enable them to be enthusiastic, responsive and knowledgeable readers'. In order to develop these skills, pupils should 'use the vocabulary and grammar of standard English; formulate, clarify and express their ideas; listen, understand and respond appropriately to others'. Such general requirements apply also to the development of pupils as effective readers, and here the selection of texts involved should enable them to 'read, analyse and evaluate a wide range of texts, including literature from the English literary heritage and from other cultures and traditions'. The aims also include the requirement that students should 'participate confidently in public, cultural and working life', and in order to do this, 'pupils need to be able to speak, write and read standard English fluently and accurately'. The approach to the curriculum based on the concept of rights and entitlement is clear in the following statement: All pupils are therefore entitled to the full range of opportunities necessary to enable them to develop competence in standard English. The richness of dialects and other languages can make an important contribution to pupils' knowledge and understanding of standard English. Where appropriate, pupils should be encouraged to make use of their understanding and skills in other languages when learning English. (NCO. 1994)

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In Wales however, special provisions were thought to be necessary, and although the language and cultural knowledge of Welsh-speakers should be recognised and used, they should nonetheless 'be given access to the full scope of the programmes of study'. The question of standard English required special provisions, particularly in defining what standard English was meant to be: 4. Pupils should be given opportunities to develop their understanding and use of standard English and to recognise that: standard English is distinguished from other forms of English by its vocabulary and by rules and conventions of grammar, spelling and punctuation; the grammatical features that distinguish standard English include how pronouns, adverbs and adjectives should be used and how negatives, questions and verb tenses should be formed; such features are present in both the spoken and written forms, except where non-standard forms are used for effect or technical reasons; differences between the spoken and written forms relate to the spontaneity of speech and to its function in conversation, whereas writing is more permanent, often carefully crafted, and less dependent on immediate responses; spoken standard English is not the same as Received Pronunciation and can be expressed in a variety of accents. (NCO, 1994)

The details of the Programmes of Study and the Level Descriptions for Attainment Targets up to Key Stage 3 (age 14) are also specified. Criteria for attainment targets at Key Stage 4 are those of GCSE, which were specified in 1994. The teaching of other languages in Britain In 1994, one of nineteen languages could be studied in British schools for the requirements of the National Curriculum, which included a foreign language in Key Stages 3 and 4 (ages 11 to 16) as a foundation subject. The languages from which a choice could be made were: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin), Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek (Modern), Gujerati, Hebrew (Modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Panjabi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Urdu. Schools had to offer a language of the European Union before any other language could be chosen by the pupil. The situation in regard to Welsh and Scottish Gaelic is that education in and of these languages is available in Wales and Scotland respectively, but that they may not be chosen as a foreign language in Britain. They are thus not available to pupils in fulfilment of the National Curriculum requirement for a foreign language, and neither parents nor children can insist on them being made available in England. In Scotland, the Gaelic clause in the Education (Scotland) Act of 1918 required 'adequate' provision for the teaching of Gaelic 'in Gaelic-speaking areas'. In 1955 the Inverness Education Authority introduced Gaelic education, mainly for the Western Isles, although most teaching was outside


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the normal curriculum and the language was not used as a medium of instruction. In the Primary Memorandum of 1965 it became the 'duty of the primary school to maintain and develop Gaelic as a living means of communication and expression' (PGES, 1994, 7). In practice, since 1980 there has been considerable differentiation between English and Scottish governmental practice, and devolution of control in many areas previously centrally organised: the universities, for example, now have their own Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, separate from both the English and the Welsh Councils. The 1986 Gaelic Language Education Regulations under which grants are provided to local education authorities were reviewed in 1993 (Tulloch, 1993), and a wider examination of the whole scheme conducted by Schools Inspectors in 1994 (PGES, 1994). Authorities agreed that without the scheme, 'the significant developments achieved in Gaelic education would not have happened' and particularly that the spread of education to regions other than those with significant existing Gaelic-speaking minorities would not have occurred (Tulloch, 1993, 3). In general, 'developments in Gaelic education over the last decade have been impressive' despite gaps, variations in quality and duplication of effort among the various agencies (PGES, 1994, 1). In addition to Scottish Gaelic, there is considerable support for Scots - a regional variety of English - such that 'as of the end of this year, all primary school pupils will be receiving tuition in their own dialect of either Scots or Gaelic in addition to learning standard English' (McHardy, Guardian Educational Supplement, 20 September 1994). The Scottish National Curriculum - for ages 5-14 - encourages the use of dialects in the learning of standard English. Current policy towards non-indigenous linguistic minorities in education falls into the two areas of language maintenance and English as a second language. Formally, the National Curriculum makes provision for language maintenance only within the context of foreign language teaching - some languages of indigenous minorities can be taught and examined within National Curriculum provisions - although there remain officially supported schemes for bilingual schools and the slimmed-down curriculum at primary level in particular is supposed to enable schools to make their own choices of whether and how to provide such education. For English as a second language nothing is prescribed although financial provision is made through 'Section 11' grants. The National Curriculum does acknowledge the existence of other languages (and dialects of English), but, as we have seen, only in the context of the contribution they can make to teaching standard English. 'Multicultural' education - the use of other languages and cultures in the teaching of subjects other than languages - is generally proscribed, or at least not officially supported (King and Reiss, 1993). Programmes of study in a foreign language consist of two parts: learning and using the target language, and areas of experience which set out the 'broad topic areas that provide contexts for learning and using the target language'. In learning and using the target language, pupils should communicate in the target language, improve language skills, language-

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learning skills and their knowledge of language, and also improve their cultural awareness. Pupils 'should be given opportunities' to combine language skills (speaking and writing), and 'where a spoken or written response is expected, it should be in the target language except where a response in another language is necessary, e.g. when interpreting' (NCO, 1994). Normally, programmes of study last for five years and include the two Key Stages. At Key Stage 3 (to age 14), pupils cover all four skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) and three areas of experience (everyday activities, personal and social life, and the world around us). At Key Stage 4, pupils continue with these at greater depth and add two further areas: the world of work and the international world. Study may be reduced to a short course (and in a different language if required), and the programme must then include one of the first group of areas of experience, plus one of the other three. Assessment is related at Key Stage 3 to an eight-point set of level descriptions, with one further description for exceptional performance; and at Key Stage 4 to GCSE criteria, which were established in 1994. Exceptional performance in listening, for example, requires pupils to show 'understanding of a wide range of factual and imaginative speech, some of which expresses different points of view, issues and concerns' (NCO, 1994). AN OVERVIEW OF FRENCH AND BRITISH LANGUAGE POLICIES In summary and brief overview — more detailed analysis is undertaken in Chapter 10 - French language policies show three characteristics: firstly the simple fact that they are often overtly recorded in public documents and that laws and administrative decisions are comparatively numerous: policy operates at the macro level. Secondly, policies apply principally to questions of language status, constantly trying to improve the prestige of standard French, sometimes openly and sometimes covertly by attacking that of other languages spoken in France. Thirdly, French language policies show that generally government and the policy authorities have been leading public opinion in developing change, rather than following it. It is indeed widely thought and frequently stated that France believes in, and practises, language regulation through governmental action. Both socialist and right-wing governments have however discovered how risky this is. French policy on the corpus, despite significant initiatives such as reform of spelling and terminology standardisation, has enjoyed little success in recent years. While policy on the acquisition of French is by the 1990s well established - all pupils must acquire standard French - initiatives in the field of foreignlanguage teaching have, if only belatedly, shown understanding of the need to support France's international ambitions, recognition of the internal realities of a country to which immigrants have flocked, and the difficulties of persuading colleagues in Europe to adopt what seem to French activists selfevidently sensible policies of language regulation, modelled on the policies


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of cultural exception which alone are thought to provide some defence. British language policies prior to the late 1980s were by contrast disparate and fragmented. Initiatives were taken officially, but often locally: by Local Education Authorities or agencies such as the churches (for education in Wales, Scotland and Ireland), by local councils, the Post Office, the police and the Home Office immigration service (for the use of working languages), by the publishing industry (in dictionaries and reference works), without central coordination and usually without legislative frameworks. Language policy was, and still in many cases is, the language practice of individuals and small groups rather than national policy and operates at the micro level. Indeed the beliefs and the prejudices are easy to state, as John Simpson, Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, did on 27 December 1995 in the Guardian: The English language has never had a state-registered guardian. English is already such a patchwork language that the Word Police would hardly know where to start. Instead of an academy, we've ruled ourselves... we are in danger of being ruled offside by greater powers, those of political correctness and the European Community . . . turn your thumbs firmly down to Committee English.

The 1980s and early 1990s were nonetheless characterised by progressively stronger government involvement in language policy. The rising importance of questions of national identity has had consequences for the teaching of standard English, for multiculturalism and the maintenance of nonindigenous languages other than English. Policy for indigenous regional languages has been active, and strongly supportive, with the result that Welsh speakers in Wales and Gaelic speakers in Scotland are among the most favoured linguistic minorities in the world. In the field of language policy in education in particular, the power of ideology has been strong, on both sides of the debate, and indeed policies themselves have been developed through and with an overtly ideological, even populist, flavour.

5 The policy process: inputs

This chapter will examine two recent policy initiatives in France and Britain in an attempt to understand exactly what brought these matters to the attention of policy-makers, and what similarities and differences can be identified between the two countries in this first stage of the policy process. Why have some aspects of language policy provoked more interest and action in one country than another? Brewer and deLeon (1983), in their schematic outline of the policy process, suggested that policy questions are brought to the attention of government from many different sources and for many different reasons. Potential sources include the political agenda, pressure from outside government for resources, feedback from the outcomes of other policies, and changes in the national or international political, social or economic environment. Matters are brought to the attention of government in a number of different ways: through the normal workings of the civil service, by interest or pressure groups, by groups or individuals within the political party, or they arise merely from chance contacts between policy-makers and the general public. A problem can be misunderstood or misrepresented in many different ways, too, either deliberately or by accident. Inputs to policy decisions are rarely clear-cut presentations of a specific issue to be resolved. We have noted that language, in questions of state policy, might be regarded as a problem to be solved, a right to be accorded or refused, or a resource to be exploited. The two policy matters we shall discuss are literacy, and language policy for immigrants. How far the State should ensure that its population is literate represents a problem requiring specific action which only the State can take. By contrast, language policy for immigrants raises a number of questions concerning language rights: who has the right to use what language, when, and in what circumstances?

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LITERACY The institution of free primary education for all during the late nineteenth century in both Britain (1872) and France (1881-86) was intended to ensure that the whole population achieved at least basic levels of skill in literacy and numeracy. The purposes were both social and economic: to enable the industrial revolution to call on a workforce which could manage (more) complex machinery and understand instructions, but also to ensure that citizens could participate in democracy. The number and proportion of people in these advanced societies unable to read and write has nonetheless continued to be a matter of concern. In Britain, when conscription started during the First World War, the educational level of conscripts - as indeed their general level of health - came as a shock to the authorities, and led to the setting up of the Education Corps in an immediate attempt to remedy matters. After the Second World War, when educational levels were found to be not much better, social investment and fundamental changes in educational systems took place with the 1944 Butler Act, which set up the 'centrally directed but locally managed' system, in which the central government's role was limited to providing the money: it had no control over teacher appointments, curricula or examinations. It was not until the 1980s that this system was challenged. In France, education was a priority for the French Revolution in its attempt to create a sense of national citizenship, although the organisation to achieve this had to be slowly developed over the nineteenth century. By 1886, the centrally controlled system, with teaching appointments, curricula and the examination system directly controlled by one minister, was in place, and its effectiveness examined by a professional inspectorate whose reports continue to appear annually (IGEN 1991, 1992). The system continues today with little fundamental change. Environmental factors are clearly at work in the problem of literacy, and these arc not limited to British and French society. After the Second World War international organisations, particularly UNESCO, have played a role in drawing attention to the need to combat illiteracy in both developed and developing societies, and much information and research on the topic has been disseminated on a worldwide basis. UNESCO's understanding of the problem, and responses to it, have gone through three phases: 'mass literacy' in the 1950s, aimed particularly at Third World countries; 'functional literacy' in the mid-1960s and early 1970s, and, since, 'specific technical advice'. Mass literacy campaigns held the danger, for UNESCO, that the problem would be seen as confined to the Third World and hence poorly funded, while the shift of emphasis in the late 1970s came about once 'learners in [functional literacy] programmes discovered that the only "functionality" involved was to make them better workers'. The terminological problem has continued to affect UNESCO, where Third World countries generally have provoked 'a systematic review of the terminology to be used . . . which will not prove insulting to individuals, communities or groups of countries' (Limage, 1993, 31). The UNESCO definitions are widely used: illiteracy (analphabetisme) — of

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'a person who cannot with understanding both read and write a short simple statement on his everyday life' - and functional illiteracy (illettrisme) - of 'a person who cannot engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for the effective functioning of his group and community and also for enabling him to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for his own and the community's development'. France On 11 January 1984, the French government agreed a series of policy measures to combat this problem. The actual proposals made by the Cabinet (Velis, 1988, 265) were comparatively modest, consisting in: (a) bringing together existing 'dispersed' actions against illiteracy by Government and associations; (b) setting up a national network; (c) training teachers; (d) including illiteracy in several national policies: joint action with the Regions, training for young unemployed, libraries, computer-based reading, and studies on the teaching of French; (e) providing support for the education of adults in difficulty (e.g. in prison, in social hostels, women); (f) research programmes; (g) setting up a permanent interministerial group to keep a watching brief on the problem: the Groupe Permanent de Lutte contre I'Illettrisme (GPLI), based in the Ministry for Social Affairs and National Solidarity.

No more money was directly allocated to the programmes, however, so the policy was mainly constituent, setting up and reorganising government machinery for dealing with the problem. What had provoked this deliberate policy action in France? The immediate cause was a formal report by a credible group (Esperandieu et al., 1984); indeed, the policy response accompanied the formal publication of the official report. But the report itself was provoked by two factors: the realisation over time that an initial response to international pressure had been inappropriate, and, secondly, after a change of government, that illiteracy was closely associated with social deprivation (Velis, 1988; Limage, 1993; Borkowski and Dumoulin, 1994). The American Federal Government 'Right to Read' programme had been established in 1971, partly as a continuing response to Soviet advances in the space race, and was followed in 1975 by an estimate that 23 per cent of Americans were functionally illiterate. Studies in Britain, Belgium and Holland found 7-10 per cent illiterates. The European Parliament conducted a survey among member governments in 1979, reporting in 1982 that the problem was not limited to southern Europe nor to immigrants, and affected probably ten million Europeans in 1981 (4-6 per cent of the population).


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Pressure external to France hence came both from the general international movement, and from the specifically European initiative sponsored by the Parliament. In 1979 France had responded to the request from the European Parliament by saying that illiteracy did not exist in France. In 1980 and 1981 two French reports on poverty nonetheless discovered illiteracy as a contributory factor to poverty and social deprivation and tentatively proposed remedial action. In 1981, Giscard d'Estaing was replaced as president by Mitterrand, and the new Socialist government of 1982 set up a more senior interministerial committee in January 1983, which itself produced the Esperandieu report in January 1984. Terminology also mattered: the Esperandieu report first used the word illettrisme to describe the (functional) illiteracy of French native speakers, thus accepting the UNESCO distinctions for the first time. French policy prior to this point had in effect refused to accept that illiteracy could affect developed countries, particularly not one with such a record of investment in public education as France. Analphabetisme could only apply to the Third World, to French school drop-outs or, significantly, to immigrants, for whom special programmes were devised, but illettrisme was acceptable for French native speakers (Borkowski and Dumoulin, 1994, 221). The Esperandieu report thanked, in particular, three organisations: Aide-dtoute-detresse-Quart Monde (ATD-Quart Monde) the Confederation Syndicate des Families and the Association Frangaise pour la Lecture (AFL). The first of these, an international association grouping paid volunteers working with disadvantaged groups, had been particularly active. It consists of 300 volunteer workers - about 150 in France - paid a minimum wage, spread over 18 countries, working with about 10,000 (2,000 'very active') unpaid volunteers in France. It is a perfect example of a Group A NonGovernmental Organisation: its founder and General Secretary (Father Wresinski) is a member of a number of governmental groups (Conseil Economique et Social) and works with a number of international organisations (UNO, UNESCO, International Labour Office, Council of Europe . . .). It was indeed this organisation which persuaded the European Parliament, in 1979, to take up the question of illiteracy. Its aims are clear and clearly stated: 'to pressurise Government and Administration to accept their responsibility without worsening the situation of the poor'. For other participants in the debate, the ATD approach, concentrating on poverty and insisting on new money, was dangerous, making it practically impossible to solve illiteracy. Their approach excluded from consideration the millions of functional illiterates who are not in the extremes of poverty, but who are unable to participate in society. The Association Frangaise pour la Lecture (AFL), the French branch of the International Reading Association, had adopted this different analysis, less turned towards solving basic welfare problems. Their policy was to reach the three quarters of the population who needed 'retraining' in reading. Again it had an active leader (Jean Foucambert), and was resourced not solely by grants or charitable donations but, in addition, by the sales of reading products (computer aids), publications and training. Their analysis pointed out that methods for

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teaching reading were still geared to the top 20 per cent of the population, and that hence 80 per cent of the school population might be placed in difficulty by inappropriate methods. Quoting a 1982INSEE survey which showed that 64 per cent of the French population had an educational level at or below that of the end of primary school, AFL's position adopted a socio-political view that the health of democracy depended on improving the ability to read. In this interpretation, AFL was very far from the point of view of ATD-QuartMonde. The causes of illiteracy identified in France were nonetheless related, although in different ways, to social and economic deprivation. Another main cause was said to be the false pride in the nature of the French educational system, in which each year the child must achieve the required level in order to pass to the next year, and in which illiteracy simply could not exist. A devastating assessment of French education (Hamon and Rotman, 1984) however, regarded the system as a failure: 'For several hundred thousand adolescents, none of the fundamental aims of education is achieved . . . society has the right to call in question the return on investment (16 per cent of the budget) in this institution, whose main product is failure.' In 1984 the system of requiring success in annual examinations resulted, for Nice, in 22 per cent of those entering the sixth class, expected to take place at the age of ten, being three years older, having had to redouble classes at least twice; only 52.4 per cent of those who had repeated a year in primary education continued to the end of normal schooling, so nearly half the age group had been rejected by the system. On the national level, children from disadvantaged backgrounds suffered proportionately more from the 'series of rejections' which the system constituted: 75 per cent of children in the Classes Pre-professionnelles de niveau (CPPN) — classes to which those who would not be able to take normal school-leaving certificates or higher qualifications were directed - came from such backgrounds. Illiteracy was also directly associated with delinquency, according to the Justice ministry (87 per cent of delinquents have reading difficulties). Defence of education was also on hand, however, pointing to the enormous improvements since 1930: 'in 1930, the school population was one-eighth of the total; it is now one-quarter; the average age of those achieving the baccalaureat has dropped by two years; if 20 per cent of conscripts now have reading difficulties, in 1914 it was 35 per cent' (Velis, 1988, 117). Britain In both countries illiteracy was the subject of many policy initiatives during the 1980s, and still provokes governmental action in the 1990s. Specific action outlined by the British Secretary of State for Education in June 1993, which we shall take as a specific example of policy on literacy, was to include: teacher training . . . undertaken as much as possible in the school and not wasted studying dated and irrelevant texts on theory;

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all teacher-training courses must include at least 150 hours of work on English, with a minimum of 50 hours on the teaching of reading; tapping a rich resource of mature people with good qualifications and experience of working with children . . . who are currently debarred from entering teaching; a quarter of a million extra students will have the chance to study in one of our 500 further education colleges; we are backing the Family Literacy campaign with a quarter of a million pound grant in the first year. (DBS Press release June 1993, quoted in Guardian Educational Supplement, 16 November 1993)

In addition to these specific responses, the Education Secretary noted that employers and newspapers 'can play a serious role in promoting literacy and numeracy'. What had provoked this flurry of policy initiatives, at least two of which did not survive beyond November 1993, when the 'rich resource of mature people' was rejected by teachers, and the Budget put paid to the extra students in further education? There are some clues in a speech made by John Patten to the Conservative Political Centre in October 1993: Far too many people . . . have low levels of literacy. Many have a very limited vocabulary. Writing a letter i s . . . impossible. The text of a serious newspaper is beyond them . . . those who cannot use language - and figures for that matter - at a level necessary to function properly at work and in society in general. .. about 5.5 million people in England and Wales have some difficulty . .. about four million with basic literacy . . . the figure swells by another half-million not native English speakers... at least one in every 10 adults in this country is functionally illiterate . . . the cost to industry . . . is £5 billion a year . .. functional illiteracy places a burden on ... our social security bill.

Later in the same article we learn that 'more than half of those children whose parents are functionally illiterate are in the lowest reading score group'. The causes of the problem were; 'the rot in education which had set in in the 1960s. . . too many people have left our teacher training colleges . . . conversant in the ways of "progressive" orthodoxy but without knowing how to teach children to read'. 'Children struggle at school when they are allowed by their parents to spend more time in front of the television than they do in front of the blackboard.' The speech made use of a report from the Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit, a departmental public body (i.e. one supported by grants from the Department of Education and Science: ALBSU, 6/93), founded in 1974 as a response to a major study of illiteracy in Britain. The 1993 report analysed the achievement of basic skills tasks by 1,650 twenty-one-year-olds in 1991, comparing the results with those of tests carried out by the National Child Development Study in 1981 on 12,534 twenty-three-year-olds. About the same proportion (12 per cent in 1991, 13 per cent in 1981) reported problems

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with literacy (and with other basic skills, which do not concern us here). Extrapolating the 12 per cent to the total population produces a figure of 5.5 to 6 million adults, the number widely commented on in the 1993 press release and in newspaper reports. The report attempted, with some difficulty, to correlate achievement in the National Child Development Study to three different measures of literacy which had been set up by national bodies: ALBSU levels in Communication (Foundation to level 3), National Curriculum Council (NCC) attainment target levels in English (2 to 8), and General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQ) levels in Communication (1 to 3). Interestingly, on this basis only 15 per cent successfully completed tests equivalent to NCC level 8, intended for most fifteen- to sixteen-year-olds. The National Education and Training Targets are that 80 per cent of young people should reach NVQ2 or equivalent (i.e. NCC level 6, ALBSU level 2), so that the 59 per cent who had done so in 1991 showed the distance still to travel. Family background was an important factor: 61 per cent of those with parents in the bottom attainment group had low literacy scores. The link between low school attainment and poor basic skills was also evident (10 per cent of the total group, and 38 per cent of the low-literacy group had no school qualifications), as was that between low skills and life chances: 13 per cent of the men in the total group were unemployed as against 35 per cent of those in the low literacy group. Many of these young people with low literacy skills are effectively marginalised in education and then confined to unskilled jobs, training schemes and lengthy periods of unemployment. Many women in the group with poor basic skills have escaped the frustration of the labour market by staying at home. (ALBSU, 6/93, 10)

The problem of intergenerational transfer of poor skills had been explored in more detail in an earlier report (ALBSU, 4/93). This concluded, on the basis of 1991 data from the National Child Development Study, that 'strong relationships were found between parents' self-reported literacy problems and their children's abilities . . . where parents had problems, twice as many children were in the bottom quartile range of reading scores, compared with children whose parents did not report problems'. ALBSU proposed the widespread adoption of a Family Literacy scheme: 'a £7.5 million programme over four years, to set up 50 family literacy programmes . . . a further £2 million on public awareness', together with the widespread involvement of the private sector, libraries and voluntary bodies (Guardian, 14.6.93). The actual policy response in June 1993 was the grant of £250,000 mentioned above. The ALBSU document was extensively reported on in June 1993, having been the subject of the press conference given by the Secretary of State and the ALBSU Director. The Times Education Supplement (TES, 18.6.93), for example, noted - somewhat acidly - that the report 'had prompted Education Secretary John Patten to find £250,000 for a new literacy project. . . The new money . . . a "modest" sum "found in a departmental back pocket" . . . will fund pilot family literacy projects which have already been successfully


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pioneered in the United States.' In a different article in the same edition, the TES noted that the Reading Recovery programme, based on a New Zealand initiative and run by Professor Marie Clay, was 'one of six weapons to fight illiteracy in the UK', and had been trialled over the previous year at a cost of £3.6 million. It would be funded in 1993-94 at £4.4 million, despite some criticism of its expense and selective nature. Editorial comment in the same issue, generally supportive ('let's welcome this small advance'), noted that 'John Patten has been talking up the problem, to support his argument that public testing exercises are necessary to raise standards'. Comparison It would seem that the policy initiation stage reflects a variety of stimuli: firstly, in Britain, the simple continuation of a recognised, existing language problem. 'Countries such as Canada, the United States, and Great Britain have been addressing the problem in various degrees for many years' (Limage, 1993, 30). On this analysis, the allocation of £250,000 is merely an example of incremental policy - the government does slightly more of the same. By contrast to Britain, the continuation of an identified existing problem is not high on the list of initiating factors in France. Indeed, for Limage (1993, 31), the French government, proud of its educational system, in effect refused to consider that French people could have a permanent or serious problem of illiteracy, while Borkowski and Dumoulin (1994, 219) note that 'the iltettrisme of adults has only been recognised as a major problem since the eighties'. Secondly, the appearance of a report by a credible authority: in Britain, ALBSU, although formally independent, is heavily supported by grants from the Department for Education (DfE) among others. Particularly significant here is the publication by ALBSU of crisp, well-presented, attractive and eminently readable summaries of research reports. These summaries are well illustrated with full colour, of a handy size (15-page A5 booklet), and clearly intended to provide instant material for ministerial speeches. The analysis presented by ALBSU was thorough, well-documented and presented in such a way as to lead to the almost inevitable decision to support a particular policy response - the creation of the Family Literacy scheme. However, the DfE response indicated that the analysis was also recognised as one more bid to spend public money, and there is little doubt that the long history of comparatively unsuccessful attempts to improve the success of literacy schemes meant that priority was not given to this scheme - at least, not to the financial extent hoped for by ALBSU. As in Britain, a report by a credible authority was significant in provoking a policy response in France. The Esperandieu report had been particularly influential, although the policy response had been mainly constituent or administrative, ensuring that the plethora of associations had some lead. To some extent, too, the influence of a significant individual - Wresinski - had also played a part. But the main difference with Britain lies in the association of the report with social, rather than educational, policy. Although educational measures were important, the

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monitoring group was established in a different ministry and had a much wider brief. The third provocation is the influence of external events. 1990 had been UNESCO's International Literacy Year, and it was at this time that the US and New Zealand schemes were being adopted in Britain, even if at reduced levels. The Literacy Year would have provided additional impetus to ALBSU to carry out the 1991 tests which provided the basis for the 1993 report, but the provocation does not seem to have been of main significance. The provocation for the work in France was clearly the influence of the European Parliament survey, itself carried out in 1979 under the influence of work in America, and the feeling in the Mitterrand government that the Giscard response had been less than satisfactory. The fourth provocation is the pursuance of the ideology of the competent authority (i.e. the political party in power). In Britain, the presentation of the ALBSU report and its conclusions, and particularly the association of the response with other aspects of the Conservative educational reforms of the 1980s - such as testing, the introduction of a National Curriculum, and the reform of teacher training in order to remove its control from universities was intended to make this policy response appear part of an overall exercise in raising educational standards. The 'trendy' past, when teacher training had been conducted under the Government of the opposing political party, and what was said to be the resultant poor quality of teaching, together with social habits such as watching television, had created the problem despite the best efforts of the Conservative Government and business alike, both of whom were suffering as a result of this almost wilful level of illiteracy. The blame was clearly to be shared by the political party, the teachers and the social class involved. As in Britain, policy responses in France were affected by the pursuance of the ideology of the competent policy authority: the French Socialist Government wished to maintain priority for social justice measures, and was happy to see the literacy problem associated with the more general questions of social welfare. It also wished to mark the difference in its approach from that of the previous Giscard presidency. LANGUAGE POLICY FOR IMMIGRANTS France Immigrants to France, during this century, have included comparatively small numbers of political refugees - for example those leaving Algeria in 1962 and 1963 after the conclusion of the peace agreements - and ever-increasing numbers of economic refugees, both legal and clandestine.


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Table 5.1 Foreign nationalities in France (1990) Portuguese Algerians Moroccans Italians Spanish Tunisians Turks Americans (N & S) 'Yugoslavians' Belgians Poles Other nationalities Total

645,578 619,923 548,708 253,679 216,015 207,496 201,480 77,554 51,697 51,483 46,283 687,694 3,607,590

Source: INSEE, 1992 It is clear from Table 5.1 that Portuguese nationals were the most numerous. However, the total of those coming from the three 'Maghreb' countries is 1,376,127 - and their proportion of the total is increasing. These are generally Arabic-speaking, and tend to be regarded by the French as having one and the same origin. 'Other nationalities' originate mainly in African countries. In the often tendentious debates over immigration in France the actual numbers and proportions in the population can be chosen from a variety of definitions: those of foreign nationality born outside France (2.9 million); those of foreign nationality born in France (0.7 million) - these together form the 3.6 million of the table above; those of French nationality, but born outside France (1.3 million); children of immigrants (who automatically have French nationality) (5 million); grandchildren of immigrants (4.4 to 5.3 million); newly arrived immigrants (about 70-100,000 per year) (cf. Ager, 1994). Statistics, including educational statistics maintained by the Ministry of Education, use nationality as the fundamental measure, even though there is considerable doubt as to the accuracy of such a measure in schools, where children do not necessarily know their legal status. Immigrants from the French possessions overseas - the DOM and the TOM are officially French, and number approximately 512,000 from the DOM (total population 1,459,000) and several thousand from the TOM (population 470,000). Immigrants, at least officially, have been granted entry to France since 1974 solely on grounds of family reunion. Those of foreign nationality account for about 8 per cent of the French population, a figure that has remained approximately the same since the beginning of the century although of course their provenance has changed greatly. In 1916-18 about 100,000 Chinese were recruited to work in the metallurgical industry; 500,000 Poles entered coal-mining in the 1920s and 1930s, and it was not until after 1950 that North African immigration became significant. Nonetheless, due to the policy of family reunion and higher birth-rates, there was an increase of some 8 per cent, even over the period from 1987 to 1992,

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L A N G U A G E POLICY I N B R I T A I N A N D F R A N C E

in the number of 'immigrant' children entering schools. Immigrants' language problems are closely associated with a range of other social, economic - and political - problems. They are usually poorly qualified or have work which requires few qualifications (70 per cent), live in workingclass suburbs of the main towns, and have large families (on average, 3.15 children as against 1.8 in the typical 'French' family). The first generation is poorly educated, and women, in particular, have poor knowledge of French. Language problems are therefore associated with knowledge of French and the difference in the degree of this knowledge among the generations: the second generation, in particular, normally have great problems in adapting both linguistically and culturally (Andereggen, 1993; Costa-Lascoux, 1994). Specifically linguistic problems arise from language contact phenomena: word borrowings, language mixing, code-switching. But in addition, the prestige of French is undeniable, and immigrants have great difficulty in retaining their cultural identity - even extending to adopting - usually negative — 'French' attitudes towards their own language group. Living in a bilingual environment has a range of other problems, too, and although the creation of stable diglossia could occur, it is unlikely. What has happened to a notable degree is the creation of an international youth culture, in which Portuguese, Africans, French and others identify with each other as much as, or even more so than, with their 'ethnic' group. Linguistically, this has resulted in a range of phenomena, among which is the adoption of a form of reverse slang (verlan) by young blacks and its incorporation in rap (Ager, 1993; 1994). Table 5.2 Schoolchildren and students of foreign nationalities in France (1992-93) Nationality' Algerians Moroccans Tunisians Other African countries: Francophone Non-Francophone Spanish Portuguese Italians Other EU nationals Other non-EU Europeans Yugoslavs" Turks Southeast Asians Others

Primary2

Secondary2

Higher23

131,409 151,452 46,984

74,247 104,868 28,850

18,462 22,255 6,418 27,626

49,520 12,499 7,507 64,513 6,709 9,934 4,530 5,527 48,084 29,756 25,733

26,018 5,270 8,763 65.997 7,826 8,691 4,745 5,022 30,607 17,544 16,755

Source: Reperes, 1994: 73, 130, 176.

3,040 3,432 19,003 7,523


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Notes 1. The figures are those returned by the relevant academic, school or institution, and may refer to nationality or geographical origin. 2. Numbers include both public and private education and refer to metropolitan France. 3. Figures for higher education do not distinguish Francophone from nonFrancophone Africans, Italians from other European Union, Yugoslav or Turks from other non-EU European, nor South-east Asians. Higher education figures exclude non-University level courses. 4. 'Yugoslavs' refers to children from the former Yugoslavia. Language policies in education, oriented towards children, either support language maintenance or are geared to enabling children to enter mainstream education, with the eventual aim of integration in French society. In both cases there is frankly very little specific provision. Eight countries originally supported the language maintenance system, started in 1973, enabling teachers from the country of origin to teach language and culture (Langues et Cultures d'Origine - LCO} in French schools (Varro, 1992; IGEN, 1992, 43-50). Intended to encourage better integration into schools and at the same time keep open possible return 'home', these programmes offer three class hours per week and were offered in 1991 to 120,000 children in 5,000 schools (of which 8,000 pupils are i secondary education) by 1,400 teachers. The teachers are chosen and paid by the sending countries and design their own programmes; the programmes are not integrated into the French examination or assessment systems. Under 15 per cent of children from the Maghreb countries - the major group - attended these language-learning programmes, while for most languages the figures were around 20-30 per cent of the relevant children. In their analysis of the provision, the French Schools Inspectorate identified a number of problems which acted against making these classes fully effective. These included the fact that the scheme is only available in 'approved' schools and therefore only affected 22 per cent of the 520,157 pupils. The teachers were marginalised 'as a matter of course'. Most of them taught in more than one school - between four and seven schools per teacher - a not form part of the normal teaching staff of the French school. They had many practical difficulties of living and transport for which no help was provided, either by their own government or by the French authorities. Class size was often too big; the language taught was often not the mothe tongue - for example classical Arabic was often offered to all Maghrebin children, and indeed to other nationalities, such as children from African countries like Mali, where, although some young children may speak Arabic at home, most do not. In Italian, enrolments included non-Italians wanting early foreign-language teaching. The content and syllabus for the classes was left to individual teachers, raising numerous problems: 'culture' may often be interpreted as religious instruction or training in the social practices of the sending country. Untrained teachers often used traditional methods - such as

88


learning by rote - still used in their own country but quite out of keeping with the remainder of the children's education. The language-learning material was often poor. The children also suffered from the lack of value accorded to their work in the LCO classes: marks achieved were ignored in the formal French assessment system, classes conflicted with other subjects. By 1994, the LCO policy was condemned outright in a report by the Economic and Social Council: The exaltation of particularisms which flourished over a short period through the teaching - often badly designed and understood - of languages and cultures of origin, has given way to a much more dynamic, more demanding, design for the reception and integration of children of immigration into the French educational system. (Boquet, 1994, 75)

If such teaching retained any value, it was less for needs of immediate communication than as a support for children's personality: the recognition 'of themselves, their family and their social group', or, eventually, as an introduction to learning a foreign language and culture with which they were already familiar (Boquet, 1994, 78). Although LCO may have had 'noble' origins, 'practical organisational modalities and the teaching methods adopted have, in many cases, become incompatible with the strategy of integration in and through the school' (101). Policies for French as a second language, aimed mainly at immigrants, were also set up from the early 1970s. Classes for initiation (Classes d'Initiation Experimental s - CLIN) and adaptation (Classes a"Adaptation dans I'Enseignement du Second Degre - CLAD} were intended to help immigrant children learn French in a systematic fashion in small groups. They were never numerous: in 1984, 180 CLAD catered for 2,667 pupils across the country, while by 1991 Paris maintained the largest number of CLAD (29) and CLIN (76) (Varro, 1992, 145). The relationship of academic failure with the poor status of the teaching of French as a foreign language, the poor resource level for classes, poor training for the teachers, and the lack of specific research into teaching methods, has been recognised by the Inspectorate (IGEN, 1991), as well as in such arrangements as the educational priority zones (ZEP) set up from 1982 and which, although not established primarily as immigrant reception areas, were created on the basis of a number of indicators including the presence of a high level of immigration. The main problem with this approach, whether for language maintenance or second-language learning, is clearly that of immigrants' segregation from other children and withdrawal from normal classes, which particularly affects children who attend both types of 'support'. Not merely does this double withdrawal have an effect on the academic progress of the children, it also stigmatises them in the eyes of their peers - the direct opposite of the intended result. Unfortunately, too, the extensive provision made in France for parental involvement in school bypasses the parents of immigrant children, who are often inarticulate, unaware of the system and unable to influence it. Integration is hence the main driving force for language policy. Children


89

and their parents have inadequate knowledge of French - 98.79 per cent of Turkish parents, 87.72 per cent of Moroccan parents for example 'regularly speak a language other than French with their children'. 'If, in some of these families this maintains children's bilingualism, it is obvious that in others this means rather a closing in towards the community of origin which is expressed through parental monolingualism'. 'Closing in' of this type is clearly repudiated by the Economic and Social Council, which supports a policy of integration on the basis that it alone 'ensures equality of rights for the better progress of all' (Boquet, 1994, 73). Britain For Britain, mass immigration is a relatively recent phenomenon, starting after the Second World War and having primarily economic motivation. Immigrants were consciously sought to increase the workforce, and came from certain well-defined areas of the Commonwealth in succeeding waves: from the Caribbean, from Hong Kong, and from India, Pakistan, and some other areas of South-east Asia. British statistics on immigration, when compared with those maintained in France, show a fascinating sideline on Franco-British conceptions of the topic. The 1991, and previous, census returns did not collect information on nationality at all; the census return invited respondents to declare their own view of their ethnic origin; the grouping of countries of origin is quite different from that adopted in France; it is necessary to determine whether statistics are for England and Wales alone, the United Kingdom or Great Britain. Two Tables extracted from the Census returns for 1991, show some of the contrasts and some of the problems for cross-national comparisons: the first gives declared ethnic origin for most British residents in categories quite unknown to the French, while the second similarly gives countries in groups again not comparable to those of the French. Immigration is simply not perceived in the same way in the two countries. As in France, the oil crisis of 1973 and its consequences brought the period of economic expansion to an end, and further immigration was supposedly restricted to family reunification. Language policy was needed, and it became clear that it should apply to two areas: language maintenance for immigrant groups, and the provision of English-language support for new arrivals. But a consequence of the British approach to education was that little information was centrally available on what was happening across the country, and no central policy could be easily developed (Edwards, V., 1984, 54). During the 1960s official policy was for dispersion and against the creation of 'immigrant schools', in pursuance of a general hope of assimilation. A Department of Education and Science circular (7/65) estimated that the maximum permissible proportion of immigrants in one school should be 'about one third'. This policy proved impossible to sustain and policy responses by individual Local Education Authorities remained diverse. The search for adequate information continued through the 1960s and early 1970s, and some supporting work was developed, most of it local (cf. ILEA,

90


1979) although some was nationally funded, for example at the National Foundation for Educational Research, which produced its first assessment batteries for achievement in English in 1973, and which collected and disseminated research information on the situation (e.g. Taylor, 1981; 1985; 1987a; 1987b). Table 5.3 Declared ethnic origin in the UK in 1991 White Indian Black Caribbean Pakistani Black African Bangladeshi Chinese Black - other: non-mixed origin British North African, Arab or Iranian Indian sub-continent (not included above) Caribbean island, W Indian or Guyanan E African, Asian or Indo-Caribbean Other African Other Asian Other answers Black - other: mixed origin Black/white Asian/white Other mixed

51,810,555 840,255 493,339 476,555 208,110 162,835 156,938 58,106 6,471 4,005 3,093 1,271 927 24,854 44,940 24,687 69 50,668

Source: Census 1991, 1993. Table 5.4 UK population by country of birth in 1991 United Kingdom Outside Great Britain (i.e. Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Irish Republic, Ireland (part not stated) Old Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, New Zealand) New Commonwealth (Africa, Caribbean, Asia, remainder) European Community Remainder of Europe Turkey USSR Africa (not included above) America (not included above) Asia (not included above) Rest of world

51,114,048 3,774,796 177,355 1,686,396 493,890 174,146 25,597 27,011 146,869 185,033 231,045 3,230

Source: Census 1991; 1993. The Linguistic Minorities Project, based at the University of London Institute of Education, was funded by the Department of Education and Science from


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1977 to 1982 as one response to the European Communities' Directive on the Education of Children of Migrant Workers. It produced a number of surveys and analyses of the immigrant situation, particularly in the schools, and identified local policies where they existed (LMP, 1983). Its studies are a very clear demonstration of the disparate and fragmented nature of policies in this field: they showed that individual authorities faced very different problems, had responded in occasionally fundamentally different ways, and that there was little coherence or even similarity between the language policies of Bradford, London or Coventry. Policies in general moved from attempts at assimilation to attempts at integration, which still meant that there was little or no recognition of any need for immigrant communities to be or remain different. One consequence was the development of community schools outside the formal educational service. Three types of language-maintenance schools were identified as operating in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s (Saifullah Khan, 1983), some with and some without financial support from local authorities or the State: qualified teachers teaching in schools run by parents, often in association with a religious association (e.g. Jewish schools and schools based around a mosque); schools organised and run by the government 'of origin' (e.g. Italian schools, the Lycee Frangais de Londres); and finally, local classes outside the schools, with teaching given by voluntary, usually untrained teachers. The Bullock Report of 1975 (Bullock, 1975), concerned with the teaching of English, had included a chapter on the difficulties 'children from families of overseas origin' faced with English, and had recommended that 'bilingual pupils should be encouraged to maintain their mother-tongues throughout their schooling' (293-4). It gave no advice on how this was to be done; but the Bullock report is generally taken to be the inspiration for 'multicultural' education based on cultural pluralism. 'Multicultural' policies soon came to be associated with 'anti-racist' policies aimed at eliminating inequality including gender and social inequality as well as that based on skin colour. It was this development in particular that was to provoke politicisation of the situation. A 1977 directive of the European Community, applicable to the children of migrant workers, required national educational systems to 'promote' what was called mother-tongue teaching, but to do so within national systems and in accordance with national circumstances. One of the purposes of the directive - which reveals its origin in the French perception of immigration is the desire to facilitate 'possible reintegration into the Member State of origin', the assumption being that the directive applied to migrant workers from within the EC. The directive was interpreted within the UK to mean that the teaching of immigrant languages was not compulsory, but that Home Office funds deriving from the Local Government Act of 1966 could be used to finance both this and English-language support. The Swann Report of 1985 (Swann, 1985) was the first attempt to respond systematically to the educational consequences of mass immigration (an interim report from the same group (Rampton, 1981) had not found ministerial favour, partly because it condemned British education as

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L A N G U A G E POLICY IN B R I T A I N AND F R A N C E

fundamentally racist). Some minor experiments with bilingual education had taken place, with a larger-scale one in the Inner London Education Authority (Robinson, 1985). Swann's main proposals were for the development of a 'pluralist' (i.e. not an assimilationist nor a separatist) society, openly advocating multiracial and multicultural education for all, rather than just for students from ethnic minority backgrounds. Nonetheless, the report did not support mainstreaming community languages nor bilingual education, and stated that If a language is truly the mother tongue of a community and is the language needed for parent/child interaction . . . for access to the religious and cultural heritage of the community, then we believe it will survive and flourish regardless of the provision made for i t . . . within mainstream schools .. . Mainstream schools should not seek to assume the role of community providers for maintaining ethnic minority community languages. (Swann, 1985,408, 771)

Local authority practice in the schools, responding to parental and community pressure, was in fact to offer 'immigrant languages' in both primary and secondary schools in mainstream school time, in many cases instead of the traditional foreign languages, in other cases as additional subjects, in yet others within option schemes and 'blocked' against a range of subjects from chemistry to geography. But local authority educational practice was the subject of political controversy throughout the 1980s, as the Conservative government moved towards centralising education, and the issue of multicultural and anti-racist education became a central area of dispute in the preparation of the 1988 Education Reform Act. Mrs Thatcher questioned, at the 1987 Conservative Party Conference, why 'children who need to count and multiply are learning anti-racist mathematics - whatever that may be'; Roger Scruton (1986, 134) condemned a 'multi-cultural curriculum' because it would 'fail to transmit either the common culture of Britain or the high culture that has grown from it'. The National Curriculum Working Party for English (Cox, 1989) included mention of 'language awareness' as a component within the English curriculum (as indeed had the Kingman Report) - a rather strange place to find such an acknowledgement of the multilingual classroom. The LINC materials (LINC, 1991, 300) - rejected by the Government for official use in the schools, but made available anyway - contain a component concerned with this topic, which is introduced as follows: The first purpose of this unit is to propose the idea that multilingualism is a normal and permanent feature of the lives of some of the pupils in British schools . . . . The second purpose of the unit is to suggest that all pupils and teachers in all schools, multilingual and monolingual, will benefit from greater knowledge about multilingualism .. . This unit. .. poses the question: what can schools be doing to see both that they foster the competence of those pupils who are actually or potentially multilingual, and also that they advance the understanding of all pupils of multilingualism in our society?

The complete absence of a coherent national policy on language maintenance


93

- and indeed on multilingualism - could hardly be more clearly stated. But the advice from the working parties was confused and sometimes contradictory: the interim report of the Harris working party preparing modern foreign languages (NCMFLIA, 1990), suggests views on language which conflict with those of the Cox report on English (Cox, 1989) - in the latter, work on language awareness stresses variation and the existence of different languages and dialects, while in the Harris report the existence of regional forms of French, and of minority languages, is ignored. Some people point out the strange situation which arises from the fact that Welsh and Scottish Gaelic are available in Wales and Scotland only, and that English pupils cannot insist on studying either as foreign languages within the National Curriculum. In the 1990s, three themes seem to have emerged in the discussion of language rights: the question of multiculturalism and anti-racism; the recognition of other cultures across the National Curriculum; and specific provision, either for language maintenance or for English as a second language. Multiculturalism and anti-racism Once the curriculum had been established, the National Curriculum Council examined cross-curricular themes and issues. The theme of multiculturalism formed part of National Curriculum Council documentation from 1989, and, 'interwoven through many official documents', developed the following ideas: intercultural understanding and harmony; global awareness and knowledge; equality of opportunity and access for all; freedom from racism and discrimination. (King and Reiss, 1993, 10)

A working group on multiculturalism and anti-racism, set up in 1990, did not publish a final report, and one of its members (Tomlinson, 1993) speculates that this was because of political interference: it appeared that three groups had influence - executive officers at the National Curriculum Council, officials at the Department of Education and Science, and politicians. . . The Task Group heard rumours that some NCC officials and some Council members opposed publication, as did a high-placed official at the DBS .. . a junior Education Minister with noted traditional views.. .

Tomlinson went farther in identifying political opposition to multiculturalism generally: A major source of organised opposition came from the New Right groups such as the Centre for Policy Studies, the Hillgate Group and the Salisbury Group . .. Although opposition was claimed to be educational, it was in the main

94


political. . . Multicultural education was accused of being associated with, at best, left-of-centre egalitarianism, and at worst, with hard-left political subversion .. . Opposition to multicultural and anti-racist curriculum development thus became, during the 1980s, a right-wing political tool for encouraging a populist belief that such development threatens the nation's heritage and culture and erodes educational standards.

Anna King agrees: the present Conservative government regards anti-racist interventionism with actual hostility and multicultural education itself with a good deal of suspicion. The area is therefore one of great political and ideological sensitivity. (King and Reiss, 1993, 13)

Other cultures in the National Curriculum Many of the responses to National Curriculum consultations over the years since 1990 indicate continuing concerns about immigrant and community languages and cultures, extending to a feeling that students from these other cultures and backgrounds, tackling questions presented from a background of British/English cultural predispositions, were in effect faced by institutional racism. Such charges often led merely to a dialogue of the deaf. Specific elements showing an awareness of other cultures in the National Curriculum for English were and are, however, rare, a point that was noted in the 1994 consultation ('reading lists under-represented literature from other cultures' (RNC, 1994, 15)). In 1990, for example, the Programme of Study for Reading required that at Key Stage 2: '[The reading materials] should include works written in English from other cultures', and at Key Stage 3/4, 'include literature from different countries written in English'. By 1994, this had become, for Key Stage 2 'The literature read should cover the following categories . . . texts drawn from a variety of cultures and traditions', and, for Key Stage 3/4, 'Pupils should read texts from other cultures that represent their distinctive voices and forms, and offer varied perspectives and subject matter' (NCO, 1994, 19). In other subjects, too, multicultural approaches have generally been avoided, despite comments made during the 1994 consultation process. There is a mention of the relativity of scientific ideas in the science curriculum ('consider ways in which scientific ideas may be affected by the social and historical contexts in which they develop, and how these contexts may affect whether or not the ideas are accepted' (NCO, 1994, 38)). The history curriculum at Key Stage 1 is, at the specific request of the Secretary of State, centred on Britain and British history, although the 1994 revisions allowed for study of 'aspects of the past through stories from different periods and cultures'. The consultation for history had 'felt strongly that there should be opportunities to teach about events and personalities drawn from other cultures and parts of the world' (RNC, 1994, 31), and teachers had expressed a 'feeling that Europe, the world and non-European cultures had been marginalised by being excluded from core units'. One of the six study units is 'a past non-European society' to be chosen from Ancient


95

Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, the Maya, Benin or the Aztecs at Key Stage 2, although free choice is given for a society from Asia, Africa, America or Australasia in Key Stage 3. History is no longer compulsory at Key Stage 4. In some other subjects such as music and art, the consultation had noted the desire to include material or approaches from other cultures: in music, for example, 'some wished to ensure that a "variety of cultures" was perceived as being cultures from across the world' (RNC, 1994, 43). In both subjects, the revised 1994 curriculum requires selection from a 'variety of cultures, both Western and non-Western'. Language maintenance and English-language support If the National Curriculum provides nothing specific on multiculturalism, how does it tackle the questions of English as a second language, and the maintenance of specific community languages? English-language support, intended for newly arrived immigrants, had been provided in fairly ad hoc fashion in schools and in the community generally (Edwards, V., 1984, 51; Ellis, 1985). Many local authority technical colleges and further education colleges, as well as schools, found themselves providing 'E2L' or 'ESL' classes as a response to need. In schools, these were often on a 'withdrawal' basis (children withdrawn from ordinary classes: the Swann Report quoted a DES report estimating the proportion as 70 per cent), and often through separate 'language centres' or services. Swann recommended against these, proposing instead (as had Bullock) mainstream language provision throughout the curriculum, and across all subjects. Government, through the Ministry of Education, had made recommendations on English-language support from 1963 (Pamphlet 43), on the basis of initial and temporary help as an aid to integration. In 1971 (DES Survey 13, 9) the Department of Education and Science noted that 'the most urgent challenge facing the schools concerned is that of teaching English to immigrant children', but expected that language difficulties would continue: 'many children may require occasional special help throughout their school lives'. The main source of funds, whether for language-maintenance programmes or for ESL programmes, was Section 11 of the Local Government Act of 1966, which allowed local authorities 'with substantial numbers of immigrants from the Commonwealth whose language or customs differ from those of the community' to claim 50 per cent - later 75 per cent of expenditure incurred in the employment of extra staff to meet their specific needs (Edwards, V., 1984, 57). By 1990, the Home Office had clearly specified that such funds were to be used to support English-language teaching for under-fives ('to gain the language competence and learning skills necessary for the early years of primary education'), school-age children and parents ('strengthen ties between schools and the parents of ethnic minority children') (quoted in Blair and Arnot, 1993, 265). Use of these funds continued until the passage of a new Local Government Act in 1992, which intended to replace them by a Single Regeneration Budget aimed at providing resources for all types of disadvantage, and which was anticipated to have the effect of reducing expenditure by about 25 per cent

96


overall. In fact, after pressure from associations of teachers and others, the 'Government unexpectedly acknowledged the strength of an all-party campaign by doubling the amount of money available for ethnic minority projects - especially help with English in schools' (Guardian, 23 November 1994). Teachers themselves suffered from the lack of a national policy and from the politicisation of the question, together with uncertainty about their role. The Bullock report of 1975 had recommended provision of English-language support with the new orientation - multiculturalism - rather than the assimilation-oriented provision which had been prevalent. The 1985 Swann report reiterated this, and the uncertainty among practitioners whether the teaching of ESL had in fact helped young people to integrate to British society, aided their social and economic progress, or confirmed institutional racism against them, led many to feel that bilingual education would be preferable, or that 'mainstreaming' English would be more effective. This view is indeed that of the Commission for Racial Equality, which argued in a study of one local education authority that 'separate educational provision for children who are learning English as a second language discriminates against their access to a proper educational curriculum' (CRE, 1987). Some commentators felt that specific provision for ESL is and should be temporary, while others considered that with family reunion and the continuation of traditional marriage practices, many five-year-olds would continue to arrive in school without English. Indeed, recent research (Wright, 1992) has identified the case of the 'returning immigrant' (children who, once their citizenship and nationality is secured, return 'home' for long periods, up to six months or more, to ensure cultural maintenance) as a secondary language problem which will continue to pose ESL difficulties. The 1990 English order had made no mention of pupils for whom English was not a first language, except in regard to the curriculum in Wales. In 1991, the National Curriculum Council noted that Bilingualism is not, in itself, sufficient reason for disapplication of the National Curriculum. Although bilingual pupils often require language support, they are no more likely to have special educational needs than any other pupils . . . In meeting the needs of bilingual pupils schools need to consider: how to ensure full access to the National Curriculum and assessment for all pupils; the value placed on languages other than English spoken by pupils and used in the classroom. (NCC, 1991)

The NCC did recognise the value of bilingual language support staff, and saw these as working in the classroom rather than in withdrawal classes. The role of such staff should be clearly defined; they could themselves be teachers of English as a second language, qualified teachers who happen to be bilingual or assistants and instructors who are bilingual or indeed monolingual. In 1994 (RNC, 1994, 16), in response to 'some individual respondents, and a sizeable number of local education authorities and other educational organisations', the General Requirements section of the order was redrafted 'to recognise the significance and use of pupils' knowledge of other languages when learning English'. The addition reads: 'Where appropriate,


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pupils should be encouraged to make use of their understanding and skills in other languages when learning English.' Language maintenance within schools is another question. A section within the Initial Advice on Modern Foreign Languages (NCMFLIA, 1990) covers 'bilingual pupils'. It noted that the following languages had at least a thousand pupils each in UK schools: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, Greek, Gujerati, Hebrew, Hindi, Ibo, Italian, Panjabi, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, Turkish, Twi, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh and Yoruba.

Policy on foreign languages - particularly on which language to learn - 'has been framed with . . . national needs in mind (i.e. "for more people with the ability to use and understand foreign languages effectively") as well as the expressed concerns and educational priorities of the linguistic minority communities' (NCMFLIA, 1990, 155). The principles adopted by the group in reviewing this matter included increased choice, the opportunity to study a home language as a foundation foreign language, the opportunity to study a modern language other than the home language, and for bilingual pupils 'ideally to study both'. The selection of languages to be chosen by pupils as the National Curriculum language had been arranged in Part 3 of the 1989 Order (57, 1989), in two schedules: the eight working languages of the European Community plus a further eleven languages. This arrangement had provoked immediate and numerous representations and hostility, on the argument that it thereby suggested a hierarchy of languages: 'it is clear that many hold strong views about the existing format of the order, and, to a lesser extent, the policy which underlies it' (NCMFLIA, 1990, 155). The Government's policy as the working group understood it, was the 'wish to ensure that every pupil had the opportunity to choose to study a working language of the EC, while at the same time allowing schools to offer, if they wished, other languages of commercial and cultural importance'. While proposing no change to the 19 languages ('there are no modern foreign languages that should be added or deleted'), the working group suggested that the languages should be arranged in one list, but that 'each pupil must be offered the opportunity of choosing to study a working language of the EC to meet the National Curriculum foreign language requirements'. Thus if a school offered only one language, that would have to be an EC working language; if it offered more than one, pupils 'could choose a non-EC language as their foreign language foundation subject within the National Curriculum'. This solution appeared to satisfy those who had protested about the first schedule, and the 19 languages therefore became, in 1994: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin), Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek (Modern), Gujerati, Hebrew (Modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Panjabi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu.

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How far the 'community languages' among these are taken up in schools is unclear, although only Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Hebrew and Hindi were mentioned as not taught by any of the 199 schools surveyed in 1992-93 for their views on the National Curriculum (Mellor and Trafford, 1994). Section 16 of the 1988 Education Reform Act allowed individual schools or indeed a whole local education authority to request a dispensation from the provisions of the National Curriculum, in order for example to pursue a policy of diversification of the first foreign language from the overwhelming predominance of French. Section 17 allowed individuals to switch languages between Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. No Section 16 requests had been approved by 1995, while pupils will not enter teaching for Key Stage 4 until 1997 at the earliest. The actual provision of individual languages in schools can only realistically be measured by entries to GCSE, normally taken at age 16, and which will eventually be the assessment for Key Stage 4. The full table of entries for all 19 National Curriculum languages between 1988 and 1993 shows increases for all languages of some 28 per cent over that period: French entries increased by 18.7 per cent, German by 40.8 per cent. The South-east Asian languages (Bengali, Hindi, Gujerati, Panjabi and Urdu) collectively increased by 99 per cent, Arabic by 236 per cent, Chinese by 150 per cent. At the very least then it would seem that provision for community languages is being taken up within the schools. Indeed, in the 1994 GCSE entries, Urdu, at 6,301, had more entries than Italian at 5,709, and was the fourth most popular foreign language. Comparison One can identify three inputs to the policy process concerning language rights for immigrants in France. The reason for at first limiting policy to the LCO programme was the understanding that incoming immigrants would return to their 'own' countries, and that their employment in France was temporary. Language policy would be limited to whatever the sending countries required, and the French State would not even bother to provide resources. The largest group now visible within French society are the Maghrebins from North Africa. Much popular and political debate concerns the cultural distance between European and such non-European civilisation, and the general conclusion appears to be that Maghrebins are generally unassimilable: their customs, habits and traditions are such that they find it difficult to accept French norms of behaviour and to assimilate to them. In this way, distance is reinforced: the problem is theirs, not that of French society. It is they who have difficulty in assimilating to a predetermined notion of Frenchness, not French society which has a problem of changing to accommodate a new reality. Yet in response to this, the second input to policy in France was to apply the same policy as that which had been so successful in creating the unitary French State from a multiplicity of regional identities. The French policy of assimilation represented no change therefore from what had been provided for regional languages since the Revolution: for those


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immigrants who wished to stay, the creation of one country, one nationality, one language through the lay, uniform educational system is the very basis of the ideology of 'indifference' towards individuals which is still proudly presented as the guarantee for individuals to achieve their own potential (Varro, 1992, 148). The lack of any policies for language maintenance can hence be traced back to underlying concepts of citizenship and nationality. The nation in the French conception is a contractual association of free individuals living within the territory, whose aim is to support the State and become integral parts of the nation, rather than a grouping of people with a common origin. The application of nationality principles based on presence - territoriality or jus soli - rather than based on birth - personality or jus sanguinis - means for example that French nationality was automatically acquired by those born on French soil once they reached the age of majority, or at birth if one of their parents was already French (Safran, 1989; Silverman, 1992). Nationality implied citizenship: if one was a French national, one automatically had rights and duties as a member of civil society: the 'Rights of Man' of 1789 were, and still are, the 'Rights of Man and Citizen' (Droits de I'Homme et du Citoyen). 'Citizens' are therefore French nationals. Nationals of other states are not citoyens, and were generally governed by administrative, not legal, codes until 1980 (Silverman, 1992,130). French law applies to citizens and is concerned with the construction and management of the body politic, while administrative orders - or indeed the practice of local police or housing officials - applies to non-citizens and is not concerned with guarantees or rights, but with the management of a problem. This underlying formulation of immigrants as non-citizens and as a 'problem' in France is of central importance to an understanding of policies for language maintenance and indeed of policies towards foreign languages in contemporary France: it forms the third input to the policy process. During the early 1990s, in view of the longer stay of immigrants, there was a degree of policy change towards an intercultural approach, in which 'knowledge of and respect for French cultural values, as well as knowledge and respect for foreign cultures by French youth' are the guiding principles. Intercultural education is intended to 'ensure knowledge of foreign cultural values, examine other civilisations, make use of the notion of cultural support and help children think about phenomena which might cause problems' (IGEN, 1991). One specific example of this interculturalism was the recognition that the languages of some major communities in France might now be taught and examined because the immigrant communities were well established. Additionally, the 1994 report by the Economic and Social Council made it clear that although 'integration' as defined by the High Council on Integration, was the policy line to follow, this meant 'respect of the other founded on tolerance, taking into account the differences - and particularly the difficulties which may derive from them - but above all seeking equality of rights for the better progress of all' (Boquet, 1994, 75). But still, French political thinking rejects multiculturalism and the acceptance of separateness, particularly of 'communities' and their rights as communities, which is roundly condemned as the 'Anglo-Saxon' approach.

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Inputs to the policy process in Britain must include the politicisation of the whole area of multiculturalism and anti-racism, which grew in strength throughout the 1980s and seems to contrast strongly with what happened in education in France at that time. The topic was one of the main areas for the development of thinking in the New Right, which clearly had the ear of government in the development of the 1988 Education Reform Act and throughout the period of the development of specific curricula until 1993 - it was perhaps the appointment of Sir Ron Dearing to head the new School Curriculum and Assessment Authority which indicated the end of this period. Language policy was swept into this arena of rhetorical violence, and it became practically impossible for schools to support languages other than those specifically listed in the National Curriculum, to support bilingual education, or to 'mainstream' linguistic or cultural education other than that specified in the curriculum orders. Language policy for minorities, and any recognition of language rights, remains an area of political controversy. By contrast to France, too, regional languages had never been specifically targeted in the process of national development: in the main, they had simply been ignored. The recognition of Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Scots in the 1990s is a very new phenomenon, and educational policy in regard to these languages has not appeared to affect policy for Turkish, Chinese or Panjabi in England. The provocation for policy action concerning immigrants and their linguistic situation, on the face of it, is nonetheless the same in France and Britain: the arrival of economic refugees over the period to 1974, and the social consequences arising from their non-return to their countries of origin and their less-than-complete assimilation into the host country. Policy responses themselves have a number of similarities: there is some provision for second-language teaching - by withdrawal in France, by language support in the classroom in Britain; there is some language maintenance and hence recognition of language rights - by the LCO programme in France, by the inclusion of community languages as foreign languages within the normal foreign language policy in Britain; and there is some attempt at valuing language diversity as a social resource, although this is mainly left to individual schools in both countries. But attitudes towards nationality and citizenship are fundamentally different; the incoming groups - North African in France, and South-east Asian in Britain - do not present the same range of problems; the differences of the education systems - despite the move of the British towards the centrally controlled and managed French model - are still great; and social cohesion is a more persuasive aim for France than it is for Britain. Particularly, the major contrast is the extreme degree of politicisation at government level in Britain, while Front National rhetoric in France has not generally found echoes in government. It is the differences between environmental features which have had most effect on the different policies towards immigrant groups and the teaching of their languages. Overall, this chapter has enabled us to identify a number of contrasts and similarities between the two countries at the input stage of policy-making. In both, the political agenda - the ideology of the party or parties in power - is


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of great importance: more so in Britain perhaps, although this may be due in part to the length of time during which the Conservative Party has held sway. Pressure for resources has been significant in France in the literacy campaign. In both countries, the international environment - the United States, Australia and New Zealand for Britain, the European Parliament more for France than for Britain - has been important. The influence of pressure groups has been noticeable in France, while in Britain it seems to have been the pressure groups within a political party which have had most influence. Civil servants, or the workings of the autonomous state, have had little influence in either, although the professionals in Britain - the educationists associated with multiculturalism - have had perhaps more influence than in France. Perhaps the most significant difference between the two has been in the influence of the established concept of the state and of nationality in France and its effect on questions of language rights.

6

The policy process: networks

POLICY NETWORKS As we have suggested above in discussing the process model as proposed within policy studies, the concept of a single benign policy authority making rational choices among actions needs to be approached with caution, and the 'three-dimensional' view that individuals/groups, social forces and the autonomous State all participate in developing suitable policy outcomes might be more appropriate. It is our aim in this chapter and the next one to see what characterises these three participants in the two countries. 'Policy network analysis has become the dominant paradigm for the study of the policy-making process in British political science' (Dowding, 1995, 136). Dowding regards the approach as a useful descriptive metaphor, representing the interplay of participants such as politicians, civil servants employed in policy-making, other bureaucrats closely involved with the subject area, and, in a pluralist perspective, a range of interest and pressure groups together - although this is rare - with those affected by policy outputs and outcomes. The range of networks extends from a 'policy community' at one end to an 'issue network' at the other, differentiated according to a number of dimensions such as the nature of the membership, the degree of integration between members, and the resources they have available. The policy community, at one end of the spectrum, is tightly knit, fairly stable and exclusive, and tends to arrive at expected or predictable answers; by contrast, an issue network is fairly loose, constantly changing as new actors enter and old ones leave, and much more liable to disagreement over both what the policy is about and what can be done.

THE POLICY PROCESS: NETWORKS Dimension Number of participants Type of interest

Policy community Membership Very limited number; some groups consciously excluded Economic and/or professional interests dominate

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Issue network Large

Encompasses range of affected interests

Integration Frequency of interaction

Continuity

Consensus

Frequent, high-quality, interaction of all groups on all matters related to policy issues Membership, values and outcomes persistent over time All participants share basic values and accept the legitimacy of the outcome

Contacts fluctuate in frequency and intensity Access fluctuates significantly Some agreement exists, but conflict is ever-present

Resources Distribution of resources (in network) Internal distribution Power

All participants have resources; basic relationship is an exchange relationship Hierarchical; leaders can deliver members There is a balance of power among members. Although one group may dominate, it must be a positive-sum game if community is to persist.

Some participants may have resources, but they are limited; basic relationship consultative Varied, variable distribution and capacity to regulate members Unequal powers, reflecting unequal resources and unequal access - zero-sum game,

(Marsh and Rhodes, 1992, 251) We shall limit ourselves in this and the next chapter to discussing how three types of participant - the two civil services, government-appointed advisory organisations, and pressure groups - played their role in language policy networks in Britain and France. The policy questions involved are an aspect of acquisition policy: the teaching of the relevant language abroad in its relationship to international relations; an aspect of corpus policy: reforms of the spelling systems; and an aspect of status policy: use of the standard language.

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THE CIVIL SERVICE A detailed presentation and analysis of the workings of the French or British system of government is impossible here. But it is equally impossible to examine specific cases of language policy without an understanding of the background against which civil servants become involved in networks and how they relate to pressure groups. The traditions are different in each country, but it is often surprising to see how developments during the 1980s in particular have moved in similar directions. Major influences here have been the development of a supra-national Europe in the European Union and greater awareness of the nature and effectiveness of American systems of government. Indeed, much of the rhetoric of government in both countries now derives from American systems (themselves often derived from the manner of government of large corporations), and particularly from the market-oriented reforms of the 1980s with their assumptions of competitivity, client- and consumer-oriented processes, quality-based planning and evaluation. In Britain, it is even said that the Thatcher innovations parallel and sometimes move beyond the American systems (Butler, 1994). France The contemporary French civil service, and the administration of the State, are the legacy of the Napoleonic reforms of 1805-15 which established the basic structures; the nineteenth century which formed the basis for the capitalist expansion of the economy in France and overseas, characterised by efficiency; and the major twentieth-century developments due to Gaullism and the two crises of 1958 and 1968, followed more recently by the impact of the long period of Mitterrand's presidency. The main features are the strength of traditional structures and the stability of the overall system. Five other aspects of the French system have direct consequences for policy-making (Rigaud and Delcros, 1984; Rosenvallon, 1990; Rouban, 1990): the extended involvement by the State in many aspects of social and economic life, the existence and nature of the major civil service divisions the Grands Corps, the indicative five-year Plans, the balance between prospective policy-making and the management of existing policies, and the policy-making groups surrounding ministers - the Cabinets Ministeriels. The State is more pervasive throughout social and economic life in France than in many other countries. This particularly affects the administration of public services such as the education system - all teachers are civil servants employed on a national level - and the Post Office, but also the nationalised industries, many of which have long been in public ownership, such as the tobacco monopoly, some major banks, Air France, and Renault, although these are gradually being privatised. Many of these are organised and managed on bureaucratic lines, and the blocking-power of their staff was demonstrated in 1993 when the Balladur government unsuccessfully attempted to restructure Air France, although the change in staff attitude by April 1994 enabled major changes, including staff reductions, to go ahead.

THE POLICY PROCESS: NETWORKS

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The privatisation proposals were still comparatively modest in 1994, but the nature of the proposals, and their possible impact on many aspects of French life, became clearer towards the end of 1995 when protest strikes in the transport system indicated the difficulty President Chirac and Prime Minister Juppe would have in implementing their general policy towards the state sector. The structure of public administration (lafonction publique} and the role of the Grands Corps is another traditionally French characteristic. The three Grands Corps - the Conseil d'Etat (the supreme administrative court) the Cour des Comptes (controlling and checking public accounts and those of accountants in both public and private business) and the Finance Inspectorate (investigating the use of public money) - function in statutory independence 'above' the executive government: each is staffed by career civil servants who, at the top level, are the best graduates of the prestigious Ecole Nationale dAdministration (ENA} - and who may therefore join one of the Corps as young as age 22, although this is rare - and whose legal or quasi-legal status means they cannot be dismissed and gives them considerable power. The staff of these three institutions are often deployed en mission in a range of duties: managing a nationalised industry, investigating major scandals, acting as special advisors in ministerial offices. Their prestige is high; many of them have played major roles in public and political life, including, as Jacques Chirac has done, that of President and leader of a political party. Although they may not formally be members of these three institutions, many other civil servants share similar 'myths' and attitudes. This is particularly so among the Prefets (representatives of th Departments) and in the diplomatic corps, but is also the case among engineers trained at Polytechnique, and teachers who have obtained the agregation, which gives them not merely employment for life but also the feeling that they have achieved the summit of intellectual ability. In fact the Societe des Agreges often feels that it alone has the authority to comment on educational matters. The corporatism of the elite civil servants, wherever its members may be deployed, is a widely recognised feature of public life. One consequence of the prestige of the Grands Corps and the undoubted excellence of their members is that many of them move easily from government to the private sector - and back. There are a number of consequences: the government retains 'friends' inside private industry and certainly enjoys a network of communication and information; high-flying entrepreneurs are not subject to the uncertainties of private-sector employment, since even if they make major errors they can always return to their Grand Corps; and, significantly, government is not seen as the enemy of private enterprise - and private enterprise is seen as part of the national effort. On the other hand, the senior civil servants who are members of the Grands Corps have a degree of personal freedom, particularly in expressing political views, which marks a strong contrast with the British civil service. One example of this is the extent to which such civil servants are ready to participate in political 'think-tanks' and even pressure groups. Another factor of difference between France and most other Western countries, in particular Britain, is the influence of the indicative five-year

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plan, tending to push policy-makers away from regulatory attitudes and towards prospective policy-making. Every few years in the working groups and committees preparing the ground for the new plan, existing practice and the present state of France is examined in greater or lesser detail. The civil service is necessarily involved in all aspects of these preparatory studies, which, although they may not lead directly to policy changes, at least ensure that views and proposals are brought into the open and that there is wide consultation on the background to policy change. The impact of membership of the European Union has been slow to change these habits and this style. Nonetheless, European membership is a significant factor in at least four ways (Lequesne, 1993). Thus senior civil servants are generally in favour of European integration, for a number of reasons including their desire to counter French decline and their interest in internationalising their contacts, whether with other functionaries or with interest groups, and on a European basis. The traditional centralisation and uniformity of French policy is breaking down through the necessity for such wide-ranging contacts in a range of policy areas. Thirdly, relationships between the civil service and interest and pressure groups are generating more structured and less informal policy networks, particularly in economic policy, while finally the nature of European decision-making is essentially administrative and executive, giving higher priority and power to functionaries and less to politicians and parliaments. French policy-makers among the senior civil servants, for many commentators, are often inclined to devote too much attention to the future, to prospective policy-making, and correspondingly not to involve themselves too much in policy implementation or evaluation (Rouban, 1990, 527). Indeed, much of the implementation side of policy descends to bricolage plus ou mains ludique (haphazard making-do), since it presents little intellectual challenge. Ministries are organised and reorganised as each new government takes office, according to its policies and its view as to the relative importance of one area as opposed to another. Portfolios of education, culture, youth and Francophonie have thus been redistributed between different ministries in recent years: in 1993, education again became Education Nationale, Francophonie and language policy both joined Culture to become a separate ministry, only to separate again in 1995, with language staying with Culture and Francophonie joining the Foreign Office. But as each new government takes office, the ministerial advisors also change: there was a series of major moves in 1981, 1986 and 1993 as incoming governments felt that the senior ministerial staff - usually on secondment from one of the Grands Corps - had become too closely attached to their predecessor's policies. This politicisation of the civil service - or the feeling by politicians in opposition that the service has become politicised - is not unique to France, and is indeed the norm in the United States, where the first duty of an incoming president is to replace many functionaries; but the similarity between France and Great Britain is obscured by the fact that the same political party has been in power since 1979 in Britain, whereas in France, although President Mitterrand was in power from 1981 to 1995, prime ministers of a different persuasion were in


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office from 1986 to 1988 and again from 1993. French in international organisations The Alliance Franâise, founded in 1898, has language teaching as its sole purpose, and each individual Alliance in different countries abroad is set up in conjunction with local interests. Cultural diplomacy as such is a major section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Direction Generate des Relations Culturelles, Scientifiques et Techniques - DGRCST), whose mission is to 'implement France's cultural action abroad on three axes: scientific and technical co-operation, cultural and linguistic co-operation, audio-visual action abroad'; the same cultural actions are undertaken by the Ministry of Cooperation for Francophone countries south of the Sahara, in the Indian Ocean, the West Indies and for Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa (Ministry of Culture and Francophonie brochure, June 1994). Cultural policy abroad is more and more developed in consultation with other Francophone countries meeting biannually in summits - in Mauritius in 1993, in Benin in 1995. Supporting the summits is a Permanent Conference of Heads of State, ministerial meetings in specific areas, and the international Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique (ACCT) which is the mai agency for implementing policies and programmes decided at the summit meetings. In the mid-1990s, Francophone cultural policy is concerned with two main problems: the poor showing of French culture internationally and the crucial need to improve this, and the threat to French culture and indeed the French language from American cultural industries, particularly in television and film (Ager, 1996). This latter problem became of crucial importance as the 'cultural exception' to the GATT negotiations of 1993, and as a main topic of concern for the French Presidency of the European Union in January-June 1995. The maintenance of French influence abroad is more directly managed by and through the state bureaucracy in questions of the use of French as a language of international communication in international organisations such as the United Nations or the European Union institutions. The purpose of the policy is in general to prevent English alone being used as working language, a solution most organisations would dearly like to see implemented if only as a way of cutting translation and printing budgets, and the main difficulty faced by French policy-makers in Paris is to convince not merely foreigners but also their own bureaucrats - French or French-speaking — of the value of multilingualism and specifically of the value of French. The Haut Conseil de la Francophonie characterised this language problem (Etat, 1991, 243-70; 1993, 53) in two ways: as part of a worldwide 'plot' against French (and in favour of American), and as part of the overall problem of the comparative lack of international power exercised by the Francophone countries. It was seen from the start as being a problem for bureaucrats and diplomats, and the solution lay in convincing these public servants rather than ordering them to be obstructive. Evidence for the existence of an anti-French 'plot' is derived from such events as the attempts, ranging back to Louisiana's Education Act of 1880, to

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eliminate French from use in the schools and in society generally; the narrowness of the 1946 United Nations vote which preserved French as bot rkin g and official language - Haiti's vote was needed to ensure t happened; the lack of publication in French in the United Nations generally; the apparent desire on the part of many Canadians, and certainly many Americans, to see Quebec abandon its Francophone policy in favour of meekly adopting English; the British Council policy of actively encouraging the spread of English language teaching abroad; the 'neo-colonialist' foreign policy of the United States, their role as world policeman - in the Gulf, in Africa - and their economic, political and military power. In two detailed surveys of how French is treated in a number of international organisations (Etat, 1991, 243-70 andDGLF, 1994, 82-121), it was noted that French was in many cases an official language, and that in debates, French was actually used proportionally more than its worldwide population statistics would justify: 70 speakers in English, 30 in French in the General Assembly; 55 per cent of speakers in UNESCO, 50 per cent in the European Community. But many bilingual countries such as Canada preferred to use English, and although formal delegates' speeches might be given in French, neither the records nor the reports appeared in French until considerably after the English version was available. Although in the European Community 50 per cent of documents had been originally drafted in French, this was by no means the case in most organisations. The problem was thus identified as differing from one international organisation to another, with French retaining most influence in the European Community and being least important in working organisations such as the International Maritime Organisation. Specifically, the 'danger' for French derived from its lack of use in informal meetings, in technical and scientific meetings of experts, and from the fact that while still being used by older diplomats, it was used less and less by younger staff, even those from traditionally 'friendly' countries such as Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Spain and Vietnam. As a working language, French was in even greater danger. Most UN internal documents were in English; meeting preparation was done more and more by new communication methods such as fax, e-mail and conferencing, and the role of French in these was minimal; indeed the role of French in computer-based document manipulation including word-processing was very low; libraries and documentation centres typically had available only 25-30 per cent of their stock in French; and recruitment policies, while generally insisting on a knowledge of French, also limited the number of French native speakers to less than 25 per cent. Not merely is this a weakness of the existing situation. Even for the European Community, where the past has favoured the extensive use of French among bureaucrats, and internally 60 per cent of working contacts are in French, reliance of external contacts and expert meetings on French is only 22 per cent (oral contact) or as low as 6.25 per cent for written communication (Calvet, 1993, 190). Younger staff used proportionately less French - 50 per cent of those over 50, but 40 per cent of those aged 35-50, and only 20 per cent of those under 35 - and these proportions are almost


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exactly matched by an increase in the use of English - 10 per cent of those aged over 50, 20 per cent for the age group 35-50, and 40 per cent of the younger group. Journalists need Press briefings; there are 45 French language journalists but 75 for the English-language Press. One report on these matters appeared in the 1991 Etat de la Francophonie, an annual report produced for the Haul Cornell de la Francophonie, often coinciding with the regular meetings of the heads of state and government of French-speaking countries and intended to provoke policy responses. The other report, produced by the Delegation Generate a la Langue Frangaise, is now produced annually as a result of the Toubon law and will keep the matters before the government. The French government's direct policy responses have been muted, partly because of the possibility of retaliatory action. Ministerial instructions to overseas embassies did not require them to use only French; advice was provided to civil servants working in international organisations that they should support associations of Francophones within the organisations, but not that they should take strong action; and in the United Nations and its agencies, and in European organisations, the French Government has been careful not to insist too openly on the use of French. It is hence the networking capabilities of French diplomats that have been called upon to ensure that French is brought constantly to mind in the international bureaucracies. In particular, the French Government set up in 1988 a Committee for French in International Organisations, chaired by a former Ambassador and with a 1995 executive committee from France, Quebec, Mali and Romania, whose purpose is to remind diplomats and secretariats of their obligations, to provide supportive equipment such as the CILF bilingual terminology CD, and to report to the Francophonie summits on their actions. Missions took place in 1994 to Geneva and New York (UNO), to Oslo (Winter Olympics), Rome (Food and Agriculture Organisation), Washington (International Monetary Fund and World Bank). The French presidency of the European Union tried a more formal line for external use in early 1995: the proposal was to reduce working languages to five for all European Union organisations. Pointedly, the Swedish prime minister visiting Paris in January 1995 spoke in Swedish; and countries such as the Dutch repeated their formal protests at this French attack on the principle of equality of official languages. Britain The British civil service is in many ways the direct opposite of the French, particularly since the major reforms of the Thatcher era (Drewry and Butcher, 1991; Christoph, 1992; Carter, Klein and Day, 1992; Marion, 1993; Butler, 1994; Keraudren, 1994). Stability and continuity have not been notable characteristics of the 1980s insofar as the functioning of the civil service is concerned, and the influence of this on policy-making is significant. The changes introduced by Mrs Thatcher were based on a series of

1 10


attempted reforms, particularly the Fulton report of 1968, which argued that the size of the government machine, the control of government programmes, and the efficiency of implementation, required delegation; that delegation required accountability; and that accountability required the measurement of performance against objectives. 'Thatcherite' policies in general aimed at a reduction in government and in its part in national life, and an increase in efficiency. This was to be done through 'contracting out' and 'hiving off areas which could be managed as accountable units, and through pressure to achieve 'value for money' through the reduction of inputs, particularly staff costs. As a result the civil service fell from 732,000 in 1979 to 580,000 in 1988, although the majority of the cuts fell on the industrial service, and some areas actually increased in size (Treasury, Employment). The efficiency scrutinies leading to input reductions have been carried out throughout the Service. In 1982 a prime ministerial paper (the 'Financial Management Initiative' (FMI)) was circulated to departments outlining changes in the organisation and style of departments, and this was intended to ensure that 'managers' had: a) a clear view of their objectives and means to assess and, wherever possible, measure outputs or performance in relation to those objectives; b) well-defined responsibility for making the best use of their resources, including a critical scrutiny of output and value for money; c) the information (particularly about costs), the training and the access to expert advice that they need to exercise their responsibilities effectively. (Quoted in Drewry and Butcher, 1991, 205.)

The intention of the FMI was to change Whitehall culture from one in which 'writing a well constructed ministerial brief on a topical subject... has higher value than implementing a new policy or improving the administration of an existing policy', or in which the 'gentlemen' make policy and the 'players' implement it (Drewry and Butcher, 1991, 206). The effect of the FMI has been felt ever since, and it is the basis for a whole range of cultural changes, not merely in the civil service proper, but also in areas related to government service as diverse as the universities, schools, hospitals and local government, where the discourse of vision, mission, objectives, goals, plans, monitoring, review and evaluation can be daily heard, and where measurement, accountability and training are fundamental ideas. External 'auditing' - not solely financial - of activities, units and programmes, on th ode l of the audits carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor-Gener reported to the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons, has also become widespread. Performance Indicators (Pis) measure, in as objective a way as possible, the performance of accountable individuals or units in terms of the output of programmes or policies. Traditionally, control over programmes and policies is exercised by government and ultimately by Parliament through control of inputs: the resources to be allocated to a policy. By contrast, Pis in government, as a development of the 1960s' American Planning,


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Programming and Budgetary systems (PPBS) and the 1970s' Heath Government Programme Analysis and Review (PAR) methods, were intended to assess what had happened to the resources: what (absolute) value had been obtained in the outputs: what (relative) value had been added by the processes which had been followed. Pis are generally applied to the inputs, outputs and, less frequently, outcomes of policies, and measure efficiency, effectiveness and economy. Measurement of the process (of implementation of the policy), in terms of its quality, is also important but less easy to quantify. Ideally, economy assesses the provision of service at the lowest possible cost consistent with a specified quality; efficiency is the ratio of inputs to outputs; effectiveness s compare outputs with (planned) outcomes; quality should be assessed by consumer or client satisfaction. In practice, there is much confusion and debate over whether these definitions are sufficient, whether other 'e' terms should be added such as 'equity', and indeed, over the whole question of the applicability of numerical measures to policies which may have multiple or ambiguous objectives ('uncertainty'), be implemented by a variety of agencies, departments or individuals ('complexity'), and where one policy may be in conflict with others ('heterogeneity') (Carter, Klein and Day, 1992, 32-5). The transformation of the British civil service during the 1980s has led to exponential growth in the use of Pis: from 500 in the 1985 Public Expenditure White Paper to three times that figure in 1987 and to uncountable numbers thereafter. The cultural change from mandarin to manager is generally thought to have been achieved, and to have made a permanent impact, although the impact may have been to create cynics: 'it is difficult to know whether they are measuring ritual or belief: the production of Pis may even be a substitute for performance' (Carter, Klein and Day, 1992, 166). Certainly in some fields the introduction of performance indicators has led to organisations 'performing to indicators': that is, doing only that which is measured by the indicators and neglecting that which is not so measured. This fact can have some unintended - but easily foreseeable consequences in the case of particular policies: one example is that teachers, if their pay or their job depends on demonstrating success in terms of examination results or specified attainment targets, may teach to statements of attainment rather than to broader educational aims. In order to carry out these transformations, a 'Joint Management Unit' was established by the Treasury. The Cabinet Office - whose secretary is the senior civil servant - has also been used, together with the Prime Minister's own staff, to change culture and to monitor the civil service generally. To an extent, this centralisation of control depended on the strong personality of the then Prime Minister. Paradoxically, the centralisation of power has also been accompanied by regional decentralisation, with the Welsh and Scottish Offices taking more direct control, and by the Europeanisation of some decision-making, with constant reference to Brussels for matters where European Union laws and policies affect British interests. 'Contracting out' and 'hiving off have been systematised through the 'Next Steps' programme (Ibbs, 1988), which aims to reduce the civil service

1 12


yet further by 'transferring most of the functions of government that involve delivering services to the public . . . to semi-autonomous agencies' (Drewry and Butcher, 1991, 222). It is expected that about three-quarters of the civil service will be working in agencies by the end of the 1990s, and although questions about ministerial responsibility and accountability to Parliament have been raised, the process was well under way in 1996. Agencies are established through a Framework Agreement which sets out the status, aims and objectives of the agency. This, together with agreed performance targets, enables the decentralisation of service provision but retains government control through the performance statistics; in fact, with massive investments in information technology, government control may be enhanced. William Waldegrave, when he was minister responsible for the civil service, after stressing the shift from concentration on policy inputs to concern with outputs, set out in a political pamphlet (Waldegrave, 1993) five 'key concepts' for the next changes: - the separation of the purchaser of a public service from the provider of that service; - privatisation; - the Next Steps programme; - the extension of competition by market testing; - the introduction of the Citizen's Charter.

Waldegrave foresaw the public service of the future as 'smaller, less centralised and more customer-conscious'. He saw the service as maintaining its ideals: the 'new ethos of public service [is] in reality the old ethos brought up to date, and writ large'. He felt that there were still ideals: 'of using public money, without waste, on behalf of those who need it most (and not in defence of bureaucracy); of accounting, by spreading far and wide detailed information on the quality of what is provided, to citizens who are not just told to take it or leave it; of treating the public as the master, not the subject'. Sir Robin Butler, head of the British civil service, summarised these developments under three headings (Butler, 1994): the organisation of government services, where executive Agencies and the provision of services by the private sector divide policy from implementation; the management of government services, where delegation of responsibility, setting targets and the introduction of internal competition have drastically changed the culture; empowering the recipients of government services, where the Charter system provides means of redress for maladministration.

Sir Robin hinted, but only gently, at the possible dangers of these steps: the need to monitor Agencies and ensure contracts were tightly written; the potential for greater corruption; concentration on the problems which could be solved cheaply. The Opposition parties have made clear their doubts that the traditional neutrality of the civil service is being maintained, and voiced


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this particularly at the time in late 1995 when the privatisation of the recruitment service was brought into effect. A French view of the developments (Keraudren, 1994) was even harsher: behind this deliberate policy aimed at redefining politico-administrative roles, lies a grave crisis of administrative ethos . . . a crisis of the political, professional and social identity of the Civil Servant. Far from politicising Civil Servants, what we are seeing is their depoliticisation. [Since the 'policies of the State are those of the Government in power', they have] lost their ethical reference to the State, and are incapable of claiming any valued professional identity . . . more instrumentality has not necessarily brought greater effectiveness.

It seems in summary that the contrasts between the French and British civil services are at their sharpest in five main areas. Firstly, civil servants have different career expectations - in France, for a life within the service, in Britain, more and more for short-term contractual appointments, even at senior level. The lack, in Britain, of ministerial cabinets with their associated 'spoils system', whereby those leaving the service of a minister gain appointment to good placings elsewhere in the service, or return to a Grand Corps, is a second major contrast. The stress in Britain on a particular discourse of efficiency as laid out in the FMI, and hence a concentration on efficient and measurable inputs and outputs rather than on effective outcomes, contrasts with French approaches, which seem more measured and less sharply focused. Fourthly, British policy as outlined in 'Next Steps', and its potential creation of a very small policy staff and a series of larger management agencies less directly connected to the political process contrasts strongly with the strong networking and broad awareness of the French system. Finally, the rapid, major and apparently permanent change in culture within the British system as opposed to much slower change within the French, is a major factor of difference today. English abroad: the British Council The British Council's role in spreading British culture and language was not really clarified until after the Second World War. A 'British Council for relations with other countries' had been set up in 1934 as a private initiative with a small grant from the Foreign Office, although by 1939 the grant had grown from £6,000 to £386,000, and the development 'is a copybook example of the State taking over responsibility, including financial and ideological control' (Phillipson, 1992, 138). A Royal Charter was granted in 1940, and the aims were at that point: to create in a country overseas a basis of friendly knowledge and understanding of the people of this country, of their philosophy and way of life, which will lead to a sympathetic appreciation of British foreign policy, whatever for the moment that policy may be and from whatever political conviction it may spring.

However in 1954 the Drogheda Report on the Overseas Information Services, followed by an interministerial committee reporting to the Cabinet in 1956,

1 14


both recommended that language teaching should be expanded, mainly through the British Council in the Far East and Asia, and through the Colonial Office (later merged with the Foreign Office) for what was then still colonial Africa. Language teaching was seen at the time as both 'beneficial to overseas trade' and supportive of education: it would have as a consequence the reading of English books, and the study of science and technology; it would ensure links with present and future political and economic leaders. The Drogheda report, and the Cabinet Committee, approved the policy: Cabinet approval.. . and the measures instigated to put its recommendations into effect, ensured financial support for the massive expansion of the English language teaching (ELT) field .. . university departments for teaching and research .. . ELT training in Britain . . . co-ordination with British publishers, support for British books overseas - all these were to be promoted in order to provide professional and logistic backing for the effort to make English a world language, an undisputed 'universal second language'. (Phillipson, 1992, 151)

Phillipson's study concluded that ELT was aimed at economic and political goals, was 'unquestionably neo-colonialist and operates within the framework of imperialism'. In a similar study, Pennycook (1994,151), noting that the British Council was supportive of British cultural and political interests, had as his main concern less the undeniable fact that 'the British Council is not autonomous and neutral but rather to explore the ways in which the Council has been able to make such a claim to neutrality and autonomy'. In 1985 and 1986 the British Council was still declaring itself to be an 'independent body'. But during the 1980s the Council, like most parts of the British civil service and departmental dependent bodies 'repeatedly had to prove that it gives good value for its (public) money' (Phillipson, 1992, 142). Reviews concentrated on efficiency and on instilling competition, and as in other areas of public life, nearly provoked the closure of the body - the Council. Many staff, unable or unwilling to adopt the new public service ethos, left the Council at this time. In 1993, British Council aims had become: to promote a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language and to encourage cultural, scientific, technological and educational co-operation between the United Kingdom and other countries. The Council pursues its purpose through cultural relations and the provision of development assistance. (Annual Report, 1993-94)

It may seem strange that these are stated to be the British Council's aims, rather than those of the British government. But officially the British Council is not an arm of government. The present formal structure, after the Charter of Incorporation and the Supplemental Charter of 1993, is that the British Council is a Non-Departmental Public Body. It is therefore at one remove from the civil service as such: it manages its own budget, and receives government money in two ways: as a direct grant in order to maintain its infrastructure, and as direct payment for 'agency' operations it carries out on


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behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Overseas Development Agency (ODA). Both the FCO and the ODA are obliged to treat the British Council as one competing agency among others for the provision of these services: theoretically at least, it is open to any organisation in Britain or indeed elsewhere to represent the British government's cultural diplomacy, so taken to its logical extreme the Alliance Franqaise might at some future date be contracted to present British authors, the Royal Shakespeare Company or indeed British culture generally to audiences in the Far East. The Council's third source of income is 'revenue': the 'paid educational services' it provides, mainly the direct teaching of English language. The three sources - grants, agency work and revenue - together made up about £400 million in 1993-94, and it is the balance between the three sources which gives an indication of the cultural changes which have taken place within British cultural diplomacy in recent years. The effect of the Thatcher reforms of the 1980s can be seen in two ways: the growth of sponsorship as well as the growth of revenue from paid educational services. Sponsorship ('for a number of projects and events overseas': about half is for arts events) has grown from £2.6 million in 1989/90 to £7.7 million in 1993/4, 'despite fierce competition, underlining the Council's attractiveness to the commercial sector'. Sponsorship in effect means that large firms are associated with the Council, and thus the government, in presenting the best of British work in the arts, literature and culture. The balance of advantage is difficult to calculate: the prestige advertising some companies receive easily outweighs the comparatively small cost of a few air tickets and some hospitality, while in other cases the input from the private sector is sincere, takes place behind the scenes and is greatly advantageous to British cultural diplomacy. The growth of paid educational services, and the importance of 'revenue' by contrast to grants from the FCO and the ODA, and agency work on their behalf, is notable. Where in 1989/90 'revenue' accounted for 17 per cent of the total, by 1993/4 this had grown to 28 per cent (Table 6.1): Table 6.1 British Council income (£ millions) (1989/90 - 1993/94) Year 1989/90 1990/91 1991/92 1992/93 1993/94

Grants 109.7 127.3 120.5 124.5 132.0

Agency 156.5 172.8 170.2 181.3 156.2

Revenue

Total

54.8 62.3 91.4 107.4 114.1

321.0 362.4 382.1 413.2 402.3

Source: British Council Annual Report 1993/4, 7.

The full accounts for 1993-94 showed the following sources of income for the Council in the year to 31 March 1994 (negative amounts shown in brackets):

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Income HMG Grants received Foreign Office Overseas Development Administration Agency operations Foreign Office Receipts Overseas Development Administration Receipts Educational contracts Receipts Other and donations Receipts

£ 000 97,482 34,541

21,927

Balance

776

89,190

Balance

(3,650)

12,619

Balance

4,670

32,409

Balance

1,796

Receipts for services English language and other teaching Other educational services and miscellaneous receipts

56,820 57,271

The accounts show a 'snapshot' of the position in one year, so the apparent profit on Foreign Office and loss on ODA agency work is not a permanent feature. Theoretically, these payments do not make a profit for the Council, but fully cover the Council's costs in carrying out the work. As a public body, the Council cannot make a profit or retain more than 2 per cent of its grants plus 2 per cent of its operating receipts, and its accounts are managed in accordance with Treasury guidelines. The Direct Teaching of English is however now conducted 'completely without cost to the taxpayer' (Annual Report 1993/4, 24). The discourse of the Annual Report, in this section, is of a 'buoyant market', 'focusing on customer satisfaction and rigorous quality standards', 'quality audit', and 'diversification strategies' - in direct imitation of private sector business. However, the British Council is not altogether commercial even in this area: it cannot make a proper profit: the receipts from the Direct Teaching of English can be retained - but only up to a defined maximum of £7 million, and only since 1992. Paid educational services are hence conducted in a semi-commercial fashion, and it is in areas like these that the conflict between the public service aims of supporting British foreign policy can often conflict with the commercial aims of covering costs and making a profit. Since the British Council is not allowed to make a real profit nor amass investment funds, the net result is the worst of both worlds: time and effort must be devoted to securing paid services and sponsorship, the Council must compete with others for agency business from its sponsoring departments in order to comply with the ideology of requiring public services to operate in a market, and costs are managed according to private sector disciplines, while the public service aims - of competing with French and German diplomacy, for example - are in part funded by monies transferred from these private sector activities and the Council is not allowed the benefit of enterprise - in paying its staff more, in providing perks, share options and enhanced pensions, or


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even in keeping the profits it has made. In effect, British cultural diplomacy in Vietnam is funded by the parents of children learning English in British Council schools in Spain. The Council itself is well aware of the dilemma and the effect, both on the British Council and on Britain: The proportion of Britain's aid budget spent through multilateral organisations like the European Union is steadily increasing . .. That trend, combined with the effect of the policies of open competition in the delivery of Britain's aid programme, will inevitably weaken the Council's position in a number of countries where hitherto it has been able to promote Britain, not only in respect of aid delivery but in other areas too. The Council will not fight shy of competition. But the risk of an unplanned loss of British Council strength, and hence British impact, is real. (Chairman's Introduction, British Council Annual report 1993/4)

British government policy on English language teaching abroad was, as Phillipson noted, quite deliberate and well resourced until the 1980s, not solely through the British Council. The Department of Education and Science (DES) recognised language schools in Britain; EFL/ESL examinations and teaching were provided in Britain. A survey in 1989 estimated the global market for EFL/ESL training to be of the order of £6 billion in 1988, with between £510 million and £932 million of this located in Britain, while the turnover of the British EFL industry was £1,025 million (McCallen, 1989, 114-16). The British Council role in this is partly to act as provider of language teaching overseas; partly as a standards and quality organisation - it has taken over the approval of language schools in the UK and administers British examinations overseas; and partly to act as intermediary between government and the private sector - it has characteristics of both. It is as yet unclear how this mixture of cultures - the public and the private; service and profit - can respond to policy requirements. One potential solution is that the policy aims will be located even more firmly in the FCO and the ODA, and perhaps in the Department of National Heritage - the newly formed British Ministry of Culture - leaving the British Council as one among many implementation agencies. The eventual logic is that of complete, rather than partial, privatisation. If that occurs, the British Council, like any other private organisation, will presumably follow its own agenda and not that of the British government, and the final autonomy of the State will have been achieved, even if only in this small area, by its disappearance. This position has not yet been reached, and we turn next to examining how both governments maintain groups of advisors and consultees to assist them.

7

Networks: other participants

GOVERNMENTAL ADVISORY GROUPS Both French and British governments maintain a number of advisory councils, departmental public bodies or similar organisations, whose purpose is to provide them with advice on language matters and who hence participate in the policy network with varying degrees of autonomy. In France, three main - and reasonably permanent - bodies are involved: the Academic Frangaise, (founded in 1635), the Conseil Superieur de la Langue Frangaise (established in 1989) and the Haul Conseil de la Francophonie (established in 1984). In Britain, such groups are more often ad hoc working parties, assembled for specific purposes such as to enquire into English language teaching (the Kingman Committee) or to advise on language standards in industry (the Languages Lead Body). Apart from the British Council, sponsored by the FCO, few public bodies seem to have responsibilities in language: the Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (CILT), the only subject body sponsored by the Department for Education, is one, and the Welsh Language Board is another. These advisory bodies are established mainly in order to organise a network, both developing policy and helping to implement it. They are not always successful in persuading the interest and pressure groups in the area that they do so objectively: they are constituted by government, meet only when government wishes them to, discuss an agenda prepared by government, and provide advice which may be adopted or rejected by government. Bodies such as these, in fact, often appear to be providing the advice that government wants, helping to legitimise decisions, preparing the ground for decisions and publicising matters which government considers important. If, for whatever reason, they are not sufficiently credible, their advice may be hollow. On the face of it, the stability and resource power of the French bodies, contrasted to the instability and weakness of the British ones, should reflect the characteristics of a policy community as opposed to an issue network.

NETWORKS: OTHER PARTICIPANTS

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France Advisory and consultative bodies are usually intended to be reactive, responding to problems and suggestions placed before them by politicians. They occasionally take a more active role. It was the Haul Comite de la Langue Frangaise for example which proposed the 1975 law to the Government in 1972 (Faure, 1986). The Government approved the principle of such a law being discussed; a text was prepared by Le Douarec, member for Rennes, and discussed in an interministerial meeting (i.e. mainly of civil servants) in November of 1972. Considerable changes were requested, which were worked into a new proposal for the Parliament, prepared under the name of Pierre Bas, member for one of the Paris constituencies. The Commission des Lois of the Assembly nominated Marc Lauriol chairman of the group set up to consider the proposal. After a delay caused by the death of the President, M. Pompidou, the first reading was given on 3 May 1975 and the law received its final approval six months later. But the best example of the workings of French advisory bodies lies in the vexed question of spelling reform. The Delegation a la Langue Frangaise, the Conseil Superieur de la Langue Frangaise and the French Academy, three advisory bodies, worked together on the ill-fated proposals of 1990 (Rectifications, 1990; Rey-Debove and Le Beau-Bensa, 1991; Catach, 1992; Baddeley, 1993). The Conseil was invited by the Prime Minister in October 1989 to propose 'repairs and improvements' (retouches et amenagements) to French spelling rather than major changes, and set up a group of experts to carry out this task. The experts were chaired by Druon (representing the Academy, and ex officio member of the Conseil}, supported by Bernard Cerquiglini (then Delegate in charge of the DGLF) and included major figures in French linguistics: Nina Catach, probably the foremost expert on French spelling and head of the research centre on the history and structure of spelling, which was charged with the preliminary studies; Charles Muller, Bernard Quemada, and dictionary editors such as Josette Rey-Debove of the Robert Dictionaries. Quite apart from the work in this Terminology Committee, the proposals were studied 'in the greatest detail' in two sessions of the Academy's Dictionary Committee, and presented, by Druon, to a full meeting of the Academy on 3 May 1990, when they were unanimously approved. The Conseil de la Langue Frangaise in Quebec and in Belgium were 'kept informed', and some of their members indeed participated in the work. A preliminary version of the results was published in June 1990, after approval by the French Conseil, with the final version appearing on 6 December 1990. It was the Academy alone which had been the traditional authority, filling its state remit in corpus policy. In its first dictionary of 1694 it had made the deliberate choice of spelling based on the literary tradition, although since the preparation of the dictionary took nearly sixty years and many hands constantly revised and added words, the final version 'presented a degree of incoherence and disorder which has never been reached since' (Catach, 1992, 34). Changes and corrections were published in each of the new editions of 1718, 1740, 1762, 1798, 1835, 1878, 1932-35 and 1975. Some of these have

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been minor, some major: in 1740, the edition which systematised modern spelling, some 36 per cent of words in the first edition changed their spelling (Baddeley, 1993, 11), while in 1835 the spelling ai finally replaced oi in a large number of frequently used words (j'avals, frangais), a change proposed by Voltaire and opposed by the traditionalists - particularly the Royalists, who retained the pronunciation [vv£] represented by the spelling oi as something of a marker of the Ancien Regime. Some reforms have passed into general use, others - particularly those proposed in 1975 - have not. In addition to the Academy, another competent authority, the Ministry of Education, had published in 1901 a set of 'Tolerances' - points of spelling but also of grammar and usage which could be tolerated in official examinations. The general plea at this time had been that 'In examinations, errors should not be considered serious if they do not derive from lack of intelligence or real knowledge on the part of the candidates, but merely demonstrate their ignorance of some fine point or grammatical subtlety' (quoted in Catach, 1992, 78). But these enlightened remarks had likewise remained without much effect. The Haby (educational) reform of 1976 repeated many of the 1901 proposals and included some new 'simplifications', which, again, have been little applied (cf. Pivot, 1989). But it is other dictionaries which became the authorities, replacing the State, whether in the form of the Academy or of formal ministerial decisions: the Littre from the late nineteenth century, the Larousse dictionaries after the Second World War, and particularly the Petit Larousse and the Petit Robert, whose annual editions are capable of recording new words shortly after their introduction, and tracking changes as they occur. Nonetheless the State continued attempts to reform spelling, aiming particularly to simplify the educational task. In 1952, the first Beslais report, prepared within the Education Ministry by the Director of Primary Education, had been received with howls of derision provoked by a member of the preparatory committee who resigned: 'a Press campaign, playing with puns, made it collapse before it was even made public' (Pivot, 1989, 29). The second Beslais report of 1965, published after five years of exhaustive analysis and careful preparation of public opinion, was not even discussed by the competent authority. Les Rectifications de I'Orthographe (Spelling Adjustments) as published in the Journal Officiel in December 1990 contained seven rules of general applicability, thirteen lists of specific words or word-types, and ten recommendations to dictionary-makers or those responsible for creating neologisms. The recommendations were preceded by an analysis covering seven points of difficulty: the hyphen, indications of number, the accents, verbs in -eler and -eter, past participles, borrowed words and anomalies. The proposed rules were: 1. use the hyphen in all compound numbers: cent-trois instead of cent trois; 2. hyphenated words: form the plural by adding -s to the second element, except when the second element has a capital letter or is preceded by a singular article: des apres-midis instead of des apres-midi; des prie-Dieu, des trompe-l'oeil (both unchanged);


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3. regularise the use of the grave accent: je cederai instead of je cederai; 4. abolish the circumflex accent on / and u except in some verb forms or where its use distinguishes two words: plait, traitre instead of plait, traitre', but retain jeune,jeune; 5. use e for all verbs in -eler or -eter. il etiquete instead of // etiquette', 6. leave invariable the past participle of laisser followed by an infinitive: elle s'est laisse oiler, instead of elle s est laissee oiler, 1. regularise the use of -s to make the plural of borrowed words: desjazzmans instead of des jazzmen or des jazzman, des lieds instead of des lieder. Among the more striking of the other changes proposed - mainly rationalisations of individual anomalies or breaks in word series - were the spelling of asseoir as assoir, nenuphar as nenufar, oignon as ognon, relais as relai, and a general transliteration into French of borrowed words, including the use of -eur instead of -er for words borrowed from English (squatteur, kidnappeur instead of squatter, kidnapper}. Some of these changes (assoir) had already been proposed by the Academy in 1975, others (use of the hyphen and circumflex accent) can be traced back to the Tolerances of 1901. The reforms might affect 'about 2,000 words' according to the Rectifications, or about 3-4,000 according to Druon, or two words in two full pages of Proust according to Cerquiglini (Le Figaro, 5.1.91). The Robert dictionary identified 2,383 affected words. Muller (1992), horrified by the emotive and unscientific nature of guesses in the media, calculated from the computer database of the Tresor de la Langue Frangaise that one or two words per page of Proust would change. If the changes to the use of accents were excluded, there would actually be one change per 15 pages. The reception of the proposals in December 1990 was, to say the least, hostile, and the 'battle of the nenuphar' was a matter of considerable public interest. France Soir's headline, on 19 December 1990, was 'Spelling: everybody against the reform'. The opinion of a number of people was reported, including four members of the Academy - three of whom had not been present on the day the reform was approved. One Academician who was present on 3 May, Jean Dutourd, commented that there are never more than twenty of us there. If I voted in favour, I must have been listening with half an ear. I regret it and now wish to vote the other way. I have received any number of protests . . . Proof readers are 80 per cent against. . . This spelling saga is getting me down. I shall carry on writing as I always have. I had such a struggle to be able to write evenement with two acute accents. I am desperate at the idea that all the spelling mistakes I got rid of with such pain are going to be restored.

The same newspaper noted the opposition of the chairman of the GPL1 (Francis Bayrou, later to become Minister of Education in the governments of 1993 and 1995), who created, as a reaction to these proposals, an Association pour la Sauvegarde de la Langue Frangaise to oppose the reforms. Of 3,205 France Soir readers, 3,145 had 'voted' against the reforms, in a flood of letters.

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Le Figaro (5 January 1991) published four pages of opinions and comment, mostly negative, condemning particularly the intended primeministerial decree which was to give legal force to the changes. The 'simplification' was not rigorous enough: 'teachers' first duty is to teach rigour, and if it doesn't matter whether you write nenufar or nenuphar we shall just disorient them even more'; the regularisation was often illogical (tire-fesses, mille-pattes to be written in the singular as tire-fesse, millepatte); there was a certain beauty to the look of words: gout would lose the flavour of gout. More seriously, the proposers of the reform had put it in a political context, and the right wing had been 'paralysed by the so-called unanimity of the Academy'. Le Figaro, to be fair to the Government, noted that the Prime Minister had stressed that 'what was decisive was the unanimous approval of the Academy': [Since] this agreement is contested today, and in view of the very reticent reactions of the bodies which the authors of the report thought had been consulted in good faith (publishers, proof-readers, teachers, intellectuals), what is left of the working group's authority? Precious little, to judge from the silence of the Delegation .. . Is Prime Minister Michel Rocard ready to die for a circumflex accent over the /? It's doubtful.

A new session of the Academy, on 17 January 1991, agreed to the 'corrections' but as alternatives, for an unspecified period during which usage would determine their acceptability or otherwise. The Government, in response both to this and to the furore, did not produce any formal legal document giving force to the reforms, but suggested instead that usage would tell, and published the Rectifications among the administrative, not legally enforceable, documents in the Journal Officiel on 6 December 1990. Indeed, the Delegation Generate a la Langue Frangaise later maintained that legislation never did have any effect on corpus planning proposals anyway (Breves, 1991). The Government, and all the members of the policy community seemed taken aback by the violence of the reaction - it was not until the outbreak of the Gulf War in January 1992 that the matter finally left the newspapers. Spelling reform was attacked, particularly by the right-wing press (Le Figaro) and politicians (Bayrou), but also by the very group that had been most strongly in its favour - the primary teachers. The policy community constituted by the three government advisory bodies, working together with all the experts and despite the intensive publicity given to their work and to the interim report, eventually experienced a major failure of language policy. With the passage of time, some parts of the changes have remained: the Academy's dictionary publishes the proposed changes, but - mainly - in separate attached sheets; new annual editions of the Larousse and Robert popular dictionaries have included some of the changes, although usually as variants. But the editions since 1990 of the house magazine of the Delegation Generale a la Langue Frangaise itself sublimely ignore all the changes, and the implementation of the six undoubtedly sensible, scientifically rational and logical proposals seems very unlikely:


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1) replacement of final -x by -s (bijous); 2) partial or total reform of double consonants; 3) partial or total reform of parasitical internal consonants (sculptew) and of the most obvious anomalies (oignori); 4) partial or total reform of compound words; 5) partial or total reform of the system of accents; 6) revision and acceptance of a more flexible approach. (Catach, 1992,93)

Why was this attempt at policy intervention so unsuccessful? The changes were after all in the direct line of previous actions and should have been part of the normal updating process like the Tolerances or the Haby reform, and should not have provoked such a negative reaction. A survey of teachers' opinion on the matter had been published on 26 November 1988 in L'Ecole Liberatrice, magazine of one of the primary teachers' unions. 'Of the 1,150 teachers who replied, 1,035 said that they would be in favour of a reform' (Baddeley, 1993). During the months after publication, the schoolteachers' union 'worked closely alongside' a pressure group - AIROE - which had devised the survey, 'to promote the campaign in favour of a reform and to put together a limited but coherent set of proposals'. The survey had been devised by Jacques Leconte, a retired primary schoolmaster and member of AIROE. Leconte had published proposals for reform in Le Monde on 29 November 1988, written in the spelling of the Beslais reform of 1965 and calling for the reform because the existing spelling was 'fantasy, was a dead-weight on children's study, compromises the future of many of our children . . . is injurious to the use of our language in the world' (Pivot, 1989, 51). Leconte called for a massive petition and for urgent action, neither of which took place. The next stage was that ten 'eminent linguists' - one of whom would become the vice-president of the Conseil Superieur de la Langue Franqaise (Bernard Quemada), while another would become the head of the Delegation Generate a la Langue Franqaise (Bernard Cerquiglini) - published a manifesto in Le Monde on 7 February 1989 proposing a 'modernisation' of four points: the circumflex accent, double consonants, rules governing past participle agreement and alternatives for some 'difficult' words (such as evenement and oignon). These four points were precisely those suggested by AIROE. In March 1989, the magazine Lire published the somewhat contradictory results of an opinion poll, conducted by Ipsos-Opinion on a sample of representative of the French population aged over fifteen. It reported 70 per cent as finding spelling 'difficult', but only 44 per cent were favourable to reform (50 per cent against); 52 per cent were against abolishing the circumflex accent, 56 per cent against changing double consonants to single ones, 59 per cent against abolishing hyphens, 63 per cent against replacing ph by/, 65 per cent against allowing alternative spellings, 63 per cent opposed to replacing x by s in plural forms. Sixty-five per cent felt it impossible to reform French without changing its character, only 42 per cent felt it to be

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urgent to reform. Although the detailed suggestions seemed thus to be rejected, nonetheless 76 per cent felt that it was possible to make changes to correct 'bizarre or absurd' spellings. In the summer of 1989 Jacques Leconte and Philippe Cibois published 'Que vive I'ortografe!', a manifesto in favour of spelling reform which brought the matter to centre stage. They claimed 95 per cent of spelling was satisfactory; the 'bizarre' 5 per cent needed changing 'because it causes teachers and pupils to waste time' trying to work out why evenement needed two acute accents whereas avenement took a grave. The two authors suggested that the Education Ministry, rather than the French Academy, should act since the 'Academy hasn't done anything since 1835'. Press and pamphlet reaction was strong, foreshadowing what would happen when the proposals finally emerged. Little of the discussion concerned the rights and wrongs of spelling reform: much dealt with the presumed motives of the reformers, or with their methods: In secret, in the spring charnel-house accustomed to dirty tricks, THEY were going to chop our language in bits. THEY, in the little committee which Coluche called 'the proper authorities' were going to mess about with words. THEY said nothing, THEY revealed nothing while their little scalpels were scarring the face of our language. THEY hid themselves behind laconic communiques. (Bluaet al., 1990,9)

The political factor was also present, even before the setting up of the working group. France-Soir, on 7 August 1989, hinted strongly at political motivation for the primary teachers' action: I read somewhere, I don't know where, that teachers want to simplify spelling because they feel they are wasting their time correcting work . . . the task seems to them contrary to their . . . feeling that spelling is reactionary, right-wing and antisocial. .. there is worse: certain naughty people suspect [the teachers] are none too sure of their own ability in spelling, and would thus be freed from the traps they fall into.

Le Figaro took up the same theme on 26 September 1989 in its review of Que vive I'ortografe!; it attributed to the authors the argument that correct spelling was Fascist, an 'instrument of social segregation' and called them 'charlatans'. Correct spelling was respected by the rich and 'massacred' by the poor. 'How is it possible to be so irrational and look down on the mass whose defender they pretend to be, while ignoring the fact that intellectual laziness and a couldn't-care-less attitude are rampant in all levels of society?' The main argument against reform, however, was that education, literacy, knowledge and progress would only come about through effort and hard work: You don't fight illiteracy by abolishing the alphabet. You don't motivate young people by getting rid of all the effort necessary to secure Progress. You don't make Knowledge more brilliant by simplifying its content. (Blua et al., 1990, 10)

Indeed, the idea that the strength and quality of a language resides in the very fact that it has difficulties, and that only through mastering these does it


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become possible to say that one is intelligent at all, lies behind much of such discourse. This opinion is frequently met among a number of politicians and social thinkers, whose view is clearly that mastering difficulties of language provides a measure of the intellectual or social worth of an individual, and that therefore difficulties such as those of spelling should be retained to act as a barrier. In this, the opinion of Blua and his colleagues is similar to that of Bourdieu (1982), that language acts in some ways as though it was a form of capital: mastering language is tantamount to acquiring social and economic capital, and gives access to social or economic advancement. As far as this particular example of language policy is concerned, therefore, the specific incitement to action followed, firstly, action by a particular individual (Leconte) against a background of concern going back at least forty years. This was closely followed by action by a reforming pressure group, and by the recruitment of significant professional opinion (teachers and linguists) to support and publicise the conclusions arrived at. An attempt, at least, was made to mobilise public opinion: perhaps the contradictory results of the Lire poll should have been taken into account more than they actually were, and more notice should have been taken of the accusations of secrecy. But the negotiation inside the advisory groups - the closed circle of government organisations ranging from the Delegation to the Academy through the working group - had clearly not taken sufficient account of the warnings, nor of the previous history of attempts at reform, nor had it realised that formal consultation of such groups as publishers and proof-readers needed to go farther than meetings of their leaders and representative committees. Nor, indeed, had it anticipated the political connotations of reform and the strength of the opposition of traditionalists and conservatives to what could be - and was - interpreted as an attack on the fabric of (traditional) society and the identity of France. It looks very much as though the advisory group assumed that the logic of reform and the authority of its collective view would be sufficiently persuasive to enable the reform to go ahead, and that if the policy community was agreed then the policy would be successful. Britain Britain contrasts with France both in the lack of official interest in spelling reform, and in the lack of advisory groups - and of a policy community — which might consider such corpus questions. Spelling reform in Britain has never achieved a wholeheartedly positive response from governments. Ever since the first proposal for reform of 1568, and particularly over the nineteenth century, many suggestions have been made, however (Scragg, 1974). Isaac Pitman's 38-character phonetic alphabet was more or less fixed by 1870, and the transition alphabet approach, exemplified in Sir James Pitman's Initial Teaching Alphabet (ita), was well developed and in use in British schools in the 1960s and 1970s, in the USA, Australia and some parts of West Africa and India. There has nonetheless been some official support for proposed reforms: the

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US government backed a joint British-American proposal for minimum changes in the early 1900s; various British school boards have recommended and even implemented schemes, the British Ministry of Education supported the introduction and use of ita for a period. Despite private money - from Andrew Carnegie and George Bernard Shaw - which has been provided to support spelling reform, or, in Shaw's case, to design a new alphabet, English spelling retains the codified American or British forms of the standard dictionaries. However, in this field, the centralisation of governmental control of education in organisations such as the National Curriculum Council (now replaced by the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority) and the Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit means that there do now exist languageoriented policy-making institutions which could take responsibility in the field, although none of these is so clearly designated for the role as the three French organisations. So far, they have not taken up the opportunity, and the issue network continues without yet being able to engage the policy-makers sufficiently in its concerns. Indeed, as we see in the next section, spelling reform in Britain has been the concern of pressure groups rather than of advisory groups. INTEREST AND PRESSURE GROUPS In Chapter 1 above, when discussing the concept of policy actors, we examined the widely used classification of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs: the French abbreviation is ONG for Organisations NonGouvernementales) into three categories: A for those closely involved with the development and implementation of policy; B for those which are normally consulted; and C for those who are kept informed and whose views are received. France It is generally agreed (e.g. Hall, 1993) that France - at least by comparison with the USA - is not a particularly pluralist country: the privileges of interest and pressure groups were wiped out in the Revolution, the State is strong, and the French are supposedly reluctant to join organisations and associations. Under a law of 1901, associations are required to register and to be formally recognised by the State - although in return state subsidies are freely dispensed. Recognition enables the creation of fairly stable policy communities about such major features of French political life as the fiveyear plans and their regular commissions studying particular aspects of social life; but pluralism has to contend with two traditions of French political life: interest groups are often politicised and fiercely independent, spending as much time fighting each other as attempting to persuade the State, and direct protest, avoiding negotiation or discussion and taking to the streets, is a wellestablished political method.


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Education policy, for example, faces well-established pressure and interest groups. The Federation de I'Education Nationale (FEN) is not merely an association of teachers' associations, but a well-organised business empire worth over ten billion francs in 1985 (Hall, 1993, 170). National student organisations, associations of parents, of parent-teacher associations and supporters of Catholic education often form a solid barrier to educational reform. SOS-Racisme, the environmental groups that eventually formed their own political parties, and the feminist and women's groups form less organised but nonetheless powerful associations, which have been able to exploit the characteristics of French political organisation that we have noted above: the 'clientelism' of the close contact between associations and ministry in some areas, the comparative independence of members of the Grands Corps and their ability to oppose even their own ministry's policy, and the structural divisions of state organisation - the dual nature of French foreign policy conducted by President and Prime Minister, the range of ministries concerning themselves with Francophonie or language matters. The most vocal language pressure groups are the purists and the traditionalists, whose vocabulary constantly recalls those of war and medicine as they fight against the 'corruption' of language (cf. Thomas, G., 1991). Another main aim in France, however, is to support the use of French as an international language. There is a long history of such attitudes and of groups and associations concerned with these problems, together commonly called the 'crisis' of French (Bengtsson, 1968). An official list of contemporary Francophone organisations (Bruchet, 1992) shows about 45 organised language pressure groups, most having aims such as 'to defend/support/increase the spread of French throughout the world'. Offord (1993 and 1994) has examined the role of these French 'private organisations' in protecting the French language, noting that the total number in the Bruchet list is 238 (in 1992; the 1989 list had 218). He uses five categories (1993, 169). We have inserted the number of organisations he discusses in each, in brackets, but it should be noted that these are often examples rather than the full list: those devoted to preserving the integrity of the French language and increasing its usage worldwide (16); those concerned with providing terminologies (6) and teaching the language (21); ... those concerned with Francophone culture and links between France and the rest of the Francophone world (72); those with a religious (7) or professional (83) base; those with a political orientation (4). Offord points out that the aims of many of the groups are unclear, combining or confusing the defence of French with that of French - or Francophone culture, linking professional or interest groups across the Francophone world, or merely linking people who happen to speak French. Concern with

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language itself, particularly in some of the many professional or scientific organisations, is minimal. Many of the groups seem to have close links with each other: certain names recur as activists - Offord quotes one person who figures in five organisations, and another in four. Similarly, four addresses recur - one housing six organisations (5 rue de la Boule Rouge) although many of the addresses are convenience post-boxes, and may in fact be provided either by one wealthier organisation or indeed by government acting as 'godfather'. Avenir de la Langue Frangaise (based in 5 rue de la Boule Rouge, and referred to as ALF here: cf. Wilcox, forthcoming) came to major public notice with the publication, in Le Monde (1.2.92 and 11.7.92) of an appeal in favour of French and opposed to the increasing use of Anglo-American in France. Three hundred notables signed the appeal in July, and 800 more in December. Among the signatories were prominent figures from the arts and literature, but also a number of senior civil servants, politicians and educators, particularly from the universities. The prime ALF activist is Albert Salon, described as docteur d'Etat es Lettres, and the Association was formally constituted as such during 1993, although it was formed in 1991. Members include the novelist Dominique Noguez as President, Michel Guillou, former diplomat and activist for Francophonie, the Quebec novelist Gaston Miron, novelists Philippe de St Robert (the first Commissaire of the Commissariat de la Langue Frangaise), and Philippe Rossillon, Regis Debray - Gaullist foreign affairs specialist; Jean-Pierre Peroncel-Hugoz - Le Monde journalist; and Jack Ralite, member of the Communist party, Member of Parliament and former Minister, and other significant figures in the arts, politics, education and journalism. ALF is clearly a good example of a forum within which a policy community on languages can meet, debate and develop a common view - provided one defines the policy community here as consisting of Paris-based intellectuals, artists, journalists and politicians. The aims of ALF, which was created in order to press for the inclusion of the clause on French language in the Constitution, and which was at first a loose grouping of interested individuals, are both general and precise. The manifesto is phrased in combative terms, identifying an enemy - the 'fanatics for everything-in-English' - who have invented a conspiracy to destroy France, and whose anti-French action in supporting the use of English, particularly American English, must be resisted. Such conspirators 'are increasingly enterprising. They are making the French lose confidence in their language, and hence weakening its credibility in other countries'. Some are obliging their staff to use English as a working language, even on French territory: Researchers have their careers blocked because they haven't published in English. . . In secondary education it is more and more difficult, if not impossible in some schools, to learn any language other than English . . . a handful of producers enforce film production in English even when the investment is mainly or even entirely French. (ALF manifesto, 11.7.1992, quoted in Guillou, 1993)


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The call to arms follows, encouraging the French nation to rise up in pursuit of freedom: We cannot accept this collective self-destruction, since we are for Europe, for universality, for the right of peoples to decide their own future, and for the diversity of cultures in the world . . . If we don't react soon, we shall find ourselves, without realising it, in the situation in which Quebec found itself thirty years ago - and from which it is emerging thanks to its collective will. (We would be) in a situation of economic dependence, social exclusion, cultural inferiority and linguistic oppression; (we should be) forced to undertake long and difficult battles to reconquer the right to live and work in our language, to disseminate our culture, to be ourselves as history has made us.

The group's activities, according to its publicity, include the development of arguments, standard letters (that supporters can send to the Press and other interested parties), posters and leaflets, guides for protest action and suggestions for how to tackle the arguments of those who propose the use of English. Its targets for this type of action include the media, education, business, advertising and the sciences. It is developing a strategy for raising public awareness of the question and is broadening its active support among members of all occupations and social strata (milieux socio-professionnels) and all age groups. It is broadening its action towards other Francophone countries, building on its close association with the Quebec and Belgian movements. It is also establishing links with foreign-language associations, firstly in Europe, 'which promote other languages and combat the hegemony of one language and what it carries with it (ce quelle vehicule}'. ALF is clearly a category A organisation. It contributed to the development of the bills proposed by both Mme Tasca and M. Toubon on the use of French in France; stated clearly in 1993 that it would participate in the debate on the text in Parliament and in public opinion, and would observe and take action if necessary through the courts - to ensure that the law was applied when accepted by Parliament. In this latter role ALF would be repeating the role undertaken by a rather less successful organisation - the Association Generate des Usagers de la Langue Franâise - which was established in order to act as the 'injured party' in civil actions following the 1975 law. That association, founded with considerable government help and subsidy, and active in bringing offences against the law to the attention of the consumer protection agencies, did not survive after 1985, but was successful in initiating a number of successful prosecutions, even though the eventual fines were minute (cf. Ball, 1988). In 1995 ALF and four other associations shared the task: AFAL, AILF, CILF and DLF. Of these, AFAL, AILF and ALF have the same address and DLF is based at the French Academy (Journal Officiel, 12.5.1995). ALF set up, at an early stage of its organisation, a number of special-purpose groups and working parties, one of which had the brief of bringing its concerns to the attention of Parliament. Members of the working group had responsibility for writing letters and developing arguments members could use, and many of them had intimate knowledge of how Parliament works and were thus able to ensure access to members. One other

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indication of the close relations between ALF and the political world is the mention of the GATT negotiations in ALF publicity: the 'cultural exception' within the final round of the European-American negotiations of 1993 was welcomed by ALF as an indication that Europe's culture can resist that of the United States. The ALF manifesto laid out five goals, calling upon the President, the Government and Members of Parliament to agree to: 1. diversify the teaching of foreign languages in France . . . ; 2. ... increase French-language information and creation in audio-visual media in France and in the world; 3. ensure the effective use of French at all levels of the European institutions; counter the partisan action of judges in Brussels and Luxembourg who misrepresent article 30 of the Treaty of Rome on the free circulation of goods and services to torpedo any linguistic legislation . . . ; 4. . . . in the Constitution, not merely state that French is the language of the State and territorial collectivities, but also that of education and work, and bring into this the principle of France's participation in building an international Francophone community; and 5. transform the 1975 law so that it covers all aspects of the use of French in France and is really applied. By 1994, it had been reasonably successful in at least getting these onto the political agenda. In particular, four of its members, far more than any other organisation, were consulted by M. Legendre in preparing his Senate report for the Toubon law. The list of those consulted by M. Legendre is instructive: it represents a policy community, but is almost completely made up of supporters of the Toubon law, civil servants - particularly senior ones, members of the Grands Corps - and those who had been associated with this topic for some time. The consultees included the Ministry of Culture and Francophonie; the Delegation Generate a la Langue Frangaise; and the French Academy, in the shape of Maurice Druon, and its Association de Defense de la Langue Frangaise. Avenir de la Langue Frangaise was represented in the persons of Philippe Rossillon (also the first SecretaryGeneral of the Haul Comite de la Langue Frangaise), Albert Salon (who is also employed in the Ministry of Cooperation), Thierry Priestly (who is also in the Commissariat au Plan), and Micheline Faure (former SecretaryGeneral of the Association Generate des Usagers de la Langue Frangaise). The Association pour la Sauvegarde et la Defense de la Langue Frangaise was represented by Philippe de St Robert, the former Commissioner of the Commissariat de la Langue Frangaise, the Union des Journalistes de Langue Frangaise by M. Gros. The Academy of Sciences, the CNRS (State Research organisation) and the Association Nationale des Scientifigues pour I' Usage de la Langue Frangaise were consulted as representatives of the scientific community. The Conseil National du Patronat Frangais, the Assemblee Frangaise des Chambres de Commerce et de I'Industrie and the Association Frangaise des Banques represented commerce and industry. Lawyers were represented by the Conference Nationale des Avocats and a Bdtonnier de


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Paris, advertisers by the Bureau de Verification de la Publicite, by Publicis and by the Union des annonceurs. TV interests were represented by the Conseil Superieur de I'Audiovisuel, interpreters by the Association Internationale des Interpretes de Conference, an ambassador was consulted. In addition, M. Legendre saw a number of individuals, many of whom also represented one or other of these interests: M. Remi Chauvin, M Jean-Louis Boursin, M. Andre Danzin (who was also doing a report for the Delegation on the Language Industries), M. Michel Guillou, M. Bernard Cerquiglini (former Delegue of the DGLF), M. Gabriel de Broglie, M. Philippe Sellers and M. Alain Mine. Potential opponents, the commercial and scientific interests other than those already known to be supportive, even experts such as the linguist Claude Hagege were simply not included. That these names had been concerned with the question for decades, that they were all civil servants or had been called upon by the Government to act on its behalf, only underlines the nature of the network: it appears to be a well-established, stable policy community in the typology outlined by Marsh and Rhodes (see pages 102-3 above). Britain 'Of all the western democracies, Britain has perhaps the longest-established interest group system' (Richardson, 1993, 87). This system relies - or relied until Mrs Thatcher's reforms - on three elements: the existence of interest and pressure groups to provide specialist advice to the bureaucracy (since civil servants are generalists, not experts); the centralisation of power in Whitehall, rather than with Westminster politicians, and thus on the identification of the bureaucracy as the point at which to apply pressure, with Parliament and public opinion as next in order of importance; and the need for a form of partnership to make the policies work. Changes in this comfortable relationship of government and interest groups were part of the reforming agenda of the Thatcher governments from 1979 to 1990, with some success: 'The sexist jibe that Mrs Thatcher could not look at an institution without hitting it with her handbag . . . was much nearer to the truth than the view . . . that [the Government] was resolute in not making policy U-turns' (Richardson, 1993, 96). Despite the length and apparently drastic nature of the changes instituted between 1979 and 1990, 'partnership' and 'intimate dialogue' returned to British government after 1990 in order to make the major social reforms work (Richardson, 1993, 98). It is not altogether clear whether, or how far, this type of partnership exists in the field of language policy. Two British pressure groups show different patterns: one has been held at arms length although there are some signs that recent changes may provide a new entry point, while another, whose aims coincided with government purposes, has made considerable progress. The Simplified Spelling Society (cf. Carney, 1992, 473-81), founded in 1908, has a number of distinguished former members, drawn from the ranks of education (Gilbert Murray, Daniel Jones, Walter Skeat), literature (Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells), politics (Mont Follick), industry (Sir George Hunter) and

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public life (Archbishop William Temple, Sir James Pitman). Its aims are: working towards the modernisation of English spelling for more effective education, higher standards of literacy, easier mastery of the language, a more efficient writing system, better communication world-wide.

Two recent schemes for the improvement of spelling have been proposed by the Society. 'New Spelling' is a radical scheme for a new writing system, aimed at introducing a codified form of English and to ensure that English did not fragment into a number of mutually unintelligible dialects. A less drastic scheme, 'Cut Spelling' represents a more gradualist approach, and proposes to dispense with superfluous letters. The Simplified Spelling Society has made numerous attempts to raise public interest in the matter, with Press campaigns, most recently in 1992-93, and to gain access to government decisions. The National Curriculum Council and the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority include SSS among their consultees for English, but no policy decisions have been made in relation to the adoption of a reformed spelling, despite 'spelling' being a specific element of the programmes of study. If anything, this pressure group is finding it very difficult to gain access to any policy network. The counter-example of a pressure group which has not merely obtained entry to government but made considerable progress in getting its programme adopted, exists in the case of the Plain English Campaign (PEC). The Campaign has succeeded not merely in getting Plain English formally adopted within the civil service and industry, but in setting up a number of prizes and a quality mark (the Crystal Mark) which is coveted by many organisations, public and private, and which certifies that the relevant document(s) have passed the test of clarity and precision. The Plain English Campaign is 'independent and receives no State funding. It supports its campaigning activities by selling its professional services: writing, editing and training' (PEC brochure, 1994). The fight for plain English in the civil service has a respectable history, and many handbooks such as Fowler's Modern English Usage and Sir Ernest Cowers' Complete Plain Words were first written to clarify thought and aid in its expression in government. But the motivation for the Plain English Campaign was the realisation by Chrissie Maher, its founder and Director, that many clients and consumers of the welfare state were being deprived of their 'rights' to benefits and services by the design of forms and the language in which they were couched. While a member of the National Consumer Council from 1975, after community work in the 1960s and setting up information leaflets and newspapers for the semi-literate, Chrissie Maher started the Salford Forms Market to help people fill in the complex and uninformative forms that access to welfare benefits required. The motivation was then extended to the construction and wording of the forms themselves. When Mrs Thatcher arrived in government in 1979, almost her first move was to appoint Sir Derek Rayner, then Chairman of Marks and Spencer, to advise on improving the efficiency of government. As one result, the Rayner report on administrative forms recommended cutting many of them and


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improving the layout, presentation and language of most (Administrative Forms, 1982). In this work, the advice of the Campaign was invaluable - it organised a ritual shredding of forms in Parliament Square - and the essentially right-wing aims of efficiency and deregulation met the essentially left-wing aims of entitlement and human rights. The Plain English Campaign was active throughout the 1980s and 1990s in governmental circles, with considerable success, much of it driven by the coincidence of prime-ministerial priorities - both those of Thatcher and those of Major - and the campaigning techniques - including prizes and a booby prize, the Golden Bull, for gobbledygook - of the Campaign: In the eighties there was a lot of direct input from the Cabinet Office to encourage people across the Civil Service to use plain English . . . since 1980 central government departments and agencies have won nearly 40 awards for plain English in the Plain English Campaign's annual competition for both the public and private sectors. (CO, 1993)

Inside Write awards were established in 1987, specifically for internal government communications. They have always had high profile support from government. Indeed, the 1988 leaflet produced by the Cabinet Office and the Office of the Minister for the Civil Service had a foreword by Mrs Thatcher, in which she made clear that: If we all wrote in plain English how much easier - and efficient - life would be. It is no exaggeration to describe plain English as a fundamental tool of good Government. .. Plain English must be the aim of all who work in Government. (Plain, 1988)

The 1992 awards attracted entries from 70 government departments and agencies; presenters of the awards have included the Princess Royal, Sir Robin Butler, Head of the Home Civil Service and Cabinet Secretary, while in July 1995 they were presented by the Public Service Minister Mr John Horam. The arrival of Mr Major as Prime Minister in 1990 saw yet another coincidence of aims: the Charter movement he started, whatever its motivations, strengthened PEC's 'rights' approach. The aims of the Charter movement were: establishing and meeting standards; providing information and openness; extending choice and consultation; promoting courtesy and helpfulness; putting things right when they go wrong; providing value for money. (Charter, 1992)

These aims were closely associated with those of the Government's reorganisation of the civil service, symbolising a fundamental change in the

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relationship between State and citizen, and placed at the centre of the Government's decision-taking in the 1992 manifesto. Despite some confusion between central aims and private agendas - of some management theorists and of individual ministers and departments (such as the Patient's health - and Parent's - educational - Charters), critics can identify four 'governmental' agendas: constraining public bureaucracy, bringing State and citizen together through instituting rights, freeing local managers and costcutting, particularly through a wider role for the Treasury. Generally these agendas imitate the idea of human rights, but the rights they confer are nowhere near as powerful: the rights are individual, not collective; they are top-down and have involved no substantial input from outside government; they have no legal force; they are little known; they add little or no extra resources to the services themselves; they give too much power to local management (for example in setting the actual standards); they allow central government to avoid taking responsibility itself; and they leave individuals with no access to redress through representative institutions (Deakin, 1994). There are occasionally striking similarities between such approaches and those of the Plain English Campaign. PEC appears to support the Charter initiative, particularly when it puts 'communicating effectively' as one of its priorities, and has not participated in the criticisms we have noted above. PEC is certainly useful to government in transmitting the message of efficiency and giving the appearance of rights. It is this coincidence of aims that renders PEC an effective pressure group. Its weapons, when it considers that communication has been poor, are ridicule and 'gently' poking fun through the Golden Bull awards; it has enough weight and resource power to chide as well as to reward. Its rewards are a Plain English award, the Crystal Mark for clarity and it manages the Public Service Inside Write award system. Notably, it itself has its own resource base and has refused being sucked too far into the government machine: indeed, its independence from government, and its work both with the private sector and with countries abroad, is highly prized by government departments. How far PEC represents a stable policy community is difficult to tell: it certainly represents a pressure group. The policy of clarity and deference towards the needs of the customer its suggestions incorporate represents a major behavioural change for many bureaucrats, but is only part of a wider approach with aims which are not necessarily so clear. For this wider approach, the new developments are discussed only in a narrow circle of the politically sympathetic. The absence of critical voices around the table and the dismissal of those shouting outside the window has meant that difficult issues have been fudged. (Deakin, 1994, 55)

It may be for this reason the necessity in 1995 to name: the Better English under the chairmanship

that the Education Minister, Gillian Shephard, felt set up an advisory group with a slightly different Campaign. A steering group was to be established of the broadcaster, Trevor McDonald (originally


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from Jamaica), which would include 'people from business, education, the media, the unions, sport, entertainment and voluntary bodies', while the Department of Education and Employment would provide £250,000 for administrative support and other costs for the first two years. These initiatives on spoken English' (the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority was asked at the same time to 'ensure that pupils receive a grade for spoken English') 'are an improvement that simply would not have happened had I not called together a group to consider how to promote better English. I am sure that Trevor McDonald's group will not be short of further ideas' (DfEE Press release 227/95, 11.10.1995). It remains to be seen whether such a committee or group might form the beginning of a policy community on the established French model, but with very different types of member. Certainly the move from an (outside) pressure group to an (inside) advisory group has been made, but how permanent such a group might be, the role it might adopt for itself and its effectiveness are by no means established. It could be that establishing such a group has raised the profile of better English both within the government machine and outside it; it could equally be that the purpose is to bury the problem. Either way, it is time to consider the workings of the communities and networks.

8 The policy process: negotiation

DEFINING OBJECTIVES AND CRITERIA This chapter aims to investigate the workings of policy networks, looking particularly at two stages of the negotiations involved: the establishment of the objectives and purposes of government policy in this section, and on pages 144-54 ways in which the complexity and uncertainty surrounding possible policy actions can be reduced, and how disagreement during the negotiations themselves is managed. France By the start of the Mitterrand presidency in 1981 the aims of policy in the languages field had been well established, in some cases for many centuries. In 1539, the aim was administrative efficiency; in 1635, the creation and maintenance of a suitable linguistic instrument; in 1794, national unity and identity; in 1994, defence against the outside world. Mitterrand's election, however, provoked major policy reviews in all fields, and his election commitments - for example to examine the status of the regional languages led to some reconsideration of the aims and purposes of language policy. According to Farandjis (1984), then writing on behalf of the Haul Comite de la Langue Frangaise, language policy had developed the following range of objectives: 1. 2. 3. 4.

demonstrate the vitality of French; favour enrichment of the language; improve the teaching of French; harmonise policy in relation to French and towards languages in general by mastering new communications technology;

THE POLICY PROCESS: NEGOTIATION

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5. create a new social dynamism in the use of French; 6. improve French language legislation in order to protect the linguistic rights of consumers, users and workers; 7. ensure that French administrative and legal language achieves high quality, is kept up to date and is accessible to all; 8. develop French as a commercial language and unite linguistic, commercial and cultural links; 9. integrate policy towards French with a far-reaching intercultural policy; 10. improve the diffusion of French abroad and render the image of France more impressive; 11. build a living Francophonie in the framework of a new international cultural order. These objectives were to inform the programme of both the Haul Conseil de la Francophonie and of the Commissariat General de la Langue Frangaise as they were set up during 1984. All of them were intended to lead to precise action in different domains of public life, and to inform areas of governmental action such as international affairs and consumer protection. St Robert, as the new 'Commissar', outlined his 'preoccupations' shortly after his appointment: 1. reform of linguistic legislation. The Bas-Lauriol Law of 1975 is not only insufficient, it is insufficiently applied . . . ; 2. co-ordination and harmonisation of terminological work . . . ; 3. policy on translation and interpreting . . . ; 4. awaken, among ordinary French people, the same awareness and enthusiasm for French as inspires numerous associations and individuals. St Robert was a little more precise when speaking to the Overseas Academy of Sciences in 1985, and clarified his aims as: respect, in France as elsewhere in the world for all the world's languages; protection for French within France; a number of specific actions: 1. identify how many speakers of French there were in the world; 2. investigate the spread of French across the continents; 3. identify the ethnic, religious and economic uses and varieties of French; 4. encourage French as an international language of science . . . ; 5. encourage the exchange of cultural goods such as books, films, records between the French-speaking countries.

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It is fairly clear from these brief summaries that hopes were high and that a programme of work was anticipated which would have major consequences for French and for the French. For a number of reasons, explained at length by St Robert (1986) in his account of his time at the head of the Commissariat, these objectives were not all realised, in particular those concerning new and stronger legislation and the creation of the Amyot centre. One major problem, apart from those concerned with the financial and political reservations many ministers and parliamentarians had at the time, lay in the associations that language policy had: Giving French people an awareness of their language is no easy thing. Defence of the language, linked in spite of itself to ideals of patriotism or even nationalism, still has for the public - or at least for opinion leaders in what we call the mass media - connotations of the past and of repression. (St Robert, 1986, 10)

The early 1980s did see some changes from traditional French language policies of defence, protection and purism. In particular, those outlined by St Robert stressed the necessity to ensure that language policy did not remain the concern only of intellectuals and pressure groups, but became widespread and part of the normal way of thinking of the population. The danger of excessive patriotism was realised, and policy objectives made clear that jingoism was not a suitable way of approaching the necessary defence of the language. There was some awareness of the existence and value of other languages - apart from English. Two objectives were particularly important, however: the need to establish better facts and statistics concerning actual use and value attributed to French by users; and the need to strengthen corpus policy through the language industries — interpreting, translation, publishing and information technology. The Mitterrand governments reformulated the organisations in 1989. Although Georges Sarre, as a Socialist Member of Parliament, in 1985, and Catherine Tasca, as Minister for Francophonie in 1993, had prepared and tabled Bills in the National Assembly to strengthen the 1975 law, neither came to be debated, and further major statements on aims for language policy had to wait for the new government in 1993. The desire not to pursue all the 1981 aims and objectives may have been due to the poor reception afforded the proposed reform of sexist language in 1986, and even more so the general rejection of spelling reform in 1990, in addition to the change of government during the period 1986 to 1988 when Mitterrand's division of language policy into Francophonie - French abroad, considered part of the President's concerns with foreign affairs - and French at home, considered the prerogative of the Education ministry and the Delegation, and controlled by the Prime Minister - caused a mixture of conflict and stagnation in both areas. For the Balladur government elected in March 1993, language policy was to follow three directions: Our language is a major component of our identity and our heritage. To respect it, to encourage its development on national territory as in the Francophone area, to


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promote an active policy in favour of multilingualism: these are the priorities for the policy of the Ministry of Culture and Francophonie, carried out by the Delegation Generale a la Langue Franqaise. (Ministry of Culture and Francophonie, brochure, 1994) The continuity of the main aims remained clear, as the departing Delegue made clear before handing over to Anne Magnant in 1994: France's language policy is not only one for French: it is also - and our Ministers have reaffirmed this many times - a policy for European multilingualism . . . On the corpus level, the Delegation initiates and co-ordinates numerous terminology projects... On the status level, French has no problems in France. The question of the regional languages provokes little conflict today, once the political power had recognised that the languages of France offered a resource and not a danger . . . On the international level, Francophonie [is] a geopolitical whole, carrying, with the language, cultural and humanist values. On the European level.. . France's position is that European identity is based on multilingualism .. . France's action is aimed at ensuring that no language is threatened with disappearance or relegation to private domains of use. (Cerquiglini, 1994, 17-19) Jacques Toubon, Minister for Culture and Francophonie, outlined his aims while presenting the 'Toubon law' in his opening speeches to the Senate and the Assembly in April and May 1994: We are again stressing policies towards Francophonie and the French language. We have reactivated the Francophonie policy, and, in general that towards overseas cultural action... a new action to disseminate French books abroad . . . to promote the publication and distribution of reviews, and educational and technical manuals. We are examining . . . a national strategy for the language industries: how to use new communication technology, what has to be done to enable our language to be used in multimedia products, in computers, in the audio-visual area, in interaction, in digitalisation. We are attempting to put in place a European policy for languages... to conduct a multilingual policy . . . everybody should learn their mother tongue, English as a great language for international communication, but also one more of the Union's languages. (Journal Officiel, Debats 18S, 26AN, 1994) These aims and objectives show perhaps an increased vigour by the incoming government, if not a fundamental shift of aim: Toubon was not afraid to make proposals that might have seemed excessively patriotic to some Socialists. But Toubon was as keen as his predecessor on industrial and economic development in the language industries, even more enthusiastic to maintain the role of French overseas, and aware of the need to promote French as part of a multilingual policy. The Delegation was able to make a restatement of aims by late 1995, after the election of Chirac to the Presidency and the nomination of Philippe Douste-Blazy as Minister of Culture (Francophonie had been relocated with the Foreign Ministry). The aims now were rather more briefly stated:

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To ensure the presence and spread of French as language of the Republic; To preserve for French its status as a great language of international communication, which is a trump card for France and for the international French-speaking community; To respect linguistic and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism. (Breves, 2, 3rd term, 1995)

The aims could be alleged to respond to what is identified as threats, and could be presented as essentially defensive and protectionist. On this view, the main motivator is language insecurity, associated particularly with the xenophobic aspect of purism. Identity is a second main motive: the traditional threat from regionalism, potentially leading to the break-up of the French State, is associated with concern that the true nature of France, often symbolised in the Republican ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity - and specifically in the concept of the Republic 'one and indivisible' - might be swamped or weakened by alien, non-French values, whether they derive from territorial or non-territorial minorities. The third motivator - image - is reflected in the desire that France should continue to be a major player on the world stage, reinforced by the worry that France is no longer able to resist the domination of the USA. The corpus policy, also, is dependent on a negative view of external pressures: possible contamination from English - the language of uniform, intellectually limited mass communication - is a constant theme. But there is also the realisation that maintaining the purity (and hence stability) of French is not the answer, that French must adapt and adopt new terms, particularly in commerce and science. Similarly, French aims can be seen as accepting linguistic diversity and promoting multilingualism, now refusing the domination of one language, and supporting the efforts of countries other than France in their aims for global involvement. The aims can be summarised as promoting efficiency, establishing and maintaining the corpus, symbolising identity, ensuring defence, and, the most recent, encouraging pluralism. The comparatively unchanging nature of these motives and objectives has been noted many times (cf. Bengtsson, 1968; van Deth, 1995). Van Deth, rather despairingly, noted that nothing seemed to have changed between 1966 and 1995 in the analysis of the problem, nor in the policy responses to it: policy was still in effect to defend French in France and to expand its use abroad. The sole change - the open declaration of the aim of defending multilingualism - is associated with a deliberate policy of 'cultural exception' as expounded during the 1993 GATT negotiations. The purpose of both is to ensure that languages other than American English are used, as is clear when the measures supporting this aim are described in Breves, 1995: the requirement for two foreign languages as part of French education, the need for two translations if any translation is required, support for European multilingual policy, and specific actions by the Delegation supporting translation and terminology. The actions do not include support for the use of regional, immigrant or foreign languages by the citizen in dealing with the State, or any concept of language rights for any language other than French. Criteria for the success of these aims - how the government will know that


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it has succeeded - have not been matters of concern until comparatively recently. Indeed, it was not until the Toubon law of 1994 that effective measures were introduced to ensure that the Delegation made an annual report to Parliament on the application of the law, and on 'conventions or international treaties relative to the status of French in international institutions'. The first such report appeared in September 1994 (DGLF, 1994): its first part (pages 1 to 25) is indeed devoted to a review of the application of the 1975 law, while pages 26 to 83 consider how the Toubon law might be applied, outline a 'dynamic interventionist policy' in increasing awareness, and in supporting sensitive sectors where the use of French is declining, and review the situation in education across Europe. Pages 84 to 121 are devoted to the use of French in international organisations, with a review both of the legal status, and of the actual use, of French in 71 organisations. Although the 1994 report is not so sophisticated nor so detailed as the Quebec 'Linguistic Indicators' (Indicateurs, 1991), it is clearly intended that statistical information will be made available via this route in a coherent and organised way, and the 1995 report has started the process. Britain The 'almost total lack of attention to any relationship between English language and national identity' identified by Grillo (1989, 44) had its origins mainly in the almost total lack of concern traditionally expressed by the English (less so by the Irish, Scottish and Welsh) about identity anyway. National identity, and the role of English language in relation to it, are often now associated with concern for clarity in communication and the use of high quality English, usually interpreted as meaning standard English. The objectives of policy towards clear communication, particularly during the late twentieth century, have varied from improving the efficiency of the administrative machine to ensuring that citizens can benefit from it, and governments of both the political left and the political right seem to have specified their language objectives in terms where the actual language involvement might at first seem minor: The Government's policy is to improve the efficiency of the Civil Service. . . The Government is therefore undertaking a continuous and sustained programme of action to reduce the number of forms wherever possible and to simplify those that are essential . . . forms deserve special attention as the face and voice of Government for many people . . . getting good forms is a practical and timeconsuming job. (Administrative Forms, 1982, 2)

The action required to implement this somewhat vague objective included: 14. a) in the case of existing forms, the responsible branches will review systematically the need for the forms. .. e) departments will ensure that, progressively, forms become clearer and more intelligible for their purpose and work as they are intended. Their language must be plain and simple, avoiding jargon. So far as possible, forms will be tested

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before they are introduced to check that the public can understand and use them easily.

The objective remained very similar in 1991, although the 1984 and 1985 guidelines were expressed in a new discourse and layout, with much use of short sentences and bullet points (Success, 1991): 5. What makes a good form? Use plain English Address the reader personally as 'you' Use verbs not nouns made from verbs (e.g. say rely not reliance) Use the active form of the verb (e.g. say please return this form not, this form should be returned) Use short sentences (15-20 words) Avoid jargon.

In 1988 Mrs Thatcher, as Prime Minister, had stressed the efficiency objective, simplified the argument and typically strengthened the instructions to the civil service: When a large organisation such as the Government tries to communicate with the man and woman in the street the scope for misunderstanding is enormous . .. Jargon and 'officialese', while far from extinct, are dying out. I would like to see them banished forever. Plain English must be the aim of all who work in Government. (Plain, 1988)

The theme of clear communication as an objective of government was continued after John Major replaced Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister, although, at first, with a 'Citizen's Charter' approach stressing effectiveness rather than efficiency. The six Principles of Public Service outlined in the Charter programme included 'Information and Openness': Full, accurate information readily available in plain language about how public services are run, what they cost, how well they perform and who is in charge. (Charter, 1992)

The same document gave examples of good practice, which included the availability of public service information in 'up to twelve' languages other than English: It is good Charter practice to make sure people can find out easily everything they want to know about public services through clear and effective communication.

Later in the 1990s, the efficiency aim was more closely connected to that of national identity and national pride: It's our heritage. Not only is it the tongue of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton, it is now the language of the world, uniting continents. And here at home why should anyone expect to get a job if he or she can't speak or write clearly in our marvellous language. For too long we have been slack in our treatment of English.


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And we have impoverished our children in the process. .. I shall use my time as Secretary of State to campaign for the use of plain, simple, effective English - not just in the classroom, but in the media, in industry and commerce, even in Parliament. (Shephard, 1994)

The Guardian (14 October 1994) reported that the Secretary of State had been 'astonished by the interest generated by a recent newspaper interview in which she condemned "expression by grunt" and the spread of "Estuary English", a form of London dialect with glottal stops'. It seems that British public opinion thus shared the concern over 'standards' of speech, and would accept the aims as outlined. Interestingly, the same Secretary of State repeated much the same words a year later, at the next Conservative Party Conference. The long-standing aim of British language policy for English therefore seem to be to maintain communicative efficiency. More recently, aims include providing a service to the citizen, establishing, maintaining but above all using 'correct' English, in both spoken and written forms, particularly as the language of education, and ensuring national identity, particularly against immigrant culture but also against social variation. Nowhere, however, are these aims clearly spelt out or expressed in terms of a coherent policy orientation; as much as anything, they represent apparently random thoughts and tend to reappear in contexts such as a party conference or other public event, giving the impression that the speaker is looking for statements which will be easily accepted and strike an answering chord, but will not require precise clarification nor lead to additional expenditure. Identifying specific criteria for the success of policy has, at least in theory, been an integral part of policy-making in Britain over the 1980s, and the Rayner reform of government forms proposed a (perhaps excessively) simple measure of its own effectiveness by counting the number of forms each department disposed of. The Financial Management Initiative required that civil service managers have 'a clear view of their objectives; and assess and, wherever possible, measure outputs or performance in relation to these objectives'. The development of (usually numerical) Performance Indicators has since spread to many other aspects of the provision of services to the public by government or government agencies: education, in particular, has adopted a new culture of measurement, and applied it to a number of aspects of the service - in developing and publishing league tables of the performance of schools, universities and colleges, and in insisting on specific procedures such as performance-related pay. The National Targets for Education and Training, set in 1991 after the publication in 1989 of a document - 'Towards a Skills Revolution' - by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), had the following aims: 1. All employers invest in employee development to achieve business success 2. All individuals have access to education and training opportunities, leading to recognised qualifications, which meet their needs and aspirations 3. All education and training develops self-reliance, flexibility and breadth, in particular through fostering competence in core skills. (National Advisory Council for Education and Training Targets, 1995)

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Insofar as language is concerned, these targets specify that, for the year 2000, 'by age 19,75 per cent of young people [are] to achieve level 2 competence in communication... 35 per cent to achieve level 3 competence by age 21.. .', while targets for lifetime learning are that '60 per cent of the workforce should be qualified to NVQ level 3, Advanced GNVQ or two GCE A level standard.. .'.In general terms, while in the 1991 version it had been specified that by 2000, 50 per cent of young people should gain two GCE A levels or the vocational equivalent, the 1995 update raised this to 60 per cent, noting that 41 per cent had achieved this level by 1995. The relationship between objectives and measurement criteria was also made clear in Gillian Shephard's speech to the Conservative Party Conference in October 1994: There is of course no point in setting challenging standards if you can't measure them. We have put in place manageable ways of assessing and testing pupil's progress at 7, at 11 and at 14. We have established through OFSTED a rigorous system of four-yearly inspections of all our schools. And for the first time we have, in the GCSE, a proper school-leaving examination suitable for some 94 per cent of our pupils. (Shephard, 1994)

The national programme of tests of children's performance in National Curriculum subjects relies on the publication of results, school by school and in aggregate form. Against this background, the excessive workload required of teachers in order to manage the testing processes provoked changes to simplify and reduce the production of performance indicators, and a largescale consultation process, managed by Sir Ron Bearing as Chairman of the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority over two years, produced revised curriculum and measurement proposals by late 1994 (Dearing, 1993a, 1993b; e.g.NCMFL 1994a, 1994b). The general conclusion must be that criteria for the success of policies in Britain are now heavily dependent on formal Performance Indicators, and that the well-known problems of these - they measure outputs rather than outcomes, they reduce complex situations to simple numbers, they affect 'performers' so that they perform to indicators, they measure only what can be measured - affect language policy just as much as any other domain. STAGES IN NEGOTIATION Policy - the selection of a course of action - is developed in negotiation between the state authorities and the rest of the policy community or the issue network, against the background of the objectives, the desired outcomes and the desired outputs, measured according to whatever indicators have been chosen to represent success. The negotiation itself, with whomever it is conducted, is at least in theory dedicated to reducing complexity, uncertainty and conflict in order to enable the selection to be made - to arrive at some sort of decision, even if the decision is to do nothing (Brewer and deLeon, 1983, 103-5). As we have seen, one of the main differences between language


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policy and other types of policy such as economic or welfare policy is not so much that the objectives may change or that the context and the criteria might be different, but that the network and network participants might be different. Some of the major differences between France and Britain in making language policy are also clearest when one considers the negotiating sequences which appear to characterise the discussions. France In France, in recent years, the teaching of foreign languages has achieved a high profile. As in Britain, it is children and their parents who choose the particular foreign language they will study as first, second or third foreign language. The role of central government and of the local offices of the ministry, is, theoretically, merely to provide the teaching required. However it is the ministry that decides the languages the country can offer, those that can be taken at baccalaureat level, the teacher training that will be approved and the resources that can be provided. Enrolments in order of popularity of the language in 1991-92 and 1992-93 were as follows: Table 8.1 Secondary school enrolments in foreign languages

English Spanish German Italian Russian Portuguese Arabic Modern Hebrew Chinese Japanese Dutch Polish All others Languages by correspondence Regional languages Total children:

1991-92

1992-93

5,150,702 1,444,906 1,387,411 177,337 29,388 14,388 13,226 4,545 2,732 1,403 570 297 4,121

5,291,380 1,472,428 1,380,896 165,108 24,013 12,546 7,929 4,986 2,150 1,624 459 334 5,031

5,232 22,129

2,337 22,208

5,519,964

5,629,908

Note: France including overseas Departments - Antilles, Guyane, Reunion; but not overseas territories - St Pierre et Miquelon, Wallis et Futuna, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Mayotte and French Antarctica. Numbers represent all language choices first, second, third and optional courses. Both public and private secondary schools are included. Some professional and preparatory courses are excluded. Source: Note 92-10 and Note 93-43. The figure for regional languages (1992-1993) was given by M. Toubon in the Assembly debate, 4 May 1994 (Journal Officiel, Debuts 21 AN, 1994).

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English was studied in 1991-92 by 93 per cent of children. The dominance of English is increasing rapidly: 'only' 82 per cent chose it in 1980-81. English is chosen usually as first foreign language, where it accounted for 87.1 per cent of choices in 1992-93 as against 86.8 per cent in 1991-92. Spanish and Italian are usually chosen as second or third languages. German makes up about 12 per cent of all choices, but is becoming more popular. Even in the frontier areas where nearby languages might well be popular, English generally comes first: in Alsace, German only just beat English, with 105,510 secondary enrolments as against 103,581 for English - although choices of English were increasing. In Bordeaux, Spanish with 99,211 far exceeded German with 33,892, while 2,788 choices of regional language (Basque) were made. In Corsica, 18,319 chose English but the regional language had 4,008 choices (Ager, 1993). This domination by English (Int EN, 1992) was brought forcibly to the attention of the Ministry of Education during the 1980s through the regular meetings of bureaucrats with pressure groups, individuals and language associations, particularly of foreign-language teachers. Enforced diversification had been unsuccessful, and some languages had practically disappeared except in certain regions and among certain groups. Language choices made by parents were often made for reasons which had nothing to do with the intrinsic value of the language, or its value to the education of children: German, for example, was used as an indicator of academic brilliance - only the bright ones chose it. Similarly regional, and even more, 'immigrant' languages were often regarded by parents and children as an easy additional subject, particularly for children whose brilliance elsewhere was suspect. Specific problems affected different languages: should Japanese be taught only as a spoken language, in view of the difficulties of the writing system; how could the low status of Arabic, caused by its perception as the language of immigrants at the bottom of the social scale, be changed? The country's stated aims in foreign-language teaching were ambitious, perhaps too much so. Should the system aim for communicative competence in situations where French youth might expect to experience real communication, rather than concentrate on literary forms and formal discourse, where much foreign language teaching still saw its role? (Int EN, 1992). Languages had been seen as an elitist subject anyway, with the twoand three-language streams in the baccalaureat generally considered superior to most others - at least until recent years, when Mathematics has taken over the elitist role. Two specific policy initiatives were taken in the early 1990s and were reinforced as the Government changed after 1993 and 1995: firstly to ensure that all children studied two foreign languages in school as a matter of course, and secondly, to encourage the provision of foreign languages to children of primary schools. One foreign language is obligatory in French schools from the sixieme, approximately age 11 and the start of secondary education. A second is part of the optional subjects which start at the quatrieme (age 13), or can be started at seconde (age 15). A third foreign language can be studied as an option in the seconde or premiere (Note 93-43). As of 1992-1993, 93 per cent of schoolchildren in seconde take a second language, although this drops


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to 67 per cent by the terminate, the last year of secondary education (Breves, 1994). A solution, both to the domination by English and to the problem of how, and when, to start the second and third languages might be to stop (i.e. award certificates in) the first language at the end of premiere to find enough curricular space to enable the second to be taken during terminate as the compulsory component in the final secondary examinations, the baccalaureat, taken at age 18. In 1994, M. Toubon, in presenting the Toubon law to the Senate and the Assembly, made clear that the law on French was one part of an overall language policy, another part of which would be to support multilingualism in Europe. When France obtained the presidency of the Union in January 1995, he said, she would pursue a policy supporting the obligatory learning of two foreign languages in schools. This is precisely the policy that has been heavily promoted by teachers and others, particularly linguists (Hagege, 1987, Calvet, 1993) as the best way to ensure the future of French teaching abroad as well as the teaching of other languages in France. A wellestablished, harmonious network of consultation and advice operated within the ministry, between civil servants and a number of groups and individuals. Only in the case of the regional languages was there even a hint of disagreement within this network, although here it was the civil servant responsible for programmes at the lycee level who in the end refused in 1991 to participate further in discussion, and threatened withdrawal of all subsidies to primary school regional-language teaching, unless the pressure group involved moderated its demands, and the violence of its discourse, for full recognition of all regional languages within the Deixonne rules (Int EN, 1992). How far does the process of negotiation reflect the three-stage pattern - of consultation, followed by a fiat by the policy-makers of the administration, itself followed by a 'revolution' among the policy network, to be followed in turn by revised proposals - that Hall (1993, 162) had put forward as typical of French policy-making? In the specific case of foreign languages, matters appear much more friendly and cooperative than this, and eventual policy decisions have followed much more closely the desires and wishes of the teaching profession and the policy network generally in a slow, widely agreed movement towards what seem to be generally agreed aims. But it is certainly clear that the bureaucrats and administrators, in the ministry and now increasingly in the Delegation, are effective, together with parents, in bringing matters to the notice of policy-makers. Britain In Britain, the consultative policy-making style which had characterised much of the period since the second World War changed dramatically with Mrs Thatcher's first government in 1979 (Richardson, 1993, 96). Deliberately provoked conflict and a refusal to negotiate with established interest and pressure groups, a disrespect for professionalism and hence the 'destabilization of policy communities' led to a process characterised by:

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challenging entrenched groups, [insisting] that the principles underlying the reforms should be maintained,... but literally [negotiating] the implementation phase with the affected interests and [making] significant concessions in that process. (Richardson, 1993, 98)

Since 1990 and the departure of Mrs Thatcher, 'policy erosion' - for example in the implementation of the National Curriculum - has been underway, and both negotiation and consultation are said to have regained their more traditional roles in the policy-making process. One might therefore characterise these three periods of policy-making by the types of negotiating sequences which seem to have characterised them: before Thatcher: consult - agree - announce the policy; at the height of Thatcherism: announce the policy - provoke conflict maintain principle - negotiate implementation; after Thatcher: announce the policy - consult - optionally: agree - modify the policy. The purpose of the period when the Thatcher reforms were at their height was to reconstruct the policy community - for example by weakening the strength of the trade unions and professional associations, among others. Since then, the consultation and agreement is likely to be easier for the state authorities and lead to faster creation of policy initiatives than in the period prior to 1979. Insofar as the teaching of foreign languages is concerned, both the policy and the policy network developed slowly over the period during which the National Curriculum was being developed. The Department of Education and Science had produced a consultative paper on foreign languages in the school curriculum in 1983 (MLSC, 1983), followed by a draft statement of policy in 1986 (MLSC, 1986) and a final version of this Statement in 1988 (MLSC, 1988). In the interim, Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools had also produced a discussion paper on languages to age 16 in 1986 (HMI, 1986). In 1989 the Education (National Curriculum) (Modern Foreign Languages) Statutory Instrument 1989 appeared (SI 1989/225), enforcing a National Curriculum on schools as from 1992. This was modified in 1991 as a result of initial advice from the Modern Foreign Languages Working Group under the chairmanship of Professor Martin Harris, then Vice-Chancellor of Essex University (NCMFLIA, 1990). The final report of the Modern Foreign Languages Working Group appeared in October 1990, and the recommendations for programmes of study and attainment targets in Key Stages 3 and 4 of the National Curriculum derived from this report were implemented in a 1991 document (NCMFL 1991), which could be taken as marking the end of the 'Thatcher' period in this field. A further working party then developed additional guidance to help teachers interpret and implement these decisions, and 'non-statutory guidance' was published in February 1992 (NCMFLNSG, 1992), 'in time' for the first children to be affected by the curriculum at Year 7 (i.e. age 11) in 1992. NCMFL 1991 and NCMFLNSG 1992 remained valid until 1995, when the changes introduced by the slimming down of the curriculum came into force. These proposals for slimming down, produced in


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draft form in May 1994 by SCAA with advice from a working group (NCMFL, 1994a), were approved by the Secretary of State after consultation and appeared in their final form in late 1994 (NCMFL, 1994b). In essence, the teaching of a foreign language could now be compulsory only for ages 11-15 (i.e. to Key Stage 3), with a one-year short course in a language offered thereafter along with a further one-year short course in technology. The policy network in this area is not, in the mid-1990s, clearly constituted. Its individual members on the policy side include the Department for Education (later to be the Department for Education and Employment), represented by officials - mainly from its Schools Branch 3 charged with responsibility for modern languages; the remaining Inspectors from the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) with subject responsibilities in languages, and SCAA through its two Modern Languages Officers. On the 'other' side, both DfE and SCAA have nominated ad hoc advisory groups whose members change and are sometimes known and openly named in consultation reports or elsewhere, and sometimes not. The Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (CILT) is a departmental body, funded and controlled by the Department for Education, but managed and formally constituted as a separate organisation with a Governing Body chaired by a university Vice-Chancellor (Professor Harris) and individual members appointed by the Secretary of State but from a wide range of interests. More clearly independent, the Association for Language Learning (ALL) groups some 6,000 language teachers in all sectors of education, while the National Association of Language Advisors (NALA) represents the remaining local education authority advisors. For matters connected with examinations, representatives of the four English GCSE examining boards are involved. 'Consumer' and 'stakeholder' interests - parents, pupils, local authorities, teacher unions, the embassies of the countries whose languages are taught, ethnic and business community representatives - are not openly involved, although in some matters, particularly education in lesser used languages, many of these make representations to the Department for Education. There are no professional lobbyists, and although ALL does have a small full-time staff, the Association's policy is decided by teachers and others at weekend meetings. In addition to these fairly overt members of the foreign languages network, the policy's general principles have been affected by a number of pressure groups and individuals who do not participate in the formal consultation exercises. It should be stressed that throughout the period, particularly since 1986 and the implementation of the policies, the impression has been given that consultation was proceeding much as before 1979, and that the policy network for foreign languages still existed: documents - in greater and greater numbers - were published by the DES or DfE, a formal consultation period elapsed, and policy was then declared when all views had been received. Direct 'interference' by government in the network only occurred twice - when CILT was 'reprieved' from possible closure in 1984, but given tighter terms of reference; and when the creation of ALL was welcomed by DES as making negotiation easier. The disappearance of HMI and NALA from direct involvement is related more to diminution in numbers of

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Inspectors and Advisors generally, and hence a drop in numbers with knowledge of languages, than to any deliberate policy of exclusion. It may be in this area that the appearance of continuity has been maintained although the reality is of change and radical reform. Reviewing the written responses of ALL and its predecessor organisations to the policy documents published since 1986 reveals eight main and repeated expressions of concern, apart from the expected ones of lack of resources and workload (3,000 teachers additional to those employed in 1985 were thought by ALL to be necessary to implement a modern foreign language for all, for ages 11 to 16, whereas numbers have steadily fallen): foreign languages in primary education; problems of diversification of the first foreign language; the second foreign language; the lesser taught languages; the short course in a language at Key Stage 4; the nature of assessment and examination in languages; the difficulty or indeed impossibility of Levels 9 and 10 of the attainment targets, particularly at Key Stage 3; and the level of detail prescribed, particularly for assessment but also in programmes of study: statutory versus non-statutory guidance. (ALL, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994)

The most detailed ALL reply to consultation exercises is that of July 1994, addressed to SCAA in response to the details of the slimmed-down curriculum in foreign languages. This has some 27 main recommendations to policy-makers, covering the eight main points and others, and the following extracts give some of these together with extracts from previous ALL replies on the same points: Short course 1. There are compelling reasons for removing the modern foreign language short course from the National Curriculum. This is the single most important issue and one on which there is almost total unanimity among our members. - However, in 1990 ALL, although pointing out the diversity of opinion among members, had said: Languages such as Italian and Russian will be best preserved in our schools by means of valid short courses, which are also the best means of introducing Japanese, Chinese, Arabic etc. They are probably also the best means of ensuring the serious teaching of home languages from our ethnic communities. - In October 1993, ALL had said: We ask that the provision for a short course in KS4 in a modern foreign language be re-examined. In the SCAA revised curriculum of November 1994, the short course was still present. Diversification 5. The Proposals should include statements which support diversification of the first foreign language.


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In 1986, the JCLA Annual Conference had said: This conference reiterates its belief in the need for education authorities to give emphasis to a policy of diversification of the first foreign language and of subsequent foreign languages. In 1987, the JCLA had said: Diversification of the first foreign language would be essential. These proposals could reinforce the hegemony of French and there would be a danger that the position of so called 'minority' languages would become untenable. Similarly, in 1987 the Modern Language Association had noted: it is essential that there be diversification in the first foreign language. The SCAA revisions of November 1994 made no mention of diversification. The second foreign language 5. The proposals should include statements which support... the learning of a second Foreign Language. In 1987, JCLA had said: Language teachers are fearful of the effect of the suggested curriculum on a second foreign language. In 1990, ALL had said: Perhaps as a nation we should be looking at how, in the long term, to achieve the EEC standard of two foreign languages for all, perhaps beginning the first at age 8 and the second at, say, age 12 ... There must be firm expectations by the government that all schools will provide more than one foreign language and that a majority of pupils will learn more than one foreign language. In October 1993, ALL had expressed again: . .. our considerable anxieties about the future of the second foreign language for pupils in KS3 and KS4. The SCAA revisions of November 1994 mentioned the second foreign language as a possible competitor for the remaining curriculum time which individual schools could use as they saw fit, thus placing the topic outside the framework of a national curriculum. Levels 9 and 10 22. Most members do not wish to retain Levels 9 and 10, especially if they only apply to Key Stage 3. In 1990, ALL had said: Levels 8, 9 and 10 are criticised as being too ambitious in scope by far. In October 1993, ALL had said: This association has throughout every stage of the development of the Order for MFL stated that levels 9 and 10 as currently expressed appear too difficult, and could actively discourage a number of pupils. We stand by that view. The SCAA revisions of November 1994 replaced Levels 9 and 10, for all subjects, by a statement describing 'exceptional performance'.

In some areas, ALL has influenced the November 1994 revisions. These were limited to a modification and rephrasing of the Areas of Experience, particularly that of the world of work. The 1994 draft proposals phrased this as: This should include education and training; careers and employment; business, industry, commerce and the public services.

By January 1995 this had become subtly changed:

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This should include further education and training; careers and employment; language and communication in the workplace.

But it is undeniable that one of the main members of the policy network seems to have been fairly consistently ignored, particularly since 1986. It is true that policy-makers may rightly have felt somewhat confused over the comments on the short course: strongly supported in 1990, but condemned outright since. But elsewhere the professional association has been consistent, and yet no notice has been taken. Why should this be? There is no doubt that ALL has tried to ensure that the responses it makes to policy consultation reflect the views of members. In relation to GCSE criteria, for example, special consultation meetings were organised by ALL to broaden the replies SCAA would receive (SCAA had limited the consultation exercise to 500 schools). A questionnaire survey of 199 schools was conducted in 1993, highlighting the following views arising from the first year of National Curriculum implementation (Mellor and Trafford, 1994): The Order was commended for its emphasis on the target language, the availability of a language for all, the opportunity to build on previous good practice and the enhanced status it gave to languages in the schools. On the negative side, there was concern over assessment, the threat to the second language, time constraints, and the difficulties of Levels 9 and 10. The lack of defined content in the Order was both welcomed and regretted.

Most interaction between policy-makers and other members of the policy network is by correspondence, and by reaction to published documents. The policy network occasionally, but rarely, meets to discuss matters. Usually, policy is made within DfE or SCAA by an ad hoc working party or advisory group. The result of their work is then sent for formal consultation to a list of consultees, which does not appear to be always the same list, whether of people or organisations. When meetings do take place, the network appears to be reconstituted in ad hoc fashion for every problem: for examinations, particularly at GCSE or later, it may consist of DfE, SCAA and the examination boards. In curriculum matters, it tends to consist of SCAA, ALL, NALA and CILT. Strangely, the revised National Curriculum arrangements were sent in November 1994 to NALA, but not to ALL. Some topics could well fall between areas: aware of this problem, ALL had requested, and obtained, joint meetings in 1993 and 1994 with a number of DfE departments to identify questions of national capability in languages and the wider impact of policy measures - for example on teacher training, where closures of courses on less-taught languages had national impact. There seem to be three main reasons for the comparative lack of success in negotiation in this network: first, the consistent use by the policy-makers of advisors who give advice on a personal basis rather than from knowledge of what the 'constituency' thinks; second, the continued distrust by policymakers of what seems to them to be the vested interest of 'producers' rather than of 'consumers' (this had been one of the main concerns of the Joseph and Thatcher reforms of policy communities in the early 1980s); and third,


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the consequences of the ideology of conflict deriving in the short term from the early 1980s and the Joseph reforms, but in the longer term from a view of policy-making as being top-down and necessarily radical management, defined as direction and control of an unwilling workforce or citizenry and necessarily based on 'them' accepting what 'we' say. In addition, the knock-on effect of one policy on another should not be forgotten. British schools are organised on an increasingly competitive basis, and language policy at school level depends on the financial consequences of actions. For primary schools, a foreign language is an extra that can attract parents and children; but the choice is nearly always French, since progression from primary to secondary requires continuity. For secondary schools, offering progression to those primary children who have studied French attracts more, but again means French is the only foreign language on offer. Competition between schools is a potent force working against diversification. For all these reasons, consultation is not seen as a way of achieving unanimity and driving the agenda forward in harmony, but as a way of persuading the 'opposition' to adopt a correct way - the only correct way - of looking at the problem. Negotiation in policy networks: a comparison Comparing the two countries, it is clear that in the French case the domination of the policy process by the civil service is absolute: discussion takes place under the control of and in the presence of the responsible official, who is prepared to refuse proposals and to dictate the results. But in this, the participants feel themselves to be part and parcel of the state machine: teachers are national functionaries as are the officials of the ministry, and all pursue national goals. Over the period to 1992, progress has been slow in making changes, and the implementation of revisions, when it has come, has come suddenly, as in the addition of new regional languages to the Deixonne lists in 1990. But generally there is considerable harmony, continuity and progression in the stages of negotiation, although this seems to conflict with the French tradition in other policy-making. In the British case, there has been, particularly since 1990, very wide consultation, reaching to every school in the country, although the number was limited to 500 for the consultations on the GCSE proposals. This widespread consultation, however, has been more apparent than real: substantial advice has come from small advisory panels, some of them constituted and meeting in secret, and the advice is not openly available even after the event. Consultation, in any case, has been very directive: consultation forms have allowed little room for developed argument, in many cases merely requiring respondees to tick boxes or select alternative statements from a list provided. As a consequence, responses have often come in free form - and have been extensively ignored. Domination of the policy network is seen as the result less of civil service or state autonomy than of domination by the political agenda: political principles (such as

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competition or the creation of numerical targets) are sacrosanct. In neither case does the negotiation stage quite seem to fit the two models proposed by Hall (1993) and Richardson (1993). 'Consult - fiat - revise' does not characterise the French approach, where, despite the strength of the civil service, more direct negotiation seems to take place with professional associations and with pressure groups and 'fiat' tends to mean that existing policy is retained for as long as possible before being nibbled away through incremental revision. The three-stage model for Britain - 'propose negotiate - agree' before 1979; 'destroy policy network' between 1979 and 1986; and a moderated return to consultation, although without negotiation, and on the implementation, not the principle, of the policy after 1986, is apparently closer to reality. But consultation is still very limited and cautious in Britain, and the belief that the 'other' side of the policy network is powerful and intent on mischief is ingrained among policy-makers. Strangely, the Conservative policy-makers, in massive parliamentary majorities between 1979 and 1995, have always demonised any opposition to their policies, regarding it as the work of 'the enemy within' and thought of themselves as a small beleaguered group valiantly fighting for the Truth. In the case of languages, the fight has destroyed one, already fairly weak, policy network and not yet replaced it with another.

9

The policy process: implementation

Legislation The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the translation of language policy into legislation in France and Britain. Government policy is implemented in both countries in two main ways: through legislation, debated, amended and eventually approved by Parliament; or through administrative action, taken by ministers in their departments or in some cases by remoter agencies, working on behalf of ministries. Permissive legislation - a framework law (loi d'orientation or loi cadre) in France, or 'Henry VIIF legislation in Britain, permitting ministers to make Orders implementing the details of the outlines contained in the law — has become more popular in recent years in both Britain and France, since it means governments can, they hope, often avoid repeated conflict and discussion of the topic in Parliament. Such macrolevel implementation of language policy must then be complemented by microlevel implementation in a multitude of individual policy decisions, many taken in the end by individual teachers in the classroom, individual employees implementing often poorly understood instructions, and agents who are not themselves part of the governmental machine at all - writers of dictionaries, manuscript reviewers and copy editors in publishing houses. In some cases the laws relating to language specifically mention implementation agencies and systems, while in other cases, implementation is left rather vague. In some cases indeed implementation is hardly specified at all, indicating, possibly, that the legislation is intended to be symbolic. Clearly, there is much room for interpretation, modification or rejection of the intentions of the policy-maker in the chain between a macro statement of policy included in a legal document, and the microlevel of face-to-face interaction between a policeman and an illegal immigrant, or between a foreign-language teacher and the parents of a child who wishes to study a second foreign language at age 11. In both countries, macro policy at government level — particularly symbolic policy — may also be realised

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simply through statements by political leaders and other credible authorities, giving their views on the topic. Only rarely does such language policy get as far as legislation. But the early 1990s have seen two examples of specific and detailed language legislation: in the 1994 Toubon law in France, and the 1993 Welsh Language Act in Britain. Is legislation regarded as necessary? If so, in which domains? Comparing France and Britain, the answers are quite different: France has, apparently, taken the line of specific, punitive and far-reaching legislation in all areas of language policy for French (status, corpus and acquisition), while this is apparently true in Britain only for Welsh in Wales. France Legislation on French reached a high point of public interest and concern with the discussions on the Toubon law of August 1994. In this chapter we shall examine only the parliamentary discussion, in both Senate and Assembly, and the adaptations and amendments to which the law was subject at that point (see Journal Officiel, Debats, 18S, 19S, 20S, 38S, 59S for the Senate and 26AN, 17AN, 48AN, 61 AN for the Assembly, 1994). The 1994 Toubon law (94-665,4 August 1994: see Journal Officiel, Lois et Decrets 180, 1994) 'relating to the use of French', is the main legal instrument now governing the use of French in France, although the judgement of the Constitutional Council of 29 July 1994 somewhat weakened its impact (see Lois et Decrets 111, 1994). The law is a redraft and strengthening of the 1975 Bas-Lauriol law (751349, 31 December 1975), which it also repealed. Two previous attempts, in 1984 (by M. Sarre) and in 1993 (by Mme Catherine Tasca), had not reached the stage of parliamentary discussion. It had been intended to leave some parts of the 1975 law untouched, in order to demonstrate continuity, but after the 1994 parliamentary amendments, of the twenty-one articles presented on 1 March 1993, only five survived unscathed. The 1994 law has not so far been found to be inimical to competition in the European Union, as the 1975 law was: after intervention by the European Commission, two ministerial circulars (14 March 1977 and 20 October 1982, cf. St Robert, 1986) had been necessary to modify the application of the earlier law. The Delegation took the precaution of consulting the Commission in 1993, and received a formal notice indicating 'themes for study' by the member States (COM(93) 456). In effect the Commission was extremely cautious, stressing many times that the whole question was the responsibility of member States, and not altogether accepting the French view of the necessity for Community harmonisation. Indeed, the five themes carefully noted that nobody could prevent the use of another language 'or other means of communication' (drawings, symbols, etc.): Supporting multilingual information - the ideal solution; preserving the freedom of member States to require the use of the language of the country in which consumption takes place - member States may require this

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particularly for foodstuffs, although they may not prevent the use of other languages or other means of communication; improving Community law in this respect - any Community law intended to help consumers could have to specify the status of languages; improving the exchange of information - a possible role for the Community in receiving and disseminating national rules and legislation; making commerce responsible - the Commission could specify who should be responsible for consumer information.

There were a number of reasons for the introduction of the law in 1994. Breves, a government production by the Delegation Generate a la Langue Franc, aise, declared in 1993 in preparing the ground for a Bill to be presented by Mme Catherine Tasca, the then Minister for Francophonie, that the use of languages other than French on French soil was an attack on the rights of the consumer, thus repeating the strategy adopted in 1975: the use of foreign languages in commerce could be a form of deception: on the offer, on contracts, on the description of goods or services . . . if languages are used which the majority do not understand or understand badly, this can only serve dishonest ends: the State cannot tolerate that, and will not tolerate it. In France, the obligation to give consumers information they can understand can only be done in French. Snobbery, in choosing English for signs, is annoying, and one may limit the freedom to do so with the intention of protecting the consumer and reversing this fashion.

Other reasons may include the political scene: the Balladur government was under constant pressure from the far right, and in particular by Le Pen's National Front. Introducing a law which could be presented as pro-French and anti-American might have been intended to court the vote of xenophobic supporters, already pleased by Toubon's banning of Jurassic Park on billboards (it had to be renamed Le Pare Jurassic} and pressing for Le Shuttle, the cross-Channel car train, to be renamed La Navette. Liberation (24 February 1994) baldly stated another reason: 'the first things in the sights are foreign products. . . Japanese electronic products. . . Italian kettles'. In Cabinet debates, according to Liberation, both the Minister for Industry and the Minister for Commerce expressed their reservations, pointing out the possible consequences in reprisals and in lack of inward investment. Liberation itself saw no reason why this proposal should not go the way of previous attempts to strengthen this legislation: its report on 24 February was entitled 'Francofolies\ and extensive space was given to the comments of the scientific community, who thought the proposals ridiculous... a colloquium in France without French participation is a nonsense, and if the law is applied there just won't be any major international conferences in France . . . we have already fought against a measure like this and we shall continue. The law represents both status and corpus planning. Its text had been

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developed, mainly by the Delegation Generate a la Langue Franâise in conjunction with a number of groups and individuals who had been pressing for a revision of the 1975 law for a considerable period. Avenir de la Langue Franâise (ALF), in particular, had been active over the previous two years, publishing declarations and manifestos in Le Monde throughout 1993. Surprisingly, the final text as submitted to the Assemblee Nationale in May 1994 had, however, not been officially referred to the French Academy, according to its General Secretary, Maurice Druon, although he himself had been unofficially consulted (Le Figaro, 4 August 1994). The debates, in both the Assembly and the Senate, had been expected to be fairly calm, as had happened in 1975. However, 75 members did attend the Assembly debate on 4 May, and the Senate debate in April had unexpectedly run over time and generated a considerable amount of emotion as different groups attempted to add numerous amendments; there had also been considerable public debate in the media - both in France and abroad - on the topic. The general political climate had become soured, after the massive defeat of the Socialists in March 1993 and the passage of various restrictive measures by the succeeding government, particularly concerning immigration, and there is little doubt that the eventual abstention by Socialists and Communists was part of an overall political strategy rather than associated with this particular law (van Deth, 1995). The bill was tabled for discussion in the Senate first, and a report on it prepared by Jacques Legendre, who met, separately or together, representatives of associations, organisations and a number of individuals, all of whom could be said to form the relevant policy community. The initial report was examined by the Committee on Cultural Affairs under the chairmanship of Maurice Schumann. The final Legendre Report (Legendre, 1994), prepared after this discussion, was fulsome in its praise for the project: the law was a legitimate intervention, a necessary intervention, and part of an ambitious policy for the defence and promotion of French. The previous (1975) legislation was, according to the Report, little known and poorly applied; the 1992 constitutional affirmation of French as the language of the Republic demonstrated the 'degradation of the position reserved for French even in the hexagon: what went without saying in 1958 now needs to be solemnly stated'. The final report proposed two new articles and a number of detailed changes to wording. Debates were expected to be fairly quickly over, but against considerable Press interest, a plethora of tabled amendments and TV interest they took four days: in the Senate on 12 and 13 April, and in the Assembly on 3 and 4 May 1994. The Senate completed its second reading on 26 May; a second Assembly debate took place on 13 June to review the articles where agreement had not been reached between the two Houses, after which a joint committee of both Houses reported to the Assembly on 30 June, when the final text was passed, and to the Senate on 1 July, when, since the Assembly had already adopted the text, it was open to the Senate only to accept or refuse it. The Constitutional Council was apprised of what they considered the unconstitutional nature of the law by members of the Socialist Party and pronounced its decision on 29 July, and the amended law was not


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finally signed by the President until 4 August. In the following discussion of some parts of the debates, the text quoted first is that of the final version of the Act. Article 1 The language of the Republic by virtue of the Constitution, French is a fundamental element of the personality and heritage of France. It is the language of education, work, interaction [echanges] and the public service. It is the preferred link of the States making up the French-speaking community.

The Legendre report, on the basis of establishing a link with the Constitutional phrase (Trench is the language of the Republic') and to avoid starting the law with a down-to-earth list of acts and documents where French was obligatory, had proposed the insertion of an additional article: French, the language of the Republic, is the language of education, work, interaction and the public service.

Two further amendments were proposed in the Senate: to add to the Legendre proposal: without prejudice to the regional languages of France (fourteen Senators); to propose the following as the additional Article: The language of the Republic by virtue of the Constitution, French is a fundamental element of the identity and heritage of France. It is the language of education, work, interaction and the public service (two Senators and the members of the Communist group).

The question of regional languages was to return many times, in both the Senate and the Assembly, despite the existence of a specific article which stated that the position of the regional languages would not be affected either way by the provisions of this Bill. In the Senate, M. Legendre speaking for the Committee felt this was not the place for such a mention, and after receiving assurances from the Minister, M. Toubon, that article 19 specifically on regional languages would be modified, M. Goetschy withdrew his amendment. In the Assembly, however, a similar amendment was proposed at this point, to add: The regional languages are an integral part of this heritage.

This was pushed to a vote and lost by 50 votes to 24, following which the same phrase as that used in the Senate (without prejudice .. . ) was proposed again, and similarly not accepted. The assurances given in the Assembly, that article 19 was sufficient to ensure that the formal position of regional languages in education was not affected even by the declaration of French as the language of education, was doubted by several Assembly speakers, many of whom expressed their fear that the outcome of the law would be a worsening of the situation in regard to regional, and even to foreign,

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languages. The seriousness of the situation was underlined by the appeal of one member, M. Goasguen (on the government side) from Brittany, to M. Le Pensec (Socialist) also from Brittany, not to 'adopt a retrograde, perverse view by renewing acquaintance with the old demons who try to foster enmity between French and regional languages'. M. Weber, from Alsace, also merely wanted 'everybody's good intentions to be stated' in the most significant part of the text, its beginning. The mention of 'old demons' kept the debate going for several minutes longer as the regionalists protested, until both Mme Martinez, former teacher, pointed out that the debate should be about French and not about either regional or foreign languages, and M. Toubon testily remarked that the Opposition was trying to make political capital out of the question. The amendment setting the law in the context of the Constitution and of general principles was regarded as unnecessary redundancy by M. Toubon in the Senate, although M. Legendre was happy to accept it on behalf of the Committee on Cultural Affairs. M. Toubon was similarly unhappy with the word 'identity', as being too vague. M. Schumann proposed the word 'personality' instead, and M. Renar, proposer of the amendment, accepted this modification on the basis that 'personality' included the past, the present and the future and was thus more comprehensive than 'identity'. The caution about the use of the word 'identity' undoubtedly reflected some Press comments which had pointed out the Fascist connections of the term. In the Assembly, an amendment was proposed simply to drop these general remarks altogether, on the argument that they were regulatory and symbolic. But that was the very point of the law, according to M. Pericard, chairman of the Assembly's Cultural Affairs Committee: It is true that this Article is declarative and symbolic, pleonastic in regard to the Constitution, but it is perhaps the only one we should not amend! It is not at all bad that we should reaffirm from time to time, with a certain degree of solemnity, some basic principles.

On the other hand, making general remarks laid the law open to restrictive interpretations: if one specified certain domains of use, others might be thought necessarily excluded. In the end, the amendment was defeated. The enumeration of domains such as education, work, interaction and the public service was objected to in the Senate on the grounds that there was no logical reason thus to limit the field: 'French is also the language of love and poetry.' In the Assembly, the point was not taken up, but on the recommendation of Xavier Deniau, well known for his work on Francophonie, a phrase was added on this topic which was maintained through all the later debates: It is the preferred link of the States making up the French-speaking community. Article 2 In the description, offer for sale, presentation, instructions for use, description of the extent and conditions of guarantee of goods, products or services, as also in invoices and receipts, the use of French is obligatory.


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The same measures apply to written, spoken or audio-visual publicity. The provisions of this article are not applicable to the designation of typical products and specialities with foreign nomenclature known to the general public. Legislation on trade marks is not an obstacle to the application of the first and second paragraphs of this article to statements and messages registered with the mark.

This article was heavily amended from the original formulation, in the Senate, in the Assembly and by the Constitutional Council, even though the first paragraph has survived unscathed from the 1975 legislation. As it stands, the article is an example of status planning, requiring the use of French in certain commercial usages, and clearly following the strategy of consumer protection adopted by the Haul Comite in 1966. In the formulation presented to the Senate, a second paragraph read: Recourse to any foreign term or any foreign expression is prohibited when there exists a French term or expression of the same meaning, in particular a term or expression approved under the conditions outlined in the administrative orders concerning the enrichment of French.

This paragraph had, in more or less the same words, been part of the 1975 legislation: Recourse to any foreign term or expression is prohibited when there exists a French expression or term having the same meaning, in particular a term or expression approved in the regulations concerning the enrichment of French.

In the Senate, M. Legendre's committee tightened up this provision by proposing that the words 'in particular a term or expression' be removed, which would have the effect of defining as French, and to be obligatorily used, those terms and expressions which had been defined by the ministerial Terminology Committees. In the Senate, it was noted that this paragraph would relieve judges of the need to define what was or what was not French: the official terminology would replace, in particular, English terms and expressions since that was the main task of the Committees. M. Toubon, perhaps naively, revealed that the Government had originally not wanted to limit the definition of French to what had been defined as such by the Terminology Committees. In addition, he made it clear that the intention was to restore a French appearance, for example to airports, and quoted the Paris airport at Roissy where American Express currently displayed an advertisement solely in English. In the Assembly, Mme Hostalier proposed that throughout the law 'French implies that the word strictly respects the (rules of) spelling, syntax and grammar as defined by the French Academy'. M. Toubon, in response, noted that the intention of the law was not to prevent French developing: 'in a century our language will have adopted other ways of expressing, other syntactic practices which, even if they now seem objectionable, will become normal practice when they have been adopted in general usage'. Similarly, M.

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Mathus (Socialist) noted that the 'Academy defines nothing, it records', and the amendment was withdrawn. The Constitutional Council, in its decision of 29 July 1994, struck out the original second paragraph of this Article altogether, on the grounds that it offended individual liberties - although the use of an official terminology could be prescribed for public servants. The same formula appeared several times throughout the law, and was similarly removed. Much of the Senate and Assembly discussion on other Articles turned on this question: Mme Seligman, in the Senate, thought it 'a terrible constraint'. In the Assembly, M. Mathus thought it simply couldn't be applied: At best, you're sinking into ridicule; at worst, into an attempt at a language police which seems to us completely inopportune and which is not a good way to defend French. In short, not merely will this article [here, Article 12] be ineffectual, but it will be extremely prejudicial to the French image abroad. We've already had, a few months ago, a quota of French songs to be broadcast on the radios. It was already preposterous to have to listen to Yves Duteil every morning, although that was not too serious. But to want to regulate vocabulary seems to me completely out of place and in no way corresponds to a positive, dynamic manner of defending French.

It may be that this approach had been what M. Mathus, objecting to the whole law in the general discussion in the Assembly on behalf of the Socialists, had characterised as 'Poujadism' and compared with the restrictive Pasqua laws on nationality. Certainly the reference to the Constitutional Council was made by Socialist members of the Assembly, with a reasoned case repeating many of the arguments heard in the Assembly but also introducing new ones - which the Council could not entertain. The Constitutional Council decision was based on the free-speech provisions of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man, in which liberty of communication 'implied the right to choose the terms an individual considers most appropriate to the expression of his thought'. While the legislator could impose the use of an official terminology on persons and bodies within the public service, this was not possible for private citizens, who must be allowed to express themselves according to their own judgement. Since this paragraph originally in article 2 made no distinction between these categories it had to be regarded as contrary to the Constitution - and the decision applied equally to the same phrase or implication when used in articles 2, 3, 12 and 14 in the earlier version of the law. The effect of this decision was twofold: it restricted the law's impact mainly to the public service, and, secondly, was regarded by M. Toubon as forcing decisions on what was or was not French onto judges in court - the very point he had been trying to avoid: Judicial uncertainty for firms, increased threats to freedom of expression might therefore result from the disappearance of rules which I had wished to be prudent, practical, and in fact protective. (Le Monde, 4 August 1994)

Maurice Druon of the French Academy, too, regretted the decision of the


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Constitutional Council (Le Figaro, 4 August 1994), pointing out that the Academy was better placed than the Terminology Commissions to decide what was or was not French - and, indeed, was officially obliged to do so. His support of Mme Hostalier's amendment is nonetheless somewhat surprising in view of the Assembly debate on the matter. Nonetheless, Jacques Rigaud, writing in Le Monde (9 August 1994), was content that the Council had 'created or preserved a space of freedom for each of us and recognised that the sovereign judge in language is neither a Minister nor a Judge but good old usage'. There remains, in article 2, the obligation to use French in a wide variety of commercially relevant documents; in advertising, and in messages accompanying trade marks (which otherwise avoid this requirement). This latter obligation was inserted in the Assembly Committee 'to block a loophole in the 1975 legislation': the example quoted was of an advertisement for Grundig tape recorders with a picture and the words 'sun, sea, sex' and 'made for you', supposedly as slogans accompanying the Grundig trade mark. Clarifying the import of the article, M. Toubon pointed out to the Assembly that it applied to 'all products sold in France, whether made in or imported into the country'. The implications of the law are also that French must be used in all the organs of the State and for all the purposes of the State, as became clear in the response of the Assembly Committee Chairman (Francisque Perrut) and Jacques Toubon to M. Georges Sarre. Sarre had wished to add an amendment to the effect that The language of official documents emanating from Parliament or subject to a vote in Parliament is French. Any document, treaty or report, drawn up in a foreign language, is the object of an official French translation agreed by all the parties. This translation accompanies copies of the document in its original language.

In supporting his amendment, Sarre pointed out that copies of the Blair House agreement had been rushed to members in English, while a further example was the fact that a former Foreign Affairs Minister, Roland Dumas, had signed a treaty with Hungary in a non-French version. The response from M. Perrut was that the constitutional arrangement making French the language of the Republic applies, above all, to Parliament which is one of its principal organs. The quoted example, if accurate, is happily extremely rare. I should also remind you that the Prime Minister has sent a circular letter to all Ministerial services, attached to our report, which draws attention to this point.

Toubon was rather more precise, noting that the rule was that French representatives only signed treaties in their French version, but noting also that international parliamentary and governmental working meetings often used working documents in English and indeed other languages, and that unofficial documents, sent from the European Commission to the Council of Ministers and then to Parliament, might also not be in French.

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Toubon also quoted the Appeal Court decision of 4 August 1859 (see also Grau, 1992, 96) annulling a document written in Italian and presented in Corsica, which had stated 'public documents can only be written in French'. Even before the Constitutional amendment, legal justification was based on the 1539 Villers-Cotterets Edict and the Revolutionary laws. Despite this legal situation, Toubon found the situation in 1994 'worrying'. Sarre, for his part, although he withdrew the amendment, noted that a working group would have to follow the question up to prevent any further incidents. Two other precise areas were mentioned in Assembly amendments: video games and screen-based communication, where the Socialist and Communist groups wanted greater precision and M. Toubon was clear that they were already covered (the amendment was lost); and the use of acronyms and abbreviations, where Mme Hostalier eventually lost the proposal that ambiguous acronyms should not be used and that only acronyms widely known could be used. As in the previous article, the question of regional languages was raised in the Assembly, by a proposal to add 'or in regional languages' to the penultimate paragraph. M. Le Pensec pointed out that 'kouign aman' and 'chouchen', Breton words for local specialities, might be banned. M. Toubon, replying, was categoric: 'Gewurztraminer, like kouign aman, far (another Breton word), or pottok (a pony in Basque) is part of the French language . . . Regional culinary, gastronomic and zoological names, along with others, are part of French.' There was much discussion in the Senate in dealing with articles 3 and 4 concerning advertisements visible to the public (i.e. on the highway or in transport vehicles) - over the necessity to provide one or two translations in foreign languages with the French text. The intention here was to ensure both that advertisements were 'formulated' in French rather than being mere translations, and that other languages in addition to English would be seen in France. The 1975 legislation had required merely that a French version be present if another language was involved. The argument for two translations was based on the belief that one would favour using just English, and might exclude regional languages. By contrast, it was suggested that the requirement for two translations could have the effect of introducing English to frontier areas where the one translation would have been of the frontier language only, and would in any case be so heavy a requirement as to attract unfavourable attention from the European Commission. Similarly, in immigrant areas, the requirement for two translations would increase the use of English: where now Chinese and French were used in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, if two languages other than French were required English would almost certainly be employed. M. Lauriol, in the Senate debate, announced himself converted to the twotranslation approach, on the argument that in the major part of the country, one alone would favour English. He returned to what had by this point in the debate become the 'accepted' view on regional languages: they were not foreign languages and therefore were not affected by this measure. His intervention, clearly off the cuff and yet both logical and convincing,


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exemplified the nature of parliamentary debate: the amendments were affecting, modifying and changing the legislation as discussion revealed inadequacies or potential problems in the policy. In the end, two translations were required, but the obligation was placed only on the public service. Article 12 (Freedom of communication) The use of French is compulsory in the whole of the broadcasts or advertising messages of the radio or television broadcasting organisations, whatever their method of broadcasting or distribution, except for cinema and audio-visual productions in the original language. This provision does not apply to musical works whose text is drawn up in a foreign language. This provision is not applicable to programmes, parts of programmes or advertisements included in these which are intended to be broadcast in their entirety in a foreign language and whose intention is language learning, nor to the broadcasting of religious services. When the broadcasts or advertising messages specified in the first paragraph are accompanied by translations, the presentation in French must be as readable, audible or intelligible as the presentation in a foreign language.

'This is the most pernicious article, the one that tries to set up a language police' commented M. Mathus representing the Socialist party in the Assembly. For the Government, M. Toubon had indicated in the Senate that this Article was 'essential'. M. Legendre, the chairman of the reporting committee, wondered whether 'we have the will to protect French, or are we going to give in? Everybody knows that audio-visual [media] are the most powerful of the instruments acting on public opinion.' The point of the article, according to M. Toubon, was 'to apply the use of French and not a foreign language, for example English'. 'These rules, specific to one or another profession or domain of life are intended to introduce respect for French, not to impose a police as M. Mathus says.' M. Toubon (in the Assembly) continued by underlining the extent of the potential impact of the article: We are going to set up, within the Conseil Superieur de la Langue Franâise, a study group bringing together professionals from audio-visual media, Press, and radio, including journalists and others since these provisions apply not merely to news broadcasts, but to all programmes - varieties, advertisements, documentaries, stories and plays (fictions") and youth broadcasts - in order to work out inventive solutions. It's not a matter of repression but of pressure to innovate.

One amendment was proposed by Xavier Deniau, similar to the provisions relating to the award of grants and subventions to the scientific community, to ensure that no public money would be available unless (television) productions were filmed in French. Objecting to this amendment, M. Toubon appeared to regard the compulsory use of French as, in this case, too restrictive:

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the law on French is not the right framework, and this is not the right time to worsen the already weak balance of a sector which needs reinforcing rather than being held back by new obstacles . .. Three protective measures are already in place in audio-visual productions. First is the requirement for broadcasters (television channels) to devote 15 per cent of their turnover to the production of audio-visual programmes in French. This is a high proportion and broadcasters are constantly demanding its reduction, which we refuse. The second protective measure is the requirement for those seeking the support of the Centre National de la Cinematographic (CNC) to film in French when at least 80 per cent of the capital is provided by French sources... the third is that CNC grants are proportional to the percentage of French funds raised.

These rules already cause difficulties for international co-productions, and M. Toubon, Minister for Culture as well as for Francophonie, clearly thought that when there was a clash between the financial health of television producers and the defence of French, the former was of most importance. Article 16 In addition to the officers of the judicial police working in accordance with the provisions of the penal code, agents (of consumer protection) are entitled to investigate and declare contraventions of the texts undertaken in pursuance of article 2 of this law. Such agents may enter during daylight into any place and vehicle except for places of habitation. They may consult documents they consider necessary to fulfil their mission, copy these and obtain information and proof appropriate for their mission, at the premises concerned or by requesting attendance at their offices. They may also obtain samples of goods or products under investigation as provided for in a decree to be agreed by the Conseil d'Etat.

Articles 17 and 18, and part of 19, were also concerned with the 'coercive' and 'punitive' aspects of the law. M. Mathus, for the Socialist party, was wholly opposed to them: It is not only useless, but above all dangerous to dress the defence of French in a gendarme's uniform .. . the defence and promotion of French should be thought of in other terms than this bureaucratic repression.

The Chairman of the Assembly reporting committee regarded the provisions as merely outlining the duties of the Consumer Protection and Fraud Investigation branches, while M. Toubon thought them 'indispensable'. He nonetheless thought it worth while underlining that the punishments - up to 50,000 francs fine and up to six months prison - applied to those providing obstacles to the work of the agents investigating the infractions rather than to the use. Punishments for the 'language crimes' would be specified in the decrees and administrative decisions taken by ministers to bring the legislation into existence. Article 19 Any properly constituted association whose aims include the defence of French


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and which is approved by the Conseil d'Etat may act as the civil party in offences against texts drawn up in implementation of articles 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 10 of [this law].

The 1975 law had remained more or less a dead letter, partly because the punishments involved had been minimal and mainly because the Consumer Protection and Fraud Investigation agents had manifested considerable reluctance to implement it (Truchot and Wallis, 1986). The purpose of this article was to involve associations such as Avenir de la Langue Frangaise in the follow-up investigations. Article 22, too, demonstrated the intention to learn from the defects of the 1975 law: it required the government to produce an annual report on the implementation of the law. Article 21 [referred to as Article 19 in most of the Senate debate, because of the incidence of amendments] The provisions of the present law apply without prejudice to laws and orders concerning the regional languages of France and do not prevent their use.

Throughout the discussion of the law, particularly in the Senate, questions on the importance of the regional languages and on the lack of a formal law outlining their status had been a constant element, recurring at more or less every article. This article was inserted by the Government as a blanket provision to leave the present position untouched: regional languages remain unofficial, supported and used in some domains, particularly in education, but not in others, and the overall position on minorities in the French State is unaffected. Interestingly, however, much of the discussion had created a new understanding: regional languages were part of the French heritage, and many terms and expressions from them (for example culinary and gastronomic specialities) were accepted by the minister as being in effect French. French legislation on the regional or other languages used in France is contained in very few specific laws. However, the discussion on the Toubon law provoked a number of statements on the interpretation of their position, together with reminders of the current legal situation. One general point was made by M. Toubon himself, in the general discussion in the Assembly preceding the detailed discussion of the law: regional languages are 'clearly part of the heritage of France' and as such entitled to protection and defence. Indeed, they were taught within the public educational system, and it was possible to obtain teaching qualifications in them. Many of those who defended regional languages in the debates, however, were extremely distrustful, and constantly looked for reassurances. The original formulation had not included the last part ('of France and do not prevent their use'), which was inserted by the Senate. The Government's intention was that, after the passage of the law, further specific consideration would be given to regional languages by the Minister for Education and the Minister for Culture, and in this consideration would be included the question of the European Charter for Languages. In 1994, however, and in relation to

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the Toubon law, the position of regional languages would be unaffected: article 19 (later 21) specifically stated that their position would not be prejudiced (or improved) by this law. Nonetheless, M. Didier Mathus, in explaining why the Socialist group would abstain from the vote on the law in the Assembly, was clear that 'the Assembly has not been able to take the position of the regional languages into consideration. There will therefore be a new law on French, . . . but still no proposal on the status of regional languages and cultures.' Britain In Britain, no legislation directly requiring the use of English (status planning) has been passed by Parliament since the 1362 Statute of Pleading, which affected the law courts. Legislation directly affecting terminology or the nature of the language (corpus planning) is also absent. Legislation affecting the use of English in education (acquisition planning) is not direct, being defined as a consequence of the 1988 Education Reform Act and subsequent Education Acts instituting bodies such as the National Curriculum Council and its successor, the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority, through Ministerial Orders from the Department of Education and Science or the renamed Department for Education after 1993. However, the Welsh Language Act of 1993 had been prepared over a period of time since 1985. Comparing the proposal as it was submitted to the then Secretary of State for Wales in 1991 (WLB, 1991) with the final text of the law as approved by Parliament (WLA, 1993) may illuminate the process by which legislation came about in Britain. By contrast to discussion of the Toubon law, we shall here concentrate on what happened outside Parliament, in discussion between the Welsh Language Board and relevant Welsh groups. It will be recalled that the Welsh Language Board was established in 1988, following the appointment in 1987 of eight 'wise men' to advise the Secretary of State. The Board's task was to advise the Secretary of State on matters related to Welsh, and its recommendations for primary legislation were based on its analysis of events since the passage of the 1967 Act, on its view on the nature of that Act, and on extensive consultation that it undertook on draft proposals circulated in 1989. The Board's main proposals in 1991 were four, and it noted that only Parliament could put them into effect: 'to declare the official status of the language, remove the legislative and executive obstacles to the use of the Welsh language, make provision for a greater use of the language in the public sector and establish a statutory body to care for its interests' (WLB, 1991,3). The Secretary of State's Bill however, when it was published in 1992, did not seem to have taken much notice of the work of the Board, and the eventual 1993 Act did not incorporate the actual wording, structure or contents of the Bill as outlined by the Board in 1991, although the general effect is probably the same. All four objectives were achieved, although not quite in the way envisaged: Welsh is not declared as one of the official


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languages of Wales, but has equal validity with English; obstacles will be removed by the requirement that public bodies make schemes to give effect to the principle of equal validity; greater use of Welsh in the public sector will be a consequence of the detailed action of the Board in devising guidelines and in approving schemes for the implementation of the requirement; and the Board is indeed now a statutory body, but not of the type envisaged in the proposals. Official language The Bill's clause 1 stated: 1(1) Welsh shall be an official language in Wales where in relation to English it shall be of equal validity for the purposes of the administration of justice and the conduct of administrative business so that, subject to the following provisions of the Act, any oral statement, and any act, writing or thing, made or done in Wales for those purposes and expressed in Welsh shall have the like effect as if it had been expressed in English.

The equivalent clause of the 1993 Act was: 5 ( 2 ) . . . the principle that in the conduct of public business and the administration of justice in Wales the English and Welsh languages should be treated on a basis of equality.

The discussion of the Bill (WLB, 1991, 12-15) made the case that it was necessary overtly to declare Welsh as of equal validity to English: 'Without such a declaration, the Welsh language will remain bereft of official status and will continue to be perceived as being inferior.' Despite discussions of this matter in the report published prior to the 1967 Welsh Language Act, and the apparent belief of many officials and indeed of government since that the language was in practice of equal validity, the WLB in 1991 agreed that it was necessary to declare official status. The use of the word 'official' was suggested to the Board by Gwynedd County Council, in order to make even clearer that this status applied only to public and legal domains; private transactions were not affected. Nonetheless, the word 'official' did not survive into the Act, for two reasons: firstly that English itself is nowhere declared to be the official language of Britain, and secondly since all the supportive argument had concentrated on the question of equal validity, the eventual Act declared this to be the principle rather than making use of the symbolic term 'official'. In fact, the solution incorporated in the Act was to make no symbolic or declarative statement at all, but to concentrate on the pragmatic implementation of the consequences of making Welsh co-official. This was done through making the Welsh Language Board statutory, and giving it the task of requiring public sector bodies to devise their own schemes for implementing guidelines the Board itself would make. There had been considerable confusion as to the meaning of the declaration of the language as official in the Bill, as became clear in both the written and

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the spoken comments from the Welsh Confederation of British Industry, who were concerned at the prospect of additional costs for industry through having to provide Welsh-language documents or having Welsh-language documents served on them. The answers of the WLB were that industry would not be required to provide Welsh-language services - it would be encouraged to, but there was no question of compulsion - and that 'the intention [of further reconsideration by the Board] was to prevent, for example, landlords serving notices to quit in Welsh on tenants unable to speak the language'. Despite direct discussions between the then Welsh Language Board and CBI Wales, the latter made direct representations to the Welsh Office on the lines that, although 'sympathetic to the Welsh language and [wishing] to see its use on a voluntary basis' it was 'firmly opposed to legislation'. A number of points were consistently made by CBI members: a) It is essential that no additional costs are imposed on [businesses] by virtue of requirements relating to the Welsh language. b) The imposition of additional costs could inhibit inward investment. Indeed, it is possible that disinvestment could occur. c) The language of industry and commerce world-wide is English and the creation of any kind of barrier which makes communication and intercourse between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom difficult must be prevented. d) Any proposal that the Welsh Language Board should act as a monitoring organisation or Ombudsman is totally unacceptable: particularly since the Board is not constituted on any kind of democratic basis. e) Our members have expressed concern that demands for further action will increase. f) Public Sector members . . . are concerned not to have to incur additional costs, except on a considered, voluntary basis. g) There is a dearth of Welsh-speaking people, particularly in the management grades, in large areas of Wales... it is both impractical and unreal to expect engineering and marketing staff to deal bilingually with the public . . . There is concern that any bilingual requirements which may be introduced should result, in some areas, in applicants being appointed for their linguistic knowledge rather than for their ability.

The Welsh Language Act as eventually passed was the result of a number of factors, mainly political: pressure applied by what the CBI called 'extremists'; movement towards decentralisation in both Scotland and Wales in an attempt by the Conservative Party, whose power base was the south of England, to improve its electoral position in both; and change in the role of local authorities as a consequence of greater centralisation of power in fields such as education. The 'extremists' seem to have included Cymdeithas yr laith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society), which, according to the Board, had conducted 'an intense personal campaign against members of the Board and its subcommittees by bringing pressure on them to resign'. The Board considered the Society to be acting in a party political manner: 'The issue has nothing to


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do with party politics; it has to be viewed objectively. We have had cause to doubt that this view is shared by the Welsh Language Society' (WLB, 1991, 10). The Society's objections to the Bill as proposed by the Board were: 1) that it justifies the present system and is prejudicial to Welsh and creates a system where it is necessary to demand and fight in order to use Welsh. 2) The principle of equal validity [is insufficiently strong] because the principle does not ensure natural bilingualism throughout Wales. By natural bilingualism, we mean, ensuring the rights for our communities to receive everything bilingually and this should not be confined to forms and official documents only. 3) We are fighting for the right to use our language in our own country. 4) The main basis of a comprehensive Bill should be the rights of the community to receive all information bilingually. 5) The first part of the Act is weak. The terms used such as 'as far as is practicable' and 'reasonable requirements' weaken the measure. 6) There is no reference in the measure to the rights of everyone to receive a full education through the medium of Welsh in his own area. 7) There is no reference to Welsh as a planning consideration even though there are several tourist developments which harm the character of Welsh communities. 8) There is no clause in the draft which refers to the need to remove Welsh from the ambit of the Race Relations Act. 9) Nothing will be worse, at this point in time, than to see a weak Act going through Parliament. We do not see the Board in its political and historical context as anything more than a way of preventing the presentation of a comprehensive act and we call upon you to resign and join us in the campaign for a new comprehensive Welsh Language Act. (Extracts from letter of 28 November 1989, quoted in WLB, 1991, 98-9)

The objections of both the Welsh CBI and the Welsh Language Society are very similar to those which have been voiced elsewhere in the world when bilingualism has been contentious, particularly in Quebec. The practical objections of the CBI — additional costs, possible disinvestment by organisations based in Wales, the effect of the exercise of monolingual language rights by the minority community - are precisely those which Anglophone interests in Quebec had put against the Quebec Law 101 in 1977. The Welsh Language Society's objections, similarly, are familiar, being those of many regional pressure groups in France, particularly during the late 1970s. The desire to restructure society, to ensure practical monolingualism, to base language rights on the community rather than the individual, is that of the Breton groups. The solution through the Welsh Language Act, 1993 seems to have been successful, in that opposition has been defused. Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas, for example, Chairman of the Board in 1994, saw the question of status as

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represented in the concept of equality as equality of treatment or equality of opportunity - rather than equality in essence, a more intractable notion - as being key (Thomas, D. E., 1994). His view was that equality was dynamic: that as individuals deal with public bodies, the Welsh language will become increasingly more visible and more audible than ever before; 'the equality of Welsh and English will take time: some years at least'. It is at that point that the reality of claims for effective monolingualism, and the threats of disinvestment, may be measured. Obstacles The second aim of the legislation was to remove the legislative and executive obstacles to the use of the Welsh language. These lay particularly in the courts - 'The existing opportunities for using the Welsh language in courts of law are far too narrow and restrictive' (WLB, 1991, 22); in employment, where the Race Relations Act prevented specification of Welsh as a requirement for employment; and in certain public acts: 'the position still is that in Wales its citizens cannot be born, cannot live, cannot marry and cannot die in Welsh' (WLB, 1991, 3). The WLB proposals were therefore to alter the situation 'from the citizen having to justify his request for a bilingual service, or Welsh only service or English only service, as the case may, to a situation where the public body refusing such a request would have to justify the refusal' (WLB, 1991,3). In addition to making both Welsh and English usable in court, the WLB proposal was for Clause 2: it shall be the duty of every government department and every public body, the executive responsibilities of which extend to Wales, when providing written material of whatever nature to, or otherwise communicating by any means whatever with, any person resident in Wales, in the course of discharging its executive responsibilities to ensure that the language used, whether Welsh or English, as the case may be, complies with the requirements of that person unless those requirements are unreasonable or compliance with them would be impracticable. (WLB, 1991, 47)

The Act did not adopt this solution, but made it the duty of the Welsh Language Board itself to issue guidelines for language schemes and to approve the schemes of each such public body. The public sector The third aim of the WLB was to make provision for a greater use of the language in the public sector. The Bill defined 'public sector' as including local authorities, health authorities, licence holders supplying electricity, public gas suppliers, sewerage and water undertakings, and operators of telecommunications systems, together with any other body 'appearing to the Secretary of State to be exercising functions of a public nature'. The privatised utilities (electricity, gas, water, telecommunications) were excluded from this list in the Act, which did however specifically include


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police and fire authorities, the funding councils for universities and colleges and individual institutions in this category. By contrast, 'any person acting as the servant or agent of the Crown' - i.e. any part of the administration of the State - was not defined as a public body and thus not required to implement a Welsh language scheme. Such 'persons' were not prevented from preparing Welsh language schemes, and had to send a copy of the scheme to the Board, but had the right not to implement any changes recommended by the Board. The exclusion of the privatised utilities and of the State's Departments particularly the Department for Social Security - places the WLA in a continuing position of inferiority in relation to the State, and makes it dependent on the goodwill of the State to implement bilingualism. However, here again time will tell how far these bodies will comply with the general thrust of the movement; at the time of the consultations in 1991 there was both considerable goodwill and indeed in some Departments model schemes or practical use of Welsh. The Welsh Language Board The final aim of the legislation was to establish a statutory body to care for the interests of the Welsh language. This was done in the WLA, although with a number of differences from the proposals. The Board considered in 1991, for example, that it had no role in relation to education: 'Education is not within the Board's remit,' although Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas, Chairman of the Board in 1994, nonetheless noted: The statutory Board is also responsible for keeping an overview of Welsh language education . . . I believe that the WLB's function in this area will be seminal in the process of developing special educational policies for Wales and freeing our educational system increasingly from the tyranny of the English system which is coming to be seen as more and more irrelevant to our own circumstances. (Thomas, D. E., 1994, 16)

Most of the differences were matters of detail (e.g. 15 members rather than 12), but the duty of the Board, in the 1991 proposals, to 'protect' the language; to 'keep under review the state of the Welsh language in Wales' and to 'promote and facilitate its greater use in Wales' had changed by 1994: both the first two duties disappeared, while the restriction to Wales in the third was also removed. The difference between the 1991 WLB proposals and the 1994 Act was deliberate, insofar as the functions of the Board were concerned: The Bill does not define the promotional function in great detail, because it will be for the Board to decide how the functions should be exercised. The Board should establish itself as an acknowledged centre of excellence and expertise on all matters to do with the language, and I believe that it must do so independent of day-to-day interference of Government, whichever Government may be in power. (Secretary of State for Wales, quoted in Jones, J. W., 1993)

How far these changes will alter the actions of the Board from what they

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would have been is as yet unclear, but the removal of the 'protection' and 'review' function would seem to imply that the Board's corpus function is not intended to be quite so much concerned with restricting the development of the language as might otherwise be the case. Certainly the Board's actions in supporting specific language projects in 1994 do not show signs of a preservation mentality. Nonetheless, that mentality is still there. Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas saw dangers from English, and dangers for the literary language: vocabulary is not the problem: the Welsh language can cope quite well with the flow of English words we borrow daily into our spoken tongue. The threat to its soul is the marked effect of the English language on its syntax .. . tending to blunt the spoken language as an effective and beautiful instrument. (Thomas, D. E., 1994, 14)

Lord Elis-Thomas might almost have been speaking in French about French, so similar is this motivation to that behind much of the Toubon law. Comparison: Legislation in France and Britain The Toubon law in perspective Overall, most commentators believe that the Toubon law has been so weakened by the judgement of the Constitutional Court that it is virtually pointless. The inability to enforce the use of the official terminology on the private sector and on ordinary citizens, and hence to clearly define what is meant by 'French' - particularly if the regional languages such as the German of Alsace and the Breton of Brittany are also 'French', as Toubon said means that the courts must make up their own minds whether an offence has been committed, and there is clearly work for clever lawyers. The parliamentary discussion on this matter did show up the nature of the official terminology: it is very specific to particular sectors, is more in the nature of a specialist jargon than a usable vocabulary, and is in any case very limited. Many commentators might have wondered what all the fuss was about. Had the law been about ensuring the use of the French Academy's approved terms, or the outright rejection of any new entries from AngloAmerican into the French word-stock, as some commentators at first assumed and as some defenders of the proposal wished, the public discussion might have been justified in describing the proposals as inappropriate in a democracy and in stressing the similarities with Fascism. This argument was, however, weakened both by the earlier Sarre and Tasca proposals from the Socialist party and also by the cross-party nature of much of the public discussion: there was as much jingoism on the part of the Socialists as on that of the right wing. Even supporters stressed the symbolic and declarative nature of the law, rather than its specific proposals, although the punitive approach was both approved by those who had thought this the greatest problem with the 1975


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law, and derided by those who considered the whole proposal to be misguided and demonstrative of a regulatory and retrogressive political attitude. The law is symbolic to the extent that it provoked much discussion on the role of governments in protecting language and in attempting to influence its development. But it has a very real regulatory function, and could be significant in achieving (one of) its functions of making industrial imports into France just too difficult, and in erecting further barriers to cultural imports. It came fully into effect in September 1995, and its effectiveness is likely to depend on how strong the enthusiasm of the language associations such as ALF to institute proceedings in the courts turns out to be, and hence on the extent to which the policy network sees this type of language defence as still being appropriate. The first victim was the Body Shop, fined 600 francs for selling cosmetics labelled only in English (Breves, 4, 1st term, 1996). Parliamentary discussion had considerable effect on the drafting of the law. Reasoned and detailed arguments were generally heard; the preliminary reports were by no means accepted as authoritative; and in some cases, particularly in interventions by Xavier Deniau and Marc Lauriol, the impact of individuals thinking on their feet can be seen to have had notable effect on the legislative process. The Welsh Language Act in perspective Overall, the Welsh Language Act 1993 is of considerable interest in being pragmatic rather than symbolic, in the way in which it intends to support language maintenance, and in the manner in which it devolves responsibility for the future status of the language from the State to an executive arm on which the policy community is fully represented. It does not make the language official, but then, English is not official either. It does enforce the principle of equality of treatment and equality of opportunity to use the language, and therefore of bilingualism. It does not enforce the use of Welsh, monolingually or bilingually, on the Crown, nor on privatised utilities, whether monopolistic or not. Although it does not enshrine language rights in so many words, nor specify whether such rights might be exercised by individuals or by communities or by both, it does so indirectly by its role in enforcing compliance with schemes which themselves are expected to enable citizens to obtain services in Welsh, thus reflecting an approach which prioritises consultation and avoids conflict: There will be no room for complacency and negative attitudes, which in the past have plagued public debate about the Welsh language in Wales. We must seize the opportunity; we may not get a better chance. (Jones, 1993)

It does not affect the private sector. As it stands, enforcing compliance applied to public bodies, rather than to individuals - will be the major duty of the Board, which will be able to call on the normal punitive measures applicable to those public bodies, rather than having to rely on specific measures. Provided the Board does not move into an excessively punitive mode, nor attempt to apply regulatory procedures to individuals, it may avoid

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the problems the 1975 Bas-Lauriol law had to face when attempts to apply it were undertaken - that punishments were too lenient, or that the very idea of punishment was seen to be an affront to human liberties. The Board, and the WLA, have come into being at a time when the decay of Welsh seems to have been stopped: from the 19 per cent of the population able to speak the language in 1981, the figure has risen among young people to 21.5 per cent (Jones, 1993). In education, teaching through the medium of Welsh is an integral part of the National Curriculum, and indeed the whole concept of a National Curriculum comes at an opportune time for comprehensive approaches applicable to the whole of Wales (and Scotland). The WLA does represent a success for the softly, softly approach to language policy: it builds on the 1967 Act, is the result of widespread consultation, and has been implemented in a climate of general goodwill and support, particularly from public-sector organisations including the privatised utilities and those representing central government. The aim is not extreme; it is hard to criticise it as 'Fascist'; and the imposition and necessary restriction of freedom that any law imposes seems to be unlikely to provoke major reactions. The purpose of legislation is not that of unrealisable monolingualism in Welsh, but towards a form of living together: The long-term objective will be to progress towards bilingualism... The requirements of the Act will insist that the person in authority, whether in Wales or outside Wales, who provides any kind of public service for the people of Wales will have to understand the aspirations of a society which has two official languages . . . a naturally bilingual view. (Thomas, D. E., 1994, 19)

10 T

The policy process: implehmentation and impact

ADMINISTRATIVE ORDERS The French administrative system is based on Decrees (Decrets), Decisions (Arretes) and Circulars (Circulates). The first two are in effect Ministerial Orders, having force of law, while the last is couched in the form of mhinisterial wishes and advice, although public servants are naturall expected to follow the advice. All decrees and decisions are published in the Journal Officiel, while circulars, only some of which find their way into the Journal Officiel, are addressed to the appropriate individuals or organisations. The decisions of the Terminology Commissions established in each ministry are usually in the form of Arretes. The commissions themselves have ex officio membership from the Education and Research and Higher Education Ministries, the Delegation and the French standards association (Association Franâise de Normalisation - AFNOR), together with representatives from the relevant ministry, and 'experts' - journalists, professionals and technicians from the subject area, as well as representatives of industry associations in the subject area. In addition, each commission has representatives from other Francophone countries. The commissions do not themselves invent new terms. They base their recommendations on selecting terms already in use among French practitioners: puce was thus chosen to replace the English 'chip' although microplaquette was also in use among French IBM staff and pastille among French technicians working in Texas Instruments. The terms proposed are subject to wide-ranging consultation, reference to industrial and commercial term banks and the approval of the Delegation, which also consults the Academie, the Conseil International de la Langue Frangaise, the Quebec, Canadian, Belgian and Swiss language services and the ACCT. Loi'c Depecker, the relevant Delegation official charged with the coordination of terminology work, noted in 1994 that the procedure might

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seem excessively long and complex (Breves, 2nd term): It is only long in the setting up of the terminology list by the ministerial Commission: two years. It is obviously complex, but that is the guarantee of the quality of the eventual decisions. In order to set standards, one must consult, convince, choose and decide. Many participants make the French terminology decisions, which thus represent a collective responsibility.

The corpus decisions themselves usually consist of one or two articles stating that the terms listed in the annex to the decision must be used in relevant public documents, although the precise nature of the documents varies from ministry to ministry. The documents in which this official terminology must be used are not just those written by the public service, but also those addressed to them - for example in documents from those bidding for government support or wishing to register their views. In the decision of 17 February 1986 (Journal Officiel, 21 March 1986) concerning town planning and housing, for example, the terms must be used within three months, in decrees, decisions, circulars, instructions and orders emanating from Ministers and the civil servants responsible to them; within six months, in correspondence, documents and productions of whatever nature emanating from administrations, services and State public establishments (or which are addressed to them); within six months, in publications or reissues of publications of textbooks, training and research documents used in establishments, institutes and organisations funded by the State, placed under its authority or subject to its control however defined.

The terms of reference for the Terminology Commissions merely state that they are to 'give professionals, and particularly the French-speaking scientific and technical community, the terminological tools necessary to enable French to remain a language of communication and work' (Anne Magnant, in the Preface to the Dictionnaire des termes officiels, January 1994). There is no mention here of the necessity to replace Anglo-American terms, although the examples of successful innovation Magnant quotes (logiciel for software, disquette for floppy disk, conteneur for container, remue-meninges for brainstorming, monospace for minivan) are all translations. The problem for the Terminology Commissions is that they see their task as providing a French version for a term - and hence a concept - already in existence, and for which an English-language term has already been found. This underlines the derivative nature of technological advance and reinforces the fears of those who see the commissions as merely chasing innovation, rather than helping French science and technology to create new ideas and inventions directly in French.

THE POLICY PROCESS: IMPLEMENTATION AND IMPACT

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Sexism in language It is a truism of language planning to say that behavioural change is difficult, but success in language policy as well as language planning is crucially dependent on the speech community accepting and implementing the changes proposed. The ill-fated 1986 French proposals on removing or at least reducing the use of sexist language in French have been documented (Medias et Langage 19/20, 1984; Evans, 1985, 1987; Boel, 1986; Houdebine, 1987; Gervais, 1993). The policy network here was set up at government behest around the then Ministry for Women's Rights, headed by Yvette Roudy, who created a Terminology Commission 'on women's activities' in 1984, headed by Benoite Groult. The general political and social context for the Commission was the 1981 election of a Socialist President and government, committed to reversing the effect of right-wing governments which had ruled the country since the return to power of General de Gaulle in 1958. Combating sexism was one aspect of the major social changes the new government aimed at introducing; the League of the Rights of Women was active in conducting general anti-sexist campaigns - particularly a striking advertisement of a man dressed in Bunny Girl uniform - and society generally was encouraged to identify and eliminate sexist behaviour. In the Education Ministry, for example, a "Note de service' dated 10 November 1983 and a decision of 12 July 1984 had both outlined anti-sexist action which schools should take. Many other countries had taken anti-sexist action, particularly in employment legislation: Belgium in 1978, Canada from 1976, Switzerland and America throughout the 1970s. In America, 'Guidelines for Non-Sexist language in American Psychological Association Journals', one of the major successes of the American feminist movement, was published in 1977 (Cooper, 1989; Niedzwiecki, 1994). Among Francophone countries, Canada had seen the publication of guides to non-sexist usage and Quebec was actively working on the feminisation of professional names (the 'essay on orienting usage') approved by the Office de la Langue Fran^'aise in this domain finally appeared in 1986 (Niedzwiecki, 1994,247-51)). Action on language in France was provoked by an increasing recognition of the discrimination against women expressed through language (see Yaguello, 1978), and the feeling among many women in political life that 'the refusal to feminise professional names is only one of the forms - and they are innumerable - of male power, and so of men's cultural hegemony' (Groult in Medias et Langage 20, 1984). Mme Roudy, the responsible minister, placed the Commission's work against the background of the 1983 French law on equality in employment, which required among other things that advertisements for posts should not specify a preferred sex - linguistically difficult in many cases. It was thus 'in a spirit of justice and equality that the Commission's work must be undertaken: its results, as we know, risk upsetting usage which, in 1984, is deeply anachronistic'. These social, rather than linguistic objectives, led to a commission made up of 'representatives of government ministries, sociologists, lecturers,

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educationists and grammarians as well as one representative of the Academy' (Gervais, 1993, 130). The linguists involved were Anne-Marie Houdebine, Nina Catach, Josette Rey-Debove, Michelle Bourgoin, Edwige Khaznadar, Jackie Schon and Andre Martinet (Houdebine, 1987), while Colette Audry, Christiane Rochefort, Agnes Varda, Claude Sarraute and Claude ServanSchreiber were categorised as 'writers, journalists and artists'. The commissioned work included a number of linguistic investigations, attitude surveys and proposals for change. Media interest and participation was at a high level, partly deliberately provoked by members of the Commission. Claude Sarraute asked, in her Le Monde column on 21 April 1984, for comments on the question, and revealed, on 8 May, that you are against, by 70 per cent. And for good reasons, often taken from Grevisse . . . Gender does not depend on sex: a soldier is a guard (une vigile), an actor, a star (une vedette). Can you say to a lawyer 'chere maitresse'? or speak of cheftesse of a State? A country which has given itself a feminine name - la France, a country which has written on the facades of its buildings a slogan liberty, equality, fraternity - all feminine words, has no need to disturb grammar in order to give itself a good conscience.

Debate rotated around two basic points: that 'professional labels express a function which remains the same whatever the sex of the post holder' and that 'women who demand the feminisation of professional labels wish to distinguish themselves from men, to affirm their femininity' (Boel in Medias et Langage, 1984, 36). Else Boel (1987) conducted a series of interviews at the time which showed how divided leading male and female opinion-makers were: 'reactions were often contradictory and sometimes violent'. Public debate on the topic, however, was less concerned with the rights and wrongs of the serious discussion and more concerned with attacking or defending the underlying social analysis. Comments in the Press ranged from the mildly negative to the vituperative (see Houdebine, 1987, 18-30; Gervais, 1993, 133). Supportive comments came from Aristide in Le Figaro, Cellard in Le Monde and Alain Rey in Medias et Langage, together with some comments in the readers' letters columns. But 'newspapers, right-wing or not, women's Press, both men and women attacked us' (Houdebine, 1987, 19). Houdebine classifies the attacks as, firstly, political (20), making allusions to 'these Princes governing us', 'sorcerer's apprentices' and 'powerful people who are arrogant. .. although they only know 500 words'. Political attacks were aimed at the Socialist Government and women, accusing them of trying to destroy the language, as they had the economy, or trying to nationalise it, like the banks and major industries - or even to sovietise it by taking over the task of the institutions qualified to work at this level, that is the French Academy, in order to strangle it.

Attacks were sexist, too, and these were by far the most frequent:


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since this Commission was set up by the Ministry of Women's Rights, it could only be a collection of frivolous precieuses ridicules . . . Yvette Roudy, the all expenses paid leader of the line . . . frivolous ladies who couldn't possibly know anything about l i n g u i s t i c s . . . the derision in which the aims and problems the Commission discusses are held: all it's doing is bothering about the [use of the masculine or feminine] article .. . [attacks on the chair of the Commission and on the Minister] by questioning the quality of the former as a novelist... or by ridiculing the latter's name by declaring the action 'roudimentary' ['roudymentaire']. (21, 22)

Such was the strength of the Academy's reaction that it did not limit its comments to the internal workings of the Commission, but sent a public warning to the Commission, and published it in the Press (Le Monde, 20 June 1984; Le Figaro, 23 June 1984). Other leaders of opinion (Levi-Strauss, Dumezil) participated in the Press debate. The attacks were not only sexist or socially conditioned, but also linguistic. The Academy's suggestions were that in any cases where a feminine form was not in normal usage, the feminine should be avoided, and wherever there was a choice, the 'unmarked' (i.e. masculine) form should be preferred. Houdebine examines the concept of 'marking' in linguistics and shows that the terminology used in such arguments is itself sexist, and that the linguistic arguments put forward by the Academy are of dubious validity. The extent of the debate was unusual, even for France: 'this was the only Commission to receive mention in the Parliament and to obtain a warning from the Academy'. The debate was a good occasion for social, political as well as linguistic matters to be discussed, and since the Commission had been established with intentions which were also not solely linguistic, it is hardly surprising that the reaction represented very little serious linguistics. Most points of view were in general unsympathetic to the aims of the Commission. The Commission's final report suggested a number of changes (Evans, 1987). It was preceded by an introduction setting out the political and ideological arguments for change, supported by a number of linguistic examples. Having discussed over five thousand words, problems remained for only fifteen; the 'refusal to feminise' certain words was caused by 'ponderousness of the language, or users' habits and psychological obstacles': 'obstacles are not in words but in heads'. 'French is blocked into inappropriate or grotesque formulae which in other circumstances teachers would have felt themselves obliged to correct, if grammatical orthodoxy did not appear, in this case, like feminism'. The proposed Arrete 'was much more directive in its approach' (Evans, 1987,24): Article 1 states that the feminine forms e x i s t . . . as a matter of r i g h t . . . it specifies that where several terms coexist the qualified representatives of the profession concerned should agree . . . upon a single term to be used. Where only feminine forms exist, a masculine form should be created.. .

The specific rules proposed in the report are almost the same as those which eventually appeared in the Circular, with the exception of the Commission's

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acceptance of forms like autrice and professeuse: some members were quite happy to propose the Quebec usages (auteure, for example). Procedures for the creation of masculine forms were suggested, too. The proposed Arrete would have rendered the rules compulsory in official language, in advertisements for situations vacant and in school textbooks. The eventual Circular did not accept the final report, nor did it give the recommendations the form of a Decision (Arrete}. It eliminated all the introduction to the report, and merely expressed the wish, as circulars do, that ministers would implement the recommendations. The recommendations themselves were mild: use the feminine form of the article (une architecte, une medeciri); add an 'e' (une deleguee, une agente}\ use the feminine form of suffixes: -teuse (une acheteuse} or -trice (une animatrice) - although in some cases -trice is acceptable (une editrice}, in others not (une auteur); or -euse (une vendeuse). The Government was in no hurry to publish rules or call attention to the topic: the Commission's report was on the Prime Minister's desk in December 1985 - although the Commission did not itself finally approve it until 20 January 1986 - and was eventually published, with modifications and reduction in status from a Decision to a Circular, in the Journal Officiel only on 16 March 1986, the day of the election which removed the Socialists from office and brought in the Chirac government. In the same issue of the Journal Officiel, a Decree (No 86-439 of llth March 1986) reorganised the way in which Terminology Commissions would be established in future, bringing them under much tighter control of the Commissariat General de la Langue Franc,aise and ensuring that 'general' questions were dealt with by a General Commission. By 1995 at least, the topic had not been raised officially again. THE IMPACT OF POLICIES Language policy, once implemented at the macro level through legislation and the decisions of administrators, or by the microlevel decisions of teachers, policemen, customs officers and consumer protection agencies, results in behavioural change within the speech, ethnic and/or political communities. But depending on the policy and the nature of its implementation, this change may be permanent or merely temporary; accepted with equanimity or the cause of disquiet. The reaction of the speech community is more long-term and less predictable than that of the political or ethnic community, and policy aimed at permanent behavioural change spelling reform, the removal of sexist language, changing the relative status of standard English and a regional dialect - is more difficult to get accepted than any other. The distinction between the outputs of a policy and its outcomes is also associated with time-scale: outputs are immediate, often quantifiable, and give quick returns, while behavioural outcomes necessarily take longer to filter through. Writing and developing a programme for teaching English by television and marketing it to China can have fairly immediate returns in disseminating the language and possibly in fostering positive attitudes to


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Britain; accepting terms derived from African French into a dictionary like the Petit Larousse will have longer-term effects in changing French perceptions of Francophonie - from current views that varieties of French other than the Parisian norm are simply unacceptable to, perhaps, future acceptance of 'polycentric' French with a number of equally acceptable varieties. Many language-policy problems are not amenable to the simple termination of a policy initiative. The level of literacy in France and Britain, for example, may improve slightly with investment in a particular reading programme, but functional illiteracy is very unlikely to disappear completely. Similarly, reforming the spelling at one particular point in time does not end the controversy about the relationship between pronunciation and writing systems. Nonetheless, policy-makers should anticipate the end-point of a specific policy, even if this is merely the same thing as anticipating the end of a specific line in public expenditure. Hopefully, a policy initiative will have some effect on the problem it set out to solve or alleviate. The 1975 Bas-Lauriol law did provoke a number of court actions, and fines were imposed on a number of organisations for not obeying its provisions to use French rather than English terms. But pressure for its replacement by the Toubon law of 1994 came from the realisation that the law had not stopped the borrowing from English. The feedback effect of the law's provisions was not strong enough to significantly alter the social, economic or political environment - or conversely, the movement in the environment towards accepting and incorporating English terms into French was too strong for the law's provisions. How, then, do France and Britain bring specific policy initiatives to an end? How are outputs evaluated; how are the outcomes of policies anticipated? What is the effect of the outputs and outcomes on the environment, and how far is it true to say that feedback from a policy will have a general, rather than a specific, effect - that is, that ending a language policy initiative may have effects outside language? Is there a difference between the termination of constituent, regulatory, redistributive or symbolic policies? France The passage of the Bas-Lauriol law in 1975 was greeted with considerable interest by many people active in the language field. Yet by 1993 it was generally agreed, even among these, that it was ineffective and needed replacement. Why should this be? Both the Legendre report (Legendre, 1994) and the first annual report of the DGLF for Parliament (DGLF, 1994) dealt with the law's outcomes, and provided some analysis of the nature of the feedback to policy-makers. According to the Legendre report, the 1975 law had remained practically unknown: in Press complaints in 1993 and 1994 about the potential Toubon law, journalists had simply forgotten that the provisions to control advertising were already operative, and that the 1975 law had intended to control the use

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of French in trade marks and in company names. The law was not solely intended to protect consumers: it had cultural aims, also, and the Legendre report exemplifies this by quoting the Appeal Court decision of 1986 declaring that consumers could be informed about the nature of the food offered them by the Quick restaurant chain (by diagrams and pictures) but that this did not suffice: French language terms were also needed. The 1975 law had not been properly applied, either: partly because it had not clarified the nature of potential sanctions, partly because the proposed sanctions were inappropriate or difficult to invoke, partly because the agents - officers dealing with fraud - were neither specialists nor well informed about the nature of the 'crimes' they were dealing with. Similarly, courts of law tended towards indulgence, either because they did not consider that citizens could obey such a vague law, or because they felt they would be swamped by potential cases. Cases were likely therefore to be pursued only if infringements of the language law were accompanied by infringements of more 'serious' rules (deception, misleading advertising, infringements of safety rules). In 1993, for example, the responsible agency (the Direction of Consumption, Competition and Repression of Fraud of the Ministry of Finance) had been made aware of 1,888 possible cases, confirmed 356 (19 per cent) of these, issued 191 warnings, transmitted 165 cases to the courts, and secured 15 convictions. Nonetheless, the 22 convictions in 1992 and the 15 in 1993 were preceded by two years without any, despite 110 cases being transmitted to the courts in 1991 and 85 in 1990. The Legendre report noted also that the habit of accompanying trade marks by slogans (Nike. Just do it!) enabled advertisers to avoid the language restrictions altogether. The more detailed report on the 1975 law in the DGLF report provides further statistical evidence of the weakness of the 1975 law. The report accepts that the law had actually been applied in many areas, particularly in consumer protection, and notes that 5,000 confirmed cases and 1,000 warnings or cases transferred to the courts represented a notable effort. Special checks, commissioned by the DGLF, were carried out in late 1993 and early 1994 on specific products and outlets, and overall 'the final assessment of the application of the law is satisfactory'. In other areas the law had not been applied: only one court case on an employment contract, no cases of withdrawal of a grant or of the use of public services by those not respecting the law. In sum, the restriction of the 1975 law to consumer protection meant that it was not functioning in the defence of French: 'it has not provided support for the fight against the decrease in French in scientific and technical domains, nor for the undoubted role played by French as a factor of equality and social integration in schools and the media' (DGLF, 1994, 13). The net purpose of this type of feedback, particularly since most of it had been undertaken by interested parties or by members of the policy network (cf. de Broglie, 1986), was to encourage policy-makers to support the 1994 Toubon law. Far from deciding that since the policy had not worked it should be abandoned, the approach appears to have been that since the policy had not worked it must be strengthened. In particular, the consumerist approach


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which had been adopted for the 1975 law, and the limitation of language policy to instrumental concerns for its use in commerce, had seemed too restrictive, and the policy should hence be broadened to include more directly social concerns. The net result of the feedback seemed to be that language policy should become something more than language policy: it should approach a general social policy to reinforce identity at home and image abroad. Britain The implementation of one British language policy has had results which were not anticipated when the policy was first adopted, and which have led to fundamental changes in the policy itself - in fact, to its abandonment. A scheme of Industrial Language Centres, including a National Centre for Industrial Language Training, was established in Britain from 1974 as one response to the need for teaching in English as a second language among immigrant workers (Roberts et al., 1992). The National Centre was closed after 13 years, and the national scheme after 15, following a change of government and a change in methods of funding and in policy priorities. The closure of the scheme, however, followed the realisation, by many of those involved, that what had started as a language policy with simple instrumental aims had become a social policy with much more complex outcomes, and that language itself is so intimately bound up with context of use that changing the one while trying to keep the other unchanged is impossible. The purpose of the ILT scheme as stated by government was to provide language training, on the argument that 'where language training had already been introduced it had improved communications and standards of safety, and increased productivity'. There was also, to a degree, a social motivation as well: 'Relations between immigrants and indigenous workers had also improved', and a further expectation: 'Language training could also have important social consequences, enabling immigrants to participate more fully in the life of the Community.' This latter expectation was reinforced several times after 1974 in the context particularly of the Race Relations Act combating discrimination, so that government intentions were to an extent mixed from the outset, expecting language training to solve or at least alleviate both an economic/industrial and a social problem. In order to provide training courses, data on the nature of the linguistic and social interactions taking place in the relevant factory or office was collected and analysed by teams of actual or potential language teachers, for three reasons: to provide data for the training materials, to convince trainees and management that training was necessary and that it would help with the problems of shop floor relations, and to establish the aims and objectives of training. The second reason has to be understood against the background of a complete lack, in many British workplaces, of any training at all for operatives or supervisors, and certainly none in communication or in broader matters relevant to 'a more effective and fairer workplace'. The third reason was important against the 'most blatant expressions of racial prejudice and

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hostility to black workers' that the survey teams of the ILT scheme 'often found'. The data arising from these initial surveys led to a number of conclusions about what training to provide and how to provide it. An interview in the Personnel office, for example, might show: a) How ethnic minority candidates may communicate fluently in English but not share with majority English-speakers the same assumptions about the purpose of the interaction or have the same views on what is a socially appropriate way of fulfilling that purpose .. . b) How formalised situations such as job interviews tend to highlight lack of shared assumptions because they are highly conventionalised and culturespecific. They work in hidden ways. Candidates are only judged positively if they are able to interpret the hidden meaning behind the interviewer's questions. This type of encounter shows the link between individual interactions and institutional decision-making and discrimination. c) How different expectations about the objectives of an interaction affect communication. (Roberts et al., 1992,43) The conclusion, to which the ILT teachers whose work is presented by Roberts came, was that training could not be limited to language, nor be provided only for the ethnic workers: Any training had to focus on attempting to change communicative relationships in the workplace . . . the training had to help [workers] to be effective in a range of situations. Second, trainees needed to be reassured that their efforts to improve communicative relationships would be matched by positive attempts to understand and adapt by the white majority. Finally, the training needed a methodology which constructed 'texts' from the trainees own experience and included comparative analysis and discussion. (Roberts et al., 1992, 54) In terms of programme design and training strategies the following were the conclusions arrived at: Programme design Ethnically mixed training with first- and second-language speakers of English, black and white, together. Structured opportunities for learners to make explicit their perceptions and experiences of communicating and learning in multi-ethnic Britain. Cross-cultural training for white professionals to raise awareness of the need to understand, accept and modify their behaviour. Training strategies Analysis of inter-ethnic gatekeeping encounters and experiential exercises based on such encounters. Student autonomy in the learning process, including: reconstructing texts from their own experiences;


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becoming ethnographers of their own communication; tackling tasks using their own communication strategies; making comparisons and contrasts between LI and L2. (Roberts et al., 1992, 108)

Roberts and some of her colleagues who had been involved in the ILT scheme rationalised these findings against theories derived from social studies and from linguistics, although the stage of reference to theory and the selection of the most appropriate theory to situate and explain what the ILT teachers found was a comparatively rare activity among ILT practitioners - and indeed, some of them were actively opposed to comparing the information they had with the theories Roberts and colleagues used to understand and explain them. The theoretical constructs Roberts and colleagues found most useful covered three major themes: language as socially constituted; cultural and linguistic relativity; and language as a dimension in racial discrimination. Theories of interaction, of language use and, in broader terms, of social organisation, informed these three main themes and led to the view that three main 'problems' needed to be tackled. Some of these concerned the discourse practices of worker and manager, while others were more relevant to the context in which language was used and to the social and economic roles language use displayed: interpretive processes in inter-ethnic communication; the white professional as gatekeeper; speech style and social evaluation. The linguistic and social theories to which the ILT programme drew attention and on which some of the approach to language training became based, were not those likely to be attractive to language policy-makers for whom the original problem had been limited to the economically justifiable training of workers to understand safety regulations and workplace instructions. The seven approaches to interaction reviewed in Roberts et al. (1992, 54-108) include the ethnography of speaking, pragmatics, social semiotics, discourse analysis, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, inter-ethnic communication, and language and social psychology, and the value of these to ILT was in identifying the hidden messages of communication, particularly discrimination and manipulation through language. Although no single theory of social organisation is referred to, the workplace settings with which ILT dealt were those in which ethnic minority members occupied low-status employment categories or in which, as unwaged or those on low wages, they faced bureaucracy and 'society's gatekeepers': society was frequently seen as necessarily a battleground between those who possess power and those who

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do not, and interaction as a site for conflict. Conflict sociology - the class war - often provided a simple and understandable interpretation of the shop-floor situation. There is little doubt that the shock many white middle-class teachers, well educated and generally liberal in politics and outlook, experienced on first entering the multi-ethnic - or indeed any - industrial workplace must have been very great. Much of the discrimination, both racial and gender-based, which the survey teams found, has been characteristic of workplaces, both British and other, for a considerable time if not for ever; the working conditions graphically described in Roberts et al. (1992, 174) did not suddenly appear in the 1970s and 1980s nor disappear in the 1990s, and the working relationships of domination and manipulation were not invented solely to cope with the arrival of black workers. The interpretation of the workplace relationships that some language trainers involved in ILT arrived at, and the understandable desire they had to make workplaces 'fairer' and more human, led directly to their belief that language training by itself was insufficient. Taken to its logical conclusion, a wish to change discourse practices apparently revealing discrimination and manipulation must lead to a wish to change or correct, not merely the discourse practices themselves, but also the mutual role of dominated and oppressed, or manager and managed. Such social engineering was not the first intention of those who established the ILT scheme, and certainly conflicted later with the intentions and policies of Conservative governments of the 1980s and 1990s, which have consistently adopted and strengthened social and economic policies tending towards less worker protection and more management control. ILT teachers, in fact, 'found themselves involved in an ideological debate which was both moral and theoretical. The moral dilemma concerns the extent to which intervention . . . can change power relationships and the social positioning of most minority ethnic groups in a racist society.' The theoretical dilemma is that the relationship between individual interactions, institutional discourse and social structures is unclear. But the conclusion to which the ILT group came was that 'the greatest hurdle for ethnic minorities with regard to language is the failure of white-Anglo gatekeepers to make sound judgements about ethnic minority groups' knowledge of English and the tendency of such gatekeepers to draw incorrect conclusions from the way non-Anglos use English' (Roberts et al., 1992, 368). Indeed, the conclusion was taken further, in that since language was seen as being 'used by people with power to sustain their power . . . and therefore [to play] a significant if invisible role in how discrimination operates', action was necessary to demonstrate the link between individual interaction and institutional decisionmaking and discrimination, and to challenge the traditions of formalised interactions such as interviews, which inevitably discomfort, disadvantage and discriminate against ethnic minorities among others. (Roberts et al., 1992, 368).

The move from language to social policy was rapid, and from social policy to its political and ideological underpinnings even quicker. It was therefore both this transfer of the 'problem' from being 'theirs' to


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being 'ours', together with the general broadening of remedial action from specific language training to social and anti-racism training, and from economic to social purposes generally that had a strong feedback effect on the policy-makers, leading them to close the scheme altogether. The Government did not see its role as being to protect the worker in power relationships with management, nor as being to provide resources for adult second-language learning in employment at a time of increasing unemployment. Feedback from this policy therefore reflects both the ways in which eventual outcomes of policies may differ from anticipated outputs, and also the extent to which the relationship between the policy environment and language policy is subject to change in both. In this case, the policy itself had changed, but so had the environment - not merely in the election of a government ideologically opposed to this type of policy, but also in increases in unemployment which meant that the assumed targets of the policy were no longer to be found in workplaces. It might be thought that a logical change of the policy towards enabling ESL training to become more oriented towards helping adults cope with the changed environment would be possible, and indeed some ILT centres did transform their role towards such an aim: helping adults to cope with the social welfare bureaucracy. But the outputs from such an objective were not thought to be sufficiently valuable to save the scheme from extinction. Is it possible to generalise from this example to the overall policy situation in Britain: to understanding how feedback from policy outcomes affects policy termination? Possibly in two ways: firstly, the study shows the strength of policy-makers' ideology when the outcomes of policy actions are considered. The situation towards the late 1980s was admittedly different from that of ten years previously, but the analysis of the outcomes could have led to other solutions than simple termination. That it did lead to termination was due as much to the dislike of the Conservative government for what had come to them to seem social engineering as it was to the change in the economic circumstances which had given rise to the policy. Secondly, the relationship between microlevel implementation and macrolevel intentions is important. Government declarations on the purposes of the policy did not match the reality met by those who had to implement it, and the policy itself became something in their hands - or at least in the hands of some ILT teachers - which had not been anticipated or intended. A simple declaration of policy without a close monitoring and measurement of its implementation seemed to have led to a reversal of the policy. The Government learnt the lesson: in education policy at least, the National Curriculum was not implemented without an associated testing system, itself associated with behavioural modification policies in the publication of league tables, deliberately intended to encourage schools to follow the intention of the policy-makers.

I j

Comparisons and conclusions

Our aim in this chapter is to reconsider and compare some aspects of language policies and of the policy-making processes in Britain and France, seeing where these can contribute to the disciplines of sociolinguistics or policy studies. POLICY PROCESSES IN FRANCE AND BRITAIN Cooper's 'accounting scheme' for language planning, outlined in Chapter 1, asked us to consider 'What actors attempt to influence what behaviours of which people for what ends under what conditions by what means through what decision-making process with what effect?' The decision-making process itself, too, starts with the initiation of an issue, continues with estimation and selection of a response, examines its implementation and evaluates its impact, and, at a specific point in time, brings the process to an end. As later when we compare the two countries' language policies, we shall not attempt here to cover all aspects of the accounting scheme, nor review all the individual stages of the decision-making process we have considered throughout this book. Instead, we shall point to some of the main differences and similarities between the two countries. Actors Language planning in France and Britain, and indeed in any developed European State, is often regarded as tinkering at the margins, by contrast to the policy decisions that are made for newly emergent nations or societies where major economic change is provoking reconsideration of the deployment of government resources and where language policy is central to economic policy (Hong Kong, Hungary). The main decisions have been

COMPARISONS AND CONCLUSIONS

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made in status, and much of corpus, planning in both France and Britain: the standard language is codified, accepted and capable of elaboration to meet the needs of polyvalency, although this latter aspect may be less easy for French. In acquisition planning, and usually in constituent or administrative planning, most important decisions have been made long ago and most important institutions established. All that is needed is a general consensus of the speech community to make minor changes here and there. But language policy-making involves different actors from those involved in language planning, and as we have seen, decisions and actions on language policy are frequent and occasionally far-reaching. In Britain in recent years individual political actors - Mrs Thatcher, Mr Baker, Lord Beloff - had major roles to play, and much of current British language policy owes its existence to the views of such individuals, many of whom were grouped round the Conservative think-tanks and pressure groups in the heady days of early Thatcherism. The strong will of Lord Joseph, and his rejection of the views of departmental civil servants, official advisers and others as he developed the intellectual basis for Thatcherism in the early 1980s, and as he managed education itself later on, played a fundamental role in convincing opponents that argument was futile and that the best thing to do was to operate the policy. Kenneth Baker, and after him others such as John Patten, marked governmental policy with their own approach, but the ideology and political agenda of the Conservative Party have represented a constant input. In France, the difference between language planning and language policy is clearest as one considers the role of the French Academy, made up of significant individuals, as against that of the Terminology Commissions, a branch of government. Another example lies in the slow work of dictionarymakers as opposed to the government-led attempt at rapid reforms affecting spelling. Wherever the planning approach has not met and matched the policy approach, a problem has surfaced: in the case of sexist language, in the case of spelling reform, in Britain in the case of industrial language training, in the case of immigrant language maintenance. Planning is never-ending, whereas policy sees a finite end to its concerns. But it may be in the contrast between the two policy networks that the largest differences between the two countries can be found. The concept of a policy network, and the range of different networks we have encountered, has been very helpful in understanding what actually led to decisions at a number of different levels of the policy machine in each country. The hermetic nature of the policy-making process and the stability and inward-looking nature of a policy community is notable in one or two examples: the spelling reforms in France, the curriculum developments or the role of the Plain English Campaign in the UK. Where the policy community is closed, or its membership is manipulated by government, difficulties have followed in both countries: spelling reforms were unsuccessful, Plain English is successful only when its aims coincide with those of a reforming government; British curriculum reform has been subject to massive changes to make it work. Where a looser issue network operates, this either reflects characteristics of the environment - there is no British corpus policy or

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network, since no need is felt for it - or a deliberate approach by government to destroying or restructuring particular groups. 'Providers' and professionals in the British scene, for example, have generally been excluded from policymaking since 1979. Studies of the policy process in policy studies might with advantage take note of the relationship between policy networks - part of the decisionmaking process - and the targets of policy. Particularly in France, there has been much confusion between the two: because regional intellectuals and teachers have been consulted and press for the adoption of policies of support for regional languages, it is thought that not merely they, parents and children, but also all regional dwellers will tamely follow and themselves study and support regional languages, which has often not been the case. Similarly, the policy community grouped around feminism seemed to be shocked by the differences between their approach and that of the target community. Such policy communities may be reduced to making exhortations rather than policy, and attempting to achieve social change through the device of language policy. In the case of spelling reform, where the pressure came from primary teachers in particular, but not from pupils or language users outside education, the policy community seems to have fondly believed that its proposals would find universal favour. Behaviours The ownership of language France prides itself on the ownership of language that its political community has manifested, through conscious preservation and 'defence' of the language over centuries, and policy has frequently concentrated on the nature of this ownership: trying to strengthen it but also to limit it. The French language is a symbol of France, on a level with the flag and the national anthem. Linguistic change in this symbol is traditionally seen as decadence, as a form of illness and disease, and state organisations strive to repair the 'damage' and maintain linguistic health by resisting certain types of change in vocabulary. But the types of language change that are resisted are those which are associated with political attitudes: a dislike of the 'Anglo-Saxon' countries and their economics or global politics leads to rejection of their language, while fear of social disturbance from the young, or from immigrants, or from the poor, causes rejection of their language, regarded as a symbol of their nature. Language is essentially a marker of inclusion and of exclusion. For France, these are essentially social attitudes based on rejection, fear and protection of what has already been achieved (preservation of les droits acquis is the constant call of social groups attempting to preserve the gains they have made, whether in their human rights or more prosaically in their income). French sociolinguistic studies, indeed, accept variation, but only within the concept of the linguistic repertoire (cf. Baylon, 1991): citizens have available to them a range of language varieties, of which one is 'owned' by all. Britain, by contrast, seems to have retained the feeling that


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language is not an essential symbol for all: standard English is such an obvious benefit in social life that if the poor, regional dwellers, immigrants or the young don't automatically accept it or wish to obtain it, they do not have to be forced. Indeed, the elite seems to consider that if such groups wish to remain disadvantaged by remaining within their own language variety that is their right: it is their problem, and not that of the educational or social system. Even now, with the growth of political pressure to adopt the standard language everywhere, this attitude is still widespread: while the relationship between social linguistic variety (standard English) and economic success is well understood, it still seems to be felt that standard English is a 'natural' feature of such success; that the linguistic varieties of other groups are no threat to it; and that all citizens only need it if they aim at personal advancement. British sociolinguistics, generally, has felt towards standard English as many schools and commentators on Britain's National Curriculum have felt towards the teaching of 'citizenship': 'Citizenship is not a concept that comes easily to the English . . . it might involve indoctrination . . . it is about promoting social cohesion and group identity . . . we have a diminished sense of the wider group and of our responsibilities towards it,' as Nicholas Tate, Chief Executive of the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority, put it in September 1995 (Guardian, 5 September 1995). Ownership of language is not a behavioural target for British language policy. Britain and France nonetheless share a number of characteristics and features of their social identities: both are Western European nations with very similar origins in the Graeco-Judaic tradition; both are capitalist countries with well-developed economies; political systems, although different, share ideals of freedom of the individual and the rule of law. Even the two languages, although deriving from different Indo-European language families, are so intertwined with a common history that up to half the English word-stock has been borrowed from French, while contemporary French is penetrated with very evident influences from English. But the politics and the sociolinguistics of identity have characterised French intellectual life for centuries, while British people abroad, when asked where they come from, still have difficulty in choosing whether to say the UK, Britain, Great Britain, one of the four constituent countries (England, Wales and Scotland or Northern Ireland) or their home region. French representations of what they and their colleagues stand for often amaze the 'Anglo-Saxons' by their clarity: France, and French, is universal, humanist, clear, precise, and culturally distinct. Intellectuals have described the characteristics of French in more or less the same terms for centuries, while the debate over British identity has only just begun. Language policy-making, in attempting to reinforce French identity concepts and render them impregnable against actual or potential attack, has had to cope with the reality of development and the inevitability of such normal linguistic processes as borrowing and semantic change. Language policy-making is hence as much political as linguistic. For French politicians to seriously attempt to say that 'kouign aman' and 'far' are really French words while 'fastfood' and 'hamburger' are not makes little sense in sociolinguistic terms, but excellent sense in political ones. Sociolinguistic definitions of standard language must be stretched

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inconceivably far to accept such differentiations, while the implied distinctions between a standard and an official language are equally difficult for sociolinguistics to accept when policy-makers refuse to accept the distinctions between, for example, political and speech communities. In the debate over the Toubon law there was little if any reference to dialect: parliamentarians talked of regional languages and on occasions attempted to ensure legal status for them, but the debate on education concentrated on teaching in French rather than on the teaching of French, and when it did mention the latter the debate was on correction of the widespread 'errors' of youth rather than on regional uses or accents. Corpus policy in French is an acceptable topic for politics but less so for sociolinguistics, and language changes were advocated on the basis of logic (for spelling) or justice (for the attacks on sexism), rather than on the basis of social need. British sociolinguists, particularly educational sociolinguists, often have difficulty with such concepts as spelling reform and indeed with any top-down imposition of language forms, seeing these as unjustifiable interference by politicians into a domain in which they have no right to dictate. British language policy specialists are mainly concentrated on the educational field, and rarely give credibility to the political world. Language and identity Indeed, it is probably at the point of examining the relationship between language and identity that French and British sociolinguistics part company. For France, the sociolinguistic problem was bounded by the concept of possible break-up of French in the face, traditionally, of regional varieties, nowadays, of the language of youth, with its developments of rap and slang. French language policy, particularly educational policy, has in effect triumphed over the facts of sociolinguistic variation by ignoring it: despite the few definitions of standard French, a mixture of the legal prohibition of dialect use with administrative practices such as common training materials and moving teachers across the country has resulted in practical diglossia and in the gradual disappearance of non-prestigious varieties. As a result, French identity and the role of symbols including language is strong, language is closely associated with territory and with other markers of both inclusion and separation, and language policy is merely a part of the policy whole: political, social, economic policy all contribute to the overall aim of the preservation of French identity. The same strength of feeling about identity does not pervade English or the British, nor sociolinguistics as practised in Britain. If pride in the language is expressed, it usually refers to the spread of English worldwide, to its flexibility, its efficiency in communication and to its ability to adapt to represent a wide range of peoples, communities and ideas. For Quirk (1994) this is not a uniquely English phenomenon: he instances Arabic and Chinese as examples of the 'one language - many nations' approach to identity, but affirms that identity achieved through the sense of belonging to a heterogeneous, non-ethnically-bound, non-national, nonclass-based international community provides a 'prize within our children's reach of inestimable value for their future careers, their geographical and


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social mobility - and their cultural satisfaction'. Power relations Power relations within the two societies, as mediated by language, are also illuminated by some aspects of this study. French sociolinguistics has been much concerned with the future of regional communities and with the nature of their relationship to Paris: 'dominance' and 'internal colonialism' have frequently been the catchwords for productive analysis, much of which has concentrated on the need to liberate regional identity. By contrast, British sociolinguistics has been more concerned with social varieties and with class differences; although, particularly in educational sociolinguistics, research has often shown the effect of the imposition of standard English, the impact has been measured on social dialect as much as if not more than on regional forms. Although there are clear differences between the two countries, Muslim immigrants from parts of Asia are (nearly) as numerous in Britain, and account for nearly the same proportion of the population, as North African Muslims in France: in both countries Islam is the second most important religion. Yet there has been little work in French sociolinguistics on immigrant communities; much more has been done on language mixing and on youth culture in the suburbs. British sociolinguists have also concerned themselves more with social dialect than with immigrant communities as such. Language policy, in the sense of the maintenance of community identity, has apparently benefited little from sociolinguistics in either country. Perhaps the clearest case is that of the National Curriculum in Britain, where policy for language maintenance for languages other than English has been piecemeal or non-existent, where the whole question has been a bone of political contention, and input 'on behalf of immigrant communities has shown little awareness of sociolinguistic research on language maintenance, foreign language learning or on language mixing. The lesson of such language policy for sociolinguistic research must be that policy on language alone is insufficient; a whole range of measures is required to maintain a language of immigration, and the prior questions: Why maintain the language? and What are the effects of language maintenance on both the immigrant and the host communities? need to be thought through with considerable care. Our studies of language policy have shown how power discourse can be used in different ways in the two societies. Those in power, as they define their policies, associate them with what they see as advantages or with what they see as the positive aspects of the political ideologies they support: the use of the standard improves efficiency in Britain, but improves social cohesion in France; foreign languages are taught in Britain in order to enable greater exports, while in France they are taught in order to ensure that French itself survives. Power discourse is not just a feature of politicians, however; in everyday language use, the assumptions built into language dictate the nature and characteristics of social relations, so Industrial Language Training aimed at workers and at managers cannot be identical: each must understand their role and how language indicates this. Similarly, literacy is not just a matter of

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enabling students to read; the purposes of the literacy programme may be to enable efficiency or integration, but it is never divorced from social reality. People Society-language relationships One of the main conclusions which arises from this study is that the relationships between the three types of community we have described and the language varieties used in Britain and France are clearly complex, much more so than the simple expectation that the political community determines the official language ('geopolitical' sociolinguistics); that the speech community determines the use of the standard language and of special varieties in determined functions ('distributive' or 'functional' sociolinguistics); and that the minority communities between them establish the relationships of minority languages or language varieties with the majority language or with other minority languages ('societal bilingualism'). The political community, in the sense of the British and French governments, politicians, bureaucrats and policy networks is undoubtedly the credible authority for decisions concerning the acceptance of the official language; the speech community, in the sense principally of speakers of standard English or Parisian French, has accepted these varieties for use in specific domains, particularly in official life, education and the media; the minority communities have succeeded - to different extents in each country - in questions of the maintenance or loss of languages such as Welsh or Breton. But the different degree of interference by the political community in each country in matters of language use in some domains, and of language use by minorities, means that these simple and direct sociolinguistic relationships are constantly affected. One might say that for France, the political authority is regarded as credible in attempting to control language use in a range of domains and functions, as well as in the question of societal bilingualism, while in Britain, the political community is barely a credible authority even in its relationship to the 'official' language, even though it is entering such domains more and more. Similarly, France has a long history of credibility accorded to a policy community for language matters, representative of a socially dominant group which has indeed expressed its dominance through its long-standing control of language, while the British political community has not developed a satisfactory policy community, and has developed policies - such as the Welsh Language Act - where either it is unaware of the sociolinguistic consequences of its actions or, more probably, ignores them. The attempt by both political communities to extend policy action into areas where it might be thought prudent to allow the more appropriate communities - speech or minority - to take responsibility, has been met i both countries by opposition, or simply by rejection. The opposition was widespread in the case of the French corpus policy on sexism, or on borrowings from English. Such straightforward rejection of policy can be seen in some actions by educationists in Britain in relation to the National


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Curriculum, where it is difficult even to define standard English for educational purposes, while opposition to policy has marked the political efforts of many minority communities also in education. Indeed, one might say that both the speech community and the minority communities have become more political, and that sociolinguistic relationships - which represent social processes acting over a long period - have become part of the political process and necessarily more short-term. But policy action by government in the language field has also, perhaps surprisingly, been accepted in both countries in many cases: regional language speakers in France have more and more accepted that the use of standard French can be for them part of their verbal repertoire, and enable them to retain their regional language in addition to using the 'national' language. In Britain, the idea that central governments have the right to intervene in acquisition policy, but also in policy on minority languages, is becoming accepted, and the traditional belief that it was up to microlevel agents to evolve their own policy has come up against the realisation that this is also a political act on their part, as in the case of ESL teachers or communication trainers in industry, or teachers of English as a foreign language. The recent government - and politically right-wing - pressure to ensure the acquisition and use of standard English, and to associate this with social identity, is less and less thought to be an inappropriate question for government. Ends We shall examine more closely on pages 207-12 the nature of four types of motivation for language policy which seem to emerge from these studies identity, image, insecurity and inequality. Each has a different impact on actual language policies, and on the effectiveness of policies in Britain and France. Conditions It seems probable that the external environment had a strong influence on some French language policies. What has happened in Quebec since the late 1970s in the realm of language policy has had what some would consider an excessive influence over French policy-makers. There has been continual reference to the success of the Quebec language laws in giving Quebeckers pride in their language, in raising the prestige of the language among nonFrench speakers as well as Francophones and in ensuring that the cultural identity and special character of Quebec is defended. There often seems to be concern lest French policy is not at least as hard-edged as Quebec policy. Two examples of this external influence can be noted: the Quebec visit of one of the early leaders of the Haul Comite de la Langue Frangaise, and the appearance of a manifesto by 100 Quebec intellectuals in the preparations for the Toubon law. The visit to Quebec by Bruguiere in the early 1970s led

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directly to the creation of much of France's contemporary corpus policy: the Terminology Committees, the terminology databanks, the role of the Delegation in corpus work aimed at ensuring that French was up to date in handling new American inventions. In addition, the insistence that other Francophone countries must be involved in such corpus work carried out in France derived partly from the undoubted advances made in Quebec in such work, and partly from the desire to strengthen Francophonie in support of France's worldwide ambitions. The latter example shows however how there seems to be inadequate understanding in France of the differences between Quebec and France: France is not situated next door to a more powerful Anglophone economy; its economic life is not dominated by Anglophones; its neighbours are not concerned with powerful identity-creation processes based on melting-pot assimilation policies. The immediacy and severity of the Quebec problem are just not appropriate for France, and give the external observer the feeling of watching frenetic and doubtless heartfelt, but essentially unnecessary, activity. There are other areas, too, where the policy environment has had significant effects on policies, as we have seen. Indeed, a general conclusion might be that language planning and language policy decisions are dependent on the culture of the society in which they are developed. Although much the same external stimulus was present in the case of literacy, policy reactions in France and Britain have taken different directions, while the British reluctance to involve government in corpus matters, and the occasionally fierce reactions to government involvement in acquisition policy demonstrate quite different conceptions of the purposes of government and of the role of the State. Means The means available to governments for implementing language policy have traditionally been limited to resource power, and indeed, much policy has itself been of a symbolic nature, as in the case particularly of the 1992 insertion of the language clause into the French Constitution. But both Governments, as language policy became more important to them, started using other means: the French Government, greatly concerned to ensure that official language meant the language of officials, was made aware by a Member of Parliament for one of its overseas Departements that the power it had to insist on the use of French might in effect disfranchise many of its overseas citizens. Similarly, and deliberately, the French Government both in the Toubon law and in the later decree by which its manner of application was decided, and in a Prime Ministerial circular to public servants, ensured that punishments for non-use of French were made significant and anything but symbolic. Indeed, the rejection of part of the implementation procedures for the Toubon law by the Constitutional Council was based on the idea of human rights to freedom of expression. In Britain, too, language policy took on more regulatory and less symbolic form: the National Curriculum is not a governmental wish but an instruction,


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and if policy was not implemented finance was withdrawn as in the case both of Industrial Language Training and the LINC materials. Reward and punishment are gradually entering the domain of language policy. Process Language policy is a very special case within policy studies: the absence of a clearly identifiable, representative policy community with authority to negotiate policy is a major and characteristic difference from social or economic policy making. Our studies have shown that the process approach is extremely useful in identifying fundamental contrasts in language policy between France and Britain: concepts such as input, negotiation and impact are important factors in identifying where the contrasts lie. One major conclusion is evident: that the policy process in the language field is fairly chaotic in both countries, and nowhere follows the precise sequence beloved of political scientists. The clearest example of the force of the unexpected lies in the two laws: neither the Toubon law nor the Welsh Language Act followed their intended routes; both were affected by last-minute amendments, the pressure of events or the general political environment. Initiation: the importance of ideology Policy studies may often have missed the importance of ideology, and that of the surrounding cultural environment including both previous history and the nature of attitudes, to the stage of identifying problem inputs. In Britain, political ideology has on occasion changed the process and forced the policy sequence to take short cuts or alternative routes. The political agenda of the incoming Government in 1979 was the prime motor for policy in a wide range of spheres, and its radical agenda for societal change threw up many policy problems which were tackled in the following years. In France, the inherited ideology of identity has proved very difficult to modify and adapt. In essence, the previous ideology of French identity, which saw physical break-up of the State through 'balkanisation' from the inside as the main danger, has developed to practically a bunker mentality, in which any slight change or threat from outside is seen as a major disaster: French culture is apparently so weak that it cannot survive borrowing a few words or TV programmes. Everything that is inside the citadel must be defended by rejecting anything that is outside. Estimation and selection It is particularly the role of the different policy communities, and the manner in which their relations with government have developed, that indicate some underlying differences between the two countries. In the 1980s consensual policies as supposedly practised previously in Britain were of less importance as a political agenda was driven through which did not require the agreement of the existing policy communities, and as policy developed which indeed

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saw the destruction of such communities as necessary. In the 1990s these tendencies have become sharper. Consultation periods have become shorter, the questions proposed and on which comments are invited more directive, and the views received have been reported and responded to in even more summary fashion. The relevance of the consultation to any change in the policy itself may appear slim. For policy-makers 'consultation' is not 'negotiation', but for those who present considered views, policy-making appears to take less and less notice of their opinions. These tendencies have affected many areas of policy-making in Britain (Smith, 1993). Smith's conclusions about the British policy-making system and structure are highly relevant, and show too that this approach is not necessarily a recent invention: Britain has an executive-dominated, unitary political system. The parliamentary system with strict party discipline results in the government dominating the political process. The majority of political decisions are made by central government only to be formally approved, in some cases, by the legislature. In addition, the British state is highly secretive, with access to central government controlled by civil servants. As a result the British state has a tendency towards elitism. Decisions are made by a small number of Ministers and civil servants. (Smith, 1993, 8-9)

Nonetheless, interest groups do have some role in the policy process. As Jordan and Richardson point out, Britain did have a political culture or style that was highly consultative. It was, and still is, seen as important by both sides to continue to give the impression that this style is still there: governments consult in order to simplify the policy process and to ensure the legitimacy of political decisions. However, consultation status is not a right but is attributed to groups which abide by the 'rules of the game' (Rhodes, 1988). These rules frequently mean not upsetting the closed nature of policymaking and abiding by the rules of secrecy, which is endemic to British government. Thus, interest groups in Britain are provided with access to elite policy circles in return for accepting rules determined by government; in particular, that government will itself select the members of the policy community, will attempt to ensure that they are not delegates, and will attempt to keep 'helpful' advisers as continuing members. This approach has characterised the negotiating roles of professional organisations such as the Association for Language Learning. The Association itself is consulted less and less frequently; more and more, individuals who have contributed to discussion as representatives of such organisations have been extracted from the organisation and consulted individually. Negotiation, in Britain, is therefore less and less oriented towards structured interaction, and more and more towards obtaining nominal support for the actions already decided upon. Hall, (1993, 162) characterised what often seems to be the policy process in France as 'consultation-fiat-revision': Before many major policy initiatives, elaborate soundings are now taken, involving the establishment of new commissions, reports from distinguished groups of experts, and canvassing of relevant organised interests. Precise policy


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proposals are then frequently formulated quite independently by public officials and unveiled, only to meet a new chorus of complaints from the affected interests. Depending on the strength of that chorus, the proposals may be changed at the last minute or even withdrawn; but there is often a radical disjunction between the vague consultation that precedes a policy announcement and the hard politicking that follows it.

We have seen that this pattern is not always followed as far as language policy is concerned. Spelling reform was indeed well discussed by many groups before a formal policy-making group was established; when this reported, the resultant opposition was apparently unexpected. But foreign-language teaching did not clearly follow the model and seemed to grow from a wider consensus. Although there has always been much consultation before policy is devised, this has mainly taken place within and among pressure and interest groups, composed in large part of an inner network already including policymakers. There was no need for an alternative 'fiat' by functionaries in the case of spelling reform, the removal of sexist language and indeed the Toubon law. In all three cases the violent rejection, by opinion leaders and the general public, of the policy when announced took place well after the original ideas had been more or less agreed by the pressure groups and associations, and the proposals had to be hastily revised or watered down, or lost some of their bite. What was lacking in these cases was open consultation, particularly with potential opponents, before policy was devised. The cosy, well-established community of Parisian intellectuals, agreeing among themselves that they represented French culture and a harmonious national community, on the analogy of industrial or agricultural interest and pressure groups, had a rude shock when confronted with the realities of French life. People's lack of desire to 'modernise' in spelling reform, their refusal to accept the existence of inbuilt linguistic discrimination in the case of 'sexist' language, and somewhat more surprising, in the case of the Toubon law, their rejection of linguistic regulation and their attachment to regional languages and to 'freedom of speech patterns', posed a problem for the language policy community. The associations and individuals who consider themselves to have rights over language seem to be self-appointed guardians forming a somewhat limited coterie marked by a degree of corporatism, an impression which is greatly strengthened by the selection of the five associations to implement the Toubon Act (see page 129 above). Without going so far as to say that both countries attempt to manipulate their policy communities, it is clear that both governments have preferred to control the negotiation: one through a refusal to listen to opposition, the other through ignorance of the existence of opposition. As a consequence, it may well be that the lack of opposition within the policy-making group, the inability to see alternative approaches, and the lack of awareness of the nature of the speech community, mean that the policy is ineffective. The experience of policy on sexist language, and that on spelling, ought to be awful warnings to policy-makers who construct such communities: they risk appearing too cosy and too inward-looking, and their policies risk rejection simply because

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they are known to be the product of inward-looking groups. Implementation It is fairly clear that France is the land of the macro policy, while Britain is that of microlevel actions. An alternative formulation of the contrast might be to say that France believes in the grand gesture and the symbolic declaration, while Britain is more pragmatic and more concerned with front-line implementation of any policy which is devised. Again, one could say that France actually believes in centralised policy and indeed planning, and that the subject of language is important in considerations of public policy, while Britain hastily shuffles the subject off to the sidelines of educational policy or social policy, uses language - for example, at party conferences - as a symbol for other types of policy or for the lack of any policy - or simply does not realise the effect of policy, as in the case of the Industrial Language Centres. Insofar as implementation is concerned, France has generally taken the long view and is prepared to continue policies for considerable periods. French language policies have changed little since 1966; but then again some may say that they have changed little since the Revolution, when policies of national identity through the rejection of regional identities, of education as the foundation of social cohesiveness, and of the concept of human rights were instituted. Only in the field of foreign language policy has there been some grudging acceptance of real change with increasing involvement in the European Union. Britain has by contrast had any number of - usually short-term - language policies, when indeed it has bothered to pay attention to the topic at all. Shortterm responses to immigration, to regional identities and to the status of English are examples, and it may well be that under the influence of the United States yet further policy change may produce both a written Constitution and a language clause in it; indeed, the Charter approach is a timid approximation to the concept of a Bill of Rights. In acquisition policies, foreign languages have been a normal part of secondary education, and at one time of primary education, although excluded from it at a later stage; a compulsory part of the National Curriculum and later watered down; so stability in language policy is difficult to find. Evaluation and termination It is probably true to say that in neither country has effective evaluation of the outputs and outcomes of specific language policy measures been undertaken by policy-makers. The closest either country has come is the institution of public opinion surveys by the relevant ministry in 1988 and 1994 in France, although the purpose of these - and the questions posed - were oriented towards propaganda on what should be done rather than being an honest attempt to survey the past. Also in France, the 1994 report to Parliament made by the Delegation Generate a la Langue Frangaise as a result of the Toubon law recorded the poor record of implementation of the 1975 law, and future such reports will track the effectiveness of the recent legislation. Similarly, in


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Britain the evaluation of the situation has been more concerned with forthcoming than with past legislation. Much of the reasoning behind the introduction of the National Curriculum was an assessment of the poor level of achievement of schoolchildren, and at least one reason for the introduction of regular testing was the need to measure results. In literacy policy, too, national testing has taken place and was one reason for the introduction of change in 1993, and indeed later. But in both countries policies are brought to an end with great reluctance: in France since there is a strong tradition of policy continuity; in Britain - certainly as far as policies introduced since 1980 are concerned - because the relevant policy authority has been consistently in power. Effect The violence of reactions to language policy actions - sexism, spelling reform, the obligatory use of French in advertising - as opposed to the steady, long-term actions on the corpus characteristic of French language planning as practised by the French Academy, shows how wise it is to continue the distinction between planning, done essentially by amateurs, and policy, carried out by professionals, and to ensure that language policy takes good note of the nature of the community to which it addresses itself. Top-down policy-making often tends to ignore those aspects of the policy environment which might ensure the success of behavioural change, particularly the cultural element, and to concentrate on the economic and the situational as they affect the political community, while effective language policy is characterised by the consensus of the speech community. The present study has underlined the importance of three contrasts between planning and policy. Planning is done by and affects the speech community, while policy is done by and affects the political community; planning is done by individuals, while policy is done by political actors who often reflect ideologies, movements and social forces rather than their own beliefs; planning is based on long-term conviction and behavioural modification whereas policy is based on short-term responses to problems. LANGUAGE POLICIES IN FRANCE AND BRITAIN This book is mainly concerned with the policy processes involved in language policy-making; nonetheless, we have drawn attention to the details of comparisons in individual policies as we have examined them throughout this book. Here, we draw attention to three areas where differences between the two countries underpin many of the differences between individual policies: the dynamism of policy-making in language: how far policies have developed and changed; the balance, for policy-makers, between a concern for human or group rights, awareness of social resources or the attention given to solving political problems; and finally, language attitudes and the motivations for policy which derive from them.

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Development and change in language policies French status policies have changed little over the nearly thirty years since the creation of the Haul Comite in 1966: van Deth (1995) considered that the Conseil Superieur de la Langue Frangaise had made no advances at all. Indeed, the analysis had barely changed for two centuries: integration and assimilation - social cohesion - were still the key words. Now that regional languages were no longer a danger for French or for France, and foreign languages could be allies provided France had a policy of friendship towards all of them except English, English - associated with the 'Anglo-Saxon' countries using it - was the key to the language problem. This did not of course mean that regional or immigrant languages could yet be actively supported, and assimilation leading to language death for all except French remained the policy. The long view is well established and provokes no political division. By contrast, language policies are changing in Britain, as responses to social diversity change from (unthinking or unconscious) assimilation to accommodation. Problems of identity are arising where previously there were (apparently) none; questions of inequality, of the relationship between social dialects and the standard language, between immigrant/community languages and the standard language of the majority, and between regional languages and the standard language, are solved as they arise and short-term responses are felt appropriate. Indeed, British language status policy looks forward to the conscious revival of the indigenous regional languages, and to societal bilingualism at the periphery. Corpus policies, in France, have had mixed success, despite the existence of long-established institutions like the French Academy and the more recent Terminology Committees. What success has been achieved has come about through trained social behaviour, particularly that instilled by the long and effective educational policy of the nineteenth century - the general and widespread interest in language matters, and the willingness to respect formal corpus statements such as those of the standard dictionaries. But the reception of policy advocating spelling reform, an official terminology, and the rejection of terms borrowed from English, shows that French society is not yet ready to accept imposed behavioural change, or rapid change, or change which implies surrendering any aspect of the social differentiation caused by and through mastery of language. Deliberate corpus policies in English are rare. The definition of standard English used in the National Curriculum documents is sketchy, and there is no single authority able to define 'correct' English, despite valiant efforts by SCAA to provide models of standard written and spoken English for education. British official attitudes towards possible corpus policies - spelling reform, the adoption of American terms, the borrowing of words from immigrant communities - are generally tolerant but unable to take proposals for action, for regularisation and control, or for support, seriously. Acquisition policies are routine in France: it is normal for government to decide what shall be taught and how, and the national curriculum presents no problem. Procedures for teaching and assessing the standard language are in place, following national programmes and applied with little dispute,


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although it is true that pressure for spelling reform arose first from primary school teachers. Policies for teaching foreign languages have a high priority, and the influence of the external world is strong - the European Union, frontier relationships, and American domination of technology and science make a two-foreign-language policy almost inevitable in secondary education, and strongly support the learning of at least one for the whole of secondary education. Even acquisition policies for regional languages are moving towards greater tolerance. By contrast, Britain is still in turmoil over the practicalities of a centralised and controlled curriculum, although the speed with which the idea has been accepted is amazing. The teaching of standard English is still not accepted everywhere as an aim of education, and methods for teaching are yet another battleground between macro policymakers and those who implement micro policy in the classroom. Education in foreign languages presents less of a problem, although it is still not clear whether even one foreign language is a requirement for more than three years of secondary education. Regional languages are just that: available in their regions, but the significant change is the level of governmental support they now receive. Language policy and public policy: a right, a resource or a problem? French policies in general have tended towards reinforcing social cohesion, while British policies have had mainly economic and efficiency objectives. To a large extent, such a generalisation remains true even when one takes into consideration the truism that French language policies have been in place longer and have faced an environment in which the most important questions are those of territorial integrity and national identity in the face of external aggression or internal fragmentation. It is particularly true in the light of French definitions of citizenship, and in the nature of the Republic and its declaration of human rights: all citizens are equally responsible and all citizens have equal obligations towards the symbols of the nation. Recent French policies towards the national language, exemplified by the 1994 Toubon law, have reinforced its official and public character, stressed its unifying role across territories and social groups, and (have tried to) move towards greater regulation of the citizen in forcing him or her to use the national tongue in every domain of use. The consequence of these status policies is to raise the prestige of the language and to ensure it fulfils all Garvin's five functions: strengthening solidarity, excluding others, conferring prestige, providing a basis for ideas of correctness and purism, and enabling both modernisation and full functionality - 'participation' in a range of domains and in the changing technological and scientific world (Garvin, 1993). French status policies tie the political community to the speech community, aim at social monolingualism, and regard (French) language as a right to be extended to all, denying any such language right to others within the political community. The diversity of languages, in France, has not traditionally been seen as a resource to be made widely available. Although regional languages and immigrant languages are numerous, citizens have

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until recently been generally denied access to them. This is true even in the case of foreign languages, although this policy has been slowly changing and now, under the influence of what is seen as the European destiny of France, is changing even further. In 1995, the slogan of 'Unity in Diversity', derived from the Mauritius Francophonie summit in 1993, still sat somewhat awkwardly with the change in policy it represents. Language policy has not been problem-oriented, either. If problems have arisen - in the case of immigrants' working practices, or with advertisements in English exclusively, with spelling reform or sexism - the French reaction has been to respond by clarifying who has rights in the matter: immigrants have rights (to use French, rather than their own language), the public has the right to be presented with instructions and advertisements in French, women have rights not to be faced with sexist language - although in this last case, the right of the speech community at large not to adopt particular forms was eventually agreed to be of greater import. By contrast, British policies towards the national language rely on occasional encouragement, assuming that there is no danger and no need to intervene to ensure that human rights are defended. British policies respond to passing problems, solve them on an ad hoc, often short-term, basis, and see no difficulty in giving official status to regional languages - at least in Scotland and Wales - nor in accepting the influence of overseas varieties of English. Solutions merely assume that English will retain its dominant position. Of Garvin's five functions, neither solidarity nor exclusion are really relevant, although prestige, purism and participation are. Social and political cohesion - tying the political community together through language - is not a main objective of status policy; (the standard) language, if anything, is a possible resource to be made available to those who want it. The responses to regional languages and to immigrant languages have been different, although, in accordance with the problem-oriented approach to policy-making, both have been seen more as a difficulty to be overcome than as a national resource. It is acceptable that regional languages might be seen to be in some sense a right, although the right of individual subjects to have access to the national language - i.e. English - is more important than the right of regional dwellers to obtain services in their regional languages. For immigrant languages, the central government may, in its wisdom, dispense some information in such languages and may indeed provide some support for them, but the finance comes as a sort of charitable donation (now part of the 'Regeneration' budget) rather than as a deliberate act of policy. Policies have tended to respond to pressure, and to provide ad hoc solutions as the pressure grows. In neither case is a diversity of languages seen as providing greater richness for society. For Britain the language question looked after itself: the dominant role of English was never in doubt for those social classes and groups responsible for managing, leading and controlling society, inside or outside the country, while the major questions in the political, social and economic environment turned on the role of the individual in a liberal, laissez-faire economic setting. So there was never a need for a language policy to ensure every citizen's right of access to a means of communication which might give him economic advantage over others.


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Motivations Lying behind these differences in policies is a difference in language attitudes in the two countries, and hence the motivations for policies are different, too. The majority of the French public believe that the French of the past is superior - yet feel that reform is necessary; approve high quality usage, and agree that French has high value - but feel it is threatened and needs defending; accept the close relationship of French language and French culture - but nonetheless agree that French is 'universal': its qualities represent values of the human mind such as reason, clarity and precision (IPSOS, 1986; SOFRES, 1988; SOFRES, 1994). Significantly, a large majority (82 per cent) approves the concept of governmental intervention in language matters. British attitudes similarly show a considerable degree of pride in the language; but there is no question of any exclusively British cultural value, and few people would claim that English was restricted to expressing only certain aspects of human mental qualities. Rather, speakers are proud of the fact that English is international and not 'owned' by any particular community (Shephard, 1994; Quirk, 1994). Language attitudes have become politicised, particularly since 1980: support for use of the standard language has become inextricably associated with right-wing political views and Thatcherism', while support for the concept of a multilingual and multidialectal society is associated with the left (Fairclough, 1989; Crowley, 1989). Traditionally, British central government did not interfere in the educational curriculum nor in language matters: Thatcherism has done both (Baker, 1993). Such language attitudes and belief systems in the two countries can be considered in relation to four types of motivation for language policy: identity, image, insecurity and inequality. Identity The politics of identity have traditionally formed a large part of France's concerns with herself and her future. In the creation of the country during the Ancien Regime, in the Jacobine concern with centralisation and control, in the educational policies of the nineteenth century aimed at creating a community consensus, and in twentieth-century concerns about the interrelationship of the political and the economic, the tendency of French politicians and the French public to see France and the French as a coherent, unified State where all aspects of policy contribute to glory and status is reflected in language policy as elsewhere. French language is French culture and way of life: French is a symbol of France (Club de 1'Horloge, 1985). Britain has only comparatively recently been (openly) concerned with the politics of identity, and has traditionally been content to rely on military strength and the existence of a supportive world wide network, where its superiority went without saying. It is only since mass immigration and the supposed necessity for closer integration with the European Union have become obvious, that support for separation, for clearer identity and for a British identity by opposition to that of other countries have gained ground - the need for a British National Curriculum would have been unthinkable to politicians

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during the period of Empire. Yet the politics of identity have not yet been translated into wholesale acceptance by all the political community of one of its symbols: British identity is still not altogether identified with standard English language, despite the vociferous support expressed during the 1980s (Honey, 1983; Marenbon, 1987). Language policies are still content to encourage regional languages and to foster language maintenance for immigrants, and support for the use of regional dialects in education still continues. Image The second motivator is image, or the belief that the nation's language needs to be spread abroad in order to create a positive image in the minds of those who do not yet embrace it as their normal means of communication. For France, this motivation is again important, and it is not without reason that commentators see the future of French as dependent on Africa - where there is room for French to spread - and Europe - where French may be protected and its official role defended, on the argument of greater rights for all Europeans to assert their cultural specificity. French has 'universal' value, and arguments in its defence see its maintenance as essential to the freedom of the world. Britain, too, has a deliberate policy of spreading its language abroad, and the role of the British Council and other agencies is undeniable, even though the role is not overt and many teachers of English as a foreign language would not identify their own motive as that of working for the greater glory of Britain. Perhaps here, again, there is a difference between a coherent, deliberate, state-led policy and one which has happened almost by accident, and where the intentions of policy-makers are implemented through microlevel decisions by agents who are not altogether aware of the purpose of their actions. Insecurity Language insecurity - fear that one's language is inadequate for social needs, and a third main motivator for language policy - has had effects in France but few, as yet, in Britain. Perhaps under the influence of Quebec, fear of dominance by English and a feeling that French could no longer defend itself against the encroachments of Anglo-American have inspired legislation intended to repel the tide of borrowings and to ensure both the purity of the French language and its capacity to participate in the modern world. Nonetheless the public is not altogether convinced that French is indeed under such attack from abroad, although public opinion agrees that 'correct' French needs defending and reforming, and that high quality usage should be ensured. Despite occasional condemnation of Americanisms, Britain has not yet felt the need to repel the invaders to the extent that has occurred in the United States itself, where constitutional amendments defending English against Spanish have become more common and may yet reach the Federal Constitution. Neither, despite attacks on the poor use of English by schoolchildren, does Britain yet feel the need for standard English to be


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defended by action on the corpus. Language insecurity is not a relevant motivator for British speakers of English. Inequality Much sociolinguistic research is based on social inequality: individual members of society have unequal access to power, money, influence or justice. A country's language policy could be aimed either at reinforcing such social injustice or at correcting it. In the cases of language policy we have reviewed - literacy, language policy for immigrants, French and English abroad, spelling reform, teaching foreign languages, status policy for French and for Welsh, sexism and workplace training - the motivations of policymakers have often included such social concerns, but to a different degree in each country. In encouraging literacy, the social motivation for French policy in 1981 was very clear. One of the prime movers saw the problem as a social one and rejected solutions which did not firmly associate poor control of reading and writing with social deprivation, and did not closely associate the improvement of literacy skills for all with the improvement of social justice for all. The policy response, generally accepting this analysis, was to broaden the problem and to look for ways of involving many ministries and a range of responses. Nonetheless, this response was quite different from that of a different government, only two years earlier, which had more or less rejected both the idea that poor literacy skills were a French problem or that there could be any association between these and social deprivation. In Britain, policy for improving literacy - in the 1993 example we have quoted followed much the same analysis of the problem, with the added suggestion that the fault lay with outdated teacher-training methods and poor teaching; but it limited action to a very specific area and allocated blame to those with poor skills: correcting social inequality played no part. The correction of social inequality played little part in language policy for immigrants in either country, but revealed very different approaches to the concept of social cohesion. The original French policy (LCO) was very specifically aimed at placing the problem outside French society: the problem was that of the sending countries and 'their' citizens, and even the later responses aimed at offering access to social equality only through acceptance of integration or preferably assimilation, with consequential loss of identity. In this, the policy followed exactly the approach to social inclusion - or exclusion - established two centuries earlier, at the time of the Revolution. In Britain, the policy response was either to place responsibility on the relevant immigrant community or to make minimal concessions to language maintenance or English-language support; but since immigrants were residents, they had access to the full range of social services and microlevel policy at least made no distinction between them and other residents. From this point of view, British government policy was not aimed at correcting social inequality, either for the group or for the individual, solely because of his immigrant status; but it clearly accepted the existence of separate groups and communities within society.

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Neither the teaching of French nor that of English abroad are policy responses where the motivation is that of correcting social inequality. By contrast, spelling reform in France was seen by many of its supporters as being a way of helping underachievers in the educational system, in a society where advancement depended and depends on achieving certification at all levels through written tests and examinations. The social injustice involved in not successfully passing the baccalaureat is far from condemning the individual concerned to poverty, but access to elite positions is practically impossible without at least this diploma. Two opposing attitudes conflict: one sees corpus policy as aimed at making the acquisition of language skills easier and thus giving greater access to social advantage, while the opposite view is that since the difficulties of language are created by the elite in order to make general access to advancement difficult, this barrier might as well remain. In practical terms, it is the second attitude which has prevailed, and not for the first time - policy-makers in language matters failed in their task of influencing behaviour. In Britain, there is in effect no (governmental) corpus policy, and the reason for this is both the widespread consensus that English has a world role which no one authority could control, and the general flexibility of English: its ability to accept new vocabulary, to adapt its syntax to the stridency of journalism, to remain understandable even when used by those from different language backgrounds and in a variety of different, international, contexts. From this point of view, there exists little motivation in favour of correcting possible social injustice through controlling the language. The ability to use foreign languages has for long in both societies been a measure of intellectual ability, even though in neither has the examination system at schools or universities prioritised the practical use of languages or their spoken use. From this point of view, motivation for increasing knowledge of foreign languages in the educational system and in acquisition policy has, if anything, reinforced social injustice. Contemporary French policy, increasing support for foreign-language teaching and encouraging the learning of European languages, reflects a policy of greater European integration, but it is difficult to see how this could in any way be motivated by a concern for social justice: if anything, the motivation reflects well-rooted fears of German political domination and an analysis of the likely economic future. Nonetheless, social cachet - as measured by the popularity of baccalaureate streams - is derived from the increasing popularity of mathematics as an indicator and the reduction in the importance of languages in this role. In Britain, policy for foreign-language teaching in secondary schools reflects a dilemma: if a total National Curriculum is to be imposed accounting for a large proportion of children's time, then any increase in foreign-language teaching is likely to be opposed by the right wing - who object to curriculum overload - and by the left, who oppose foreign languages because they have so often been used to separate and discriminate against poor achievers. This dilemma, added to two other factors, has created a generally unsatisfactory policy where too little time is devoted to languages to enable effective learning and yet most national effort is devoted to one language, French, which does not necessarily reflect national need. The first


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factor is the nature of language teaching - it is linear, requires considerable input of teacher energy if all the skills are to be taught properly, and requires time to be effective. The second is that the choice of language may reflect parental priorities rather than educational ones: motivation for the correction of social injustice may support language maintenance for immigrant communities, but competence in Panjabi or Arabic is an unlikely marker of social prestige, and may indeed indicate the contrary. It is perhaps in language policy on the status of languages that one can discover clearer indications of attitudes towards social inequality as the motivation for policy measures. The Toubon law of 1994 seemed to be based on the concept of language rights for French speakers: the right to use French in public domains, and, particularly, at work and in commerce. The adoption of the consumer protection route may have been more a strategy to achieve the real aims of economic protectionism than a desire to protect the socially disadvantaged and inadequate; but most of the discourse about the law was conducted in terms of improving social justice, even though this meant justice for the majority: but that, after all, is the definition of democracy. In Britain, there is only one language law: the Welsh Language Act of 1993. This, like policy on Scottish Gaelic, responds to political pressure - both countries have returned fewer and fewer Conservative MPs to Westminster - and represents an attempt to respond to feelings of (political, rather than social) inequality expressed by Scots and Welsh. But the details of the Act, and particularly of the discussions leading to its implementation, indicate very clearly that there is a conflict between 'public service' views - those of the educational and local administration - and those of private industry. The latter seems fearful of any increased social equality arising from access to public services in Welsh as well as English, while the former are generally keen to implement programmes in favour of Welsh speakers but foresee possible difficulties in maintaining the balance if societal bilingualism should at any time replace individual bilingualism, i.e. if services had to be provided exclusively for Welsh speakers, social cohesiveness could suffer. Policy on sexism in language was clearly motivated in the French experience of 1990 by the feeling that social injustice was created by the use of certain terms, and could be corrected if these terms were proscribed or changed. Both the relevant policy community and the Government discovered that this motivation was not shared, at least not by the media or by a number of establishment figures. British attempts to correct social inequality by language policy may demonstrate a degree of mistrust between policy-makers and agents, as we have seen in the case of Industrial Language Training. This mistrust - in the implementation of policy - may derive from the lack of clarity of policymakers, from the inevitable changes of policy as governments change, but significantly also from the rarity of specific attempts to engineer social change through language policy, the lack of clarity about how far language was the real problem, and from the shocks of cultures. These shocks were drastic: that of English-language culture meeting cultures derived from other lands; that of middle-class culture realising the nature of working-class life; that of an educational culture meeting a training culture; that of a social

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service meeting the necessities and brutal simplicities of economic life. British and French language policies reveal many aspects of the two societies. These policies derive from different attitudes and different motivations, closely associated with the history, traditions and political agendas of the respective societies. In many respects, the two societies stand at opposite ends of the spectrum of possibilities. Tracking down how the policies were adopted, how the mechanism of policy-making operated, how the policy-makers and the policy communities planned intervention and how it was received, has shown how the different mechanisms reflect both the similarities and the differences of organisation between two countries. Overall, language policies are closely related to other types of policy cultural, social and economic - and it is only possible to examine and evaluate them in relation to the concerns Britain and France have: on their social identity, on the way in which that identity is projected abroad; on the satisfaction they feel with that identity, and on ways they approach the question of social cohesion.

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Index of names

This is a selective index of names of those concerned with the making of language policy in Britain or France. Balladur,Edouard61,66, 104, 138, 157 Bas, Pierre 44, 57, 119 Bayrou, Francois 121, 122 Boudon, Raymond 60 Boursin, Jean-Louis 131 Broglie, Gabriel de 36, 131 Bruguiere, Michel 57ff, 197 Bullock, Sir Alan 70, 71,91,96 Butler, Sir Robin 104, 1 1 1 ff, 133 Carnegie, Andrew 126 Catach, Nina 119, 180 Cellard, Jacques 32, 180 Cerquiglini, Bernard 61, 119, 121, 123, 139 Chauvin, Remi 131 Chirac, Jacques 57ff, 105, 139, 182 Cox, Brian 71, 92ff Danzin, Andre 131 Dearing, Sir Ron 100, 144 Decaux, Alain 60 Deixonne, M. 46, 68ff, 147 Deniau, Xavier 160, 165, 175 Diderot, Denis 34 Douste-Blazy, Philippe 63, 139 Druon, Maurice 55, 119, 121, 130, 158, 160 Esperandieu, Veronique 78ff, 83 Estaing, Valerie Giscard d' 57, 79, 84 Evans, Gwynfor 50 Farandjis, Stelio 57, 59, 136 Faure, Micheline 44, 130 Ferry, Jules 42 Foucambert, Jean 79 Francois I 30, 40 Gaulle, Charles de 56, 57 Giordan, Henri 46, 57, 62, 68 Grevisse, Maurice 32, 72, 180 Gros, Maurice 130 Groult, Benoite 179 Guillou, Michel 128ff, 131 Hagege, Claude 60, 131 Harris, Martin 93, 97, 148ff Houdebine, Anne-Marie 180ff Howarth, Alan 38 Johnson, Samuel 2, 33 Joseph, Lord Keith 152, 191

Legendre, Jacques 130ff, 158ff Leygue, Georges 43 Littre, Emile 32, 120 McDonald, Trevor 134 Magnant, Anne 61, 139 Maher, Chrissie 132 Major, John 133, 142 Malherbe, Francois de 32, 41 Mallen, M. 6 Michaud-Chevry, Lucette 58, 62 Mine, Alain 131 Mitterrand, Francois 46,57,62,79, 84, 106, 136, 138 Monzie, Alfred de 43 Noguez, Dominique 128ff Patten, John 8Iff, 191 Pitman, Isaac 125 Pitman, Sir James 125, 132 Priestly, Thierry 130 Pompidou, Georges 43, 57, 119 Quemada, Bernard 60, 119, 123 Rayner, Sir Derek 132, 143 Rey-Debove, Josette 119, 180 Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de 2, 32, 54ff Rossillon, Philippe 56, 57, 128, 130 Roudy, Yvette 179ff Salon, Albert 128, 130 Sarre, Georges 44, 138, 156, 163, 174 Senghor, Leopold Sedar 59 Scruton, Roger 92 Shaw, George Bernard 126, 131 Shephard, Gillian 37ff, 48, 134, 143ff St Robert, Philippe de 57ff, 128, 130, 137ff Sellers, Philippe 131 Swann, Sir Michael 70, 71, 91, 95ff Swift, Jonathan 33 Tasca, Catherine 44, 129, 138, 156, 174 Thatcher, Lady Margaret (Mrs) 8, 63, 92, 104, 109ff, 115, 131, 132, 142, 147ff, 152, 191,207 Thomas, Lord Dafydd Elis- 52, 171, 175ff Todd, Emmanuel 60 Toubon, Jacques 15, 44ff, 47, 56, 61, 69, 129, 139, 141, 145, 147, 156-68

Kingman, Sir John 70, 71, 118

van Deth, Pierre 57, 140, 158, 204 Vaugelas, Claude Favre de 32, 41

Lauriol, Marc 44, 57, 119, 164, 175 Leconte, Jacques 123ff

Waldegrave, William 112 Wresinski, Father 79, 83

General index

Academic Franqaise, see French Academy acceptance of language 22ff, 36ff Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique (ACCT)57, 107,177 acquisition planning and policy 4ff, 64, 67-74, 103, 107ff, 113ff, 145-53, 168, 185ff, 191, 204 acronyms 36 administrative planning and policies, see constituent planning and policies Albigensian heresy 30 Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit (ALBSU) 80ff, 126 Algeria 24, 84ff Alliance Franqaise 107 Alsace 24, 41, 45, 69, 160 Arabic 34, 36, 69, 72, 87, 97ff, 194, 211 Armenian 4, 69 AssembleeNationale9,138, 155, 156-68 assimilation 88ff, 92, 96,98, 100,204 Association des Informaticiens de Langue Franqaise (AILF) 129 Association for Language Learning (ALL) 149ff, 200 Association Francophone d'Amitie et de Liaison (AFAL) 129 Association Franqaise de Normalisation (AFNOR) 57, 177 Association Franqaise de Terminologie (AFTERM) 57 Association Franqaise pour la Lecture (AFL) 79 Association des Universites Partiellement ou Entierement de Langue Franqaise - Universite des Reseaux d'Expression Franqaise (AUPELF-UREF) 59 Association pour VInformation et la Recherche sur les Orthographies et les Sysfemes d'Ecriture (AIROE) 123 Aide-a-toute-detresse-Quart Monde (ATD-Quart Monde) 79 Avenir de la Langue Franqaise (ALF) 128ff, 158ff, 167, 175,201 Bas-Lauriol Act 44, 57, 119, 129, 130, 137, 156, 183 Basque 68, 146 Belgium 24, 35, 59, 62, 78, 119, 129, 177, 179 Bengali 72, 97ff Beslais report 120, 123 Better English Campaign 134 bilingualism individual 24, 31, 37, 69, 89, 91,97, 175 societal 19,24,50,73,86,96,100,108,171ff, 196 Breton 24, 30, 45, 68ff, 160, 171 British Council 63, 108, 113-17, 118 British Standards Institution 64, 67 Bullock Report 70, 91, 96 Cabinet Office 63, 111, 133 Catalan 68ff Centre Jacques Amyot 58, 138 Channel Islands 21 Charter, see Citizen's Charter, European Charter Chinese 70, 72, 97ff, 145, 164, 194

Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (CILT) 118, 149 Citizen's Charter 53, 63, 112, 133ff, 142, 202 civil service 45ff, 48, 66, 76, 101, 104-7, 109-13, 133, 143 class, see social class Classes d'Adaptation dans I' Enseignement du Second Degre (CLAD) 88 Classes d'Initiation Experimentales (CLIN) 88 Classes Pre-professionnelles de niveau (CPPN) 80 codification of language 22ff, 32ff, 36,4Iff, 47, 54,64 Comite Consultatifde la Langue Franqaise 7, 57, 60 Comite de la Francophonie 57 Comite (later Conseil) International de la Langue Franqaise (CILF) 56, 57, 59ff, 109, 129, 177 Commissariat General de la Langue Franqaise 57, 128, 137, 182 Commission for Racial Equality 96 Commissions de Terminologie 57ff, 61, 64, 119ff, 161, 172ff, 177, 182, 191, 198,204 communication networks 22ff, 105, 109 community, see ethnic, minority, policy, political, speech Commun na Gaidhlig 49 compounding 34ff Confederation Syndicate des Families 79 Conference Ministerielle de la Francophonie (CMF) 59 Conseil de la Langue Franqaise (Belgium, Quebec) 119 Conseil Economique et Social 79, 88ff, 99 Conseil National des Langues et Cultures Regionales (CNLCR) 46, 57, 62 Conseil Permanent de la Francophonie (CPF) 59, 107 Conseil Superieur de la Langue Fran false 58, 60ff, 64, 118ff, 123, 165,204 Conservative party 7, 37, 48, 50, 71, 84, 92ff, 101, 119-25, 143, 154, 170, 189ff, 211 constituent planning and policies 9, 54-65,78, 83,191 Constitution (French) 160, 198 Cornwall 49 corporatism 8ff, 105, 201 corpus planning and policies 4, 61, 64-7, 103, 119ff, 138,157, 168,174, 178,191,204 Corsica 42, 68ff, 146, 164 co-variation 19 Crystal Mark 132, 134 Cymdeithas yr laith Gymraeg 17'Off Danish 69,72, 97ff Defense de la Langue Franqaise (DLF) 129 Deixonne Act 46, 68, 147, 153 Delegation Generale d la Langue Franqaise (DGLF) 55-6, 58, 61ff, 64, 67, 109, 119, 123, 125, 130, 138ff, 147, 156ff, 177, 183, 198, 202 Departements d'Outre-Mer (DOM) 43, 85 Department of Education and Science, Department for Education, Department for Education and Employment (DES, DfE, DfEE) 63, 80ff, 89, 91, 95, 117, 126, 134ff, 148ff, 168 Department for National Heritage (DNH) 63, 117

GENERAL INDEX

dialects 22, 30ff, 36ff, 42, 45, 71, 73, 93 diglossia3l,86, 194 discourse practices 26ff, 116, 142, 147, 187, 195,21] domain 5. 19ff, 29ff, 36ff, 44ff, 64ff, 103 dominance 17ff, 20, 23, 26, 30ff, 140, 188ff, 195 Drogheda report 113 Dutch 69, 72, 145 Ecole National? d'Administration (ENA) 105 Economic and Social Council, see Conseil Economique el Social Education Reform Act 48, 70, 92, 98, 100 elaboration of language 23, 30, 33ff, 47. 54 elasticity 24, 34, 36 elite 9, 30, 38ff, 47, 146, 193, 200, 210 English as a foreign language 70. 113-17, 145ff English as a second language 73, 95ff, 117, 185-9 environment 6, 11,77, 183, 189 ethnic community 5, 19. 24, 37, 86, 89, 91, 96. 99, 182, 195 European Charter for Regional Languages 47, 52, 167 European Commission 44, 156, 164 European Union (EU) 4, 26, I07ff, 1 1 1 , 1 1 7 , 202 Federation de I'Education Nationa/e (FEN) 127 Financial Management Initiative (FMI) 110, 143 Finnish 70 Framework Agreement 112 framework law 155 francien 30ff Francophonie39,44, 127, 129ff, 198 Summit Meetings 58ff. 107 French Academy 3, 8, 22. 32, 36,41, 54-6, 64, 118ff, 124ff, 130, 158, 161, 177, 180ff, 191,201,204 French as a foreign language 72, 91,97ff, 107 French as a second language 88 French Revolution 4Iff, 77, 98, 126 Frondes 41 Fran! National 157 Fulton Report 110 functions, 19,23,38, 196 Gaelic 32, 49, 72ff, 100,211 Gallo 69 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 107, 129, 140 General National Vocational Qualification (GNVQ) 82, 144 German 70, 72, 98, 145 geopolitical 10, 19ff, 29. 139, 196 Golden Bull Awards I33ff Grands Corps 104ff, 127 Greek 70, 72, 97 Gujerati 72, 97ff Gypsy 24 Haul Comite pour la Defense et!' Expansion de la Lan.i>ue Francaise 56, 119, 137, 161, 197,204 Haul Conseil de la Franc ophonie (HCF) 57ff, 107, 109, 118, 137 Hebrew 70, 72, 97ff, 145 hegemony 17, 129 Henry V1I1 law, see framework law Hindi 72. 97ff Her Majesty's Inspectors (HMI) 53 Home Office 63, 9Iff, 95 House of Commons 9, 50. 155

225

Ibo97 identity 25ff, 32, 37, 75, 86, 88, 125, 141, 160, 185, 193,207ff ideology?, llff, 15ff, 26, 75, 84, 101, 116, 188, 195, 199 illiteracy, see literacy image 26, 209 immigrants/immigration 37, 52ff, 69ff, 73, 75, 84-105, 146, 158. 185ff, 195 India 35 Industrial Language Centres 185-9 inequality 23, 36,91 insecurity 26,209ff Inside Write Awards I33ff interest groups 6, 9, 11, 15, 118, 126-35,200 Ireland 21,3Iff, 48,52 Islam 195 Isle of Man 21,49 issue network I02ff, 126 Italian 34, 69ff, 72,87,91, 97,145 Japanese 70, 72, 145ff jus sanguinis 99 jus soli 99 Kingman Report 70 language, see also official, standard, workplace language attitudes 19, 22, 24, 86, 125, 188, 203ff, 207-12 awareness 92ff behaviour 4ff, 18ff, 25 change 4, 24, 34ff, 192 contact 86 industries 138ff maintenance 69, 73, 75, 87-9, 9Iff. 95-9, 195 planning 1-6,28, 190 rights viii, 25, 76, 93, 98, 100, 205 problems viii, 25, 76, 187 Languages in the National Curriculum (LINC) 92, 199 Languages Lead Body (LLB) 118 Langue d'oc 30 Langue d' oil 30 Langues et Cultures d'Oriqine (LCO) 69, 87ff, 98, 100, 209 Latin 29ff, 34, 40ff, 66 Legendre report ISSff, 183ff legitimacy 12,27,200 Lemasin 30 lingua franca 29 linguistic market 14, 18,23 repertoire 17,20,22, 192 Linguistic Minorities Project (LMP) 90 literacy 76-84, 183,209 lot cadre, see framework law Maastricht Treaty 43 macrolevel 8, 74, 155, 182, 189, 202 Maghrebins 98 mainslreaming 92, 96, 100 Marxism 9. 15, 17, 34 Melanesian languages 69 microlevel 8, 10,43, 53, 75, 155, 182, 189, 202 Ministry of Education (France) 120, 124, 146, 179 minority 17ff, 24ff, 39, 52ff, 90ff, 97, 100 community 18ff, 24ff, 188 motivation 207ff

226


multiculturalism 52, 71, 73. 75, 9 Iff, 96 multilingualism 39, 52, 92 Nantes, Edict of 41 Napoleon 45 National Child Development Study 8Iff National Curriculum 27, 37, 48, 52, 64, 67, 70ff, 82, 92ff, 126, 132, 144, 148, 176. 189, 192, 195, 197ff, 204 National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) 90 National Front (France), see Front National National Targets for Education and Training 82, 143 nationality 85, 99ff networks, see communication, issue, policy, speech 'Next Steps' 111 Norwegian 70 Occitan 40, 68ff Office de la Langue Franfaise (France) 56 Office de la Langue Franfaise (Quebec) 62, 179 Office du Vocabulaire Francois 56 official language 19ff, 24, 29, 31, 43, 47ff, 108, 169ff, 194 Panjabi72, 97ff, 211 performance indicators 11 Off, 144 Persian 97 Plaid Cymru 50, 52 Plain English Campaign 48, 63, 132ff pluralism 9, 14,92, 102,126 policy analysis of 12, 16 community 7, 55, 102ff, 118, 122, I25ff, 134ff, 196 models of policy-making 9ff, 14 networks 7ff, 102ff, llgff, 136ff, 175. 191 processes 9, 13ff, 76, 102ff, 190-203 studies 1,6-16,28, 190 types of 8ff Polish 70, 97, 145 political community 5, 19ff, 29, 39,47, 182, 194, 196 political party/ies 7,100 Portuguese 69ff, 72, 86, 97. 145 prefixation 35 pressure groups 6ff, 9, 11, 15, 18, 96, 101, 104ff, 118, 123, 126-35, 138, 149. 154,201 prestige 4ff, 20, 23, 29, 39. 46, 50. 74, 86 Protestantism 31,41 purism 4, 24, 127 Quebec 3, 34, 36, 56ff, 59, 62. 108, 119, 129. 141, 171, 177, 179, 182,197,208 Reading Recovery 83 Received Pronunciation 33 reform of language 24 regionalism 25 regional languages 30ff, 37, 40ff, 57ff, 62, 93, 100, I45ff acquisition policy for 6, 8ff, 68ff, 72ff, 98ff European Charter for, see European Charter status of 20ff, 37,45ff,49ff, 159ff, 164, 167, 194 resource power 12 Revolution, sec French Revolution Russian 70, 72, 145

(SCAA) 126, 132, 134, 149ff, 168, 193, 204 Scotland 31, 47, 48, 72ff, 75, 93, 100, 111 Scots 73, 100 Section 11 grants 73, 9Iff, 95 selection of language 22, 30ff sexism in language 56, 58, 65ff, 138,179ff, 211 Simplified Spelling Society 13 Iff Single Regeneration Budget 95 social class 9. 15, 17,23,38, 188ff, 195 social semiotics 27 sociolinguistics 1, 17-28, 190,192 speech community 19, 2Iff, 29ff, 36, 38ff, 47, 179, 182,194 spelling reform 56, 64. 67, 74, 119-25, 183, 201, 210 Spanish 34, 69, 72, 97, 145 stability 24, 36 stakeholder 149 standard language 19ff, 29-39, 41,47ff, 64,72, 194, 204 status planning and policy 5, 40-53, 74, 103, 132ff, 157, 161, 191,204 Statute of Pleading 31,47, 168 suffixation 34 Swann Report 70, 91.95 Swedish 70 Switzerland 24,59, 62, 179 symbols 43 Tagalog 97 Tahitian 69 terminology 36, 64-7, 74, 79, 119ff, 161, 172ff, 198 Terminology Commissions, see Commissions tie Terminologie Territoires d'Outre-Mer (TOM) 43, 85 tcrritoriality principle 24, 50 Toubon Act (Toubon Law) 15, 44ff, 56. 67ff, 109, 130, 141, 156-68, 183, 194, 198, 205, 211 Tolerances 120, 123 Treaty of Rome 44 Turkish 69, 72, 97, 100 Twi97 UNESCO 6, 77ff, 84, 108 UNO 7, 79, 108 Urdu 72, 97lf USA 33, 35, 57, 78, 84, 101, 125, 130, 140, 179 variable 17, 19, 22, 38 variety 5, I9ff, 22ff, 36, 38ff, 137, 192, 195 verlan 86 Vichy regime 46 Vietnamese 69, 97 Villers-Cotterets, Edicts of 22, 30,40. 164 Wales 25, 30ff, 47ff, 72, 75, 96, 111 Welsh 24, 37, 50, 72.93, 97, 100, 1% Welsh Language Act 20, 50ff, 167-74, 211 Welsh Language Board 50ff, 118, 168ff, 173ff Welsh Language Society, see Cymdeithas yr laith Gymraeg West Saxon 31 word formation 34ff workplace language 38 Yoruba 97 Zone d'Education Prioritaire (ZEP) 88

Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority

Language Policy in Britain and France (Open Linguistics Series)

Empirical Linguistics (Open Linguistics)

Handbook of Public Policy in Europe: Britain, France and Germany

Multifactorial Analysis in Corpus Linguistics (Open Linguistics Series)

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Lexicology and Corpus Linguistics (Open Linguistics)

Catholicism in Britain and France Since 1789

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Genre and Institutions (Open Linguistics)

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Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice (ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series)

Language Planning and Policy: Issues in Language Planning and Literacy (Language Planning and Policy)

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Language and Gender (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics (Cognitive Linguistics in Practice)

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An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics (Studies in Language and Linguistics)

Language and Gender (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

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Migration in Comparative Perspective: Caribbean Communities in Britain and France

Language Planning and Policy: Language Planning in Local Contexts (Language Planning and Policy)

Language Policy in the Soviet Union (Language Policy)

Local Politics and Participation in Britain and France

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Empirical Linguistics (Open Linguistics)

Handbook of Public Policy in Europe: Britain, France and Germany

Multifactorial Analysis in Corpus Linguistics (Open Linguistics Series)

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Lexicology and Corpus Linguistics (Open Linguistics)

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Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher (Language Teaching Methodology Series)

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