Language Policies in Australia: National Policy on Language

Running Head: LANGUAGE POLICIES 0
LANGUAGE PLANNING POLICY
AUSTRALIA
[DATE]
[COMPANY NAME]
[Company address]

LANGUAGE POLICIES 1
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................2
National policy on Language........................................................................................................2
Developments in the history of NPL............................................................................................3
Formation of NPL in Australia................................................................................................4
Principles of NPL.......................................................................................................................4
General principles..................................................................................................................4
Specific principles..................................................................................................................4
Characteristics of Australian Language Policy..........................................................................5
Language planning policy in general...........................................................................................6
Literature review...........................................................................................................................6
Conclusion......................................................................................................................................7
References.......................................................................................................................................9

LANGUAGE POLICIES 2
Introduction
The language is considered as a typical phenomenon among human beings which plays a
key role in moving from the presence of natural being of animals till cultural beings. Language
provides individuals a sense of identity and also allocates them a social group and in this process
they create several individualities. The planning in the process of language has attracted the
attention of millions of people around the world as it necessarily takes into account the societal
and the economic planning. Previously, in Australia, there was just one policy regarding the
language planning i.e., White Australian Policy, where it was seen that only was language was
given preference by ignoring other languages. This policy was thus lead to extinction of the
various cultures prevailing in Australia. So there emerged the need of the multicultural policies
which was brought by the National Policy on Language (NPL). Through this essay the
specifications regarding the language planning policy will be discovered along with their
efficiencies. This essay will analyze and critique NPL by evaluating different studies conducted
on this topic.
National policy on Language
This policy was introduced in the year 1987. The basic aim of this policy was to let the
people of Australia enjoy a higher standard of language while focusing on different languages
rather than focusing on particular languages which lead to ignoring languages of immigrant and
aboriginal people which lead to protection of unique heritage of Australia. Hence
multiculturalism became the background which gave birth to the policy of NPL (Ye Zhou L. Z.,
2015).
Language is considered as an asset and primary tool which helps a human to
communicate and express its views. Language planning refers to that effort which knowingly

LANGUAGE POLICIES 3
commences the influence the functioning of the language which are structured or acquired by a
nation at large. The term multiculturalism means the presence of different cultures and traditions
in a single nation. It is usually associated with the cultures of aboriginal ethnic groups as well as
foreign ethnic groups (Ye Zhou L. Z., 2015). Language planning and policy is not a very new
term as its presence is traced since a very long, so its origin can be traced after the new
independence of the state i.e. in the post-colonial period, but then at that time it needed
reconstruction for their identities in context to multi-ethno-linguistic diverse populace (Siiner,
Hult, & Kupisch, 2018)..
Developments in the history of NPL
The language policy had undergone three different stages of evolution along with the
cultural policies and they are as follows, the first one is the Stage of assimilation period which
began in the year 1901 and lasted till 1960. During this period it was considered that immigrants
and indigenous people would not harm the identity and security of the nation. For providing a
better living condition to the aboriginal people and other indigenous people living in Australia,
the NPL was introduced (Koenig, 2017). This policy helps the aboriginal people to lead a life
and enjoy all such rights, responsibilities, privileges and observation of the customs etc. which
are enjoyed by the people of other community of Australia. This was the time when the White
Australian Policy where the rights and respect of the non-English people were failed (Joseph,
1987).
Integration was considered as the second stage. Which started in mid-1960’s and lasted
till 1972. During this period colonial and the semi colonial nation became independent one after
another. The White Australian Policy was highly criticized here. Stress was given to Integration
much more than that of assimilation (Hlavac, 2018).