NSU Research Contributions
Title : A Balancing Act approach to Language-in-Education policy and planning in Bangladesh: Rethinking the current trend
Authors : TaniaRahman
Abstract : Language planning, particularly language-in-education planning in Bangladesh, has been laden with problematic issues which have slowed down the development of a sustainable and operational policy work for the nation since, and even before independence in 1971. Since a staggering majority of the people in Bangladesh (around 98%) speak different varieties of the same language Bangla which has achieved the status of the language of the state, the nation is misinterpreted as linguistically homogeneous, or rather called monolingual. But the real picture of language use in the country is contradictory to this representation. Besides Bangla, English, the former colonial language and currently the most important international language, has been considered as a significant language used in education, media and governance within the country, but it has still not been able to gain any official recognition (Imam, 2005; Hossain and Tollefson, 2007; Rahman, 2010). Since its birth in 1971, the nation of Bangladesh has struggled through the challenges of poor economy locally and contested with hard labor for inclusion in the global economy. With all these struggles, Bangladesh has been faced with some of the most challenging educational problems in the world mainly because it failed to set any specific roles for Bangla and English in the country. To add to this adversity, language issues in relation to the ethno-linguistic minorities have been neglected by most of the educational policies in the country. The aim of this chapter will be to attempt at proposing a framework for an inclusive, bi-multilingual language-in-education policy and planning in Bangladesh. To achieve this aim, at first, it will attempt at establishing the link between the issue of national, ethnolinguistic and other identities of all groups of language speakers in Bangladesh to rationalize the roles of languages in the country. Next, it will seek to reason for maintaining a balance between the ethnic and national identities of these groups in the country and how this strike-in-balance between various identities can be represented through an inclusive, bi-multilingual language-in-education policy and planning for the nation. Finally, the framework for the inclusive, bi-multilingual language-in-education policy and planning will be explained in the chapter. The framework will be based on the perspectives “language-as-resource” (Ruíz, 1984) and “language policy as a balancing act” (Rappa and Wee, 2006). In explaining the language-as-resource aspect of the framework, the potentials of different languages as socio-economic resources in Bangladesh will be discussed in the chapter. Next, the rationale for adopting a “language policy as a balancing act” perspective will be presented by identifying problems in the linguistic human rights (LHR) and the instrumentalist approaches to language policy and planning and examining how these are handled in the balancing act approach. Then the potentials of language-in-education planning as a balancing act in Bangladesh will be discussed. Finally, the chapter will also explain how a bi-multilingual language-in-education planning including the national language Bangla, the most significant international language English and the indigenous languages can be a balancing act and hence can start a workable avenue towards achieving a harmonious co-existence of the languages in Bangladesh.
| Journal : | Volume : | Year : June 2019 | Issue : |
| Pages : | City : | Edition : | Editors : Dr. Shaila Sultana and Dr. Moninoor Rashid |
| Publisher : Routledge/Springer/Multilingual Matters/Palgrave (to be selected) | ISBN : | Book : Rethinking ELT and Applied Linguistics in Bangladesh | Chapter : to be decided |
| Proceeding Title : | Institution : | Issuer : | Number : |