Multiplicity of language ideologies

Abstract

The notion of language ideology is a useful analytical concept allowing for unified analysis of processes at different levels of social organization as it affords linking large-scale social change (for example, socio-economic and demographic change, language and educational policy) with micro-level interactional processes (child parents interaction at dinnertime or student-teacher classroom interaction). A multidimensional analysis of ideologies shows that they exist in different interrelated modes of articulation and are linked to different subjectivities that become activated and essentialized at different moments. The paper also demonstrates how language ideologies of ‘monolingualism’ and ‘multilingualism’ emerging in the form of formal legislative documents and public debates, explicit beliefs circulating in society, and implicit ideologies structuring language practices co-exist despite being seemingly contradicting.