ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a survey of approaches and methods in language planning, a field of study whose mission is to find solutions to language problems (Fishman, 1987; Haugen, 1966; Rubin, 1983). A brief description of language planning is in order to provide the background against which the survey of approaches and methods is presented. Language planning has been described as a government authorized, long-term, sustained, and conscious effort to alter a language’s function or form in society for the purpose of solving language problems (Fishman, 1987; Weinstein, 1980). It is a field of study where language is seen as a societal resource (Eastman, 1983, p. ix; Jernudd & Das Gupta, 1971, p. 196); that is, policy statements formulated against such a perspective are aimed to serve as guides by which language is preserved, managed, and developed (Ruiz, 1988, pp. 10-11).
