Languages in school and society: Policy and pedagogy

The papers in this section examine macrosociolinguistic concerns, concerns that shape the contexts for language use. Joseph Greenberg offers a provocative look at the historical tension between prescriptivism and descriptivism in grammatical theory and shows that the widely held rejection of prescriptivism on the part of linguists is a relatively modern development. Joshua Fishman, Frank Solano, and Grant McConnell present a method for quantifying linguistic homogeneity within countries. Using a method developed to permit continuous rather than dichotomous classification of variables, their approach allows more precise cross-national comparisons that inform the understanding of the relationships (and lack thereof) between linguistic heterogeneity, political turmoil, and economic development around the world.