ABSTRACT

A national language policy reflects how a state looks at the languages used by its people. It assigns certain roles to languages, and addresses the issues of language education and language of education. Pakistan, a multilingual country, has yet no language policy at national level. This absence of policy has caused many issues, including the medium of instruction (MoI). Since the country is currently developing a single national curriculum, its success largely depends on resolving the issue of the medium of instruction. the paper, motivated by the same issue, introduces the problem, then, after discussing some major linguistic challenges faced by the country, it spotlights the difference between the Constitution (1973) and the National Education Policy on the issue of MoI. The paper takes insights from Integrative Framework (Hornberger, 2006) of language planning and policy, and Stage Actor Model (Zhao & Baldauf, 2012), to discuss actor agency and their role in solving the problem. The paper proposes a late-exit transitional bilingual model to address the issue of MoI in the country. It concludes with recommendations for a well-framed national language policy capable to de-stigmatise the national language Urdu, to give due recognition to regional or autochthonous languages, and to provide clear guidelines about the MoI in the formal education system of the country.

摘要

国家语言政策反映了一个国家如何看待其人民使用的语言。它赋予语言一定的作用，并解决语言教育和教育的语言问题。巴基斯坦是一个多语言国家，目前还没有国家层面的语言政策。这种政策的缺失导致了许多问题，包括教学语言（MoI）。由于该国目前正在制定单一的国家课程，其成功很大程度上取决于教学语言问题的解决。出于同一问题的这篇论文介绍了这个问题，然后在讨论了该国面临的一些主要语言挑战之后，重点指出了宪法（1973）和国家教育政策在教育教学问题上的差异。本文从综合框架（Hornberger，2006）语言规划和政策，以及舞台演员模型（Zhao & Baldauf，2012），讨论演员代理及其在解决问题中的作用。本文提出了一种晚退出过渡双语模式来解决该国的 MoI 问题。最后，报告提出了制定完善的国家语言政策的建议，该政策能够消除国家语言乌尔都语的污名，对区域或本土语言给予应有的认可，并为该国正规教育系统中的教学语言提供明确的指导方针。