Characterising language policy and planning in international organisations: ASEAN insights

ABSTRACT

Although most international organisations are, in principle, multilingual, the ten-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has adopted a radical approach by operating monolingually, ostensibly for convenience and pragmatism. In order to provide an evaluation of the ASEAN policy context, this paper compares and contrasts ASEAN to two other more familiar international organisations, namely the United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU). The paper attempts to rationalise language policy and planning (LPP) in these organisations, grounded in principles such as equality, inclusivity, practicality, instrumentality, economic viability and even arguably, ‘neutrality’ in the context of ASEAN. These principles are discussed in relation to two underlying models of language ideology, i.e. linguistic pluralism and internationalisation, which characterise ASEAN, EU and UN LPP. The article presents the argument that ASEAN has embraced English-only monolingualism, rooted in internationalisation, while both UN and EU strive to achieve plurilingualism, albeit through divergent multilingual operational models. The analysis, however, shows that the ideology of linguistic pluralism characterising UN and EU is at best symbolic, as this ideology has practically maintained the hegemony of English and, to some extent, the other languages of power. This suggests that ASEAN may not have much to learn from EU or UN for an alternative to its English-only policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Language policy and planning in international organisations
• ASEAN
• European Union
• United Nations
• language ideology
• multilingual policies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors did not receive support from any organisation for the submitted work.

Notes on contributors

Huan Yik Lee

Huan Yik Lee is a PhD candidate at the School of Education, University of Queensland, Australia. His research interests include language policy and planning, language policies in education, language ideology, language politics, sociology of language, and multilingualism.

M. Obaidul Hamid

M. Obaidul Hamid is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Education, University of Queensland, Australia. He has published extensively on topics including the policy and practice of TESOL education, English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in Asia, and the role of English in individual mobility and social development.

Ian Hardy

Ian Hardy is an Associate Professor at the School of Education, University of Queensland, Australia. He has published extensively in the areas of educational policy and politics. He is also increasingly involved in policy studies relating to international and comparative education.