ABSTRACT
In the classic sense, “language policy” refers to the set of activities that the state develops in order to promote and regulate the status of languages. More recently, language policy is viewed as a combination of individual and group behaviors and beliefs about language, together with the decisions by families, schools, and governments, among other institutions, that can also have authority over language issues. The present chapter is devoted to an exploration of the ways in which language users assess and invoke language in claiming or repudiating social identities and the factors that imbue some languages with social capital and position certain varieties as standard models to be endorsed over others.
