ABSTRACT
Rosa’s story is a fitting one to begin this chapter on language in health care policies. The discipline of language policy and language planning emerged in response to the challenges of decolonization in the twentieth century. Language planning can be viewed as the implementation of policy. Language planning is the intentional process of identifying ideal patterns of language practices and of proposing language policies to ensure the greatest possible conformity to those patterns. State-level language policy has also sought to ensure language access for special populations including children, the elderly, and pregnant women. A language orientation, according to Richard Ruiz, “refers to a complex of dispositions toward language and its role, and toward languages and their role in society”. The language-as-resource orientation, finally, “would tend to regard language minority communities as important sources for expertise. The language-as-problem orientation is also evident in the policy’s approach to written language.
