McEntee-Atalianis, Lisa and Hult, F.M. (2025) Agency and structure in language policy: morphostasis and morphogenesis. Current Issues in Language Planning , ISSN 1466-4208.
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Abstract
Over the past two decades, there has been increasing focus in language policy and planning (LPP) research on the role of agency. Along with this foregrounding of agency, there has been a tendency to background social structures, including the interplay of structure and agency around LPP processes. Accordingly, drawing on findings from the analysis of recent reports produced by the United Nations Joint Inspection Unit pertaining to multilingual policy implementation across the UN system, the present study examines the structure-agency dialectic in LPP by examining how language policy actors’ agency, as mediated by structural factors, variously contribute to morphostasis (a tendency towards the status quo) or morphogenesis (a tendency towards change) of institutional language practice as envisaged in institutional policy. Findings show that policy actors experience structural constraints related to the allocation of time and money to support multilingualism, while they identify opportunities for problem-solving and creative implementation within the scope of the spheres of responsibility that the institutional structure affords. We apply the concepts of morphogenesis and morphostasis in the spirit of transdisciplinary bricolage exploring through our analysis how these notions, first emerging from a realist epistemology, might be compatible with constructivist discourse analysis and interpretive policy analysis. Keywords:
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | agency, morphogenesis, morphostasis, policy actors, structure, United Nations |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication |
| Depositing User: | Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 12 Jun 2025 13:55 |
| Last Modified: | 21 Sep 2025 01:34 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/55725 |
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