# name
The ecological perspective: Benefits and risks for sociolinguistics and language policy and planning

# metadata.dc.description.abstract[].value
In recent years, in order to answer the fundamental questions in the field of linguistic policy and
planning, we have made metaphorical use of the conceptualization and organization of
biological phenomena into systems, known popularly as ecology. Of course, sociolinguistic
objects are not fundamentally (or exclusively) biological; they belong to a different, emerging
order of phenomena. Nonetheless the analogies we construct, the concepts we adapt, the
questions we raise, and, above all, the paradigm we seek to produce - by considering languages
as cultural 'species' living in a particular environment with their own ecosystems - are likely to
be illuminating and suggestive.
We should, of course, be clear at all times that the model is metaphorical, and be aware of the
potential dangers of a reification of systems of linguistic communication. Though we place
them in broader sociocultural contexts than those usually considered, there is always the risk of
neglecting individuals inside the model and of forgetting the fact that these cultural 'species' are,
in the final analysis, the product and function of the cognitive and communicative activity of human beings.

# metadata.dc.identifier.citation[].value
Fill, Alwin et al. (eds.), Colourful green ideas. Berna: Peter Lang, 2002, pp. 77-88.

# metadata.dc.relation.ispartof[].value
Capítol del llibre: Fill, Alwin et al. (eds.), Colourful green ideas. Berna: Peter Lang, 2002, pp. 77-88. Papers from the conference "30 years of language and ecology (Graz, 2000)

# metadata.dc.rights[].value
cc-by-nc-nd (c) Bastardas i Boada, Albert, 2002

# metadata.dc.source[].value
Llibres / Capítols de llibre (Centre Universitari de Sociolingüística i Comunicació)

# metadata.dc.title[].value
The ecological perspective: Benefits and risks for sociolinguistics and language policy and planning