Conceptualizing the macro and micro as an intertwining continuum: A viewpoint from LMT

Language Management Theory (LMT) (Jernudd & Neustupný, 1987) examines the processual features of “behaviour toward language” in a broad array of contexts, ranging from national and supranational language policy and planning (LPP) to single incidents of conversational repair in individual interactions. In LPP research, these different types of contexts were traditionally separated into macro-level “language policy” and micro-level “language practice”, reflecting a hierarchy of social stratifications. However, more recent ethnographic approaches have recognized the overlap between these two concepts.

LMT has taken a different approach to the macro-micro issue, paying attention instead to “simple management”, focusing on management in discourse, and “organized management”, focusing on “language as a system” (Jernudd & Neustupný, 1987: 76). However, recent LMT research has also pointed out the blurred boundaries between ‘simple’ and ‘organized’ management; for example, demonstrating that organized management may be carried out in discourse in individual interactions, or that an individual’s self-correction may reflect an attempt to conform to codified (macro) norms to avoid discrimination.

Based on our recent findings (Kimura & Fairbrother, 2020), in this paper we argued that rather than conceptualizing macro and micro as separate stratifications, they should be seen as a continuum of intertwining elements, depending on 1) whether the object of management is discourse or ‘language as a system’, 2) whether the locus of management occurs within discourse or external to it, 3) whether management occurs in a single interaction or is trans-interactional, 4) whether the agents undertaking the management are individuals or institutions, 5) whether the management is undertaken by ordinary language users or specialists, 6) whether communication about management is present or not, and 7) whether theorizing is present and explicit or not. When the macro and micro are conceptualized in this way, it is possible to see that the majority of cases of language management involve some intertwining between the two poles, i.e., it is possible to see the macro(s) in the micro and conversely the micro(s) in the macro. We emphasise the importance of clarifying exactly which elements of the micro and macro we are referring to whenever these terms are used.

Paper co-authored and co-presented with Professor Goro Christoph Kimura at the 3^rd International Conference on Sociolinguistics, Prague, August 24-26, 2022.

Jernudd, B. H., & Neustupný, J. V. (1987). Language planning: For whom? In L. Laforge (Ed.), Proceedings of the international colloquium on language planning (pp. 69–84). Quebec: Les Presses de L’Université Laval.

Kimura, G. C., & Fairbrother, L. (Eds.) (2020). A language management approach to language problems: Integrating macro and micro perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.