Re-orienting to language users: humanizing orientations in language planning as praxis

The field of language policy and planning (LPP) has increasingly expanded its focus beyond legislative measures and macro-level policies toward understanding the power of social actors and their interpretation, appropriation, and creation of language policies in societies. This article aims to advance LPP theory and research by offering a critical and decolonial lens for conceptualizing and analyzing language policy in research, education, and language planning. This critical lens expands on one of the most influential LPP models: Ruiz’s (1984) framework for Orientations in Language Planning. Ruiz’s framework was proposed as a “meta-model” for language planning specialists to examine and advocate for new policies. This article invites researchers of language use in society to consider an epistemological shift from defining languages with fixed orientations, such as problem, resource, and right, toward looking at the intersectional roles of the listening and speaking subjects in defining the orientation(s) to languages in various contexts. This conceptual framing situates LPP research and critical studies of language in society in the context of broader critical theories, including intersectionality, human as praxis, humanization, and decolonizing research from ownership to answerability. The goal is to forge humanizing language policy research that is responsive to issues in our immediate and broader global contexts.