A Research On Contemporary American Language Policy

From the 19^th century to present, American language policy experienced a range of twists and turns. It Started with Pratt's Indians Remould for indigenous people in the second half of the 19th century, especially the Carlisle Indian School (1879-1918) as a successful model of English-only movement. After 10 years for English-only movement, The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 appeared against it. Then, Native American Languages Act of 1990 (hereafter NALA) and No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (hereafter NCLB) continued to perfect the system of American language policy. However, the educational system, bilingual education or English-only, is still debatable. Therefore, this paper explores this debatable problem by analyzing NALA of 1990 and NCLB of 2002.In l990,American President George Bush signed The Native American Languages Act. It was the first time that American Federal Government had promulgated the law document about Native American languages, which provided the law guarantee for protecting and developing Native American languages for their reservation and establishment. 12 years later, his son, George W. Bush, the American President, released another language act named as No child Left Behind Act (or the English Language Acquisition Act) in January 23rd, 2002. This new educational reform brought American language education into a new round of challenge, which is meant to give equal education to every child, no matter who they are and where they are from.This paper, by collecting large amount of literature review, analyzes NALA and NCLB. Although both of them are significant for American language education, it is more worth looking into their problems which conceal the nature of two acts. Thus, it will investigate those problems by process connecting with language, language identity and language policy to dig out the essence of American language policy, that is, it never gets rid of English-only. It still maintains English as the core of power through eliminating other languages with more and more covert ways, although it sways between bilingual education and English-only, which mainly aim at Indians and immigrants living in the USA. After all, Language education dose not merely points to language and education separately. It deals with the relationship between the majorities and minorities, and how to treat outsiders who hold different languages and cultures. Obama, the new President, is racking his brain to reform NCLB, but, so far, it is hard to change the public opinions. American language policy will experience another huge reform: heading forward slowly but twisted while assimilating other languages.