'English Only' Or 'English Plus'?

Research on language policy entered linguistic field not more than five decades ago when it became a scope in sociolinguistic study. Language policy refers to"the official and institutional practices related to language and language instruction"(McKay, 2001:27). This definition reveals the duality in any research of language policy—its social relevance and linguistic concern, and the latter is also closely related to language education.The studies on American language policy'English Only', and its counter policy'English Plus'have attracted many researchers from various fields like linguistics, sociology, pedagogy and politics.'English Only'movement found its official way into America in the 1980s and began to play a crucial role in America's language policy-making as well as brought tremendous changes to American society in many fields. The most obvious and severe impact of this'English Only'trend is seen in bilingual education, which offers equal educational opportunity to non-Anglo Americans. Twenty-seven states in America have passed'English Only'or'Official English'legislations and some of them, for instance, California in 1998, even abolished bilingual education in state public education systems.'English Plus', in the first place, was not designed to be the antidote to'English Only', but a bilingual/bicultural approach in language education that advocates'English plus one or more languages'(Lewelling, 1992). But the bilingual spirit, linguistic openness and tolerance it bears feed it with the strength to fight against'English Only', thus protecting and continuing bilingual education practice in the United States.Since'English Only'does not occur in a social vacuum, it is greatly affected by the social milieu. In the past two decades, researchers from both linguistic and sociological backgrounds have conducted many comprehensive studies on this phenomenon and provided their respective interpretations of the hidden agenda for'English Only'.Inspired by these previous achievements, the author is to make an integrated study on both'English Only'and'English Plus'as two competing language policies in the United States, and discover that'English Only'—standing for monolingualism—is...