The Sociopolitical Changes and the Foreign Language Planning and Policy in KRI: The Case of English Language

The current thesis presents a detailed study on language planning and policy in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) vis-à-vis the role of English. The topic is formulated under the framework of social action theory which infers that each ethnic group strives to be represented in terms of language rights and standardization and, as a result, language becomes a domain where groups contend to assert their power. The research pursues a mix-method design to consider the linguistic landscape from different perspectives, including a critical socio-historical approach. Considering the sociopolitical developments, both top-down and bottom-up approaches in planning language policy were adopted. The questionnaires were used to analyse the Kurdish students’ responses towards using English as a medium of instruction. Besides, the attitudes of Kurdish parents of the region were also recorded in the study. Further, the correlation analysis reveals that Kurdish parents hold positive attitudes; however, they have been influenced by religious and national factors. It has been revealed that Kurdish parents confer more importance on studies in Kurdish or religion than on English language education. The major argument in this thesis aims to overview a reliable or valid image of linguistic landscape and presents a transformative language planning and policy to Kurdish authorities, as an alternative to the current situation of LL. The transformative language planning and policy, which promotes pertinent guidelines to reform and redesign the language planning and policy, can be congenial for planning a new language policy to this region. The critical analysis of relevant documents to language planning and policy reveals that there is an unsystematic framework of linguistic landscape in the region, and the efforts couldn’t meet the expectations of changing socio-economic episodes of the region.