Are terminology planning evaluation and language policy and planning evaluation applicable to the evaluation of standardisation?

Abstract

This initial work on evaluating standardisation tries to explore to what extent standardisation can be evaluated in the same way as terminology planning and language policy and planning. The main reason for exploring this issue is that this kind of evaluation is necessary and has not been undertaken systematically. The work aims to verify the basic hypothesis that terminology planning evaluation (TPE) and language policy and planning evaluation (LPPE) can be applied to the evaluation of standardisation. So, the general question addressed is to what extent can standardisation be evaluated according to the models for TPE and LPPE. After presenting Haugen’s model of standardisation and complementing it with some concepts about language corpus planning and restandardisation, this model is analysed from the perspectives of PPE and LPPE, with references to the actions taken as part of the official restandardisation of the Catalan language (the new 2016 Catalan spelling and grammar). The principal original contributions of our work are this analysis of a standardisation model, based on TPE and LPPE evaluation models, and an overall positive verification of the hypothesis, leading us to conclude that standardisation can be evaluated in this way.