Language management and language problems

This paper is an introduction to language management and to the papers in this and the next volume of the Journal. It refers to contributors’ papers as the text evolves. It discusses first management of problems in discourse, then directed management with the help of a mini-case study and some examples, then surveys sources of language problems and their solutions according to a selection of functions of language. In the first volume, it brings up the communicative, symbolic, social and entertainment functions as sources of language problems. In the second volume, it continues with a discussion of the development function as a source of language problems. The paper then brings together discourse and behavior towards language in their socio-economic context in a unified restatement of the theory.

The division of volumes is necessarily arbitrary, yet, each volume can be read independently of each other. This and all the papers together celebrate J. V. Neustupný’s contribution to language management.