Joshua Fishman in the context of Language planning

Language policy is both an interdisciplinary academic field and implementation of ideas about language use.Some scholars such as Joshua Fishman and Ofelia García consider it as part of sociolinguistics. On the other hand, other scholars such as Bernard Spolsky, Robert B. Kaplan and Joseph Lo Bianco argue that language policy is a branch of applied linguistics.

As a field, language policy is also known as language planning or language policy and planning, and is related to other fields such as language ideology, language revitalization, and language education, among others.

Sociology of language is the study of the relations between language and society. It is closely related to the field of sociolinguistics, which focuses on the effect of society on language. One of its longest and most prolific practitioners was Joshua Fishman, who was founding editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, in addition to other major contributions. The sociology of language studies society in relation to language, whereas sociolinguistics studies language in relation to society. For the former, society is the object of study, whereas, for the latter, language is the object of study. In other words, sociolinguistics studies language and how it varies based on the user's sociological background, such as gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class. On the other hand, sociology of language (also known as macrosociolinguistics) studies society and how it is impacted by language. As Trent University professor of global politics Andreas Pickel states, "religion and other symbolic systems strongly shaping social practices and shaping political orientations are examples of the social significance such languages can have." The basic idea is that language reflects, among several other things, attitudes that speakers want to exchange or that just get reflected through language use. These attitudes of the speakers are the sociologist's information.

Sociology of language seeks to understand the way that social dynamics are affected by individual and group language use. According to National Taiwan University of Science and Technology Chair of Language Center Su-Chiao Chen, language is considered to be a social value within this field, which researches social groups for phenomena like multilingualism and lingual conflict. It has to do with who is 'authorized' to use what language, with whom and under what conditions. It has to do with how an individual or group identity is established by the language that they have available for them to use. It seeks to understand individual expression, which the investment in the linguistic tools that one has access to in order to bring oneself to other people.

The Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS), developed by Lewis and Simons (2010) as an expansion of Joshua Fishman's GIDS, measures a language's status in terms of endangerment or development.

The table below shows the various levels on the scale:

The International Journal of the Sociology of Language is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the field of sociology of language. It was established in 1974 by the eminent sociologist of language Joshua Fishman, who has served many years as editor-in-chief,. Today, the editor is Ofelia Garcia Otheguy. Each issue focuses on a single topic within the scope of the journal's field, for example "Sociolinguistic Issues in Azerbaijan", "The Official Language Minorities in Canada" and "Jewish Language Contact". Each issue also publishes a book review and many issues also include a study relating to the sociology of endangered languages or small language communities. The journal is published by Walter de Gruyter.

The European Reference Index for the Humanities categorizes it in the "INT2" sub-category ("international publications with significant visibility and influence in the various research domains in different countries"). The journal is abstracted and indexed by International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, MLA International Bibliography, IBR Internationale Bibliographie der Rezensionen geistes- und sozial wissenschaftlicher Zeitschriftenliteratur, and Anthropological Literature.