This paper addresses language policy and policy-making in Canada as forms of discourse produced and reproduced within systems of power and racial hierarchies. The analysis of indigenous language policy to be addressed here focuses on the historical, political and legal processes stemming from the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism…

While current conceptualisations of the inextricable connection between language and culture in English language education are largely informed by complex sociocultural theories that view culture as constructed in and through social practices among people, classroom practices continue to be influenced by mainstream discourses of culture that…

Following Spolsky's definition of language policy, this introductory paper offers a brief reflection on the three main lines of research that are represented in this special issue regarding the relationship between internationalisation and language policies in higher education: management and planning, practices, and beliefs. In the first…

This thematic collection of four papers explores a number of perspectives on companies in which multiple languages are used. The "organisational" perspective concerns the question of how the presence of or demand for multiple languages in the company is managed--how companies are guided by national and other policies in regard to the use…

This article focuses on multilingual primary-aged children and their families in a post-industrial city in England. Such pupils, sometimes identified in education policy as "underachieving," often have rich experiences of learning that are hidden from their mainstream teachers and unrecognised in national assessment regimes. The article draws on…

Introducing a pioneering series of studies of family language policy and management, this paper points out that classic language policy dealt almost entirely with the nation-state, although it did recognise the critical role of the family in determining natural intergenerational transmission of a variety. After arguing for the need to look at each…

Family language policy (FLP), like language policies in general, includes aspects of practice, management and ideology. But FLP is often affected by and affects emotional issues and psychological dimensions that are seldom acknowledged as central in the analysis of such policies. Relying on a psychoanalytic theoretical framework, this article…

In this paper, I draw on interview data to explore parents' constructions of language and identity in two London Turkish complementary schools. I examine parents' evaluative talk about standard Turkish, Cypriot-Turkish and other regional varieties of Turkish, the cultural values they attach to them and images of personhood these invoke. I…

The need to recognise English language teaching (ELT) as a site for the interplay of cultural politics and competing discourses has been acknowledged in ELT literature. Writing as an English teacher in Japan, and not unfamiliar over the years with the confluencing of discourses whether relating to neoliberalism, globalisation or other forces…

This article presents an overview of the perceived importance and accelerated spread of English language education, both formal and informal, in three East Asian countries (i.e. China, Japan and South Korea) against the backdrop of globalisation and emergent ideological, sociocultural and educational trends. It begins with a review of the recent…

Greater China is used in this article to refer to mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Macao. While a holistic approach is adopted to present and compare the rapid spread of English and development in English language education in these geographically close, and sociopolitically, culturally and economically interrelated but hugely…

Research has demonstrated that second language immersion is an effective means of facilitating primary school students' second language acquisition without undermining their competence in their first language. Despite the rapid growth of Chinese-English bilingual programmes in China, limited empirical research has been conducted thus far by which…

Compared with other countries in Asia, Japan is far behind in terms of introducing and delivering bilingual education, let alone effective immersion programmes. In order to make its citizens more bilingual, Japan has been introducing innovative measures including the implementation of the teaching of English in elementary education and a new…

A search in the online "Bibliography of Scottish Literature in Translation" (BOSLIT) reveals that the attention given by translators to a small number of outstanding Scottish writers has been at the expense of others of comparable merit. On the other hand, poetry of the twentieth-century Scottish Renaissance period and later has certainly received…

Social factors involved in language maintenance and language shift (LMLS) have been the focus of LMLS studies. Previous studies provide fundamental support for the theoretical development of this research branch. However, there is no discussion regarding the hierarchical order of these social factors, i.e. the degree of importance of various…