This study examines physical aspects of place and how such visible aspects work to index a discourse of insecurity, including an insider-outsider binary, particularly through security signs in the linguistic landscape (LL). Our main focus is the relationship between policy and the uses of written language that appear in the LL in different census…

When in 1908 the Belgian government took over the Congo from King Leopold II, a charter was drafted that would serve as a constitution-like statutory code for the new colony. Article 3 in this "Colonial Charter" dealt with language and linguistic rights. It epitomized the duality of language questions with which Belgium remained faced…

This study explores the effectiveness of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in the Arabian/Persian Gulf, with special focus on the situation in the United Arab Emirates. The study, undertaken at six universities located in major cities of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Al Ain, Sharjah, Ajman, and Ras Al Khaimah, examines students' and teachers'…

The present paper aims to reinvigorate discussions of language policy within language, gender and sexuality studies. It provides initial considerations of a poststructuralist, non-heteronormative language policy for German and English--two languages whose structural make-up differs fundamentally with respect to gender representation. Gendered…

This article explores the multilingual and multicultural aspects of community-building, networking and communication in the European Union's (EU) political and administrative system. We investigated the networking and communicative preferences of EU civil servants and lobbyists using survey data and thematic interviews. Our aim was to gain a…

Using Jamaica, a former British colony where Jamaican Creole (JC) is the mass vernacular but Standard Jamaican English is the official language, as an illustrative case, this critical ethnographic study in three Jamaican schools examines the theoretical and practical challenges of language education policy (LEP) development and implementation in…

Using a multilayered, ethnographic and critical approach to language policy and planning, this article examines a language policy favoring Quechua in Apurímac in the Southern Peruvian Andes, which is being imagined as an integrated community unified by the local language. This study presents a case in which top-down policies open up ideological…

This article reports a case study of an undergraduate English-medium program at a major university in mainland China. The study critically examines the language ideology, language management, and language practices revolving around the focal program. The data sources included national and institutional policy documents related to English-medium…

A cross-national comparative study in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Madrid, Spain examines educational policies and practices that target immigrant students for whom the language variety normally spoken in the host country represents a second dialect. Policy contexts and schooling environments of the two urban centres were analyzed to gain deeper…

With shifts in demographics leading to increasingly diverse student populations, and pressures from state educational accountability offices to streamline budgets and improve test scores, teachers at the secondary level are increasingly challenged to support English learners new to US schools. Teachers, often with minimal understanding of second…

Recently, those examining the role teachers of language minority students play in the language policy-making process have found that their autonomy has been threatened by increasing standardization as reflected in rigid one-size fits all curricular mandates focused on the learning of discrete skills in the national language, enforced high-stakes…

The paper illuminates links between state politics and language politics in Lithuania during different historical periods: (a) the thaw period, (b) the stagnation period, (c) the liberalization periods of Soviet socialism, and (d) the two post-Soviet decades characterized by both nationalism and liberalization. Based on analysis of the texts by…

This paper explores language policy and planning from the perspectives of global ideologies, national agendas, and local transformation in two Asian countries, Vietnam and Nepal. Through engaged ethnography, we not only unravel complex ideological contestations of neoliberal and nationalistic agendas, but also portray language policy resistance…

This article describes and analyzes how rural Nicaraguan teachers and NGO leaders are working with a US university-based team to develop a locally responsive, critical, and inquiry-based approach to the Ministry of Education requirement for English in secondary school. This requirement has placed a new and challenging expectation upon rural…

The emerging interdisciplinary work in language politics and language policy and planning studies demonstrates a rising interest among researchers in the interface between sociolinguistics, political science and philosophy. Much of the resulting cross-disciplinary work, however, tends to focus on the subject matters (politics, language) themselves…