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…

This essay explores the relationship between democratic political theory and the reality of linguistic diversity in contemporary political communities. After suggesting a distinction between "liberal" and "participatory" democratic theories, and asserting that there have been fruitful explorations of linguistic diversity in…

South Africa is a highly mobile country characterized by historical displacements and contemporary mobilities, both social and demographic. Getting to grips with diversity, dislocation, relocation and anomie, as well as pursuing aspirations of mobility, is part of people's daily experience that often takes place on the margins of conventional…

This paper examines links between publishing strategies and the academic mobility of multilingual entry-level scholars in the European context against the backdrop of European Union (EU) policies and research on academic labor market characteristics, skilled migration and scholarly publishing. An analysis of language of publication, patterns of…

This article examines the politics of policies promoting multilingualism in the European Union (EU), specifically in light of the recently released European Union Civil Society Platform on Multilingualism. As the most far-reaching and ambitious policy document issued by the European Commission, the Platform warrants close scrutiny at a significant…

This article explores the diminished use of Judeo-Spanish among Jews living in Turkey and asks the following research question: What factors, ideologies, and practices contribute to the demise of Judeo-Spanish? To address this question, we employed life history inquiry based on two oral history archives documenting elderly Turkish-Jewish community…

San Lucas Quiavini is a community of Zapotec (Otomanguean) speakers in Oaxaca, Mexico. Since the 1970s, the community has seen large-scale migration to Los Angeles, California, where about half the community now resides. Participant observation and interviews conducted over nine years in both locales, with a focus on interactional patterns in the…

This study investigates the intersection of family language policy with Indigenous multiliteracies and urban Indigeneity. It documents a grassroots Inuit literacy initiative in Ottawa, Canada and considers literacy practices among Inuit at a local Inuit educational centre, where maintaining connections between urban Inuit and their homeland…

This paper explores the interplay between the politics and policies of multilingualism by looking at the role of political macro-strategies in shaping language and multilingualism policies within the European Union. The paper focuses on the relationship between the European Union's 2000-2010 Lisbon Strategy on the European Knowledge-Based Economy…

The evolution of Rwanda's language policies since 1996 has played and continues to play a critical role in social reconstruction following war and genocide. Rwanda's new English language policy aims to drop French and install English as the only language of instruction. The policy-makers frame the change as a major factor in the success of social…

This ethnographic inquiry examines how family languages policies are planned and developed in ten Chinese immigrant families in Quebec, Canada, with regard to their children's language and literacy education in three languages, Chinese, English, and French. The focus is on how multilingualism is perceived and valued, and how these three languages…

Language policies in South African higher education were formalized between 2000 and 2002, just prior to a major restructuring of the higher education system. During this period institutions of higher learning were expected to formulate both a language policy and a detailed language plan. National policies on language in education are intended to…

The language policies adopted, imposed, or rejected in minority language media highlight the complexities of multilingualism and its regulation or ordering in contemporary contexts. In this article, we discuss convergence and divergence in the language policing of three minority language media contexts, namely Basque, Irish and Sami. All of the…

Linguistic imperialism, linguistic hegemony and linguistic cosmopolitanism are broad and contrasting conceptualizations of linguistic globalization that are frequently, if implicitly, invoked in the literature, both academic and non-academic, on language practices and perceptions in the call center industry. I begin with outlining each of these…

This paper focuses on the ways an institution of the new economy--a tourism call centre in Switzerland--markets, manages and performs multilingual services. In particular, it explores the ways multilingualism operates as a strategic and managerial tool within tourism call centres and how the institutional regulation of language practices…