In this brief forum article, I draw from the disciplinary orientation of linguistic anthropology to discuss how a collection of linguistic and semiotic resources gets "enregistered" as the "language" for specific communicative activities. Enregisterment is an ongoing social and ideological process whereby a semiotic corpus gets…

Knowledge of symbols, which can be influenced by school ethos, informs identity construction in primary school children. This study aimed to explore Gaelscoil (Irish-medium) and English-medium primary school children's familiarity with Irish and European symbols. Thirty 9-12-year-old children in Ireland participated in this study; 15 from two…

This paper examines recent lexical expansion in New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) in the context of change in the status of the language and ongoing contact with other (spoken and signed) languages. We categorised 917 new signs documented in the past five years according to their source, semantic field, and sign formation mechanism(s), both…

In this article Renata Love Jones and Patrick Proctor introduce the notion of pursuing language to engage in critical dialogue about the nature and focus of language and literacy education in multilingual and multicultural contexts. A persistent threat in language and literacy education is standardization that constrains how language and literacy…

In this article, I argue for a "chronotopic-scalar system of images and resolutions" in the analysis of language use in general and multilingual practices in particular. Drawing on data from Iranian Azerbaijanis, I argue that availability and accessibility of linguistic/semiotic resources, and their categorizations as languages or…

Taking a multi-level perspective on language-in-public-space policy, this study investigates the way Tunisia's dominant languages are dealt with in three independent but interrelated activities of language policy: official texts, public talk, and the actual practices of business actors in five commercial districts in metropolitan Tunis. Detailed…

Drawing on interviews with staff from Language Supplementary Schools (LSS) in Manchester (UK), we discuss the emergence of makeshift ideologies whereby actors seek to legitimise choices and policies of heritage language transmission in the diaspora setting. Actors discuss the use of regional and vernacular varieties, the consideration given to…

This study analyses the multilingual linguistic landscapes made up of languages, visual materials, and built environments in Seongsu-dong, where old industrial sites and new commercial places are indiscriminately juxtaposed. This study focuses particularly on (1) how languages are associated with different built environments of new commercial…

The main argument of this paper is that the Virtual Linguistic Landscape (VLL) of advertising allows the utilisation of persuasion strategies that transcend the traditional separation of named languages to produce the maximum effect on potential customers. The paper challenges the segregational view of language, which assumes that communication…

In the way of commentary, I offer a brief, summative reflection on the complex, multifarious nature of people's semiotic engagements in and with space. Against the backdrop of three snapshot case studies, I suggest there are actually few neat boundaries to be drawn between the linguistic and non-linguistic, between the semiotic and the spatial,…

The current Finnish core curriculum requires all teachers in basic education to be linguistically responsive. However, studies on the linguistically responsive practices used by teachers are scarce. The frequency with which teachers (N = 820) use 21 linguistically responsive practices was investigated through data that were gathered via an online…

Online eikaiwa, or English conversations via teleconferencing platforms, is a popular informal English learning avenue among Japanese nationals. Although online eikaiwa has received scholarly attention in recent years, only a few studies have investigated the current diversification efforts in the industry in terms of hiring teachers from various…

Efforts to decolonise foreign/English language teaching involve recognising the importance of diverse meaning-making resources rooted in speakers' socio-cultural realities, traditions, and values alongside English practices. This focus highlights the value of multicultural and multilingual environments, particularly in dominant English-speaking…

The present study investigates the adoption of Japanese by users from a popular Chinese video-sharing website, bilibili.com. Over a two-month period, 5,808 instances of language use that involve Japanese language features were sampled from 28,579 video comments. It was found that features of Japanese were often utilized -- either entirely in…

Although people may readily refer to Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. as Anglophone countries, recent demographic and sociolinguistic profiles of these countries indicate that they are actually both Anglophone and multilingual, and in some of their cities, even more multilingual than Anglophone. Recent research also indicates…