South Africa immediately springs to mind as the epitome of multilingual language policies. In fact, its Constitution granted official status to 11 languages in 1996, and the Language Policy in Higher Education passed by the Ministry of Education in 2002 required universities to develop and use the indigenous official languages as academic…

This paper proposes a concept of "campus vitality" of languages: the ability of a language to maintain its prestige, visibility and continuity on university campuses. A seven-factor framework is developed for on-the-ground investigation of the relevant languages in a given campus context. These indexical factors are the number,…

A substantial body of research has examined the role of English in South Africans' linguistic repertoires. Many of these studies have investigated whether a language shift towards English might be underway among first-language (L1) speakers of the indigenous languages. At the same time, the role of English in the repertoires of L1 English speakers…

The Korean heritage language (HL) speakers exercised their "agency" to speak Korean HL, and transformed their ambivalent language experiences, caused by the contradictory ideologies of assimilation and racialization operating in the United States, into a conducive "third space" (Bhabha, 1994), where they recreated their ethnic…

This research examines the dominant language constellations (DLC) of multilingual, immigrant teacher trainees in Israel. The seven participants in this study from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) have resided in Israel for 2-4 years. This qualitative research, conducted through a narrative method, reveals that while they possess different language…

This dissertation research examines the acquisition of second language vowels. For second language learners, learning a new languages' sound inventory, particularly its vowels, presents a challenge perceptually and in terms of production. Incorrectly perceiving and producing sounds in a second language results in a foreign accent in many adult…

In the U.S., non-bilingual education designed for English speakers goes by many names--mainstream, regular, normal, English, and others. Drawing from research on discourse, normality, and framing, this conceptual paper examines each of the popular labels for English-medium education in the U.S., and demonstrates their unsuitability. Inspired by…

This article explores the "geographies of difference" at LI-NSU, a Mexican university program where English is the predominant language of instruction. The interactions between LI-NSU students and students from other programs are marked by themes of national identity and symbolically charged views of English, creating a contested…

Higher education institutions in South Africa are dominated by English, a result of the colonial history of the country and its education system, a legacy which is intensified by the current dominance of English in higher education worldwide. This paper applies a decolonial theoretical lens to argue that the dominance of English in South African…

The focus of this paper is on speakers' rationalisations of their everyday linguistic choices as members of a multilingual academic department in the US. Given the monolingual macro-context, the myriad of native languages spoken by participants, and the professional stake in language competence, the question of how speakers arrive at language…

This study highlights the complexities associated with learning a heritage language (HL) abroad, specifically with regard to identity, expectations, and beliefs about language and language learning, by examining the ways that HL learners talk about themselves. These are important topics to study because perceptions of language learning have been…

Situated amid tertiary-level institutions in the city of Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, India, this article explores how particular ideologies countering English inform pedagogic choices made by language teachers teaching in "vernacular-medium" (VM) college classrooms. The ideologies under discussion are two linked "thought…