Language naming systems are local ways of organising diversity, yet the language names used by linguists are sometimes incommensurable with the lived social reality of speakers. The process of assigning language names is not neutral, trivial or objective: it is a highly political process driven and shaped by understandings of group identity,…

In light of the results of the 2023 referendum, truth-telling should inform how educators embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives across the curriculum. It is imperative that students' experiences of Indigenous content are understood, as this will inform the legitimisation of Indigenous futurity in classrooms and how teachers…

This study looks at how migrants' accents are portrayed, labelled, and constructed in media discourse, investigating media coverage of migrants' accents in the Australian press from 2007 to 2017, a period highlighted by changes in Australian citizenship policies and public discourse. While language has been extensively discussed in policy…

In this paper, I examine the changing currency of languages in the context of migration and mobility based on case studies of Filipino migrants in Australia. Drawing on two sociolinguistic studies conducted with and for Filipino migrants, I highlight how the "monolingual mindset" (Clyne, 2008) reinforced by the "White-English…

Imagine a scenario with a pilot and a flight attendant. How do you picture them? Now read the following anecdote: Sandra, an airline pilot with years of experience, was preparing for her flight while chatting with Mike, a flight attendant who had just joined the crew. Some of the passengers were surprised to see Sandra confidently taking control…

Kriol, an English-lexifier contact language, has approximately 20,000 speakers across northern Australia. It is the primary language of the remote Aboriginal community of Ngukurr. Kriol is a contact language, incorporating features of English and traditional Indigenous languages. The language has been perceived both positively and negatively,…

In English Language Teaching (ELT), awareness of multilingualism for learning can aid in developing programs that effectively enhance learners' communication in a linguistically and culturally diverse world. Embracing the linguistic landscape (LL) -- the language visible beyond the classroom that permeates daily living -- can provide students with…

Language tests, including international high-stakes English proficiency tests widely used around the world, are to be viewed as ideological constructs connected with power relations and center-periphery demarcations at different social levels. In this paper, we examine the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) as an instance of…

Translanguaging has been theoretically argued and empirically proven to have transformative and constructive potential because it provides language users with potential access to and opportunities for rich and equal educational and linguistic resources. However, we remind in this article that many 'spontaneous translanguagers' - language users who…

English-medium instruction (EMI) is on the rise around the world due to globalization, internationalization and neoliberal ideologies which equate English with social capital, prestige, and success in the labour market. While many EMI policies aim to equip students with English as a 'lingua academia', produce 'neoliberal subjects' and compete in…

This article aims to visibilise the opportunities for decolonising standardised language practices for multilingual students learning English as an additional language or dialect (EAL/D) in Australian schools. We suggest that a decolonising approach to language education would value the multilingual, non-standard, and diverse language practices of…

Linguistic racism is magnified when a speaker is multilingual and shuttles between different languages and language varieties. This reality is underscored in this commentary that reviews four empirical studies that comprise this special issue on linguistic racism. We see linguistic racism enacted in different forms and contexts: through racial…

Students and teachers from different language backgrounds are at risk of becoming victims of conflicting trends and conventions when writing in English. This study compares conventions of English academic writing at several European universities with what is taught in English-speaking countries. Data were collected with questionnaires and by…

Little is known about the nature of fingerspelling during sign language interpretation. In this small-scale, exploratory study, we examined the fingerspelling of interpreters working in five different sign languages: American Sign Language (ASL), Australian Sign Language (Auslan), British Sign Language (BSL), Irish Sign Language (ISL), and Italian…

The purpose of this paper is to examine the intelligibility and attitude towards four English varieties to Korean-speaking learners (KSLs) of English, who have been exposed mainly to General American (or Korean-accented English) in their English language learning classrooms throughout the primary and secondary schools. A total of 105 Korean…