Quantitative social scientists have adopted the positivist epistemology and methodology of natural sciences, seeking objectivity, generalisability, and neutrality. However, in social sciences -- unlike in natural sciences -- humans are both the investigators and the object of investigation, leading to intricate interconnections between researchers…

Recent studies on language and migration have attempted to address the social injustices stemming from global disparities in wealth and opportunities. However, there's a risk of researchers unintentionally reinforcing traditional power dynamics, positioning themselves in power while reducing participants to mere data sources. Focusing on migrants…

In this article, the authors argue that a particular view of language underpins approaches to supporting students in higher education, and that this view facilitates neo-liberalism. Universities worldwide have glossaries of terms such as 'describe' or 'discuss', and centralized units to help students understand what an 'essay' or 'report' is, and…

From a critical ecological linguistic perspective, this paper argues that South Korean English-language-policies are constraining students' agency. Since the millennium, as a legacy of neoliberalism universities of non-English-first-language contexts have implemented EMI (English-Medium Instruction) courses top-down to further internationalise.…

Although various attempts to confront non-native teachers of English (NNESTs) marginalisation in the language teaching profession have taken place over the past few years, the English language teaching (ELT) domain clearly demonstrates quite the opposite; remaining structured and articulated by boundaries that are shaped by language ideologies, it…

Drawing on the perspective of decolonizing methodology, this paper problematises the conventional interview technique of avoiding yes-or-no questions introduced by handbooks of research methods in applied linguistics. By demonstrating how this interview technique was found unsuitable in the first author's ethnographic study of multilingualism with…

The concept 'literacy crisis' has framed ChatGPT's popularity, its rapid evolution, and its seemingly sophisticated language and knowledge performance. The concept helps scholars and teachers easily enter conversations about artificial intelligence (AI) text generation technologies and how they transform the notions of authorship, research, labor,…

AI potential to recolonise language practices by reproducing existing marginalisations in novel ways has already instilled fears of a 'contemporary dystopia' (Miras et al., 2022) -- a space of cultural and linguistic erasure. Accents represent a distinctive aspect of language practice associated with one's sociocultural, and ethno-racial…

Earlier, I proposed that language policy could usefully be analyzed as consisting of three independent but interconnected components, language practices, language beliefs or ideologies, and language management. It was also argued that failure to recognize that language policy can exist in other domains and at other levels than the nation-state,…

A well-devised formulation of language planning and policy creates a sense of ownership among speakers of all languages. At the same time, its absence may lead to asymmetrical power relations among speakers of different languages. This article aims at presenting a critical analysis of language planning and policy (LPP) in Pakistan and its impact…

The inherent coloniality of ELT, as both driver and product of Anglophone political power, poses particular challenges for ELT teachers and learners looking to engage with decolonizing agendas. With only scant evidence of these agendas translating into ELT practice, I explored decolonial options, counter-hegemonic actions, with my undergraduate…

This article considers Intensive English Programs (IEPs) affiliated with higher education institutions of the Global North from the perspective of a decolonial option in which English is viewed as a tool of modernity used for colonization and the maintenance of unequal socioeconomic and power structures. Via nuanced description (Pennycook and…

This paper explores the translation of non-canonised literature from a minority culture (Catalan) into a hegemonic culture (Spanish). In particular, it focuses on the ideological and sociocultural factors which lead the translator to purge the translation of idiosyncratic elements pertaining to the source culture. The aim is to show that the…

This book challenges the reader to consider issues of language and linguistic discrimination as they impact world language education. Using the nexus of race, language, and education as a lens through which one can better understand the role of the world language education classroom as both a setting of oppression and as a potential setting for…

This article takes a linguistic anthropological approach to analyzing multilingualism in the linguistic landscape of the Amazonian city of Tena, Ecuador, a key locus of indigenous Kichwa language revitalization, identity formation, and politics. Following recent scholarly reconsiderations of multilingual linguistic landscapes as sites of…