Focusing on language education policies in Bangladesh, this article shows how the policies have distracted people's attention from the harms inflicted on the country's Indigenous communities and their languages. I discuss two factors that have contributed to policy distractions in this context: a strong form of Bangla linguistic nationalism and a…

This article examines the various language ideologies and cultural models that inform Hawaiian-language learners' experiences, language practices, and socio-ethnic identity as they attempt to become speakers of their heritage language. While Hawaiian-language education is often noted as a revitalization success story, and certainly is in terms of…

This paper analyzes the ideologies and practices of local languages as the medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy in a multilingual school in Nepal. Grounded on the notion of language policy as a locally situated social practice, this critical ethnographic study investigates challenges--both ideological and implementational--that local languages MOI…

Argues that the question of the presence of French in former French colonies is not controversial. A study of French in the Francophone world is set in the context of the precoccupations that Francophones themselves have about the importance of the own languages--other than French--that can be defined in their relationship to France only from a…

David Ingram's "Language Centres" (2001) offers a descriptive and analytical study of meta-centres, their constitution, operation and engagement with their constituencies. This article is a combination of a review and an appreciation of Ingram's study, and--benefiting from the latitude offered by the genre of the review article--a set of…

Examines the place of Portuguese in Portugal's former African Colonies. Characterizes the postcolonial position of Portuguese in Africa as a complex relationship between Portuguese as the official language and the other languages of these countries. (Author/VWL)

This monograph will cover the language situation in Mexico; a linguistically very complex country with 62 recognised indigenous languages, the "de facto" official language, Spanish, and some immigrant languages of lesser importance. Throughout the monograph, we will concentrate on three distinct challenges which we consider relevant for…

Promoting diversity has become a prominent goal in language-in-education policy discourse in two broad contexts. On the one hand, language policies take on the challenge of maintaining and developing "de facto" linguistic and cultural diversity through language acquisition planning; on the other hand, they portray themselves as active…

David Ingram's career has traversed several decades of shifting rationale for language policy in Australia. Government and institutional initiatives have at various times favoured traditional foreign language teaching, multicultural imperatives and language diversity, concern for Asian economically strategic languages, or a focus on literacy in…