During the last 20 years, "Critical Inquiry in Language Studies" has played an important role in advancing research on critical applied linguistics. Although the level of scholarly interest in critical research and its visibility have increased, issues that critical research has attempted to problematize, such as normative ideologies of…

Recent scholarship in sociolinguistics and language education has examined how race and language intersect each other and how racism influences linguistic and educational practices. While racism is often conceptualized in terms of individual and institutional injustices, a critical examination of another form of racism--epistemological…

As critical perspectives in language studies have gained legitimacy and even mainstream status in applied linguistics, it is necessary to re-examine the meaning of criticality in language studies and to re-envision criticality for further development. The authors explore criticality from several theoretical perspectives as well as from the notion…

In applied linguistics and language education, an increased focus has been placed on plurality and hybridity to challenge monolingualism, the native speaker norm, and the modernist view of language and language use as unitary and bounded. The multi/plural turn parallels postcolonial theory in that they both support hybridity and fluidity while…

Examines how classroom cultures in the United States and Asia are discursively constructed by researchers in applied linguistics and education. Suggests that the literature of applied linguistics and some in education compares idealized perspectives of U.S. classrooms with more typical images of classrooms in Asia. (Author/VWL)

Questions the cultural labels attached to Japanese culture in much of applied linguistics research. Maintains that such labels are constructed by a colonial discourse that views the "other" as being what the West is not. Proposes a pedagogy of critical literacy that supports cultural pluralism while recognizing the benefits of an…