Current research on language policy underscores how top-down policymakers tend to endorse the interests of dominant social groups, marginalize minority languages, and attempt to perpetuate systems of socio-lingual inequity. In the Castilian-Spanish-dominated sociolinguistic terrains of Galicia and Navarre, this article examines the rise of…

Using a critical approach, I discuss the socioeconomic power impact of capitalism, neoliberalism, and globalization in the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Colombia, described as a symbolic annihilation process. I argue how these three constructs have influenced language policy-decisions making processes and classroom practices…

Language policy research puts little emphasis on parental agency in language policy decision-making for English as an Additional Language (EAL) students. This study investigates how migrant parents and community members interpreted and experienced the effects and outcomes of EAL policies. Through qualitative interviews with 35 migrant parents and…

How are processes of language policy formation carried out? Besides, how does one negotiate competing discourses in a policy process to ensure its legitimacy? Such questions sparked the interest for this study, which examines legitimization processes involved in the development of language policy guidelines at a higher education institution in…

The authors examine how the Mandarin-Cantonese relationship has been ideologically and discursively perceived and constructed in China's language policy and planning, and Chinese people's reaction over the years by drawing on theories in critical discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics, and language ideology. Data collection includes…

The European Union (EU) has developed comprehensive policies in recent years to promote multilingualism. In this article, major EU policy statements on multilingualism are analyzed to demonstrate how their underlying language ideology produces paradox by both encouraging multilingualism and regulating its definition within the EU. The first…

This article seeks to situate Estonian language use and policy within the emerging field of critical language policy and planning (LPP). Critical LPP draws on poststructuralist theory to deconstruct normalized categories that maintain systems of inequality. It is akin to the queer theory project for gender and sexuality. Since the country regained…

This article examines how political discourse, language ideologies, recent Chinese curriculum reforms, and their representations in the media are inextricably related. Using the "Speak Mandarin Campaign" as background for the inquiry, I focus on textual features of the various media sources, TV advertisements, campaign slogans, official…

This article applies social constructionism and groupism theory to discourses on language officialization in Puerto Rico. It examines three argumentative texts presented prior to the passage of Law #4 in 1991 making Spanish the sole official language of the island. Grounded critical discourse theory maintains that language form and content are…

This study asks questions and elicits answers about the importance of English language teaching (ELT) instruction time on the national curriculum in the Sultanate of Oman from an ideological perspective. It triangulates data from semi-structured interviews made with different agents involved in the Omani ELT system and representing different…

This article presents the language policy and sociolinguistic realities of Hmong people in Lao Cai province, Vietnam. Minority children, who have their own mother tongue, are educated in Vietnamese, a language that few understand. In response to this situation, the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam in collaboration with UNICEF,…

In much of the developing world, disparities between native- and nonnative-medium schools are fueled in part by government actions such as resource allocation and administrative oversight that determine institutional policies and practices that perpetuate and exacerbate educational divides, which, in turn, lead to further societal inequality. This…

The article explores the transition from the linguistic imperialism of the colonial and postcolonial ages to the increasingly dominant role of English as a neoimperial language. It analyzes "global" English as a key dimension of the U.S. empire. U.S. expansionism is a fundamental principle of the foreign policy of the United States that can be…

Studies of language issues in postcolonial Hong Kong are abundant. While the majority is concerned with the language policy and medium of instruction, there seems to be insufficient discussion on the subject matter of our English lessons, which, this paper argues, are ideology-ridden. Following the tradition of critical discourse analysis and…