This article begins with an overview of the literature on language commodification and the Marxist critiques of this concept. I argue that, while these critiques have raised pertinent issues surrounding the concept of language commodification, they are limited by their reliance on Karl Polanyi's notion of fictitious commodification, which suggests…

Discourse theory has always played a significant role in Michel Foucault's larger theoretical framework. His discourse theories integrate language, power, and knowledge as to achieve the 'truth,' though there is a debate whether they are inherently linked. This paper explores the longitudinal evolution of Foucault's discourse theory from the…

Linguistic distancing behaviours indicative of linguistic dissociation (Moore, 2023) have been documented in social scientific and literary accounts focusing on the lives of Japanese-English late plurilinguals (LPs; e.g. Harrison, 2011; Kelsky, 2001; McMahill, 2001; Mori, 1997; Takahashi, 2013). Across these cases, diverse Japanese-English LPs…

While language is clearly an important aspect of (labor) migration, there have not been many contemplations and interrogations, although truly compelling and necessary, on language varieties and their place and position in labor migration and transnational work in the contemporary world, and hence why we intend to do so in this article. In our…

Human creativity and ingenuity partly depend on divergent thinking -- the ability to generate many varied, original, and elaborate responses. Prior research has found ample evidence of an effect of cognitive factors, including the organization of semantic networks and associative ability, on divergent thinking. Less is known, however, about how…

This paper addresses the irruptive potentiality of language in rethinking pivotal concepts in pre-service and in-service teacher education. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari's reconceptualization of language, we undertake a radical undoing of dominant concepts of pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment as 'order-words' that variously segment, delimit,…

The prevalent use of ELF in global communication necessitates a rethinking of what theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches are appropriate to explain the changing and complex nature of intercultural interactions, particularly, those whereby English is recognised as a passport. This review accounts for ELF interactions in terms of…

This paper discussed the relationship between language, ecology, and culture, and claimed that the study of linguistic communication as pragmatics should not be confined to the traditional context, but should focus on a broader ecological environment. It analyzed the context of practical communication from the perspective of language ecology…

Communication is an important part of our life. The realization of the communication and the achievement of its purpose is possible by understanding the function of the linguistic units used by the speaker or the text producer. In this case, the communication functions of the language, which is an important part of communication, must be…

This paper forwards the notion that languages are an important resource for sustainable development for modern societies. Informed by theories from both sociolinguistics and language economics on the value of language skills, it is suggested that language(s) have different kinds of value in multilingual societies. Sociolinguists often emphasize…

This paper explores the notion that religious texts and the tradition of religious story telling are the content, form or "the movable feast" by which we form and preserve our culture and group identity, and by which we pass them down to the next generations. All these texts are composed of language that is open for analysis and multiple…

In this paper, the role and nature of language and language development will be discussed. Research and theory in second language acquisition has demonstrated that (i) language is an abstract, implicit and complex system. Input (ii) plays a key role in language development; despite the fact that some knowledge of language is innate (iii). Overall,…

Between 6 and 9 months, while infant's ability to discriminate faces within their own racial group is maintained, discrimination of faces within other-race groups declines to a point where 9-month-old infants fail to discriminate other-race faces. Such face perception narrowing can be overcome in various ways at 9 or 12 months of age, such as…

In this article we draw on the praxiological framework of disinvention and reconstitution of language(s) to problematize the concept of communication in language education. Considering the fact that the concept of language as an instrument of communication was a metadiscursive regime used to (re)invent language as an isolated and unproblematic…

In this classroom-based qualitative study, we examine how a small group of content area teacher candidates developed emerging critical language awareness (CLA) during one graduate-level translanguaging-infused teacher education course on multilingual theories and practices. The findings point out the potential of translanguaging in prompting…