This study analyses the evolving means of China's formal language policy on Putonghua and minority languages from 1986 to 2021. This paper identifies four stages based on the shifting focus between Putonghua and minority languages: status planning of the central government (1986-1990), balance via bilingual policy (1991-2000), strong Putonghua…

In 2003, Mary Louise Pratt published a hugely influential paper in "Profession" where she took to task misconceptions about multilingualism and language learning apparent in the USA in the wake of 9/11 and consequent counter-terrorism measures. She argued that a new public idea about language was necessary in order to ensure unity and…

In 2011, the Taiwanese Ministry of Education issued a policy on the internationalisation of schooling. The policy assumes that being 'international' has become necessary in order to maintain economic competitiveness in a globalising world. It was published in two languages: Mandarin, the official language in Taiwan, and English, presupposed as a…

This paper explores the interaction between linguistic landscapes and language policies of the Old Quarter in Hanoi, Vietnam to investigate how legislated and de facto language policies come together to create lived monolingualism, multilingualism and hybridity in language displays in public spaces. Our research focuses on language policies as…

In the past 15 years, the number of international students in tertiary education doubled to reach 5.6 million students in 2018 and is expected to grow to 6.9 million in 2030 (Choudaha and Van Rest, 2018). In the Netherlands, the percentage of international degree seeking students is relatively high and growing fast from 4% in 2010 to more than 10%…

This paper examines the discursive construction of Taiwan's envisioned identity as a Mandarin-English bilingual nation, encapsulated in its recent "2030 Bilingual Nation" policy. Through the lens of imagined community, this paper analyzes the blueprint for the policy to parse out the kinds of (international) ties the Taiwanese government…

Pakistan, one of the eight countries comprising South Asia, has more than 212.2 million people, making it the world's fifth most populous country after China, India, USA, and Indonesia. It has also the world's second-largest Muslim population. Eberhard et al. (Ethnologue: languages of the world, SIL International, 2020) report 77 languages used by…

This article will focus on inequalities for migrants which are (re)produced by the promise of equality through citizenship and settlement test regimes. I theorize the links between language and borders by drawing on scholarship on security before offering an analysis of language border proliferation. Drawing on other studies and my own work, I…

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…

Research on economic activity in Africa consistently ignores the importance of individuals' linguistic repertoires. We argue that an important contributing factor to the persistence of this lacuna is the lack of visibility of language in the social and economic data that is collected by governments through social surveys. We examine the specific…

In the last decades, the propagation of Mandarin has been carried out across the People's Republic of China as de facto language assimilation. It has achieved great success in that over 80 percent of the population can speak Mandarin, but it has also had devastating effects on minority language learning, maintenance, and use. Meanwhile, the…

The article discusses an artistic event "Emotions Icelandic Awakes" organized by the Reykjavik City Library as part of the national celebrations for Icelandic Language Day. It examines the potential of affording genuine attention to language as a matter of emotional inquiry for the process of intercultural exchange. We reflect on the…

The protection of language rights and linguistic groups is the cornerstone of the constitutional dispensation that Ethiopian has embarked upon almost two decades ago. The constitution declares that all Ethiopian language shall enjoy equal state recognition and allows for regional preference in language use. This article examines the laws and…

Just after the First World War the English Association published The Teaching of English in Schools. It argues that developing children's 'creative spirit' is fundamental to maintaining peace in Europe. Seventy years later, the first National Curriculum promotes a creative, unitary English appropriate for 'a European context'. In contrast, today's…

Over the past decades, the language management discourse in South Africa has focused on the development and intellectualization of the functional status of indigenous African languages in high-status domains. African languages are marginalized despite the existence of various empowering and restorative legislative provisions and policies of the…