Perception of second language (L2) speakers and their speech is known to be influenced both by phonetic and by sociolinguistic factors. The existing body of scholarly research on L2 speech perception, however, is overwhelmingly focused on Indo-European languages, raising doubts about the generalizability of existing sociolinguistic, phonetic,…

This article leverages interview data from students of Chinese who enrolled at a UK university but pursued a period of study abroad in China, aiming to delve into their negotiation of language identities during their overseas experience. By employing Block's structural model in our discourse analysis, this research reveals the dynamic interplay…

The purpose of this paper is to describe and reflect on the position of what are called second additional languages in the language teaching landscape of South African schools. This landscape is crowded, with different South African languages vying for attention. Amidst efforts to increase the number of learners who offer an African language as…

The complexity of language contact and intercultural communication has generated various issues in relation to language use and education. As one of the many Chinese dialects ("fangyans"), the Chaoshan dialect ("Teochew") has been affected by the extensive promotion of Putonghua, the key lingua franca across China, and English,…

Translanguaging literature has broadly discussed translanguaging as fostering expressive and creative interactions within classroom contexts. Often overlooked, however, are the responses of students who are encouraged to translanguage in spaces they previously deemed to be reserved for the dominant language only. Using Linguistic Ethno-graphy, we…

Governmental language policies in China have varied across recent decades, including the intensive promotion of Mandarin as a language of unification and public championing of regional varieties. Concomitantly, increasing urbanisation, regional migration, and cross-linguistic marriage have led to greater use of Mandarin in private domains. Given…

Quantitative social scientists have adopted the positivist epistemology and methodology of natural sciences, seeking objectivity, generalisability, and neutrality. However, in social sciences -- unlike in natural sciences -- humans are both the investigators and the object of investigation, leading to intricate interconnections between researchers…

In light of Chinese language diversity, it is important for Mandarin teachers to demonstrate an accurate understanding of language variation and critical pedagogy, empowering and embracing all emergent bilingual students and incorporating recognition of those learners whose heritage languages are alternative Chinese varieties. While Standard…

The field of language policy and planning has seen increasing scholarly attention that explores social actors' micro language planning towards a given language policy situation at the grassroots level. In educational contexts, teachers and educators are often considered pivotal locals whose agency, when enacted in micro language planning, can…

Although Chinese has become one of the most influential second/foreign languages in the world, teaching Chinese as a foreign/second language (CSL/CFL) abroad faces great challenges. M-learning and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) display great advantages to facilitate second language learning, including CSL/CFL. However, most research was…

Despite rich insights that the experience of Global South countries like the Philippines could offer in understanding emerging trends in SLA research, i.e. learning languages other than English (LOTEs), studies conducted in this context are few and far apart. The study explored the motivations and emotions of 389 Filipino learners of LOTEs who…

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…

Drawing on the perspective of decolonizing methodology, this paper problematises the conventional interview technique of avoiding yes-or-no questions introduced by handbooks of research methods in applied linguistics. By demonstrating how this interview technique was found unsuitable in the first author's ethnographic study of multilingualism with…

A deeper interpretation of world language (WL) teachers' ideologies toward language learning and students' languaging practices can provide us with a different lens through which to understand teachers' teaching practices in language classrooms. This study adopts the attitude system of systemic functional linguistics (e.g., Martin & White,…

This paper explores the "multilingual lived experience" (MLE) of four Mongol-Chinese individuals. This lived experience is set in the multilingual context of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR) of China. Compared to the ethnic majority Han people, who are Mandarin (Putonghua) speakers, and who study English as a L2, Inner…