Linguistic diversity emerging from international student mobility, in non-anglophone universities, is typically eclipsed by the existing tensions between the national language(s) and English as 'Lingua franca'. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with university lecturers, this study highlights the tensions surrounding national…

This article explores the implications of John Rawls' political liberalism for linguistic diversity and language policy, by focusing on the following question: what kind(s) of equality between speakers of different languages and with different linguistic identities should the state guarantee under political liberalism? The article makes three…

This paper outlines a new model of language revitalisation that understands language to be a characteristic of a nexus of social activities rather than an independent object. Language use is one of an overall set of factors contributing to the wellbeing of a particular community. Our model treats language as one node (or a cluster of nodes) in a…

In most service activities, customer satisfaction depends largely on the direct interaction with service providers. In the case of tourism, this interaction often occurs between people from different countries and whose mother tongues are different. In this context, concepts such as cultural proximity, linguistic accommodation, expectations and…

In conversations between immigrants and officials, problems of understanding are often noticeable. About 280 recordings realised at the Argentine Aliens' Department and at several public authorities in Germany show that knowledge divergences regarding linguistic, cultural and institutional knowledge result in (sometimes grave) difficulties of…

Although development goals are usually set as targets that must be achieved in a development process, experience with development goals in Africa has tended to underscore underperformance either in terms of a shortfall in the targets attained or in terms of inadequate pursuit of specific goals. To illustrate this syndrome, the African Union's New…

The Linguistic Human Rights (LHRs) paradigm is motivated by the desire to combat linguistic discrimination, where speakers of discriminated languages find themselves unable to use their preferred language in society at large. However, in an increasingly globalised world where speakers may feel the need or the desire to travel across state…

English acts as a linguistic and symbolic resource for the countries using it. In the Swiss advertisements analyzed, English evokes connotations of professionalism and international appeal. The appropriation of English as a symbol of Swiss national identity allows the Swiss to lay claim to a social identity not available to them through their own…

This paper explores the nature of multilingualism in an English-language international school environment through observations and interviews with students of Yamato College in Japan. It examines the institutional conflicts that result when pupil-generated multiculturalism is constrained within an ideologically narrow educational framework. (41…