This article examines the role of written and spoken English vis-a-vis written Chinese, Cantonese and Putonghua in the four key service industries that have driven Hong Kong's economy in the past decade. The study forms part of a long-standing and continuing investigation into the impact of Hong Kong's transition from British colony to Chinese…

In Japan critical views of the dominance of English are only infrequently voiced, and the use of English is promoted for the benefits associated with it. This paper discusses the issues of language and power in intercultural communication on the basis of a case study on the Ship for World Youth, an intensive "international exchange"…

With China's growing power and influence on the global stage, efforts are burgeoning to promote teaching the official Chinese language in U.S. schools. And while those activities are getting help from a variety of sources--including the U.S. government--one key player taking an increased role is the Chinese government itself. Just this year, the…

Language in education debates in Hong Kong focus on the role and status of English (as the former colonial language and an important means for international communication); Cantonese, the mother tongue of the majority of the population; and Putonghua, the national language of China. This paper examines the language policy formulated in 1997-1998,…

There appears to be a direct as well as an indirect link between the scholastic presence of the English language at any particular university and its respective Times Higher Education-Thomson Reuters 2010 World University Ranking, one of numerous world university rankings. Due to the author's familiarity and to some extent intimate relationship…

This study investigated how English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' types of language for thinking and types of oral elicitation tasks influence their lexical collocational errors in speech. Data were collected from 42 English majors in Taiwan using two instruments: (1) 3 oral elicitation tasks and (2) an inner speech questionnaire. The…

The central role played by language in mediating school experience and the prestige accorded to standard language varieties within the field of education provide the broad rationale for this paper. This qualitative study, based on a friendship focus-group design, was conducted in two groups of 12-year-old children from contrasting "ideal…

Language plays a very important role in understanding the culture and mindset of people. Given the abundance of electronic multilingual data, it is interesting to see what insight can be gained by automatic analysis of text. This in turn calls for text analysis which is focused on non-topical information such as emotions being expressed that is in…

This dissertation develops a theoretical and empirical framework for the model of metalinguistic community, a community of positioned social actors engaged primarily in discourse about language and cultural symbols tied to language. Building upon the notions of speech community (Duranti, 1994; Gumperz, 1968; Morgan, 2004), linguistic community…

Migration-based language pluralism and globalized identity conflicts pose challenges for educational research and linguistic anthropology, in particular, how we think about education and social inequality. This article proposes new conceptual tools, drawn from linguistic anthropology as well as world systems theory, for analyzing the role of…

This position paper argues that collegiate foreign language (FL) education has lost sight of the central role that language plays in the profession. Regardless of one's sub-field within foreign language education (i.e., linguistic, literary, or cultural studies), the profession shares the common focus of exploring how to make and interpret meaning…

This article discusses an effect of the emerging "global structures of common difference" on minority group empowerment. Researchers suggest that structures of difference often limit the ways of being. This article introduces more productive effects and shows the possibility of proactively expanding alliances by the use of global…

The purpose of the present study is to contribute to the ongoing debate about the use of lexical bundles by first (L1) and second language (L2) speakers of English. The study consists of two experiments that examined whether L1 and L2 English speakers displayed any knowledge of lexical bundles as holistic units and whether their knowledge was…

This article explores the background to the Chinese government's decision to embark on a programme of promoting the study of Chinese language and culture overseas. This includes the impact of Joseph Nye's concept of "soft power" in China, ownership of the national language, the Confucius connection, and how these factors interact with…

Teachers certainly appreciate the importance of an inviting classroom environment. The money spent on posters, the greeting at the classroom door, and the time invested in learning students' names all help to create a sense of community, and students who feel they belong are more likely to do their best work. No teacher would deliberately exclude…