Translanguaging studies have paid much attention to meaning-making processes, exploring multilingual speakers' strategic selection of linguistic features from a holistic linguistic repertoire to convey meanings, and assuming that multilingual addressees can successfully decode the encoded meanings. Failure in the meaning-interpreting processes in…

This paper proposes a concept of "campus vitality" of languages: the ability of a language to maintain its prestige, visibility and continuity on university campuses. A seven-factor framework is developed for on-the-ground investigation of the relevant languages in a given campus context. These indexical factors are the number,…

This paper explores the understanding and application of epicene pronouns in English among Chinese EFL learners. Thirty-three Chinese college students took part in a questionnaire to gauge their perceptions and usage of English epicene pronouns. A content analysis of 10 English grammar textbooks was also undertaken to discover current vernacular…

This article seeks to explore intercultural communication among a group of students with diverse linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds in an English-medium transnational university in China, focusing on multilingual students' practices and perceptions of English as a lingua franca (ELF). Informed by an expanded understanding of translanguaging…

Foucauldian critical studies are cornucopian in illustrating how policy as discourse normalizes and yields human beings into made subjects in modern societies. However, Foucault's own slide from the 'terminal stage of discourse' pays little attention to the linguistic elements, and thus weakens the theory's potency in explaining the reality.…

This study investigates the complex dynamics of semantic change and cultural adaptation of metaphor in multilingual communication. The research uses cognitive linguistics, sociolinguistics, and pragmatics to develop a model that explains the fundamental mechanisms of metaphorical expression and comprehension across languages and cultures. Using…

The socio-psychological variables that affect bilinguals' choices of code-switching (CS) and code-mixing (CM) as a verbal strategy make prediction of their occurrence almost impossible. This research investigates the social motivations and socio-pragmatic aspects of Chinese-English CS/CM among Chinese undergraduate students. Using a questionnaire…

The spread of English as a global language has resulted in many changes in sociolinguistic realities, which challenges the foundations of how language should be taught and learned. To match today's sociolinguistic realities, researchers have called for a paradigm shift from the traditional pedagogy to a new pedagogy that can prepare students to…

This qualitative study investigates the language socialization experiences and identity construction of a group of Chinese students when they interact with their international peers, in a transnational university in China. This study is informed by the recent critical ethnographic sociolinguistics studies (e.g. Blommaert 2010), language…

The development of English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) at the tertiary level has been accelerated by the ever-increasing degree of higher education internationalisation. The study, based on a survey with 112 students and semi-structured interviews with 16 instructors collected at a Sino-foreign cooperative education institution in China,…

This 'inclusive practitioner research' study presents a collaborative 'virtual intercultural fieldwork' project in which Balinese and Chinese university students communicated in English to explore similar emic cultural concepts related to the Japanese concept of "amae" (presumed indulgence); namely, "manying" (Balinese) and…

This polity study is about the language policy situation in the People's Republic of China (China) with a focus on one official minority language, Zhuang. The paper offers an examination of the language policy and planning (LPP) framework nationally as it relates to official minority languages, and regionally as it relates to the Zhuang minority…

The decolonization of knowledge is increasingly high on the agenda of applied and sociolinguistics. This article contributes to this agenda by examining how peripheral multilingual scholars confront their linguistic and epistemic exclusion from global knowledge production. Based on the product of such a challenge -- a Chinese-centric special issue…

Although the notion of Global Englishes (GE) has been widely discussed in the literature, few books consider how GE can be translated into educational practice. This book addresses the incorporation of GE into language policy and curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices, and focuses on a wide range of geographical and language contexts.…

Little research has focused on extended concurrent speech, unexpected floor taking, or topic switching, since it has been deemed rare (Schegloff 2000. "Overlapping talk and the organization of turn-taking for conversation." "Language in Society" 29(1). 1-63.) or inappropriate (Goldberg 1990." Interrupting the discourse on…