In this study, we examine how mobility and on-going changes in sociocultural contexts impact family language policy (FLP) in the UK. Using a questionnaire and involving 470 transnational families across the UK, our study provides a descriptive analysis of different family language practices in England and establishes how attitudes influence the…

The aim of this paper is to show that the current discourse on languages, constructed as meaningful for Europe's establishment and maintenance as a geopolitical unit, is just the latest round in a much longer debate on managing the diversity of languages taking place within the Council of Europe. From a critical sociolinguistic perspective, this…

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the role of language in multilingual blue-collar workplaces by investigating how communication is realized in construction sites in Qatar. The State of Qatar offers a unique and, hence, very interesting setting for the linguistic investigation of migration-related issues, such as…

This essay explores the relationship between democratic political theory and the reality of linguistic diversity in contemporary political communities. After suggesting a distinction between "liberal" and "participatory" democratic theories, and asserting that there have been fruitful explorations of linguistic diversity in…

Focusing on developments in research on language education policy, this introduction to the thematic special issue begins with a sketch of the new problem space emerging at the intersection of intensified transnational mobility, expanding economic neo-liberalisation and institutionalised of multilingualism. It then identifies situated practice,…

The introduction of English and other foreign languages as media of instruction, which is generally referred to as content and language integrated learning (CLIL), has transformed the teaching experiences of a large number of educators. Yet their daily struggles and personally ambivalent stances have hardly been examined. This paper addresses this…

This paper discusses data from a Dutch-medium secondary school in Brussels where almost all pupils speak a different language than Dutch at home. It illustrates that teachers' preference for maintaining the school's monolingual policy did not preclude their creation of haphazard or humorous multilingual interstices that temporarily alleviated the…

This paper focuses on the ways an institution of the new economy--a tourism call centre in Switzerland--markets, manages and performs multilingual services. In particular, it explores the ways multilingualism operates as a strategic and managerial tool within tourism call centres and how the institutional regulation of language practices…

Linguistic imperialism, linguistic hegemony and linguistic cosmopolitanism are broad and contrasting conceptualizations of linguistic globalization that are frequently, if implicitly, invoked in the literature, both academic and non-academic, on language practices and perceptions in the call center industry. I begin with outlining each of these…