A key focus of linguistic landscape research is the interaction among local language policies, the visibility of minority languages on public signage, and the perceptions of residents regarding language use. In China, ongoing urbanization and eased household registration requirements have precipitated an influx of ethnic minority migrants from…

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…

Research that considers the relevant temporal, spatial, and societal contexts of a corporate language policy remains scarce to date within the field of sociolinguistics. In contrast to approaches that take companies as static entities, this article focuses on a Belgian multinational corporation over the course of over 20 years and contextualizes…

In this article, I claim that, while placing his theory of language, language planning, and standardization within a conceptual and historical framework inspired by Modernity, the emergence of the nation-state and liberal democracy, Haugen carefully mapped sociolinguistic phenomena onto their political treatment. And it was this careful and honest…

Over 50 years ago, the Norwegian-American linguist Einar Haugen published a seminal paper entitled 'Dialect, language and nation' (Am Anthropol 68:922-935, 1966b), in which he expounds his four-step model of standardization, explaining the development from dialect to standard following a process of norm selection, codification, acceptance and…

This contribution explores the concept of selection as an integral part of Haugen's standardisation model from a theoretical as well as an empirical angle. It focuses on different types of factors of selection and how they are relevant to the study of selection processes both on the level of individual variants and whole varieties. The question of…

This paper compares the sociolinguistic trajectory of a 'latent' speaker mother to that of a 'new' speaker mother. Drawing on Shandler (TDR 48(1):19-43, 2004), it introduces the term 'post-vernacular FLP' as a means to conceptualise the latent speaker mother's emblematic use of Gaelic with her child as a 'seed' from which language revitalisation…

The term 'new speaker' has recently emerged as an attempt by sociolinguists not only to understand the different types of speaker profiles that can be found in contemporary societies, but also to grasp the underlying processes of becoming a legitimate speaker in a given society. In this article, we combine the results from two studies situated in…

This article deals with the politics of classification in contemporary Sweden. It analyses the language political dispute that has developed over the language political regulation of Övdalsk, a non-standard form of Scandinavian spoken in Älvdalen in northern central Sweden. The analysis focuses on the ways in which a discursive exchange over…

This study examines the role of new speaker parents who have made a conscious decision to bring up their children in Galician, a language which they themselves did not acquire in the home. Although intergenerational transmission has for long been considered a crucial part of linguistic vitality, new speakers bring complexity to this paradigm and…

Pakistan is a multilingual and multiethnic country; however, this diversity stands unrecognized in the formal language-in-education policies. Estimates suggest that about 90% of children who speak over 60 indigenous languages do not have access to education in their mother tongues. Linguists estimate that exclusive teaching of Urdu and English…

This article analyzes how multilingual education in the Madrid region has been addressed through the medium of Spanish/English content and language integrated learning (CLIL) bilingual programs, widely implemented in public schools of this region in the last decade. By adopting a critical interpretive perspective (Tollefson in "Language…

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…