This paper discusses contemporary societal roles of German in the Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania). Speaker and learner statistics and a summary of sociolinguistic research (Linguistic Landscapes, language learning motivation, language policies, international roles of languages) suggest that German has by far fewer speakers and functions…

Previous research on neo-nationalism has largely focused on the political arena, analyzing voters, parties, and policies. The scholarship featured in this special issue moves beyond the analysis of neo-nationalism in contemporary politics to show how the ideology is enacted at the micro level. The stage for these dynamic interactions is…

This paper uncovers L1 Chinese speakers' online intercultural communication where they deploy English as a lingua franca and other spatial repertoires to co-construct translanguaging practices with their interlocutors and present three-fold identities--translingual, L1 Chinese, and legitimate users of English, leading to the argument that…

This review provides an account of salient research topics in current Swedish research in the field of foreign language (FL) education, with the aim of making locally published work available outside Sweden. A corpus of work on English and other FLs published between 2012 and 2021 has been scrutinized. Focus has been placed on research conducted…

This paper highlights a current phenomenon reported from preschools placed in multilingual areas in Sweden, namely that some preschoolers with mutually different language backgrounds sometimes use English as lingua franca instead of Swedish during play. The data stems from a study of language environments in Swedish preschools situated in both…

The preeminence of English as the lingua franca in global science has led to English-dominant publication practices, even in non-English-speaking countries. We examine the complex dynamics of language use in scientific publications in China, a major contributor to global scientific output, and the tensions between English and the native language.…

This study examines L2 speakers' accent attitudes in relation to their linguistic profile and current practices, recruiting 107 multilingual postgraduate students of 34 different nationalities enrolled in leading research universities in Japan. The participants completed a survey regarding their perceptions of different English varieties in…

This cross-sectional study attempts to investigate the impacts of linguistic landscape (LL) tasks on EFL teacher candidates' understanding of English in local and global contexts. To this end, three cohorts of student teachers carried out LL fieldwork, uploaded images of English signage to an LL application, Lingscape, and submitted a mini…

Linguistic landscaping (LL) is an emerging field of Sociolinguistics exploring the language in its textual form in public sphere. This paper investigates the visibility and prominence of languages in the public space of Patna, the capital city of Bihar, India. A total of 10 city neighborhoods are chosen for the study. The corpus of the study is…

Background: Pakistan inherits a multilingual heritage. Along with Urdu, 70 different languages are spoken. The 1973 Constitution officially recognizes Urdu as Pakistan's only national language. Purpose: Until today, the adoption and promotion of Urdu as a medium of educational instruction has remained a point of controversy. Existing research…

International Sign (IS) and American Sign Language (ASL) have both been used as lingua francas within international deaf contexts. Perspectives on the uses of IS and ASL as lingua francas in such contexts are connected to discourses pertaining to the form, function, status, value, languageness, and global reach of IS and ASL. While there are some…

The status of English as a medium of instruction in higher education in Bangladesh has always been a contentious issue since public universities move back and forth for continuing with English as a medium of instruction or not. On the other hand, the introduction of private universities in Bangladesh complicated the issue even more. The medium of…

Following WWII, the English language became the global Lingua Franca, meaning that it is the primary language used to communicate between people who speak different languages. With the development of English as the Lingua Franca, Americans are generally less exposed to foreign languages than most other nationalities. Some researchers believe that…

Employing neoliberal governmentality as a conceptual frame, this paper presents evidence from the mushrooming English language academies from Pakistan to demonstrate that how neoliberal rationality as a normative order of reason governs the minds of learners and teachers without governing. Drawing on the analysis of an open-ended interview…

Despite the existence of many studies on the identity of language learners in the offline settings, few focus on how English language learners in the expanding circle construct their identity through their use of English and their choices over their first language capital as they enjoy variations of multilinguacultural exposes in the digital…