Responding to a recent call for interdisciplinary research into 'night studies', the present study attempts to put the nighttime at the centre of the sociolinguistic enquiry, seeking to explore how the nocturnal linguistic landscape (LL) differs from the diurnal LL by drawing on Singapore's Chinatown as the research site. A total of 1091 LL items…

This paper probes alternative meanings and processes for decolonizing English that arise from the particular geopolitical histories and identities of Hong Kong and engagement with political and translingual activism. I illustrate the positioning and tension between English, 'Kongish' (a mix of English and localized linguistic resources in Hong…

Language choices in the economic field of late capitalist societies are shaped by a combination of local, national, and global forces as well as historical, political, and economic factors. This study conducts an analysis of language choices in the linguistic landscape of Macao's heritage tourism (i.e. signposts of tourist attractions) and gaming…

Variationist researchers are increasingly adopting intersectionality approaches to analyse identity-linked practice. However, the field of sociolinguistic variation is yet to embrace the full ramifications of intersectionality as an analytical framework. The current paper offers a new method for integrating intersectional approaches into…

In postcolonial societies, forces associated with globalization operate along with local geopolitical changes. The complex and multifaceted interactions between local, national, and global forces may take different sociolinguistic shapes in postcolonial societies. This study provides an overview of the language situation in Macao. The Portuguese…

Children and young people from migrated families often learn host languages faster than their parents might do, and from very young ages they help their parents, families or community members by translating or interpreting, known as child language brokering (CLB). Language brokers need to mediate with different languages in different contexts and…

This paper examines diasporic language ecology based on a sociolinguistic study of a Chinese complementary school (CCS) in Birmingham, England. The study applies a historical perspective to investigate local multilingual practices in relation to language ideology and identity. The discussion in this paper draws on "heteroglossia" to…

Linguistic landscapes have proven to be intriguing foci of sociolinguistic research in and of themselves, given language in public spaces indexes broader sociolinguistic processes, struggles, and policies. This paper, however, trials linguistic landscape as a methodological tool for research that solicits and analyses metalinguistic talk --…

On the French Guiana-Suriname border, a hybrid space, members of the same population groups engage in circular mobility but little is known about the practices of these transnational communities. We explore how traditional emic social distinctions, modern states' language ideologies and emerging discourses in the urban context shape Maroon's…

Bilingual education policy in Singapore permits the students learn both English as working language and mother tongues, such as Chinese, as L2 anchoring to culture heritage. Starting from historical and sociolinguistic reasons, this paper is intended to provide a panoramic view of Chinese education in Singapore, clarify and compare Chinese…

Transnational and multilingual families have become commonplace in the twenty-first century. Yet relatively few attempts have been made from applied and socio-linguistic perspectives to understand what is going on "within" such families; how their transnational and multilingual experiences impact on the family dynamics and their everyday…

This paper draws attention to the ways in which spatial configurations operate as constitutive dimensions of sociolinguistic phenomena and vice versa; that is, the way in which communicative practices frame daily life and the broader urban reality. The paper presents an approach which integrates the study of Linguistic Landscapes, the dynamics of…

Drawing on the first phase of a larger sociolinguistic ethnography, this article explores how individual migrants of African and Chinese backgrounds expand their multilingual repertoires in Africa Town in Guangzhou, China. Focusing on two cases, I demonstrate how they maintain and develop transnational and translocal connections simultaneously…

This study explores the linguistic landscape of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Using photographs as a source of data, the study collects samples from both government and private signage from five selected neighbourhoods of the city. In addition to photographs, interviews with business owners have been conducted and used for triangulation purposes. The…

Adopting a quantitative approach, this paper highlights findings of an exploratory study on Hokaglish, initially describing it as a trilingual code-switching phenomenon involving Hokkien, Tagalog, and English in a Filipino-Chinese enclave in Binondo, Manila, the Philippines. Departing from the (socio)linguistic landscape of the archipelagic…