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Policy‐making groups take the wording of policies to be important with respect to eventual implementation. Implementors (contrary to policy makers′ assumptions) are more likely to be unable to implement authoritative policy than unwilling to do so. Policy implementors do not discriminate between policy language variations unless they are in an environment which places high value on other variables like resources at the locus of implementation. The language used is nevertheless important.

This paper is a critical reflection on the linguistic conservatism as found within current curriculum policies and assessment regimes in the UK, arguing that they represents a form of linguicism which serves to entrench linguistic social injustices. This paper aims to trace the “trajectory” of policy across different levels, discourses and settings, with a particular focus on how linguicism is conceptualised, defended and resisted by teachers. The author draws connections between language ideologies within policy discourse, language tests and teacher interviews.

This study adopts a critical approach to examining educational language policies and assessments. It begins with the assumption that policies and tests are powerful political and ideological tools, which can steer teachers into making certain decisions in the classroom, some of which they may not believe in or agree with. Data are drawn from policy documents, test questions and teacher interviews, with a focus on how teachers talk about language and pedagogies in their classrooms. In total, 22 teachers were interviewed, with this data being transcribed and thematically indexed.

The findings reveal how linguicism is embedded within UK education policy, and how this comes to be replicated within teachers’ discourse and practice. There are three main findings: that teachers can come to operate under a form of “pedagogical coercion”, whereby language policies and tests have a powerful hold on their practice; that teachers see current policy as championing standard English at the expense of non-standardised varieties, and that teachers often see and talk about language as a proxy for other social factors such as education and employability.

This study provides a critical perspective on language education policies in the UK, arguing for greater awareness about the nature and dangers of linguicism across all levels of policy. Data generated from classroom interaction would be a useful avenue for future work.

This paper offers an original, discursively critical examination of language education policy in the UK, with a particular focus on the current curriculum and using original data generated from teacher interviews and associated policy documents.

The aim of this paper is to discuss a theoretical framework for increased integration of a company's communication policy, corporate language policy and corporate information portal with a view to facilitating communication management.

The paper draws on selected theoretical contributions on corporate language policy with special emphasis on theoretical considerations on the type of language policies developed and implemented in companies and organisations and on corporate communication with special emphasis on van Riel's common starting points. The empirical basis of the paper is a triangulation of questionnaire data, content analysis data and interview data.

The paper argues that corporate communication has not sufficiently included the operational part of a company's corporate communication. The paper makes the case for a theoretical integration framework based on van Riel's common starting points (CSPs), and argues that corporate communication also needs to include the corporate language policy and the corporate information portal, defined as a modern information directory offering communicators concrete communication data for use in concrete text production situations.

The paper proposes a CSP‐based theoretical integration framework and makes the case for a Holy Trinity in corporate communications based on the communication policy, the corporate language policy and the corporate information portal.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of corporate language policies that are implemented without formal decision-making processes.

A qualitative case study based on three Scandinavian multinational corporations which use English as a common corporate language without formal language policy decisions.

Non-formalised language policies are found to be clearly distinct from formalised language policies in terms of language policy format, language policy focus, language policy formation, language planning agency and management style. Non-formalised language policies can represent a type of informal control, but the absence of a policy document leaves employees without a common reference point which may cause confusion and inter-collegial conflict.

The study offers a nuanced perspective on the role of language policies in corporate communication by demonstrating that language policies may come in a variety of different forms, also as implicit assumptions about language use. Findings reveal benefits and drawbacks of the different language policy approaches.

This chapter briefly explores selected English and general education policy documents, curricula, and textbooks within the context of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) from a Critical Discourse Analysis perspective and examines how they have changed pre- and post-21st century. First, a policy document related to education in KSA in general (pre-21st century) is analyzed along with an English language teaching (ELT) policy document of the same period. Next, two general policy documents post-21st century are explored, followed by one related to ELT policy. Finally, one post-21st century document related to higher education is discussed. The “network of practices” within which these documents are situated are first detailed, as well as the structural order of the discourse, and some linguistic analysis of the choice of vocabulary and grammatical structures (Meyer, 2001). Issues which might be problematic to the learning and teaching identities of the students and teachers interpreting these documents are also highlighted. Finally, we consider whether the network of practices at this institution and KSA in general “needs” the problems identified in the analysis and critically reflect on the analysis.

As US universities increasingly participate in the project of the internationalization of higher education through growing international student enrollment, those campuses need to better support their diverse learners and prepare students to be culturally competent. Part of cultural competence for university students includes issues related to language use and language policy because one cannot separate language from culture. Highlighting multilingual international undergraduate student voices from China, India, and Malaysia, the author offers insight into how these students thoughtfully navigate through complicated language ideologies and policies inside and outside of the classroom. The chapter concludes with recommendations for how US universities should encourage cross-cultural competence through embracing multilingual ideologies and language policies.

This chapter explores how critical language theory could be applied to the language dynamics in higher education that is created by internationalization and university's traditional role in maintaining national languages. Language policy is an instrument of governance that is increasingly used to regulate the linguistic situation at the university, so it is at the center of my analysis. As a broad concept, language policy is not limited to the formulations of the policy text but includes interactions of different actors and addresses instruments mediating the university's linguistic situation. A critical approach highlights that language policy is permeated with power, which is unequally distributed between different actors. I suggest further conceptualization of the language dynamics of the internationalized university created by national language protection and internationalization through three layers of analysis. The first layer derives from the Bourdieu's approach to language in society focusing on the societal hierarchies that are underpinned by language use. It also includes a discussion about structure versus agency, and a conversation about the navigational capacities of individuals to challenge preestablished social structures. The second layer discusses dialogue as a theoretical approach to the process of negotiating language policy. This is where agency is being realized, depending on the relative power of different actors in the particular social context. The third layer explores the conception of language, how different ways to understand what language is are turned into policy principles.

This research explores the standard language ideology in Chinese foreign language education policies. The most substantial in relation to language policy and management in regard to language ideology are beliefs associated with the values on the named language and its varieties (Spolsky, 2009). In the standard language ideology, the standard is treated as being valuable linguistic capital and possessing prestige as well as authority. Mandarin is the most well-accepted standard Chinese, and similarly, UK English or US English is the most popular and Standard English (SE) in China.

The theoretical framework in this research is critical discourse analysis (CDA) and discourse-historical approach (DHA) to guide the data collection and data analysis. This research will review recent and seminal literature obtained from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) on language policy in China in relation to standard language ideology. The literature also investigates Chinese state's English language ideologies using official language education policies (FLEPs).

The results show that standard language ideology is a common mindset found within official state policies in regard to SE. The authors argue that the Chinese trust on the ideology of standard language appears to not be aligned to recent worldwide trends such as globalization and multilingualism.

This research can provide insights into future language planning and language policy in China and shows that the future research could do more on language planning in China.

The history of Nepal gives some insight into its current status as a diverse and multilingual nation with more than 123 languages. Multilingualism is part of the founding philosophy of the country but since it was unified in 1768, government attitudes to language and language education have fluctuated. Though historically education in Nepal has been delivered exclusively in the Nepali language and, more recently, in English, the Government of Nepal is now committed to introducing mother tongue-based, multilingual education (MLE).

Nepal has among the lowest literacy rates in the world (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2015) and the government seeks to turn this trend around, particularly for students who do not speak Nepali as a mother tongue. The commitment to strengthening mother tongue-based MLE features prominently in the Constitution of Nepal (2015), the Act Relating to Compulsory and Free Education (2018) and the School Sector Development Plan (MOEST, 2018). This new constitution declares that “all the mother tongues spoken in Nepal shall be the national language” (2015 article 6).

Implementing these policy commitments in over 120 languages across seven provinces and 753 municipalities is the next challenge for the fledgling democracy. As a “wicked hard” policy area, doing so will require a solid understanding of local attitudes, beliefs, resources, and capacities. This chapter gives a unified review of the history, languages, ideologies, beliefs, and trends that currently influence MLE in Nepal and are likely to play a role into the future.

This chapter discusses the role of language in the transformation of two African institutions of higher education, namely the University of Botswana (in Botswana) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (in South Africa). The transformation of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, which is aimed at addressing the inequalities and other ills of the apartheid era, has taken on board language issues. For instance, isiZulu is being developed and promoted to join English as a language of scholarship. In contrast, the University of Botswana’s transformation does not stem from a political background of oppression. The institutional transformation has to do internationalization and the conversion into a research-intensive university. This transformation, unlike at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, has not taken a strong move to develop and promote Setswana (Botswana’s national language) as a language of scholarship.