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This book draws on case studies of language management within British organisations to examine the decisions they make about language diversity in their professional communications in order to be successful in a multilingual world. It explores the practices that the organisations use to manage language diversity in interorganisational relationships, and why certain practices occur in some situations and not others. The book highlights how organisations rely on individual employees to perform a variety of language tasks and the implications of this; the effect of English as a global lingua franca; and the translation challenges which organisations face. The book demonstrates that practices to manage language diversity are often a result of the resources organisations have at given moments in time, rather than being part of a deliberate language management strategy.
This book provides a comprehensive account of language management and planning at Confucius Institutes in the UK, implementing an ethnographic approach grounded in language management theory. As a global language promotion organization, Confucius Institutes have previously been discussed in the literature with respect to socio-political issues, but this volume will shed particular light on their role in shaping and informing Chinese language policy, at both the institutional and individual classroom level. The book focuses specifically on Confucius Institutes in the UK, demonstrating how language teaching practice in these organizations is informed and shaped not only by organizational paradigms but local language needs and institutional attitudes of host institutions. In turn, Li highlights these organizations’ unique position in a multilingual region such as the UK can offer new insights into language management by illustrating their roles as platforms for both individuals and institutions to become involved in the making and implementation of language policy. This volume will be of particular interest to students and researchers in language policy and planning, language education, applied linguistics, and Chinese linguistics.
In recent years there has been increased interest in examining the treatment of language problems across different levels of society, ranging from individual interactional issues to language policy and planning at the national or supra-national level. Among the various approaches to tackle this issue, Language Management Theory (LMT) provides a framework to address behaviour towards language problems on differet levels explicitly and comprehensively. Using LMT as a unifying theoretical concept, the chapters in this volume examine the links between micro and macro dimensions in their analyses of a variety of language problems in Asian and European contexts. This body of work illustrates that the LMT framework is able to show the characteristics of different dimensions clearly, especially when combined with a conceptualization of the micro and macro as a continuum of intertwining elements. This volume will appeal both to those interested in language policy and planning as well as those interested in interaction between speakers from different language backgrounds.
The authors of this volume analyze language contact situations emerging in East and Central Europe, Australia, and Japan. The individual chapters focus on language problems which appear in concrete interactions between speakers of various languages. The objective of the book is to demonstrate the capacity of the language management framework on the basis of highly diversified empirical material and thus aid in the solving of similar language problems which arise in different types of intercultural contact. The chapters contribute to the forming of a new approach to the processes underlying linguistic diversity, covering both its micro and macro aspects.
In recent years there has been increased interest in examining the treatment of language problems across different levels of society, ranging from individual interactional issues to language policy and planning at the national or supra-national level. Among the various approaches proposed to tackle this issue, Language Management Theory (LMT) provides a framework to address behaviour towards language problems on different levels explicitly and comprehensively. Using LMT as a unifying theoretical concept, this volume examines the links between micro and macro dimensions through the analysis of a variety of language problems. This body of work illustrates that the LMT framework is able to show the connection between these dimensions clearly, especially when combined with a conceptualization of the micro and macro dimensions as a continuum of intertwining elements. This volume will appeal to readers interested in individual management in discourse as well as those interested in language policy and planning.
Language centres serve an important role in the development and implementation of language policy and in supporting language teachers. This book describes five language centres, the Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (London), the European Centre for Modern Languages (Graz), the Regional Language Centre (Singapore), the National Foreign Language Center (NFLC, Washington DC), and the Centre for Applied Linguistics and Languages (CALL, Brisbane). These contrasting centres provide the basis for a discussion of the roles, functions and management of language centres and the challenges facing such centres (and universities in general) arising from tensions between the pursuit of academic excellence and the demands of commercialisation and economic rationalism. The author holds a chair in applied linguistics in Griffith University and has written extensively on language policy and its implementation and on language assessment. He has established and directed three language centres since the mid-1980s, including CALL since 1990, and is an Adjunct Fellow of NFLC.
The volume reflects the variety of methods used in the study of "behavior toward language", or language management. The methods will appeal to researchers interested in different types of introspective interview methodology and discourse analysis, and to those looking for ways of linking language policy to everyday social interactions.
Even a cursory look at conference programs and proceedings reveals a burgeoning interest in the field of social and affective factors in home language maintenance and development. To date, however, research on this topic has been published in piecemeal fashion, subsumed under the more general umbrella of ‘bilingualism’. Within bilingualism research, there has been an extensive exploration of linguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives on the one hand, and educational practices and outcomes on the other. In comparison, social and affective factors – which lead people to either maintain or shift the language – have been under-researched. This is the first volume that brings together the different strands in research on social and affective factors in home language maintenance and development, ranging from the micro-level (family language policies and practices), to the meso-level (community initiatives) and the macro-level (mainstream educational policies and their implementation). The volume showcases a wide distribution across contexts and populations explored. Contributors from around the world represent different research paradigms and perspectives, providing a rounded overview of the state-of-the-art in this flourishing field.
Historical sociolinguistics is a comparatively new area of research, investigating difficult questions about language varieties and choices in speech and writing. Jewish historical sociolinguistics is rich in unanswered questions: when does a language become 'Jewish'? What was the origin of Yiddish? How much Hebrew did the average Jew know over the centuries? How was Hebrew re-established as a vernacular and a dominant language? This book explores these and other questions, and shows the extent of scholarly disagreement over the answers. It shows the value of adding a sociolinguistic perspective to issues commonly ignored in standard histories. A vivid commentary on Jewish survival and Jewish speech communities that will be enjoyed by the general reader, and is essential reading for students and researchers interested in the study of Middle Eastern languages, Jewish studies, and sociolinguistics.
