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Part of
Foreign Language Education in Multilingual Classrooms
Edited by Andreas Bonnet and Peter Siemund
[Hamburg Studies on Linguistic Diversity 7] 2018
► pp. 99–123

Globalization, national identity, and multiculturalism and multilingualism

Language policy and practice in education in Asian countries

| The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
| The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Language policies and practices play an important role in the increasingly multicultural and multilingual and globalized world. Using China, India, Japan, South Korea (Republic of Korea), and Singapore as examples, this paper examines how countries in Asian contexts have recently developed different language-planning orientations in order to build national identities, enhance global competitiveness, and navigate multiculturalism. By discussing the language-planning orientations (Ruíz 1984) that underlie different language policies and practices, we unpack the ideologies beneath the policies and teaching practices of official language(s), regional languages, dominating foreign languages, and the heritage languages of indigenous, immigrant, and migrant minority groups. We compare and contrast the three models for Ethnic and Linguistic Diversity backing the various language-planning orientations and ideologies, argue for the importance of human agency and minority language rights in language planning, and point out the potential dangers of the neoliberal promotion of English as a dominant foreign language.

Keywords: Asia, globalization, language ideology, language policy, multiculturalism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework
    • 2.1Language-planning orientations
    • 2.2Typology of beliefs and ideologies in policy models for ethnic and linguistic diversity
    • 2.3Multiculturalism versus linguicism
  • 3.Singapore
  • 4.Japan
  • 5.Korea (Republic of Korea)
  • 6.India
  • 7.China
  • 8.Discussion
    • 8.1Promotion of national unity: Minority languages and dialects as “problems”
    • 8.2Resisting linguicism: Language as a right
    • 8.3Postcolonialism and neoliberalism: Language as a resource for globalization
  • References
Published online: 24 October 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hsld.7.05sun
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