This paper briefly explores ‘language ideologies’ as beliefs, feelings, and conceptions about language structure and use which often index the political economic interests of individual speakers, ethnic and other interest groups, and nation states. These conceptions, whether explicitly articulated or embodied in communicative practice, represent incomplete, or ‘partially successful’, attempts to rationalize language usage; such rationalizations are typically multiple, context-bound, and necessarily constructed from the sociocultural experience of the speaker. This is a comparatively recent trend largely centered in, but hardly limited to, North American linguistic anthropological research. Though much of the work in this tradition is contemporaneous with the development among discourse analysts of Critical Discourse Analysis (e.g. the work of Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, and Teun van Dijk) which represents a shared concern with power and social inequality (Blommaert & Bulcaen 2000), it is nevertheless a discrete movement with its own distinctive history, theoretical relevances, and substantive foci. The paper addresses the historical emergence of language ideologies, some key concepts, recent developments and perspectives for future research. Four partially overlapping layers of significance may be analytically distinguished in an attempt to identify and exemplify language ideologies – both as beliefs about language and as a concept designed to assist in the study of those beliefs. One, language ideologies represent the perception of language and discourse that is constructed in the interest of a specific social or cultural group. Two, language ideologies are profitably conceived as multiple. Three, members may display varying degrees of awareness of local language ideologies. Four, members’ language ideologies mediate between social structures and forms of talk. Several research trends became well-established during the past decade which are especially promising as resources for future research. One trend is the ‘historiography of language ideologies’. A second trend which has been very productive in recent research is the exploration of the role of language ideologies in the production of social identities of various kinds, including ethnic, gender, indigenous, and national identities. Productive directions for future research involve the language ideological deconstruction of linguistic racism. Another trend that is quite apparent is the application of language ideological approaches to situations of language shift and to those attempts at reversing this process which are typically called language renewal and linguistic revitalization.The final trend mentioned here concerns what might be called “professional language ideologies”, wherein the language ideologies of specific professions – including academic ones (Kroskrity 2000)- are revealed and analyzed as performing important roles not only in the displays of professional competence but also insofar as they contribute to and otherwise create the very institutions in which various professions typically perform.