Language policy in Asian contexts: introduction

Abstract

Studies reported in this journal have so far mostly addressed language policy issues in European contexts. This special issue brings together six contributions addressing language policies in Asian contexts. The purpose is to join the discussion of language policies by bringing in Asian insights and experiences as well as from Asian perspectives. It is the hope of this special issue to enable the comparison of language policy research on the basis of the presumably East-West divide, so as to reveal overarching concerns beyond sociocultural and geo-political boundaries and to understand the convergence and/or divergence of language policy issues in different local representations in a wider context.