Interests and Power in Language Management

This volume expands the discussion on the language management (LM) framework through two themes: interests and power, which are driving forces of the LM process, observable and describable at every step. It consists of thirteen contributions analyzing diverse situations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Authors focus on a range of topics, including the role of language ideologies in various types of institutions, such as higher education institutions and language cultivation centers, the struggle to maintain minority languages, the positions of the actors involved in the process of making policies concerning foreign language teaching, or the processes that learning and choosing to use foreign languages entail. Emergent insights into the commonalities in the ways in which interests and power guide or underlie the management of language, communication, and sociocultural problems contribute significantly to the strength of LM as a sociolinguistic framework.

Marek Nekula is Professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies at the University of Regensburg, Germany. His linguistic research focuses on language contact and multilingualism in Central Europe, using the framework of Language Management Theory for different sociolinguistic issues.

Tamah Sherman is a researcher at the Czech Language Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses on interaction and meta-linguistic behavior, using the frameworks of Language Management Theory, Ethnomethodology, and Conversation Analysis.

Halina Zawiszová is Assistant Professor at the Department of Asian Studies at Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic. Her main research foci revolve around topics related to emotion, language, and social interaction. She is also interested in the management of foreign languages and social identities at different levels of organization.