2026/02/02 by Rachelle Vessey, Lisa McEntee-Atalianis · 2 voices
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Context (archaeology) #EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning #Hegemony #Ideology #Language ideology #Language planning #Language policy #Multilingual Education and Policy #Multilingualism #On Language #Second Language Learning and Teaching
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0047404526101973
openalex publication_date 2026/02/02 · openalex created_date 2026/02/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract The concepts of ‘dangerous’, ‘celebratory’, and ‘hegemonic’ multilingualism provide a valuable heuristic to explore language ideologies within supranational organizations like the United Nations. Adopting a critical stance in relation to the functions and values assigned to multilingualism and applying corpus-assisted discourse analysis, this study examines three ideological manifestations: verbalizations, metapragmatic acts, and linguistic practices in United Nations debates on the 1995 multilingualism resolution. The study analyses how member state representatives index their ideological stance: metadiscursively via verbalizations within the context of language policy debates, via acts of voting, and via their use of multilingualism as positioning devices within these debates. Unlike previous investigations of language ideology which have predominantly and exclusively focussed on discursive analyses of texts, this article forwards a tripartite analytic framework. We argue that this model serves to afford a holistic examination of practised and stated attitudes towards multilingualism, which in turn have consequences for language policy outcomes. (Language ideology, language policy, multilingualism, United Nations)