We are pleased in this issue of English Today to bring you a series of papers discussing, as always, the current status and trends of the English language research. A series of four papers opens the volume with a focus on macro-sociolinguistic issues related to language policy. Hamza R'boul examines university teachers’ and students’ beliefs and attitudes about cultural identities related to the use of English alongside Darija in Morocco. R'boul refers to these complex beliefs and attitudes as ‘language ontologies’ and argues for an approach to language as a resource for the construction of reality. Next, Peter I. DeCosta, Curtis A. Green-Eneix and Wendy Li turn their attention to the growth of English medium of instruction (EMI) in Chinese institutions of higher education and explore what impact EMI will likely have in the future. Abhimanyu Sharma expands on the theme of language policy to consider the impact of English and EMI education in India and how an instrumental approach to policy can address many of the potential problems. Finally, Azad Mammadov and Arzu Mammadova describe the English education policies in Azerbaijan and how the language has continued to grow in popularity since the end of the cold war.
As long-time readers will recall, English Today is known for hosting vigorous debates within the discipline, and we are proud to present a new debate about how a Construction Grammar approach might best facilitate the teaching of modality to English language learners. Ronald Fong responds Torres-Martínez's (Reference Torres–Martínez2019) proposal about the teaching of English modals and suggests that a verb-centred approach to English modals might be more useful for English learners. Sergio Torres-Martínez responds to Fong's criticisms in a rebuttal that defends his broader approach to modality.
Two additional papers are included after the debate. Zeki Hamawand considers a set of rules that could be used to understand meaning difference when words like any way and anyway are spelt as single words or not. Sugene Kim considers the role of English-Korean bilingual creativity within Korea's linguistic landscape.
Finally, we are also pleased to include three book reviews in this issue: Foluke Olayinka Unuabonah reviews Mirka Honkanen's 2020 volume entitled World Englishes on the Web: The Nigerian Diaspora in the USA; Yi Liu and Kun Sun review Andy Kirkpatrick and Lixun Wang's 2020 edited collection of essays entitled Is English an Asian Language?; and Locky Law reviews the 2018 book The Language of Pop Culture, edited by Valentin Werner.
The editors
