In this chapter, we look at sociolinguistic aspects of globalization. The sociolinguistic turn entailed a focus on variation, which became more intricate as social barriers shifted. Recent changes have intensified such trends, and today language variation is no longer seen as static, in a socially stratified and rather rigid system. Rather, it represents a negotiated system and a fluid form of identity construction characterized by ever-widening social networks in an increasingly digital world. We look at superdiversity in the postmodern world and effects of mobility on sociolinguistic repertoires, present theoretical and methodological issues, both geopolitically and geoculturally, and introduce the World Language System, which orders the world’s languages into different layers according to criteria such as usage, function and speaker numbers. Finally, we look at winners and losers of language and globalization (countries, companies and individuals) so as to assess general sociolinguistic trends in a postmodern world.

ILanguage issues may have a political dimension, and English has played a major role in this around the world. In this chapter, we look into sociolinguistic aspects involved in politics and nation building, for instance whether English should be adopted to serve in all official functions as a national or official language, or whether a local language, accessible to larger sections of a community, should be adopted instead. We discuss how and to what extent governments should plan and orchestrate language-related activities in education and public discourse, and we look at language policies implemented in the US and Ireland as cases in point. We discuss the impact of governmental bodies on language planning as in the Speak Good English movement in Singapore, and present efforts to achieve language revitalization, which are preeminent considering language obsolescence around the world. The chapter ends with a look at language rights in migrant communities.

This introduction has three aims: (a) to discuss the causes of historic amnesia in the field of multilingualism; (b) to offer a brief survey of historic language management, defined here as explicit efforts to regulate the choice of languages and scripts and to facilitate communication in the public domain; and (c) to reconsider the relationship between past and present multilingualism and identify productive directions for future inquiry. I begin by listing the misconceptions that raised my interest in the history of multilingual societies. Then, I will discuss the paradoxes and contradictions of historic language management in six institutional domains: administration, courts of law, religion, army, education, and public signage. In the last section, I consider the big picture emerging from recent historic work. The opposite of what we have come to believe, this picture undermines the sense of contemporary exceptionalism and opens up space for new narratives and exciting avenues of pursuit.

The Low Countries have a tradition of language contact and conflict and, after a short overview of the situation, the main focus of this chapter will be on “Colonial Dutch”, i.e., language planning and practice in some of the former colonies of the Netherlands, including Indonesia, Suriname, and the Caribbean islands. In doing so, this chapter will provide some answers to the fascinating question of why colonial Dutch failed to become a global lingua franca, as opposed to English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese that did (partially) succeed in doing so.

In Chapter 6, the author explores the interface between English as a lingua franca (ELF) and good language teaching and presents the findings of a small-scale exploration into teachers’ perceptions of ELF.