Call for chapter proposals

The Routledge Handbook of Language Learning in the New Global Context

Edited by Chris Shei and Der-lin Chao

The world has undergone some dramatic changes since 2019, first with the covid-19 pandemic killing more than six million people across the globe; then with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 causing a dire shortage in food and energy and disruption to world economy, not to mention explicit threats of nuclear warfare made by authoritarian leaders. Among the political turmoil that causes life-threatening changes to people around the globe, language is by far the most important medium through which the changes are verbalized, conceptualized and dealt with. It is imperative for language teachers and textbook writers to be keenly aware of the influence of current affairs on language or reflected by it and design their materials and activities accordingly. Language learning and teaching should now be a dynamic experience so that the learner registers changes in the global contexts through fresh perspectives provided by the new language and initiates a response at the linguistic, cognitive and sociopolitical levels.

A particular concern in the changing global environment described above is the increasing use of language as a vehicle to embed ideology and political dogma in media discourse, social networks, government propaganda, and educational materials, especially in authoritarian states, where children learn patriotic thoughts and acquire nationalistic sentiments from textbooks provided by the government; whereas adults’ minds are deliberately conditioned by heavily censored pro-government media discourse and patriotic messages. Research efforts are sorely needed to investigate the process of how language assists in the formation of ideology and whether it is possible to reverse the effect of ideological imposition in the psychological constructs of individuals. One of the missions of this handbook is to explore the relationship between language learning and ideology and to make such findings available to the general public as well as academic circles for raising awareness and encouraging further research respectively.

Another urgent task related to the issue of language learning and ideology is the documentation, maintaining and learning of dying or endangered languages such as many of the critically endangered Russian languages, some Austronesian languages, Uyghurs and other minority languages and dialects spoken in Asia. These languages are either dying due to lack of written forms and shrinking number of native speakers or being increasingly ‘normalised’ by hegemonic powers seeking to standardise languages and social practices across their territory and implement unanimous ideology. Research on how to keep alive the linguistic and cultural aspects of these languages to facilitate future learning of their idiosyncratic sociocultural features and cutting-edge research on machine learning of these dying or endangered languages are imperative. This handbook seeks contributions aiming to help preserve endangered languages and maintain their idiosyncratic sociocultural conventions by focusing on learning aspect of these languages.

The handbook is divided into six sections in its initial design. Section 1 explores the changing effect of sociocultural, political, economic, ethical, legal, technical, psychophysiological (etc.) variables surrounding language learners in the new global context and how to respond to them in useful and responsible ways. Section 2 deals with the issue of implantation of ideology in language through education and media control, including how ideology is imposed through language learning, the linguistic representation of ideology in the mind, and how ideology can be rejected in or after the process of language learning. Section 3 initiates discussions on how to preserve endangered languages and their associated sociocultural conventions through language learning as a way of countering ‘hegemonial invasion’. Section 4 represents a similar effort to counter linguistic hegemony by providing more research results on less learned key languages such as Japanese, Korean, Thai, Arabic and so on focusing on their global contributions and significance which learners should be keenly aware of. Section 5 explores the cutting-edge option of making machines learn endangered languages with a view to preserving their idiosyncratic linguistic features and cultural connotations. Building a knowledgebase of endangered languages is a related research strand to both keep these languages alive and facilitate learning and teaching of them. Section 6 seeks to consolidate the efforts and thoughts developed so far and envisaged in future regarding how to incorporate some highly changeable global factors into language learning to make this academic pursuit more responsive and responsible that creates not only highly achieved language learners but also good world citizens.

The hypothetical chapter names given below are for illustration only. Prospective contributors should follow the general gist of the handbook and design the contents and title of their paper within the broad framework given below.

I.             Context sensitive language learning

1. Politically responsive language teaching and learning
2. Modifying academic language learning structure as a reaction to global changes
3. Adaptive learning materials and learning methods
4. Media as a resource for dynamic language learning
5. Occasional language learning as a result of learning world affairs
6. Contrasting purposes, processes and results of language learning past and present

II.            Learning and unlearning ideology that comes with language

1. A theory of ideology: definition, representation and implications
2. The cognitive and linguistic connections between language and ideology
3. On the learning of language and the inculcation of ideology
4. Rejecting or removing ideological implantation in the process of language learning
5. Managing ideology in language learning within the global context
6. Tackling ideology embedded in language learner, teacher and materials

III.           Learning and preserving endangered languages

1. Asia’s vulnerable and endangered languages in the face of China’s expansion
2. Lopnor Uighur the critically endangered language in Xinjiang
3. The changing picture of Cantonese as first language in Hong Kong
4. Learning Austronesian languages in Taiwan
5. Crimean Turkish the severely endangered language in Europe
6. Preserving endangered languages in ways that facilitate learning

IV.          The balancing act – learning the less learned languages

1. Learning Korean with the knowledge of political tension
2. Change of Japanese language since WWII and implications to language learning
3. Learning Thai, Vietnamese or Burmese languages in regional context
4. Ukrainian as an East Slavic language and its pragmatic differences from Russian
5. Learning the Semitic languages across West Asia and the Horn of Africa and in expatriate communities
6. How Traditional Chinese differ from Simplified Chinese ideologically

V.            Building language learning machines and knowledgebases

1. An overview of AI and language learning
2. Building knowledge databases for endangered languages
3. Machine learning of few native speaker spoken languages
4. Hybrid translation and language learning algorithms and platforms
5. Integrating local information on mobile device into contextualised language learning
6. Linguistic analysis and language education policy sensitive to global situations

VI.          Towards globally responsive and responsible language learners

1. Linguistic context, language change and language learning
2. The politics of language learning
3. The ethical dimension of language learning
4. The relevance of global events to language learning
5. Language learning as a vehicle to foster responsible word citizens
6. A theory of language learning in global context

Prospective contributors to the handbook please prepare an abstract of 200-300 words with a provisional chapter title and email it to Dr Chris Shei (C-C.Shei@Swansea.ac.uk ). The proposal should include the name, title and institution of author(s). Independent authors without affiliations are welcome.

Deadline of receiving abstract in this round: 31 January 2023