Prem Phyak
Biographic Data
| ID | 127084 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Prem Phyak |
| GIVEN NAMES | Prem |
| FAMILY NAME | Phyak |
| SIGNATURE | PHYAK P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Chinese University of Hong Kong |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7032-1027 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 107 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 25 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
State‐of‐the‐Art Review of the Research Paradigms in English Language Policy and Education
Language policy and planning (LPP) as a field has grown enormously in the past six decades. Multiple paradigms, approaches, methodologies, and methods have been adopted to study language policies at the macro, meso, and micro levels. This article reviews the field and organizes research trends into four paradigms —neoclassical, critical, sociocultural, and transformative—and focuses on examples of how each has addressed the global spread of Engli…
Teacher agency for Indigenous languages in education
This article explores the role of teacher agency for Indigenous language education through a decolonial lens. Dominant views and practices of educational development and language policy often exclude teachers as mere implementers of top-down policy. Yet there is growing recognition of their crucial role in shaping policy at the micro level. Drawing on the example of four male teachers from Nepal, the authors examine how teachers develop and use t…
Developing decolonial language awareness
In this article, I propose and discuss decolonial language awareness (DLA) as a framework for understanding and countering the erasure of Indigenous languages in the context of textual modernity. DLA is conceptualised through three interrelated dimensions: decolonial praxis, relational thinking regarding humans and land/nature, and language reclamation. Drawing on data from an ongoing community-based participatory action research (C-PAR) project …
Constructing an imagined diaspora
Building on “imagined community” (Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism , 3rd edn. New York: Verso; Woldemariam, Hirut & Elizabeth Lanza. 2015. Imagined community: The linguistic landscape in a diaspora. Linguistic Landscape 1(1–2). 172–190), this study examines the construction of an imagined Nepali diaspora in the linguistic landscape (LL) of Hong Kong. Adopting “walking ethnography”…
Neoliberalism in Multilingual Education
This entry explores the impact of neoliberalism on multilingual education. Neoliberalism, an economic ideology that prioritizes market competition and individualism over government intervention and public welfare, has reshaped the way bi/multilingual education functions in different parts of the world. Multilingual education, which promotes the teaching of multiple languages in schools, is seen as a tool for promoting social and linguistic justic…
Modeling of Public Schools
Drawing on the case of the “model school plan” in Nepal, this article critically examines how education reform plans to achieve Sustainable Development Goals reproduce neoliberal ideologies and exacerbate social injustices. Building on neoliberalism and school gentrification, we use critical policy sociology to examine how the modeling of public schools serves as a school gentrification project supporting unequal access to resources and linguisti…
L2 teacher selves and motivational dialogues
Epistemic injustice and neoliberal imaginations in English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy
This article examines the construction of epistemic injustice in creating and implementing an EMI policy. Drawing on “epistemic injustice” (Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing . Oxford: Oxford University Press) and “misframing” (Fraser, Nancy. 2009. Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world . New York: Columbia University Press), we discuss how the EMI policy in Nepal’s school e…
Looking like a boarding school student
The purpose of this article is to analyze the construction of unequal personhood in the institutional logics for the implementation of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy. I build on the theories of figures of personhood and figured worlds to discuss how institutions (public schools) use multiple semiotic resources to characterize students' diverse personality traits that reproduce neoliberal subjectivities shaping their EMI policies.…
Producing the disciplined English-speaking subjects
This article analyzes how English medium of instruction (EMI) policy is implemented by disciplining teachers' and students' language behaviors in school spaces. I adopt Foucault's (1977) 'discipline' to examine how schools exercise disciplinary power to create an English-only environment in multilingual classroom contexts. The data is drawn from an ethnographic study of EMI policies in two Nepali schools. The findings of the study show that schoo…
Translanguaging as a space of simultaneity
This article theorizes translanguaging as a space of simultaneity to analyze how teachers use translanguaging to create a multilingual classroom space and engage students with their multilingual identities and epistemologies in the classroom. The data in this article are drawn from an ethnographic study of language policies and practices in a public school in the hills of eastern Nepal. The analysis of classroom anecdotes, observation notes, and …
Citizen Linguistic Landscape, bordering practices, and semiotic ideology in the Covid-19 pandemic
This article examines how Linguistic Landscapes in the Covid-19 pandemic construct the borders of place and people. We build on ‘semiotic ideology’ ( Keane, 2018 ) and ‘semiotopology’ ( Peck, Stroud & Williams, 2018 ) to analyze the bordering practices in citizen Linguistic Landscapes during the pandemic in Nepal. Our analysis shows that citizens combine multiple semiotic resources, both linguistic and non-linguistic, to create physical boundarie…
Language education policy in Nepal and the denial of the right to speak in Indigenous languages
Language education policy (LEP) in Nepal has historically been a contested issue.Reviewing documents relating to Nepal's LEP from the 1950s, I examine how Nepal's policy has misinterpreted multilingualism, constructing deficit views of Indigenous languages, popularly known as 'mother tongues', and violated the constitutional rights of Nepali communities to preserve and promote their language and culture. The historical construction of monolingual…
Subverting the Erasure
This paper analyzes Nepal’s language education policy from a decolonial perspective, examining how rights-based (neo)liberal ideologies and policies do not necessarily contribute to creating space, either ideological or implementational (Hornberger, 2005), for Indigenous languages in education. Drawing on the theory of “decoloniality” (Quijano, 2007), I have argued that the efforts to create equitable Indigenous language education should go beyon…
Decolonial Struggles in Indigenous Language Education in Neoliberal Times
(2021). Decolonial Struggles in Indigenous Language Education in Neoliberal Times: Identities, Ideologies, and Activism. Journal of Language, Identity & Education: Vol. 20, Decolonial Struggles in Indigenous Language Education in Neoliberal Times: Identities, Ideologies, and Activism, pp. 291-295
Regimes of linguistic entrepreneurship
This article explores how the ideologies of neoliberal linguistic entrepreneurship have created ethical tensions and contentious affects among Indigenous communities in promoting multilingualism and multilingual education. Taking the case of Nepal, our goal is to show how imperatives and characteristics that are articulated as key parts of neoliberalism are systematically perpetuated and appropriated in language education policies and discourses.…
Epistemicide, deficit language ideology, and (de)coloniality in language education policy
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how research approaches and methods in language education policy could serve to erase local multilingualism and its associated epistemologies while reproducing inequalities of languages. This paper builds on "epistemicide" (Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2014.Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. New York: Routledge) to critique how the knowledge constructed on the basis of the evidence c…
Language education policy and inequalities of multilingualism in Nepal
This chapter analyzes historical trajectories of Nepal’s language education policies, with a focus on space, status and ideologies of different languages. It deals with an overview of Nepal’s multilingual context, followed by critical analyses of past, present and the future of language education policies. The discourse of language policy and multilingualism has been a critical socio-political issue in Nepal. The 2015 Constitution redefines Nepal…
Criticality as Ideological Becoming
This article presents a discussion of how criticality is constructed and implemented for English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher development in Nepal. The authors draw on Freire’s (1970) notion of conscientization to discuss how Nepali EFL teachers develop critical awareness in incorporating local sociopolitical issues in their lessons. Building on Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of ideological becoming, they analyze these teachers’ ideological beco…
Neoliberalism, linguistic commodification, and ethnolinguistic identity in multilingual Nepal
This article examines the consequences of neoliberalism in two separate domains of multilingual language use in the context of Nepal: language education and tourism. We show that institutions and individuals have appropriated and reproduced this ideology with their creative tactics, agency, and practices that both help them promote and commodify their ethnolinguistic identity and language skills while also allowing them to acquire multilingual re…
(En)Countering language ideologies
Youth engaging language policy and planning
Language ideologies and local languages as the medium-of-instruction policy
This paper analyzes the ideologies and practices of local languages as the medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy in a multilingual school in Nepal. Grounded on the notion of language policy as a locally situated social practice, this critical ethnographic study investigates challenges – both ideological and implementational – that local languages MOI policies face in a socio-politically stratified multilingual country, Nepal. This study shows that a…
Multicultural Education as Community Engagement
Through viewing multicultural education as policy and planning that is enacted at national, regional, and local levels in Nepal and Vietnam, we explore the challenges and possibilities of engaging communities. We examine transnationalism, neoliberalism, and globalization as these impact national policies, community ideologies, regional/local economy, social welfare, and education. Critical ethnographic studies further focus on history, place, and…
Beyond the façade of language planning for Nepalese primary education
The recent political transformation of Nepal from a constitutional monarchy to a federal democratic republic and from a Hindu polity to a secular country has brought about some crucial changes in language planning. The Interim Constitution of Nepal has not only recognized the multilingual and multicultural reality of the country but has also enshrined a historic legal provision by guaranteeing basic education in one's first language. To translate…
Neoliberalism, linguistic commodification, and ethnolinguistic identity in multilingual Nepal
This article examines the consequences of neoliberalism in two separate domains of multilingual language use in the context of Nepal: language education and tourism. We show that institutions and individuals have appropriated and reproduced this ideology with their creative tactics, agency, and practices that both help them promote and commodify their ethnolinguistic identity and language skills while also allowing them to acquire multilingual re…
Language ideologies and local languages as the medium-of-instruction policy
This paper analyzes the ideologies and practices of local languages as the medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy in a multilingual school in Nepal. Grounded on the notion of language policy as a locally situated social practice, this critical ethnographic study investigates challenges – both ideological and implementational – that local languages MOI policies face in a socio-politically stratified multilingual country, Nepal. This study shows that a…
Decolonial Struggles in Indigenous Language Education in Neoliberal Times
(2021). Decolonial Struggles in Indigenous Language Education in Neoliberal Times: Identities, Ideologies, and Activism. Journal of Language, Identity & Education: Vol. 20, Decolonial Struggles in Indigenous Language Education in Neoliberal Times: Identities, Ideologies, and Activism, pp. 291-295
Subverting the Erasure
This paper analyzes Nepal’s language education policy from a decolonial perspective, examining how rights-based (neo)liberal ideologies and policies do not necessarily contribute to creating space, either ideological or implementational (Hornberger, 2005), for Indigenous languages in education. Drawing on the theory of “decoloniality” (Quijano, 2007), I have argued that the efforts to create equitable Indigenous language education should go beyon…
Multicultural Education as Community Engagement
Through viewing multicultural education as policy and planning that is enacted at national, regional, and local levels in Nepal and Vietnam, we explore the challenges and possibilities of engaging communities. We examine transnationalism, neoliberalism, and globalization as these impact national policies, community ideologies, regional/local economy, social welfare, and education. Critical ethnographic studies further focus on history, place, and…
Epistemicide, deficit language ideology, and (de)coloniality in language education policy
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how research approaches and methods in language education policy could serve to erase local multilingualism and its associated epistemologies while reproducing inequalities of languages. This paper builds on "epistemicide" (Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2014.Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. New York: Routledge) to critique how the knowledge constructed on the basis of the evidence c…
(En)Countering language ideologies
Producing the disciplined English-speaking subjects
This article analyzes how English medium of instruction (EMI) policy is implemented by disciplining teachers' and students' language behaviors in school spaces. I adopt Foucault's (1977) 'discipline' to examine how schools exercise disciplinary power to create an English-only environment in multilingual classroom contexts. The data is drawn from an ethnographic study of EMI policies in two Nepali schools. The findings of the study show that schoo…
Youth engaging language policy and planning
Beyond the façade of language planning for Nepalese primary education
The recent political transformation of Nepal from a constitutional monarchy to a federal democratic republic and from a Hindu polity to a secular country has brought about some crucial changes in language planning. The Interim Constitution of Nepal has not only recognized the multilingual and multicultural reality of the country but has also enshrined a historic legal provision by guaranteeing basic education in one's first language. To translate…
Regimes of linguistic entrepreneurship
This article explores how the ideologies of neoliberal linguistic entrepreneurship have created ethical tensions and contentious affects among Indigenous communities in promoting multilingualism and multilingual education. Taking the case of Nepal, our goal is to show how imperatives and characteristics that are articulated as key parts of neoliberalism are systematically perpetuated and appropriated in language education policies and discourses.…
Looking like a boarding school student
The purpose of this article is to analyze the construction of unequal personhood in the institutional logics for the implementation of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy. I build on the theories of figures of personhood and figured worlds to discuss how institutions (public schools) use multiple semiotic resources to characterize students' diverse personality traits that reproduce neoliberal subjectivities shaping their EMI policies.…
Beyond the façade of language planning for Nepalese primary education
The recent political transformation of Nepal from a constitutional monarchy to a federal democratic republic and from a Hindu polity to a secular country has brought about some crucial changes in language planning. The Interim Constitution of Nepal has not only recognized the multilingual and multicultural reality of the country but has also enshrined a historic legal provision by guaranteeing basic education in one's first language. To translate…
Multicultural Education as Community Engagement
Through viewing multicultural education as policy and planning that is enacted at national, regional, and local levels in Nepal and Vietnam, we explore the challenges and possibilities of engaging communities. We examine transnationalism, neoliberalism, and globalization as these impact national policies, community ideologies, regional/local economy, social welfare, and education. Critical ethnographic studies further focus on history, place, and…
Language ideologies and local languages as the medium-of-instruction policy
This paper analyzes the ideologies and practices of local languages as the medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy in a multilingual school in Nepal. Grounded on the notion of language policy as a locally situated social practice, this critical ethnographic study investigates challenges – both ideological and implementational – that local languages MOI policies face in a socio-politically stratified multilingual country, Nepal. This study shows that a…
Youth engaging language policy and planning
(En)Countering language ideologies
Criticality as Ideological Becoming
This article presents a discussion of how criticality is constructed and implemented for English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher development in Nepal. The authors draw on Freire’s (1970) notion of conscientization to discuss how Nepali EFL teachers develop critical awareness in incorporating local sociopolitical issues in their lessons. Building on Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of ideological becoming, they analyze these teachers’ ideological beco…
Neoliberalism, linguistic commodification, and ethnolinguistic identity in multilingual Nepal
This article examines the consequences of neoliberalism in two separate domains of multilingual language use in the context of Nepal: language education and tourism. We show that institutions and individuals have appropriated and reproduced this ideology with their creative tactics, agency, and practices that both help them promote and commodify their ethnolinguistic identity and language skills while also allowing them to acquire multilingual re…
Language education policy and inequalities of multilingualism in Nepal
This chapter analyzes historical trajectories of Nepal’s language education policies, with a focus on space, status and ideologies of different languages. It deals with an overview of Nepal’s multilingual context, followed by critical analyses of past, present and the future of language education policies. The discourse of language policy and multilingualism has been a critical socio-political issue in Nepal. The 2015 Constitution redefines Nepal…
Language education policy in Nepal and the denial of the right to speak in Indigenous languages
Language education policy (LEP) in Nepal has historically been a contested issue.Reviewing documents relating to Nepal's LEP from the 1950s, I examine how Nepal's policy has misinterpreted multilingualism, constructing deficit views of Indigenous languages, popularly known as 'mother tongues', and violated the constitutional rights of Nepali communities to preserve and promote their language and culture. The historical construction of monolingual…
Subverting the Erasure
This paper analyzes Nepal’s language education policy from a decolonial perspective, examining how rights-based (neo)liberal ideologies and policies do not necessarily contribute to creating space, either ideological or implementational (Hornberger, 2005), for Indigenous languages in education. Drawing on the theory of “decoloniality” (Quijano, 2007), I have argued that the efforts to create equitable Indigenous language education should go beyon…
Decolonial Struggles in Indigenous Language Education in Neoliberal Times
(2021). Decolonial Struggles in Indigenous Language Education in Neoliberal Times: Identities, Ideologies, and Activism. Journal of Language, Identity & Education: Vol. 20, Decolonial Struggles in Indigenous Language Education in Neoliberal Times: Identities, Ideologies, and Activism, pp. 291-295
Regimes of linguistic entrepreneurship
This article explores how the ideologies of neoliberal linguistic entrepreneurship have created ethical tensions and contentious affects among Indigenous communities in promoting multilingualism and multilingual education. Taking the case of Nepal, our goal is to show how imperatives and characteristics that are articulated as key parts of neoliberalism are systematically perpetuated and appropriated in language education policies and discourses.…
Epistemicide, deficit language ideology, and (de)coloniality in language education policy
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how research approaches and methods in language education policy could serve to erase local multilingualism and its associated epistemologies while reproducing inequalities of languages. This paper builds on "epistemicide" (Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2014.Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. New York: Routledge) to critique how the knowledge constructed on the basis of the evidence c…
Citizen Linguistic Landscape, bordering practices, and semiotic ideology in the Covid-19 pandemic
This article examines how Linguistic Landscapes in the Covid-19 pandemic construct the borders of place and people. We build on ‘semiotic ideology’ ( Keane, 2018 ) and ‘semiotopology’ ( Peck, Stroud & Williams, 2018 ) to analyze the bordering practices in citizen Linguistic Landscapes during the pandemic in Nepal. Our analysis shows that citizens combine multiple semiotic resources, both linguistic and non-linguistic, to create physical boundarie…
Translanguaging as a space of simultaneity
This article theorizes translanguaging as a space of simultaneity to analyze how teachers use translanguaging to create a multilingual classroom space and engage students with their multilingual identities and epistemologies in the classroom. The data in this article are drawn from an ethnographic study of language policies and practices in a public school in the hills of eastern Nepal. The analysis of classroom anecdotes, observation notes, and …
Epistemic injustice and neoliberal imaginations in English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy
This article examines the construction of epistemic injustice in creating and implementing an EMI policy. Drawing on “epistemic injustice” (Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing . Oxford: Oxford University Press) and “misframing” (Fraser, Nancy. 2009. Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world . New York: Columbia University Press), we discuss how the EMI policy in Nepal’s school e…
Looking like a boarding school student
The purpose of this article is to analyze the construction of unequal personhood in the institutional logics for the implementation of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy. I build on the theories of figures of personhood and figured worlds to discuss how institutions (public schools) use multiple semiotic resources to characterize students' diverse personality traits that reproduce neoliberal subjectivities shaping their EMI policies.…
Producing the disciplined English-speaking subjects
This article analyzes how English medium of instruction (EMI) policy is implemented by disciplining teachers' and students' language behaviors in school spaces. I adopt Foucault's (1977) 'discipline' to examine how schools exercise disciplinary power to create an English-only environment in multilingual classroom contexts. The data is drawn from an ethnographic study of EMI policies in two Nepali schools. The findings of the study show that schoo…
Neoliberalism in Multilingual Education
This entry explores the impact of neoliberalism on multilingual education. Neoliberalism, an economic ideology that prioritizes market competition and individualism over government intervention and public welfare, has reshaped the way bi/multilingual education functions in different parts of the world. Multilingual education, which promotes the teaching of multiple languages in schools, is seen as a tool for promoting social and linguistic justic…
Modeling of Public Schools
Drawing on the case of the “model school plan” in Nepal, this article critically examines how education reform plans to achieve Sustainable Development Goals reproduce neoliberal ideologies and exacerbate social injustices. Building on neoliberalism and school gentrification, we use critical policy sociology to examine how the modeling of public schools serves as a school gentrification project supporting unequal access to resources and linguisti…
L2 teacher selves and motivational dialogues
State‐of‐the‐Art Review of the Research Paradigms in English Language Policy and Education
Language policy and planning (LPP) as a field has grown enormously in the past six decades. Multiple paradigms, approaches, methodologies, and methods have been adopted to study language policies at the macro, meso, and micro levels. This article reviews the field and organizes research trends into four paradigms —neoclassical, critical, sociocultural, and transformative—and focuses on examples of how each has addressed the global spread of Engli…
Teacher agency for Indigenous languages in education
This article explores the role of teacher agency for Indigenous language education through a decolonial lens. Dominant views and practices of educational development and language policy often exclude teachers as mere implementers of top-down policy. Yet there is growing recognition of their crucial role in shaping policy at the micro level. Drawing on the example of four male teachers from Nepal, the authors examine how teachers develop and use t…
Developing decolonial language awareness
In this article, I propose and discuss decolonial language awareness (DLA) as a framework for understanding and countering the erasure of Indigenous languages in the context of textual modernity. DLA is conceptualised through three interrelated dimensions: decolonial praxis, relational thinking regarding humans and land/nature, and language reclamation. Drawing on data from an ongoing community-based participatory action research (C-PAR) project …
Constructing an imagined diaspora
Building on “imagined community” (Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism , 3rd edn. New York: Verso; Woldemariam, Hirut & Elizabeth Lanza. 2015. Imagined community: The linguistic landscape in a diaspora. Linguistic Landscape 1(1–2). 172–190), this study examines the construction of an imagined Nepali diaspora in the linguistic landscape (LL) of Hong Kong. Adopting “walking ethnography”…
Multilingual Education and Policy (22 works) · Political science (20 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Second Language Learning and Teaching (18 works) · Politics (17 works) · Linguistics (14 works) · Ideology (13 works) · Law (13 works) · Pedagogy (13 works) · Language policy (12 works)