This book presents a comprehensive exploration of language policy and planning (LPP) research through the lens of ‘practiced language policies’ (3), a concept that shifts focus from static, top-down policy frameworks to the dynamic, negotiated processes of language use, drawing on ethnographic studies in various sites such as Sweden, Bangladesh, and Ireland. In the opening chapters, David Cassels Johnson in chapter 1 highlights teachers’ and students’ agency to communicate and learn and emphasizes multimodal discourse, and Florence Bonacina-Pugh in chapter 2 proposes conceptualization of ‘language policy as practice’ (2) as the critical empirical turn in LPP research. These efforts highlight how policies are enacted in the lived experiences of individuals.

Chapters in Part 1 of the book theoretically develop this research paradigm. In chapter 3, Bonacina-Pugh reconceptualizes the dynamic nature of practiced language policies as a non-linear process shaped by domain-specific negotiations, diverging participant perspectives, and emergent norm sets. In chapter 4, Hao Zhang illustrates how pedagogical reframing can lead to changes in language choices within educational spaces, showing how teachers and students collectively renegotiate communicative norms. Chapter 5 by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta expands the scope of LPP research to include digital-analogue spaces to explore how languaging plays roles in equity, upholding the viewpoint that all policies exist in language. Together, these chapters highlight understanding language policy as a flexible and negotiated process that evolves in response to local demands and power dynamics.

Chapters in Part 2 focus on methodological innovations. In chapter 6, Anna Solin & Hanna-Mari Pienimäki use textual data sets to investigate the gaps between stated language policies and practiced language policies and reveal centrifugal norm formation at policy implementation interfaces. Meanwhile, chapter 7 by Teppo Jakonen & Derya Duran proposes a multimodal lens and explores how human bodies in action sequences mediate language choice in bilingual classrooms, proposing that bodily movements are integral to the enactment of language policies. Similarly, in chapter 8, Rizwan-ul Huq adopts a multimodal analysis to examine the practiced language policy at play in schools under monolingual policy; he reveals that multilingual and multimodal resources are intricately linked in classroom talk and serve the pedagogical focus of the interaction.

Part 3 expands the traditional LPP boundaries (classroom) into under-researched domains (home and workplace). In chapter 9, Cassie Smith-Christmas reconceptualizes family language policy as an interactionally co-constructed process rather than top-down parental mandate. In chapter 10, Janus Mortensen, Spencer Hazel, & Adam Brandt examine language norms in the workplace, emphasizing the emergent nature of language choices shaped by group identity and sociolinguistic repertoires. Finally, the volume concludes with Teresa L. McCarty’s reflections on the importance of ‘conceptualizing language policy both as practice and in practice’ (250), underscoring the book’s contribution to advancing LPP research methodologies.

Overall, this book offers a valuable exploration of the empirical turn in language policy in practice, which enables researchers to conduct LPP research in light of a various range of practical research approaches, including various theoretical lenses, analytical lenses, data sets, and sociocultural contexts.