The emerging focus on nationalism and globalisation has become a fast-developing research area in the discipline of language policy and language planning, which mainly concentrates on the issue of how social activities are fundamentally mediated by language, such as status planning, corpus planning, and acquisition planning. Sue Wright's contribution exhibits a variety of academic merits pertaining to this area and addresses a number of important issues with a highly interdisciplinary approach, breaking the constraints of the sociolinguistic boundary. Wright uncovers that language policy and language planning studies from such a perspective may cover the entire range of human activities, and that it is hard to narrow them down to a particular field of research. Therefore, faced with a risky yet challenging task that goes beyond her expertise, Wright chooses three main themes from diverse disciplinary contexts to conduct her research, namely the role of language planning in nation building, language contact in globalisation and internationalisation, and revitalisation of eclipsed languages in new policy and nation building. The intended readership of the book is broad, and may include sociolinguists, diachronic linguistics researchers, general language researchers, and anyone who shows an interest in investigations into language problems, language policy, and language planning.

The book consists of three main parts corresponding to the themes identified and is further divided into thirteen chapters. Following an analysis of the nature of language from a sociolinguistic perspective, Wright focuses on modelling language policy-making and language planning before nationalism, and investigates how language has functioned as an organising principle in nation building and how language-use patterning has changed across different historic phases (Part 1). Based on a clear distinction between the state nation (polity-oriented) and the nation state (culture-and-language-oriented), Wright carries out a holistic analysis of the linguistic landscape in Europe where the concept of nation originated, ranging from the unidentified system in medieval Europe to the modern nation-state system in Europe up to 1945. Different patterns of linguistic practice are described with regard to the congruence of nation and the promotion of language convergence. Then she generalises three important roles that the national language plays in the process of nation building, specifically, utilitarianism, the promotion of cultural cohesion and as an indicator of national identity. Corresponding to these categories, a theoretical framework of language planning is constructed in terms of status planning, corpus planning, and acquisition planning, within which she suggests that ‘status planning promoted the language of the dominant group(s) to the exclusion of all others; corpus planning prescribed and proscribed; acquisition planning caused cultural and linguistic assimilation’ (16). In addition, Wright analyses the scenario of language planning in some African and Asian countries with respect to colonialism and postcolonialism, and she clarifies, with examples, that language convergence and assimilation have been achieved in these countries and the citizens in these countries have conformed to their national standard language norms. This represents a notable shift from nationalism to globalisation regarding language policy and language planning.

Taking account of linguistic homogeneity, Wright looks at languages of contact and lingua francas and investigates how speakers of different language communities contact and communicate with each other as languages tend to become globalised (Part 2). As Wright puts it, this can be realised either by both parties developing an interlanguage or by one party learning their counterpart's language. This has greatly increased the chance of using a lingua franca. In this respect, Wright reviews the development of the two most recent lingua francas, that is, French and English, and examines their distinctive features. She finds that the French language started to contract from the second half of the twentieth century, and French speakers developed a variety of language policy and language planning initiatives/strategies in the hope of protecting French, such as legislation, multilingualism, and strengthening Francophonie. Although the English language remains a widespread international language, its future development is largely unpredictable. A new lingua franca might appear due to the rise of a new power, such as Chinese, or the present lingua franca might develop as an independent language variety detached from its native-speaker origin. In this respect, Wright also analyses the possibility of Chinese becoming an alternative lingua franca, although the consequences for language choices and repertoires are not yet clarified to date. The findings in this part indicate that ‘the patterns of “language as practice” and “language as system” are intimately linked with power relations’ and that ‘we are moving towards negotiated language which implies a greater equality of speakers and the setting aside of cultural capital’ (221).

What I most appreciate lies in Part 3, ‘Renaissance and revitalisation in small language communities’, because it demonstrates how small language groups are devoted to reviving their languages eclipsed in nation building. Such a thought-provoking title reminds me of my decade-long experience in approaching the Māori language in communication with New Zealand Māori people who appeared to show a strong desire to keep their national identity and rebuild their culture. Minority language revival as such is well presented in this part, where Wright begins with an introduction to a new discourse (of liberty, equality, fairness, and justice), new legal instruments (the Council of Europe), as well as a new political context and their languages, and she emphasises new polities and new nation building. For instance, she carries out a case study of Spain, which illustrates the restitution of three autochthonous languages eclipsed in European nation building, namely the Catalan language, the Basque language, and the Galician language. Wright believes that the revitalisation of an eclipsed language is ‘to be welcomed, particularly when it is the expressed wish of the majority of the population affected’ (269), and that a language linguistically ‘deviated’ from a standardised official language may ‘turn towards that language or turn away’ (270). She also takes account of other endangered languages, that is, minority languages that are neither treated as official languages nor considered as lingua francas, and argues that the renaissance of minority languages may be a social factor that ‘coexists more easily with globalisation than with nation states’ (17).

With regard to the contents of the book, the fact that the updated volume keeps quite a lot of content from its previous publication (Wright Reference Wright2004) does not detract from the book's value. Compared with the first edition, this edition is restructured in a more logical order and includes a large number of significant topics pertaining to globalisation and reconsideration of language from a social perspective. Major changes have been made particularly to ch. 8 and ch. 9, where Wright notes that there have been great changes in the world in terms of politics, economics, education, technology, and culture. Consequently, several chapters have been designed for the new edition which are expected to answer the questions posed in relation to these issues in the first edition. Such changes indicate that in sociolinguistic studies we should keep up with the changing world, and should look, with breadth and depth, at the ways of modelling various up-to-date factors that may contribute to language policy-making and language planning. Such changes also shed some light on future studies involving minority languages, such as the aforementioned Māori language in New Zealand.

Generally speaking, in terms of what this book can offer us as sociolinguists, language researchers, as well as teachers and students who specialise in language policy and language planning, it appears that the aforementioned theoretical and methodological innovations fill an important gap in the literature. Such a holistic and thought-provoking study would be a great help for sociolinguistics researchers to reconsider the interplay between the arguments of ‘language as social practice’ and ‘language as system’, and for language policy makers to further investigate some core issues pertinent to language planning. In terms of readability, the book is logically and clearly sequenced, and is enriched with useful examples and case studies to help readers achieve a better understanding. Therefore, the book remains a great contribution to the area of language policy and language planning and deserves my wholehearted recommendation.