Language policy in multilingual contexts: Revisiting Ruiz’s “language-as-resource” orientation

In this article, we apply Ruiz’s language-as-resource orientation to three international settings: Taiwan, Pakistan, and mainland China. Our guiding question was how different languages (indigenous languages, Chinese, and English) were positioned differently as resources in these contexts. For our analysis, we used Lo Bianco’s (2001) elaboration of the language-as-resource framework as our starting point for an examination of early childhood education (Taiwan), political events (Pakistan), and different types of bilingual education (mainland China). Through this analysis, we confirmed the multidimensionality and multiplicity of the language-as-resource orientation (i.e., different languages can be positioned as different types of resources by different groups in society). We also found that additional dimensions might be considered as part of the language-as-resource orientation, such as native-speaker status, time, and space. Finally, we argue for an emphasis on Ruiz’s idea of cooperative language planning as an integral part of the language-as-resource orientation. The “multilingualism-as-a-resource” orientation is a step in this direction.