ABSTRACT
The questions of global inequalities in linguistic and cultural relations have been widely discussed within the field of language education, the potential threats of linguistic and cultural homogenization; the role of the ever-increasing popularity of English as a global language, leading to the extinction or death of languages; linguistic genocide; language purism; and language decay. Linguistic imperialism is a subcategory of cultural imperialism, which includes media imperialism, educational imperialism, scientific imperialism and so on. Meanwhile, a number of scholars in recent years have proposed counterarguments in terms of envisioning globalization as the dark story of dystopia, urging researchers to look at the other side of the coin, questioning whether 'globalization' is indeed a synonym of 'Westernization' or 'Americanization,' or in fact a more complicated process than dystopia. Moving away from the dystopian views of language, the obvious next starting point was to look at the role of English and other languages from the other side of the coin, 'linguistic diversity.'.
