Language policy processes are intricately intertwined with spatial production. However, the concept of space remains peripheral in the theorization of language policy. Two existing dominant models – the ‘onion’ and the ‘multi-domain’ models – have focused on contested policy interpretations and conflicted management strategies permeating language policy. I argue that a spatial theory of language policy needs to address these practical indeterminacies as well as the ontological indeterminacy in language ecology. I introduce the Deleuzo-Guattarian rhizome as a complementary concept for presenting this additional aspect. I demonstrate my theoretical argument through business language practices in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

 

Using interactional and metapragmatic data from a 17-episode tutoring talent show, I examine the employment and valorisation of humour and intertextual references to the entertainment industry as "discourse technologies" (Fairclough, 1992) in Hong Kong's commodified shadow education. I demonstrate that the effective use of said resources depends on celebrity tutors' semiotic expertise in, for example, managing the duration of their use and interweaving them with subject or examination knowledge being taught. The analysis illuminates tutors' interdiscursive performance of edutainment and positioning of self as professional yet close to their students.

 

In this paper, I explore the online-offline relationship in the institutional context of the Catholic Church via my empirical case of a Facebook group for Catholics in Singapore. The analysis considers 129 threads from the group made in an eight-day period. I explore how ‘sharedness’ in the group results from 1) recurring discursive practices 2) the role of group administrators and ‘experts’ in ratifying viewpoints and 3) the sharing of personal and intimate experiences. The result is a degree of continuity with offline and historical modes of interaction, whilst also demonstrating ways in which the interactional structure of the platforms allows for new means of knowledge production.

 

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