Governing multilingual education through policy discourse: discursive hierarchies in Malaysia and the Philippines
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines how multilingual education is discursively constructed and governed through national language policies in Malaysia and the Philippines, two postcolonial Southeast Asian states shaped by broadly comparable colonial trajectories but differentiated by distinct approaches to language-in-education governance. Drawing on constitutional provisions, legislative acts, national education frameworks, and curriculum documents, the study adopts a discursive–institutional perspective to analyse how linguistic hierarchy is normalised and legitimised within policy discourse. The analysis demonstrates that, despite mobilising contrasting policy narratives—an assimilationist hierarchy in Malaysia and a rhetoric of pluralism in the Philippines—both cases reproduce strikingly similar patterns of linguistic inequality. In Malaysia, Bahasa Melayu is constituted as the cornerstone of national unity, while English is framed pragmatically as global linguistic capital and minority languages remain institutionally marginal. In the Philippines, mother-tongue-based multilingual education articulates an inclusive policy discourse but is structured through a transitional design and uneven implementation, thereby sustaining the dominance of Filipino and English. Across both contexts, English is discursively depoliticised as an economic necessity rather than a political choice, thereby delimiting the transformative potential of multilingual education policy.
Authors: Yang Hu, Yuheng He, Jie Zeng, Xingpeng Zheng
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,890
Award: G7836958707
OpenAlex ID: W7166183566