Abstract In this special issue, we bring together empirical research that takes a critical perspective on the relationship between language learning and individual aspirations for future success. In doing so we aim to initiate a debate on how neoliberal ideology and mode of governance permeate language learning as part of a wider neoliberal project that postulates the ideal of the competitive and self-responsible language learner. The four contributions illustrate how neoliberal desires about entrepreneurial selves play out differently within different social, political, or linguistic contexts. They do not only address different languages individuals supposedly need to teach or acquire for a successful future within a specific context, but also concentrate on the discourses and social relations shaping these entrepreneurial aspirations. Ranging from vocational training in Japan, early education in Singapore, healthcare tourism in India, to higher education in Switzerland, the contributions all illustrate the role of language as part of the struggle to improve either oneself or others. While the research sites illustrate that investments in language are simultaneously promising and risky and as such dependent on local and global linguistic markets, they equally highlight underlying language ideologies and reveal wider structures of inequality that are firmly embedded in local, national and global contexts.

中文翻译：

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自我的企业家视野：新自由主义条件下的语言教学

摘要在本期特刊中，我们汇集了一些经验研究，这些研究对语言学习与个人对未来成功的渴望之间的关系持批判性观点。在此过程中，我们旨在就新自由主义意识形态和治理模式如何渗透语言学习展开辩论，这是更广泛的新自由主义项目的一部分，该项目提出了具有竞争性和自我负责任的语言学习者的理想。这四个贡献说明了新自由主义对企业家自我的渴望在不同的社会，政治或语言环境下如何表现出不同。它们不仅针对人们认为在特定背景下为成功的未来而需要教书或学习的不同语言，而且还专注于塑造这些企业家理想的论述和社会关系。从日本的职业培训，新加坡的早期教育，印度的医疗保健旅游到瑞士的高等教育，这些贡献都说明了语言在改善自身或他人努力中的作用。尽管研究地点表明，对语言的投资同时具有前景和风险，并因此依赖于本地和全球语言市场，但它们同样突出了潜在的语言意识形态，并揭示了牢固地嵌入本地，国家和全球环境中的更广泛的不平等结构。