Email: portico-services@ucl.ac.uk
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- Senior Lecturer In Applied Linguistics
- IOE - Culture, Communication & Media
- UCL Institute of Education
I am Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics at the Department of Culture, Communication and Media in UCL Institute of Education (UK). I received my PhD. in Socio- and Applied Linguistics from the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at King’s College London (2010-2011) and The University of Hong Kong (2011-2012). I have worked as Assistant Professor at The University of Hong Kong (2012-2015) where I have also been appointed Honorary Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education (2016-2017).
I am co-editor of Language, Culture and Society (John Benjamins) and Language Policy journal (Springer). I also serve as Vice-President of EDiSo Association for Studies in Discourse and Society (http://www.edisoportal.org).


I am interested in issues concerned with language, interaction, social identity, institutions, and political economy, with a focus on understanding how inequality operates across different social fields. My past research projects have involved the ethnographic and sociolinguistic study of language and cultural ideologies through discursive practices in institutional spaces in London, Madrid, Mainland China and Hong Kong vis-à-vis wider national and international policies shaped by: mobility and migration, shifting politics of national identity, activism and neoliberalisation of education. I am currently exploring trajectories of young professionals in the making as they move from higher education into the labor market.
Some of my forthcoming and latest publications include:
Pérez-Milans, M. & Soto, C. (under contract). Language, Ethnicity and the Politics of Struggle: A Critical Ethnography of Activism. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Pérez-Milans, M. & Guo (Grace) X. (2020). Hoping for success, becoming a spiritual subject: Converted returnees in China. Language, Culture and Society 2(2): 197-226.
Pérez-Milans, M. (in press). Futures, imagined cities and emerging markets: The semiotic production of professional selves. Social Semiotics. To appear in the Spring of 2021.
Pérez-Milans, M. (2020). Transnational trajectories of multilingual workers: Emerging geographies and spatializing practices of mutant sovereignty. International Journal of Multilingualism 17(1), 97-106.
Zhang, J. & Pérez-Milans, M. (2019). Structures of feeling in language policy: The case of Tibetan in China. Language Policy 18(1), 39-64.
Tollefson, James W. & Miguel Pérez-Milans (Eds.) (2018). The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Soto, C. & Pérez-Milans, M. (2018). Language, neoliberalism and the commodification of pedagogy. Language and Intercultural Communication 18 (5): 490-506.
Sociolinguistics; Spoken Discourse Analysis; Research Methods; Intercultural Communication; Critical Readings of Popular Culture; Language Policy and Planning; Bilingualism & Multilingualism; Discourse, Culture & Society.
JAN-2016 | Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics | Culture, Communication and Media | UCL Institute of Education, United Kingdom |
JAN-2016 – AUG-2017 | Honorary Associate Professor | Faculty of Education | The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
SEP-2013 – DEC-2015 | Assistant Professor - Tenure-track | faculty of Education -Division of English Language Education | The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
SEP-2012 – AUG-2013 | Temporary Assistant Professor | Faculty of Education -Division of English Language Education | The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
SEP-2011 – AUG-2012 | Postdoctoral Fellow | Faculty of Education | The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
SEP-2010 – AUG-2011 | Postdoctoral Fellow | Education and Professional Studies | King's College London, United Kingdom |
SEP-2008 – FEB-2009 | Visiting Lecturer | Department of Sociology and Communication | University of Salamanca, Spain |
SEP-2005 – JAN-2013 | Teaching Consultant | East Asian Studies | Open University of Catalonia, Spain |
MAY-2004 – MAY-2008 | Assistant Researcher | Linguistics and Modern Languages | Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain |
2009 | Doctor of Philosophy | Universidad Autonoma de Madrid | |
2004 | Master of Arts | Universidad Autonoma de Madrid | |
2003 | Postgraduate Diploma | Universidad Autonoma de Madrid | |
2002 | Licenciatura | Universidad Autonoma de Madrid | |
2000 | Bachelor of Education | Universidad Complutense de Madrid |