Applied Linguistics research involving P/Cs has a long tradition (cf. Siegel 2002), but as in the case of other areas of research it tends to not be equally vibrant in all geographical contexts. The instrumentalization of P/Cs in primary and secondary education and language planning probably have the longest and richest research tradition. However, in recent years, research on other aspects of public life such as human rights, law enforcement, the use of P/Cs in the media (see volume 3), language preservation and documentation have been gaining in importance.
