The purpose of this paper is to summarize research trends and analyze major discussions of previous studies on language policy and planning from a research historical perspective. In order to accomplish this purpose, this paper firstly established a database of related research lists through a complete enumeration survey of research articles by Korean researchers published in Korean academic journals. Then, based on the database, this paper summarized research trends of preceding studies by fields (status, corpus, education, etc.), by topics (language rank/function, orthographic norm, national language education, etc.), by relevant countries/regions (Korea, Asia, Europe, etc.). Finally, dividing the preceding studies into those related to Korea and those related to foreign countries, this paper analyzed major discussions by fields and topics based on representative and recent preceding studies. 'Not only does the aforementioned summary and analysis have research historical significance for preceding studies on language policy and planning, but 'they can also contribute to exploring the tasks and directions of future research.

In recent decades, there has been a tendency to frame language abilities as a set of technical skills that can be defined, quantified, measured, predicted and ultimately controlled. Language Policy and Planning (LPP), which is commodified, over-rationalized, technologized, and monolingually driven, has led to the current conventions of developing curriculum, materials, and tests of language learning in multicultural education. The purpose of this study is to examine the neoliberal (dominant) and alternative discourses on the LPP in Korean linguistic societies. It was firstly discussed that the neoliberal discourses have been ideologically embedded with economism, rationalism, technocentrism, and neoliberalism. Then the alternative discourses were explored through relevant literature in lingua franca, ecological linguistic environment, metrolingualism, and translingual practice. It was argued that neoliberally driven LPP restricts the use of different languages other than Korean-only or English-only, and, therefore, discriminate lingua franca users, metrolingual, ecolinguals, and translinguals. Following the critical views on the current LPP, further research issues regarding postcolonial translingualism, critical discourse analysis, poststructuralism, language-as-resource ideologies were suggested. As the neoliberal approach to LPP has become a common phenomenon, the meaningfulness should be seriously questioned in fast-approaching multicultural contexts of communication in Korea.