Prologue marking the 30th anniversary of publication Prologue marking the 30th anniversary of publication This issue of the JAPC, Volume 30, No. 1 (2020), a Special Issue of the JAPC on Developments in Diglossic Settings in the Asian Pacific Region Guest Edited by Marinus van den Berg, marks a significant milestone for the JAPC. It is the jour- nal’s 30th year of publication. The JAPC was conceived on a rainy and humid afternoon in Wanchai, in what was then British Colonial Hong Kong, more than thirty years ago by two of its present Chief Editors. Over the years the editors have been joined and assisted by an eminent assembly of scholars on the JAPC Edi- torial Board, especially Björn Jernudd and Marinus van den Bergin. Initially, the JAPC was planned as a single volume of studies focused on language and com- munication in the Asian Pacific. However, encouraged by its first publisher, Mul- tilingual Matters Ltd., the JAPC has matured into a bi-annual peer-review journal with an academic mission to bring together specialists from diverse scholarly dis- ciplines to discuss and interpret language in communication issues as they pertain to people of Asian Pacific regions and in their diaspora immigrant communities worldwide. To attain this goal, the JAPC is most grateful to the staff and editors at John Benjamins Publishing Company of Amsterdam for their support and help. We express special gratitude to Kees Vaes and Susan Hendriks of John Benjamins. From the onset the academic orientation of the JAPC has been generalist in character, focused on interdisciplinary approaches to language in communication studies linked to people in and from Asian Pacific regions. In its 30 years of exis- tence, the JAPC has brought together promising young as well as well-established scholars in the Asian Pacific and elsewhere to publish research on language and communication. This it has done in regular general issues and in special guest edited issues focused on specific topics of language and communication germane to Asian Pacific communities. In the past decade Special Issues have been devoted to such topics as: – Television Discussion Discourse in the Asian Pacific – The Roles of Communication on Regional Conflict – Cultural China in Discursive Transformation – Media and Communication in Malaysia – Asian Perspectives on English as a Lingua Franca – Restructuring Chinese Speech Communities https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00041.pro Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 30:1/2 (2020), pp. 1–2. issn 0957-6851 | e‑issn 1569-9838 © John Benjamins Publishing Company https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00041.pro http://localhost:8080/exist/apps/journals.benjamins.com/japc/list/issue/japc.30.1-2 – Strategic Communication beyond Nations – Animation in Asia – Language Contact in a Globalizing World – Language Management – Commonalities in Asian Pacific Communication The topics of forthcoming Special Issues of the JAPC will focus on: – Language and Communication of Asian Diaspora Communities in the West – Islam and Language in the Asian Pacific – Preparing Teachers for Addressing the Sociocultural Issues with Asian Pacific Immigrants and Refugees – Reconsidering Language and Gender in Contemporary Japan and among the Japanese Diaspora amid the #MeToo Movement. – Issues in Asian Linguistic Anthropology The JAPC welcomes individual manuscripts along the lines of its mission statement, which to repeat, is to discuss and interpret language in communication issues as they pertain to people of Asian Pacific regions and in their diaspora immigrant communities worldwide. The JAPC encourages scholars in the Asian Pacific and elsewhere to take advantage of the journal’s policy to publish guest- edited issues on specific topics of investigation. The JAPC is refereed according to rigorous criteria of evaluation. Howard Giles, University of California at Santa Barbara Marinus van den Berg, Shaanxi Normal University / Leiden University Herbert Pierson, St. John’s University 2 Prologue marking the 30th anniversary of publication IntroductionPrologue marking the 30th anniversary of publication