Abstract In postcolonial societies, forces associated with globalization operate along with local geopolitical changes. The dynamics at the local, national, and global levels in every aspect of the society, and language becomes one object upon which the local-national-global tensions are played out. At the same time, the identity options or repertoires of a postcolonial society and its people are hierarchized with great dynamism under the competing influences of local, national, and global forces. This study investigates Macao tertiary students' language attitudes under the dynamic of local, national, and global forces. The Portuguese established their settlement at Macao during the mid-16th century and their colonial rule over Macao during the mid-19th century. Macao's sovereignty was transferred to China at midnight on December 19, 1999 and the Macao Special Administrative Region was created. The push and pull between decolonization, renationalization, and globalization are discernible in postcolonial Macao's sociolinguistic landscape, its language policy, as well as its people's attitudes to various languages and language issues in Macao. A questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2012 and 2013 respectively among freshmen of the University of Macau to investigate their attitudes towards Cantonese, Putonghua, English, and Portuguese, as well as their attitudes towards Macao language planning and language policy. Findings of this study show that languages are evaluated in a form of scales (i.e., local, national, and global) with differential weightings and various Macao identity options are hierarchized. In the hierarchy of identities, Macao's local and global identities are often placed at the top of the hierarchy while national identity is often rated lower in the hierarchy. Key words: Macao, language attitudes; language planning and language policy, questionnaire survey, semi-structured interview, hierarchy of identities