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Sociolinguistics has seen an emergence of new theoretical perspectives that somehow cater for the, according to Li, 'complex linguistic realities of the twenty-first century' (2017, p.14). Thus 'overwriting' conventional ways of understanding language/language use and its relation to identity construction. Taking these changes as a starting point, this paper expands research into complex identity construction of students attending a complementary language school and investigation of linguistic repertoires of German language learners through language portrait work. The motivation for the research presented in this paper is to explore the relationship between linguistic repertoires and complex identities of young people attending a complementary language school in a multilingual city. It suggests an organic approach to investigating the relationship between young people as social beings, that are more than 'just' language learners per se, and the ways they use organic linguistic repertoires (OLRs) to construct their complex linguistic identities. The findings presented in this paper highlight the complexities of young people's identities in relation to their OLR. The term OLR points towards the dynamic nature of 'languages'. Although these terms point toward a dynamic understanding of language and identity the term OLR seems to foreground the changing nature of these, pointing toward their 'aliveness'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long critiqued points of view in which monolingual perspectives are seen as normative in research on multilingualism. In relation to this monolingual orientation, however, in which monolingualism is perceived to be the implicit norm, less work has been dedicated to methodological challenges. As disciplinary perspectives on language in Linguistics and related fields move further towards the de-emphasizing and deconstructing of the boundaries between named linguistic varieties, this paper addresses some issues that come up in operationalizing this in our research. It does so through self-reflexivity, from a primarily Sociolinguistic and Applied Linguistic point of view, by addressing monolingual perspectives found in data on a project on multilingual practices in India. It focuses more narrowly on the ethnographic field notes from the research context. With discourse analysis, these are looked at through the lens of the monolingual orientation, with a particular focus on language ideologies and the compartmentalization of named-language varieties. Ideologies in the data are discussed in relation to their bearing on methodology in transcribing, coding, and the framing of research questions. This paper explores the tensions between evolving theoretical perspectives and on-the-ground research practice, concluding by proposing questions for reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From January 2017 until January 2020, the Stormont assembly in Northern Ireland was suspended, with the Irish language being cited as the main stumbling block to the restoration of government. The continued debate around the necessity of an Irish Language Act (ILA) for Northern Ireland is bound up with more general divisions in society surrounding national identity, and as such, it divided political parties and the nationalist and unionist communities from which they draw their support. Through the analysis of ethnographic interviews conducted in various language learning centres across Belfast, I explore how this debate around legislating for the language impacted on the engagement of learners with the language in the city. By considering the role played by the media in the engagement of interview participants with the Irish language in Belfast, I aim to examine how the policy delay and political discourse affects those engaging with the language. This paper aims to address changing attitudes to the Irish language in Belfast in a period of political crisis, and what it means for those who use the language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines diasporic language ecology based on a sociolinguistic study of a Chinese complementary school (CCS) in Birmingham, England. The study applies a historical perspective to investigate local multilingual practices in relation to language ideology and identity. The discussion in this paper draws on heteroglossia to investigate language stratification in the CCS. It documents the impact of global mobility and socio-economic changes on shifting power relations among two Chinese language varieties (Putonghua and Cantonese) and English. Data for the discussion includes audio-recordings of interaction and interview as well as fieldnote vignettes. Findings show that (1) a stratified ideological ecology including 'separate bilingualism', 'translanguaging', 'a preferred school-wide monolingualism', and 'a standard language ideology' is dynamically constructed and negotiated in the school as a local heteroglossia; (2) At the intra-Chinese level, the Chinese language shift from Cantonese to Putonghua at global level is seeing its power in the local discourses of Putonghua becoming 'the new diasporic standard'. This standardisation towards Putonghua, on one hand, is claimed and celebrated in the school by some Putonghua-speaking members as 'practical' and 'useful' for better communication; on the other side, it is also contested – sometimes silently – in tension-filled local interactions by groups of Chinese people who lack the resource of Putonghua in their repertoires. This complex and tension-filled standardisation of diasporic Chinese language provides new local discourses of global mobility and the ongoing conversion from linguistic standardisation to social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although W.E.B. Du Bois' impact on race theory is well-known among social scientists; his work is not widely incorporated into the sociolinguistic canon on racial identity through language. Moreover, one pervasive feature in sociolinguistic discourses is the paucity of literature exploring the Afro-Portuguese language. In addressing these shortcomings, we utilise Du Bois' double consciousness theory and the raciolinguistic perspective to discuss the process of racial identity experienced by Afro-Brazilians. DuBois' work demonstrates that context and standpoint theorising provides a deeper understanding of racial identity. This paper explores the dyadic relationship formed between linguistics and racial identity through the lens of Du Bois' double consciousness. This sets the benchmark for double linguistic consciousness in which this article explains is the awareness of self is understood not only by race but also by language. The aim is to add to the racializing discourse by exploring the connection between the racialisation process for blacks and the racial significance of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a focus on an under-studied group of immigrants in the UK, this paper examines Iranian families' language ideologies and practices at home in relation to Persian acquisition and maintenance for their children. Working within a family language policy (FLP) framework, we draw on sociolinguistic data from semi-structured interviews with eighteen mothers to understand how parental beliefs, their everyday language practices and the attempts they make to maintain, improve, or alter their language use will lead to their children's heritage language acquisition and maintenance. The results of the study suggest that the success in heritage language development and maintenance boils down to parental pro heritage language ideologies and their everyday small-scale practices. It was also found that the interrelationship between language and cultural values and a successful FLP was further reinforced by the parents' migration trajectory and proficiency in English as the societal language. This research also showed that the large size of this diaspora in the UK (particularly in London), their close-knit social network, availability of heritage language weekend schools and the possibility of frequent visits to the home country create a conducive situation for the Iranian diaspora to raise their children bilingually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The many permutations of spoken English have called for an interrogation into the notions of 'standard English' and 'native accents'. Despite their problematic nature, these terms remain commonly used, and familiarity with 'standard', inner-circle varieties of English is typical among L2 English speakers, differences in education and language policy notwithstanding. This paper inquires into student language attitudes in Alsace, a region with a long and complex language tradition. A mixed-methods model was used to gather seven students' reactions towards four inner-circle Englishes (Received Pronunciation, Standard American English, Glaswegian English, African American English). Findings revealed student preference for the two American speakers as well as preferential ratings linked to comprehensibility of speakers and a range of past experiences. Other findings favour those of previous language attitude studies in which RP and SAE outperform other samples in areas of education and prestige. GE and AAE samples were associated with both positive human characteristics and a lack of education. Overall, results indicate the need for future empirical research of this population as well as the necessity for linguists, researchers and teachers to make room for the spectrum of speakers and Englishes that lie outside of traditional reference accents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to analyse the role of family micro-Language Policies (LP's) in the context of the Moroccan Diaspora in urban and semi-urban areas in Spain by examining and contrasting different cases of language transmission within transnational migrant families of Moroccan origin. The paper answers the following questions: How are heritage languages constructed by transnational Moroccan families and in what context and under what sociolinguistic regime(s) are families' LPs developed, negotiated and decided upon? How can LPs develop a functional and practical status of heritage languages or linguistic varieties as well as increase children's opportunities to construct multilingual repertoires? What proactive agency do parents display for these purposes? Data were collected in three projects using a qualitative, ethnographic sociolinguistic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the necessary complementarity between a translanguaging and named language-perspective by critically examining risks of 'overshooting' when a translanguaging view is theoretically posited as the ultimately superior (sociolinguistic) theory of language use and learning in today's multilingual world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much research has focused on how Western schools contain or silence the increasing multilingualism of their pupils, this paper investigates how a Dutch-medium school in Brussels has decided to take a different approach by branding itself as multilingual. Based on sociolinguistic-ethnographic fieldwork, it will show that teachers invested in a multilingual school policy and that they recruited, and allowed pupils to speak, other languages for didactical purposes, as well as in more informal conversations. Nevertheless, as its curriculum remained predominantly Dutch-medium, the school was a site for contradictory behaviour: teachers problematised pupils' flexible language practices and limited proficiency in Dutch, and restricted their use of other languages out of a concern with pupils' acquisition of Dutch, access to curricular knowledge, and future educational and professional success. So, despite the school's attempts to transcend the struggles that arise in schools which are more averse to multilingualism, similar tensions emerge in this setting, as teachers need to find a balance between their pedagogical goals and concerns about monolingualism in the wider society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the Irish-language adscape through an analysis of the profile of two Irish-language newspapers, Foinse, published in the Republic of Ireland, and Lá, published in Northern Ireland. The advertising in both papers is analysed in terms of products and services advertised, advertisers represented and language used. Our results indicate that Irish-language advertising in these papers tends to be confined to traditional domains, and to be used by advertisers who are complying with language planning directives. Beyond this, advertising in Irish is used to identify with certain communities, and its use by private sector advertisers, in a context in which there is a weak communicative motivation for doing so, tends to be mainly symbolic. Our small study shows that the respective advertising profiles of these newspapers do little to challenge common sense assumptions about the language, its role and its status in the respective sociolinguistic environments of both publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the relevant data has revealed continuous growth in knowledge of Basque. Formal education has played a significant role in this advance, in which young speakers have been front and centre. Yet the levels of Basque-use, especially in regard to informal and relationship contexts, have not mirrored this increase. Expanding our understanding of this phenomenon is an urgent priority at present. But not the only one. One such concern focuses not only on accessing data and describing the situation, but also on creating understanding from within, by means of young people themselves. Specifically, this paper attempts to go more deeply into the topic via such approaches and reflect on the possibilities that the concept of 'community of practice' (CofP) offers in this regard. An idea that, as demonstrated in the 'D ereduko kirola' project, allows for a research model along the lines of what J.K. Gibson-Graham (2008) terms a 'performative ontological project'. The present work seeks to document the process that led us from analyzing different CofPs to conceiving them as safe spaces in which young people could try out modifications in their linguistic practices at different levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the experience and impact of participation in afterschool oral improvisation workshops – bertso workshops – for young Basque speakers. Drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews among young people in the Northern Basque Country, the researcher, a practicing improviser, bertsolari, herself, argues that the bertso workshop is best understood as a community of practice wherein they create relationships of trust and empathy, take the floor in front of their peers and debate and think together, where individual's identities are constructed in mutual influence, and where linguistic identity is built in conjunction with youth identities. Hence, for these young people, the community of practice at the bertso workshop is a place in which to develop their youth identities in Basque and their Basque-speaker identities within youth culture. This case study also explores tensions that arise between the egalitarian ethos of the bertso workshop on the one hand, where all speakers are equal, and the entrenched language ideologies that, on the other, attribute greater authenticity to improvisers from Basque-speaking families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is instructive to interpret patterns of language use in light of the interaction between language use and an individual's awareness of, and resistance towards, linguistic hegemony. While heritage language maintenance is often described as language use motivated by antihegemonic ideologies, this paper suggests that the paradox of the resistance to linguistic hegemony is that in order to be successful, this resistance necessitates acquiescence to this hegemony on a certain level, namely proficiency in the dominant language. This paper contends that a key element influencing the dynamic between these existing factors and language maintenance is the speaker's awareness of, and response to, the paradox of the resistance to linguistic hegemony. Awareness of and conviction towards this paradox seems to supply a dynamic in an individual's conviction towards heritage language maintenance. This paper reports the results of a study that examined this interaction in the case studies of families maintaining Spanish across generations in a rural town in upstate New York, USA. The displays of power illustrated on a personal exchange level, on the media level, and within institutions seem to illuminate the awareness of and response to the paradox of linguistic hegemony — successful resistance that leads to heritage language maintenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weiner (1988. "On Editing a Usage Guide." In Words for Robert Burchfield's Sixty-Fifth Birthday, edited by E. G. Stanley, and T. F. Hoad, 171–183. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 173) describes usage guides as being 'as broad as the English language, covering spelling, punctuation, phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexis, and involving sociolinguistic considerations'. This paper focusses on these 'sociolinguistic considerations', to try and answer the question of why people like greengrocers, sports commentators, estate agents and television presenters are stigmatised for certain perceived linguistic errors. The greengrocer's apostrophe is well known (Beal, Joan C. 2010. "The Grocer's Apostrophe: Popular Prescriptivism in the Twenty-First Century." English Today 26 (2): 57–64), but the other three categories, the sports commentators' adverb (the flat adverb), the estate agent's pronoun (yourselves for you) and the television presenter's demonstrative pronoun (these/those ones), I first encountered in Caroline Taggart's Her Ladyship's Guide to the Queen's English (2010), one of the three most recent and most prescriptive publications in the HUGE database of usage guides and usage problems. Discussing Taggart's usage guide as a case study, I will go into the question of why certain groups of speakers are made into the object of prescriptivism and will argue that the British class system plays an important role in this. As a case study, this article highlights the need for more linguists to view usage guides as a genre that needs to be treated critically rather than be ignored, as is generally the case at present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In mainland China, most ethnic minority students today face the challenge of learning three languages in schools, namely, their home language (L1), Mandarin Chinese (L2) and a foreign language, usually English (L3). Research into trilingual education for minority groups has been most active since the turn of the twenty-first century. This paper offers an overview of recent research, depicting major models adopted by minority schools and the contextual factors leading to the models in various minority regions in China. The paper begins with an account ofstatepolicies relevant to language provision for minority groups in China, which is followed by a discussion of the outcomes and models of trilingual education. A critical analysis is then made of contextual factors such as ethnolinguistic vitality, history, economy, geopolitics and the changing status of the three languages that affect trilingual education for minority groups. The paper argues that language policymaking in different domains includingfamilies, schools, regions and the stateshould be informed by research evidence on practical models that are effective in meeting the cognitive and affective needs of children from ethnic minority backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports how authors use Spanish in award-winning Latinx children's picturebooks in the USA. Teachers, families, and librarians use these books to support heritage language and culture or to broaden children's understanding of cultures other than their own. Thus, how these books use Spanish matters because of the potential of these books to promote cultural and linguistic diversity to children. This study investigated how authors used Spanish, which characters spoke Spanish, and what language ideologies texts explicitly communicate. Across 9 books (award winners between 2010 and 2015), there were 78 instances of Spanish use, and 21 of these were complete sentences or exclamations. The books provided a high level of support for understanding Spanish. Supports include immediate translation, appositive explanations, contextual cues, and picture cues, with little use of fluid translanguaging, which more approximates the communicative practices of bilingual communities. The paper concludes with implications for teachers to develop critical language awareness among students in response to literature and suggestions for authors and publishers to represent Spanish-speaking communities in children's literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores language shift cases in three Malawian languages using Fishman's Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS) in order to gain some insight into the extent to which these languages should be regarded as threatened and therefore in need of reversal support. The paper shows that Chingoni, in its current state of attrition, is a GIDS 8 language. While not much can be done to revive it, there is need for folklorists and linguists to document the language and its culture before it completely disappears. With respect to Chilomwe, the paper places this language at GIDS 7. Without any serious intergenerational transmission taking place, Chilomwe needs a full array of reversal support if the language is to survive. Finally, the paper shows that in spite of some studies showing that Chiyao is undergoing some language shift, at GIDS 6 it is in fact the strongest of the three languages examined and current reversal efforts can only strengthen its position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A word, even when considered monosemic, generally has a cluster of meanings, depending on the mental representation of the referent by the speaker/writer or listener/reader. The variation is even more noticeable across cultures. This paper investigates the different ways in which cultural knowledge helps in the interpretation of English lexical items. After a brief review of the traditional World Englishes structural perspective, the paper analyses the various ways in which the schema helps in the construction of lexical meaning: it helps to decode the denotative meaning of some words with possible multiple interpretations; to perceive the referential boundaries; to understand the connotative meaning; to modulate meaning, demoting some features and promoting others; to understand the physical elements which contribute to the mental representation of some words; to perceive the bodily movements and other paralinguistic elements which contribute to the construction of the meaning of some words; to perceive the salience of a word within a cultural community; to perceive and predict collocates; to perceive cultural assumptions; to perceive political politeness and taboos; to distinguish transactional language from interactional language, and so on. The study is shown to have implications for lexicography and for English Language teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a promising methodology for multilingualism studies that was trialled at the National Institute of Education (NIE) on the campus of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, in 2018. The methodology named the Aural-Oral Transect (AOT) is a systematic, easy-to-implement, unbiased way of collecting quantitative data on spoken language use in multilingual settings, and the data arising from its application provides a snapshot of the aural-oral landscape, that is, the landscape of 'heard speech', a landscape that is available to the ears rather than the eyes. With its ability to provide easy access to data on the actual speech habits of members of a multilingual community, the wide employment of the AOT could bring forth a revolution in multilingual studies. The AOT is not intended to supplant or obviate tried and tested data collection approaches, rather it is promoted here as an additional tool for gathering data that has hitherto remained out of reach, another arrow for the researcher's quiver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates language practices, language attitudes and identity belongings of East Timorese in the Netherlands. Data were gathered through a limited orally conducted sociolinguistic questionnaire and two in-depth interviews on the sociolinguistic trajectories of our participants. The questionnaire shows that second-generation East Timorese all shifted to Dutch. Also the first generation shifted to Dutch and many in addition acquired mainly English and some Portuguese, Spanish or Polish. They did, however, not lose their home languages (mainly Tetum and Indonesian) with the exception of some regional languages (that are, however, still used on social media). Irrespective of the importance of Dutch in their day-to-day language practices, participants reported Tetum to be their most preferred and used language and the language of their East Timorese identity. The in-depth interviews show that the ensemble of linguistic resources of the East Timorese in the Netherlands constitutes the community of practice and knowledge they are part of. Their individual choices from these repertoires, irrespective of how they were acquired and irrespective of their proficiency, constitute their sociolinguistic profile. In this profile Tetum no doubt played and still plays a major role as the main language of East Timorese identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a database composed of 1500 pictures, belonging to 401 analytical units from the Linguistic Landscape (hereafter: LL), and representing mainly the signs on the shop of migrant traders in two multi-ethnic neighbourhoods in Milan, this paper will describe the positioning strategies of Latin American (hereafter: LA) communities in a multilingual urban space, and the processes of identity negotiation in which they are engaged. We will use a scale-sensitive and contextualised interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of LL (Vandenbroucke, Mieke. 2015. "Language Visibility, Functionality and Meaning Across Various TimeSpace Scales in Brussels' Multilingual Landscapes." Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 36 (2): 163–181), combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The aim is to show how the presence of Spanish in the LL indexes the collective identities, as well as the language and social attitudes of the LA communities living in Milan. We will analyse the emerging practices of flexible multilingualism, or translanguaging (García, Ofelia, and Ricardo Otheguy. 2014. "Spanish and Hispanic Bilingualism." In The Routledge Handbook of Hispanic Applied Lingusitics, edited by Manuel Lacorte, 639–658. New York: Routledge), as a creative response to linguistic differences and potential conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides an example of how immigration is constructed by receiving societies as a comprehension or language problem that requires special solutions. It focuses on the application of Easy-to-Read, a simplified register currently in expansion which addresses different groups of people with intellectual disabilities, to immigrants in Spain. Following a general introduction on the glottopolitical approach to migration processes and a historical overview of tendencies of discursive simplification in Europe and the Americas, the co-text of the term 'immigrants' in a corpus including drafting guides of Easy-to-Read, newspapers and websites of the supporters of this variety is analysed in the empirical part. Methods of semantic discourse analysis (semantic relations and prototype theory) allow to identify new meanings and categories that are constructed in the selected texts ('immigrant' as a co-hyponym of 'person with a disability'). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a number of research issues and their social implications with special reference to the articles published in the "Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development." Mark Garner, Christine Raschka and Peter Sercombe opened their article "Sociolinguistic Minorities, Research, and Social Relationships," with a fruitful discussion on the role and impact of research in terms of its ethical implications. In her article, "Who Wins in Research on Bilingualism in an Anti-bilingual State?" Holly Cashman does not specifically discuss the issues confronting endangered languages. On the other hand, she alludes to the interventive efforts required, even in situations where a language is strong. It is a common practice to separate research from intervention as if they are discrete processes, which gets itself revealed in Adrian Blackledge's paper "The Magical Frontier between the Dominant and the Dominated: Sociolinguistics and Social Justice in a Multilingual World" while speaking of discrimination not as an issue of academic progress in the linguistic proficiency of Asian minorities in Great Britain.

Twelve languages — including the two prestigious colonial languages, English and French, a French-based Creole and 'ancestral' languages, such as Hindi and Mandarin — are spoken on the multiethnic island Mauritius. Given the multilingual and multiethnic nature of the nation, linguistic practices are an important way for Mauritians to assert or construct their identities. The linguistic diversity of Mauritius has been considered in various censuses. The 2000 census questionnaire contained sections concerning 'linguistic group', 'language usually spoken in the home' and 'literacy'. In this paper, the 2000 census language tables related to 'linguistic group' and 'language usually spoken in the home' are discussed with reference to the current linguistic situation. The growing importance of Creole as both the language of the forefathers and the language usually spoken at home is discussed. The relatively important presence of English and French and the decreasing everyday use of Asian languages are highlighted. The final section of this paper suggests directions for further research on the language tables in the 2000 Population Census. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on language variation research carried out in Western Australian primary schools. It addresses differences in the acquisition of vocabulary, in particular the acquisition of colloquial Australian English vocabulary by students from English-speaking backgrounds (ESB) and from a range of non-English-speaking backgrounds (NESB). The data show differences which are attributable to a lack of familiarity with terms and the objects that they represent, which promoted strategies such as generic terms of circumlocution and which may have resulted from partial word knowledge. Other differences were attributable to cultural influences and were evident in varied patterns of word usage among the different non-English-speaking background groups. The findings of this paper suggest the importance of knowing a word not only in its semantic sense but also in its pragmatic and sociolinguistic senses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translanguaging involves communication through available semiotic resources, including embodied action. In this paper, we report research in which we observed communication in a volleyball team. We also show how we found conventional academic writing to have limited scope in the representation of embodied communicative practice and came to ethnographic drama as a viable alternative. In the theatre, the enaction of everyday communication is laid out before the audience, inviting reflection, and critical evaluation. We discuss theatre techniques that steer the audience away from emotional involvement and towards intellectual judgement. We propose that techniques introduced in Bertolt Brecht’s [1978. Brecht on Theatre. London: Bloomsbury Academic ] theatre of estrangement have the potential to expand the range and scope of ethnographic analysis, offering a creative means of critical reflection on translanguaging as embodied communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mandarin Chinese is the fastest growing foreign language by number of students in the world [Ding and Saunders 2006. "Talking up China: An Analysis of China's Rising Cultural Power and Global Promotion of the Chinese Language." East Asia 23 (2): 3–33], but little is known about how it is taking hold in compulsory education in different countries. This paper examines the institutionalisation of Mandarin in an elite school located near Barcelona, Spain, which, due to stagnant enrolment rates, was rebranded as 'international' in 2008. Data on the evolution and shifting legitimation of the Chinese programme was gathered through a two-year critical sociolinguistic ethnography. It included observations, visual materials, institutional discourses, questionnaire data and in-depth interviews with key social actors. The results show that Chinese has been highly instrumental for the process of re-elitisation of the school through multilingualisation (and internationalisation), because it allows institutional agents to mobilise both the discourse of cognitive/attitudinal benefits and forms of linguistic capitalisation avant-la-lettre. Yet, among most families and students, there is sharp awareness of the speculative nature of Chinese as capital whose returns in the present can only be guaranteed in the logic of accumulation and as providing an index of students' embodiment of neoliberal subjectivities. For the school, Chinese symbolises its zeal to constantly search for new sources of (potential) distinction and academic excellence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociolinguists have adopted the concept of 'super-diversity' from cultural anthropology to analyse multidimensional changes in ethnolinguistic identities resulting from recent mass migration. Sociolinguistic super-diversity is thus understood as a central aspect of shifts in migration patterns that have increased the complexity of cultural identities beyond traditional, more static 'multicultural' diversity, both in Britain and globally. How is the presence of more complex and diverse linguistic identities viewed by the public? This paper explores attitudes towards perceived increased multilingualism and multiculturalism expressed in the BBC's Have Your Say Internet forum. The majority of postings blame immigrants for communication problems with the British 'home' community and allege their unwillingness to learn English; many also assume that (only) a monolingual national community guarantees social coherence and they are dismissive of any language mediation services. In view of these 'folk-sociolinguistic' assumptions and linguaphobic attitudes, the notion of super-diversity needs to be reconfigured so as to include the (unintended) adverse impact of the migration-induced increase in the diversity and complexity of imagined ethno-linguistic identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the complex multilingual linguistic landscapes (LLs) of three strategically-chosen areas in global city Brussels by examining how language displays on public signage in these areas are used for different purposes, functions or intentions. The focus will be on meaning-construction in the post-Fordist globalised era as shaped by different contextual scales. By drawing on a systematic corpus of linguistic landscape data indicative of language visibility and functionality patterns in each of these three areas and by drawing on a small selection of interviews with shop-owners, this study will discuss the ‘landscapes’ and diverse displays of Brussels' three ‘big’ languages (French, English and Dutch) and ‘ethnoscapes’ (Appadurai 1990) of their attendant transnational communities of tourists, immigrants and expats. In order to assess these differences in functionality and meaning, the geographical notion of TimeSpace scales is applied as an analytical and interpretative concept and as a metaphor most apt to study sociolinguistic processes and phenomena of globalisation. This more interpretative, scale-sensitive and contextualised approach to LL and language meaning is also in line with recent arguments in favour of qualitative, interdisciplinary approaches to linguistic landscape research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Socio-psychological research has frequently reported low correlations between explicit and implicit attitude measures for a range of socially sensitive topics. There is mounting evidence that implicit and explicit evaluations do not change at the same rate and thus any implicit-explicit attitudinal discrepancy (IED) may indicate attitude change in progress. However, researchers have yet to investigate whether differences between implicit and explicit attitudes towards language use can determine the direction of any language attitude change underway; somewhat surprising given recent evidence indicating that community language attitude change can result in micro-level language change over time. The present study employed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) and self-report attitude scale to measure the relationship between 90 English nationals’ implicit and explicit ratings of Northern English and Southern English speech in England. Multivariate analysis demonstrated significant IED, providing evidence of language attitude change in progress, led by younger females, with explicit attitudes changing more rapidly towards a greater tolerance of the English spoken in the north of England. The paper discusses the potential contribution of investigating implicit and explicit language attitudes to help account for the persistence of deeply embedded linguistic prejudice, as well as to measure language attitude change in progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the phenomenon of linguistic mudes or transformations in linguistic practices, in the case of highly proficient speakers of Irish, Basque and Catalan and we investigate the extent to which speakers in the three contexts share ideologies and experiences related to the process. Such an investigation will deepen understanding of the triggers behind the mudes and what it means to successfully become a new speaker of Irish, Basque or Catalan. This is necessary in order to develop a better understanding of how new speakers respond to the linguistic repertoires that they encounter in the various social milieus in which they navigate. The study relates to broader questions of policy towards the three languages in question: as all are operating within a revitalisation framework it is essential to understand the experiences of new speakers who have adopted the languages in order to guide future policy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the notion of speaker authenticity in the context of obsolescent ‘Francoprovençal’: a highly fragmented grouping of Romance varieties spoken in parts of France, Italy, and Switzerland by less than 1% of the total regional population. While Francoprovençal has long been losing ground to the dominant language(s) with which it is in contact, new speakers have begun to emerge within the context of revitalisation movements and activities geared more favourable language planning policies and increased literacy. The emergence of these new speakers has polarised native-speaker communities, and has blurred the lines associated with the traditional view of sociolinguistic authenticity. Through an analysis of qualitative data collected in 2012, this article argues in particular that it may not be sufficient to simply examine contested authenticities from a native-non-native perspective, but rather it is important to consider how new speakers might themselves form a complex spectrum of speaker types with new sets of tensions as has been argued elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a series of workshops in which speakers of two minority languages in southeast Asia without a written tradition developed orthographies for their languages. Sociolinguistic factors affecting orthography design and acceptability are explained, particularly those motivating script choice, followed by linguistic considerations for orthography development. A discussion of the necessity for community participation in orthography development includes methods for facilitating a participatory orthography development process. Next, a case study of participatory orthography development where two language communities developed their initial orthography proposals with the author's involvement is presented. As a result of various sociolinguistic factors, both groups of workshop attendants developed an orthography in a script previously unknown to the majority of their language communities. The paper outlines the process used for this, as well as specific strategies for involving language committee members in orthography development. An evaluation of the case study in the light of previous research is given in the conclusion, followed by a discussion of how participatory orthography processes can be applied when working with other language communities, in order to develop orthography proposals that are sociolinguistically acceptable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including endangered language communities, qualitative sociolinguistic research in County Cork, Ireland and language revitalization.

The concept of 'Ethnolinguistic Vitality' (EV) has received variable acceptance and support since its introduction by Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor. It has especially proven to be a valuable heuristic in studies of language maintenance and shift. However, the reliability and validity of the instruments used to investigate EV, especially questionnaires used to test subjective vitality, have proven to be more problematic. This position paper introduces some of the issues that have been considered as difficult in the conceptualisation, investigation and application of EV and will suggest possible areas for further development. Drawing on a study of language attitudes, shift and the EV of the Greek-Orthodox community in Istanbul, this paper argues that there is much to recommend the tripartite conceptualisation of the EV framework in assessing both subjective and objective vitality via quantitative and qualitative methods. It further argues that studies of EV can be enriched by the use of ethnographic/observational approaches and discourse analytic frameworks, particularly when investigating hybridity. The adoption of both etic and emic approaches facilitates a more detailed engagement with key constructs. The latter will benefit the study of EV and potentially facilitate a rapprochement between researchers from different disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite Australia's strong tradition of research on language maintenance and shift, little is known about the ways in which migrant background students continue to use their heritage languages in Australian schools. This paper presents an in-depth case study of students' linguistic practices at a multiethnic Melbourne high school, where over 95% of students speak a language other than English (LOTE) at home. Although virtually all students are bilingual, it shows that peer group divide sharply on linguistic lines, with recent arrivals from China and Sudan the only students to consistently speak their first languages with friends at school. More established students use English as their lingua franca with friends, but continue to deploy their LOTEs for a variety of purposes, including gossiping, crossing and communicating with recent migrants. The paper argues that while established students make only incidental use of their LOTEs at school, LOTE use performs important social functions for these students that could not be substituted by using English alone. Local conditions at the school clearly shape the meanings ascribed to LOTE use; and the paper thus argues that detailed analysis of students' linguistic practices can be a valuable tool for examining interethnic relations in multiethnic schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a sociolinguistic survey-based study of the Sudanese community in a regional settlement in Australia. The context of this study represents a distinctive language contact setting with a unique combination of social, cultural and demographic factors. The study aimed to explore attitudes, perceptions and the actual use of mother tongue in a refugee context among adolescent and young adult secondary school learners from the Sudanese community in a regional settlement in South-East Queensland. Findings from this study demonstrate that the Sudanese refugee community in Australia is strongly attached to their mother tongue, Dinka; however, English is increasingly used in various public and private domains among those of the survey group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rwanda has experienced major changes during the last decade due to the genocide in 1994. After the civil war, in addition to establishing political and economical stability, peace and reconciliation, the government was faced with the return of refugees from neighbouring, mostly English-speaking, countries. The new socio-demographic conditions resulted in a change in the official language policy from Rwanda-French bilingualism to Rwanda-French-English trilingualism. During the post-genocide period, therefore, English has been introduced into official domains and has contributed towards a new linguistic situation in Rwanda. This paper investigates how these recent changes are reflected in newspaper advertisements (10 issues of state-owned Imvaho Nshya), 914 shop signs and 221 billboards in Kigali and Butare. The basic assumption of the analysis is that the languages in Rwanda are currently in a competitive position on the linguistic market, affecting not only the use of the national and official language, Rwanda, but also the position of the non African official languages. This competition is an ongoing process, which will necessitate further studies from a macro-sociolinguistic perspective in order to establish the roles and usages of the three official languages of Rwanda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a historical account of post-war state language policy within education in France, examining in particular the position and status of Corsican, one of the country's regional heritage languages. This paper outlines the treatment of Corsican by the French State and how this language management impacted upon the language beliefs of the islanders. In turn, the islanders' language beliefs, especially those of dedicated language activists, came to affect state language policy, and this paper will show how, from its lowly position at the Liberation, Corsican was initially excluded from the limited legislation permitting the teaching of regional heritage language and yet has emerged at the start of the 21st century as arguably the most protected of France's minority languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language questions are increasingly on the agenda in Europe. This paper addresses some problematic aspects of language teaching and learning that have come to the fore in the Baltic states after the European Union enlargement of 2004. First, the paper aims at providing relevant information about language policies in the former USSR and the independent Baltic states of today. This material is discussed in the light of the sociolinguistic changes that have occurred in the three Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, over the last 15 years or so. Another issue under consideration is the current status and future prospects of teaching Lithuanian to foreigners in an enlarged Europe. Multilingualism is a value much asserted by European authorities. However, the goal of ensuring that the citizens of Europe are actually multilingual is far from being attained. While independence and the new status of Lithuanian as a state language have extended its area of use and increased demand for the teaching of Lithuanian, a new approach to methodologies and material design for teaching Lithuanian as a foreign language have to be developed in order to meet the requirements of the new prospective learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the negotiations of social relations among adolescents at a crucial point in their development of a bilingual identity. Based on a general study of bilingual Turkish-Danish Folkeskole pupils' development of language choice and code-switching, we find that the seventh grade is a pivotal stage in their linguistic development. Sudden abrupt changes in the language choice patterns of girls in particular seem to take place in the seventh grade. We take a qualitative look at the negotiations in a group conversation among seventh grade boys and a group conversation among seventh grade girls, and we find both similarities and differences. Among the similarities is the fact that social relations seem to determine language variation (in casu language choice) with both genders — considerably more so than at younger ages. Among the differences it is found that the power struggles among the girls are surprisingly tougher than among the boys. The girls' group has a clear winner and a clear loser, whereas the boys' group deals with the power struggle in a more playful way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policymakers need a conception of linguistic disadvantage to supply guidance about the relative priority of inequalities with a linguistic dimension and to inform decisions about whether such inequalities require correction or compensation. A satisfactory conception of linguistic disadvantage will make it possible to compare the situations of speakers of different languages and to assess the normative significance of a range of linguistic inequalities. This paper evaluates four rival conceptions and asks whether they satisfy these criteria. Respectively, these conceptions associate linguistic disadvantage with inadequate communicative opportunities, with being unable to do the things that one cares about, with lacking (access to) important resources, and with capability deprivation. It is argued that a conception of linguistic disadvantage derived from the capabilities approach is the most promising option available to policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines Hong Kong major stakeholders’ (secondary students, university students, teachers and professionals) perceptions of language variation, English language teaching (ELT) and language use in their everyday communication via a large-scale questionnaire survey (N = 1893). Based on principal components analysis of the questionnaire statements, 10 factors were identified that corresponded with the stakeholders’ knowledge and recognition of inner-circle vis-à-vis outer-/expanding-circle English varieties, real-life English use (e.g. exposure to language variation in contexts, interlocutor identity and difficulties in English communication), preferences of English varieties, perceptions of English teaching/learning and local cultural identity. Although the findings indicate an overall Anglophone-centric attitude among the participants, particularly in terms of the choice of teaching model, they also reveal differences in the participants’ views and experience of language use depending on their education level, age and occupational background. One important discovery is the potential effect of one's academic ability on his or her perceptions of English varieties and learning. By comparing the responses of the various participant groups based on the sociolinguistic setting in Hong Kong, the paper discusses the implications of these findings for contemporary ELT and directions for future attitudinal research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we first explore the trends in the maintenance of migrant community languages among the first generation migrants and then the socio-economic variation in the shift in use of community languages. Our analysis showed that language shift to English among first generation migrants has not been uniform, with some migrant groups adopting English as a home language at a much faster rate than others. Gender and duration of residence had strong association with language shift; languages of migrant groups of the pre-1980 period have not been maintained as well as that of later arrivals. Place of residence and the distribution of a linguistic community also provided opportunities for language maintenance as migrants residing in major capital cities in Australia tended to better maintain their community language. Finally, higher level of education was associated with lower likelihood of speaking a community language at home. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS), developed by Lewis and Simons and based on work by Fishman, provides a means of rating ‘language vitality’ – the level of development or endangerment – where ‘development’ is understood as adding or preserving functions and ‘endangerment’ as loss of function. In its original form, it did not take sign languages into account. This paper explains what adjustments are needed to accommodate signed and spoken languages on an equal basis, recognising and generalising over the sociolinguistic differences in the two types of language communities. Besides minor wording changes made to avoid giving the impression that EGIDS applied only to spoken languages, we offer substantive changes to accommodate different patterns of intergenerational transmission; to better reflect the role of literacy, education, literature, institutional support, and standardisation in language development; and to reflect factors other than classic language shift which can undermine a language’s vitality. Clarifications are made to the role of interpreters in rating a language’s vitality, and in the definition of a language of wider communication. Several of these changes provide further insights into factors that affect the vitality of spoken languages. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing from a 2.4-year ethnography with Korean Early Study Abroad (ESA, pre-college-aged study abroad) students in Toronto high schools, I examine the intersections among race, class, language, culture and citizenship (including immigrant status) in the identity construction and language learning of these students. Conceptualising race as a social construct and racism as systemic and institutionalised, I employ sociolinguistic analysis of the data to link issues of race and class together and point out how the ESA students adopt class-based consumption of Korean language and products as a strategy for dealing with the racial and linguistic marginalisation they experienced in Canadian contexts as well as its consequences in their language learning. The paper concludes with the story's implications for discussing race and alternative ways of talking about privilege among racial minorities regarding transformation of the value of the linguistic capital across different linguistic markets in today's world of globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses various research papers published within the issue, including one by John Edwards about minority-group settings and another by Adrian Blackledge on sociolinguistics and social Justice in a multilingual world.

Although development goals are usually set as targets that must be achieved in a development process, experience with development goals in Africa has tended to underscore underperformance either in terms of a shortfall in the targets attained or in terms of inadequate pursuit of specific goals. To illustrate this syndrome, the African Union's New Partnership for African Development and the Millennium Development Goals will be used as a case study. Neither of them includes language as a significant factor in the realization of the expected goals. In fact, most of the inadequacies observed are often attributed to socioeconomic causes. In this paper, I argue that these inadequacies cannot be fully accounted for without reference to the role of language coupled with attendant sociocultural constraints. By their very nature, virtually all the goals require participation by the populace, and the most effective means of ensuring their inclusion is the use of a language or languages which will facilitate and maximise such participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]