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There is a need to embrace translingualism in order to avert covert tensions that emanate from the ascription of linguistic supremacy to "standard" English, especially among teachers of immigrant children and in overall public discourse. Drawing inspiration from the 1974 resolutions of the Conference on College Composition and Communication and the 1996 Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights which advocate the empowerment of students to "own" their languages, this paper examines the diversity inherent in world Englishes in orthography, grammar, lexis, and phonology. A plethora of indigenous and European languages spoken across Africa have influenced the emergence of varied Englishes; as a result, Africans in the US speak English with varying accents and proficiencies. The following factors contribute to the translingual character of English spoken by most first- and 1.5-generation African immigrants in the US: medium of instruction in their countries of origin; duration of exposure to 'standard' English; age at immigration to the US; and their willingness to yield to social pressure to speak English like mainstream Americans. This paper foregrounds the historical as well as the contemporary socioecological linguistic realities of African immigrants' English speech and how these realities impact African immigrant acculturation in their host country.

This study involves 35 research participants: 20 immigrant parents (primarily mothers from South America, North Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East) and 15 primary school children, aged 10-11. These children were born outside Italy and primary school was their first encounter with the Italian educational system. We observed their processes of integration through their stories and those of their parents. Our investigation aims to identify factors that support or inhibit their school integration. We adopt an ecological research paradigm, proposing a vision of knowledge as rooted in natural life contexts, focusing on subjectivity. Analysis of the data led to identification of core categories concerning these families' experiences and their children's encounters with Italian schools. This paper focuses on the children's perspectives of their experiences with school.

Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to investigate the experiences of six African immigrant mothers living in the United Kingdom with a child diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The mothers took part in one-off, semi-structured interviews. Four themes were identified: caring for a child we did not expect, the pain of stigma and rejection, frameworks of meaning, and negotiating conflicting cultural beliefs. Many aspects of the mothers’ experiences appear related to their position as immigrants from cultures with contrasting belief systems regarding child development and disability. Conflicts between African cultural beliefs and a western, medical understanding of ASD appeared to create a feeling of cognitive dissonance for the mothers. The strategies used to negotiate this appear to map onto Berry’s acculturation strategies, suggesting that the experience of having a child with ASD impacts upon the acculturation process. Implications for clinical practice and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]