This study consists of a categorisation of the vocabulary of chemistry, focusing on the terminological difficulties students face when learning this subject. Therefore, this classification intends to provide chemistry teachers an awareness of the language barriers students must overcome in their understanding of this scientific discipline. Two…

Language exerts a powerful influence on our concepts. We review evidence documenting the developmental origins of a precocious link between language and object categories in very young infants. This collection of studies documents a cascading process in which early links between language and cognition provide the foundation for later, more precise…

This article explores how linguistic resources from two local languages, Finnish and Swedish, are used in expert presentations in bilingual formal meetings and how they function with respect to the three ideal criteria of professional communication: economy, efficiency, and precision. Based on the results, the article suggests a typology of…

This critical review of literature provides a detailed description of foreigner talk as a simplified register and critically discusses findings entrenched in studies done about this SLA issue. The studies cited are classified as researches concerning foreigner talk that occurs in both natural and classroom settings. Based on the critical review,…

In response to the articles in this forum, the authors write that they were struck by the way most of the authors assumed that generations are stable entities characterized by readily identifiable factors, such as age, attitudes or circumstances. Following a constitutive philosophy of communication and instruction (Fassett & Warren, 2007;…

This article takes "measurement" as a will to determine or fix space and time, which allows for a comparison of ontological models of space and time from Western and Maori traditions. The spirit of "measurement" is concomitantly one of fixing meaning, which is suggested as the essence of the growth of the scientific genre of…

Prompted by a recurrent question from students, this paper examines perspectives from world Englishes and postcolonial studies in relation to one another. Focusing on two critical thinkers, Braj B. Kachru and Edward W. Said, each section highlights relevant themes and ideas from selected works of each scholar and discusses points of convergence…

Rob MacLaury's Vantage Theory, VT, models the way in which a cognizer constructs, recalls, uses, and modifies a category in terms of point of view or vantage. Alongside of VT, there is place for the kind of semantic specification found in the lexicon. VT2 [Allan, Keith, 2002. "Vantage theory, VT2, and number." "Language Sciences" 24(5-6), 679-703…

While the defining cases of diglossia offered in Charles Ferguson's 1959 article have long been useful as vehicles for introducing this important form of societal multilingualism, they are also problematic in that they differ from each other in a number of significant ways. This article proposes a modified and more precise framework in which…

The central role played by language in mediating school experience and the prestige accorded to standard language varieties within the field of education provide the broad rationale for this paper. This qualitative study, based on a friendship focus-group design, was conducted in two groups of 12-year-old children from contrasting "ideal…

This study is based on the hypothesis that television contents themselves constitute a source of learning through television narratives. In specific terms, we defend the idea that it is possible to teach and learn values through said narratives. Some of the research dealing with the relationship between television and values is categorized from a…

Identifies criteria for classifying languages according to their function and geographical spread in international business activity. Three language types are identified: (1) languages of marketing contact; (2) market languages; and (3) languages of marketing value. It is suggested that the overwhelming volume of the world's businees is conducted…

Labeling Peter Elbow an "expressivist" is an ironic reduction of his multifaceted thought to a one-dimensional term at a time when postmodernism stresses heteroglossia. This paper outlines the recent history of "expressivism" to demonstrate its curious social construction. The paper then calls for an "end of…

The process and issues of labeling language program models is discussed insofar as it may affect the objectives, content, and method of instruction. The first section describes the origins, stated objectives, and implementation of a Neuchatel (Switzerland) school program integrating heritage language and culture into the school curriculum, noting…

John Searle's treatment of declarations in his (1976) classification of speech acts is examined. Some acts that are classified as declarations by that theorist, especially certain ones relating to religious rituals and literary usage, do not fit the definition of that class and should be reclassified, either in another one of Searle's classes…