The requirement for Chinese students to adopt an English name for the English language classroom remains a relic of a previous era, which is not only accepted but also desirable by some. This study reports on 357 Chinese English language students' relationship with their English names in terms of the concepts of identity, agency and investment,…

As plurilingual/multilingual research advances, factors that contribute to or hinder individual's flexible language use are still underexplored. Questions such as "Why do some people identify as plurilingual and pluricultural while others do not?" and "What factors contribute to high levels of plurilingual and pluricultural…

The 2011 Census in England broke new ground, as a question about language had never previously been asked. After stakeholder consultations and a series of trials, the census authority decided on two questions based on earlier censuses in the USA: one about the respondent's "main language" and another about proficiency in English. This…

The present study aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire assessing parents' beliefs about, and attitudes toward, supporting young children's English as a second/foreign language development -- Parent English Language Belief and Attitude Questionnaire (PELBA-Q). The PELBA-Q was piloted with 173 parents of kindergarten-aged children and…

Recent language attitude research has attended to the processes involved in identifying and evaluating spoken language varieties. This article investigates the ability of second-language learners of English in Spain (N = 71) to identify Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GenAm) speech and their perceptions of linguistic variation…

A substantial body of research has examined the role of English in South Africans' linguistic repertoires. Many of these studies have investigated whether a language shift towards English might be underway among first-language (L1) speakers of the indigenous languages. At the same time, the role of English in the repertoires of L1 English speakers…

Swearing uses language forms that are taboo and potentially offensive. These are often used for emotional expression. Multilingual research shows that because the first language retains most emotional force (Dewaele [2004]. "The Emotional Force of Swearwords and Taboo Words in the Speech of Multilinguals." "Journal of Multilingual…

An analysis of data collected from 2347 users of English on their self-reported swearing behaviour in English revealed significant higher values for the 1159 native English (L1) users than for the 1165 English foreign language (LX) users. Parallel analyses on the data of the L1 and LX users revealed that the interlocutor effect was slightly…

This article discusses the usage of the Spanish language by Hispanic mothers with their children, their views on language maintenance and culture within their bilingual families and their opinions on the benefits of bilingualism in a globalised world. Drawing upon detailed case studies of 16 native Spanish-speaking mothers married to…

The present study examined the relations between three motivational variables, i.e. academic self-efficacy, task importance, and interest with three types of learning behaviours, i.e. class engagement, metacognitive self-regulation, and avoidance coping with 1954 secondary students in Singapore. Positive correlations were found between the three…

Cuisine and restaurants are powerful tools for cultural, social and tourist image-building, and projection for tourist promotion, particularly in the case of major tourist places and destinations which boast a well-deserved, long-standing history and reputation for gastronomical beacons. When menus are not properly translated (or transcreated)…

Although the number of native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts has increased in recent years with the emergence of English as an international language, only a few studies on NESTs and non-NESTs have extensively and directly examined students' beliefs about these two groups of teachers. To fill this…

Israeli university students who have difficulty reading academic texts in English are required to take reading comprehension courses in English for academic purposes (EAP) in order to complete their BA degree. Whereas most students pass the courses, some repeatedly fail. Since Israel is a multilingual country, there is also a question about…

This study investigated the adoption of English names in Taiwan through questionnaires and interviews with parents of junior high school students. In total, 564 parents filled out a questionnaire regarding their adoption of an English name, reasons for needing an English name, and their perspectives about their child's English name. We interviewed…

This study investigated contemporary Japanese college students' attitudes towards Japan English (JE) and American English (AE) through a verbal guise test (VGT) as well as a questionnaire. Forty-four Japanese college students listened to four Japanese and four North Americans reading a text in English, rated them in terms of solidarity-related…