This paper examines the role of language policy and needs assessments in the provision of public services to regional minority and immigrant language speakers in the UK and Finland. Semi-structured interviews with service providers in Helsinki, Rovaniemi, Manchester, and Cardiff revealed how language policy and language needs are conceptualised…

This paper compares the sociolinguistic trajectory of a 'latent' speaker mother to that of a 'new' speaker mother. Drawing on Shandler (TDR 48(1):19-43, 2004), it introduces the term 'post-vernacular FLP' as a means to conceptualise the latent speaker mother's emblematic use of Gaelic with her child as a 'seed' from which language revitalisation…

Over 50 years ago, the Norwegian-American linguist Einar Haugen published a seminal paper entitled 'Dialect, language and nation' (Am Anthropol 68:922-935, 1966b), in which he expounds his four-step model of standardization, explaining the development from dialect to standard following a process of norm selection, codification, acceptance and…

Education through the medium of a minoritised language is widely regarded as a critical component of language revitalisation initiatives. Given the demographic and social position of many minoritised languages, however, it may not be easy to find teachers who are fluent and literate in the language, confident about using and teaching it, and…

The development of sign language recognition legislation is a relatively recent phenomenon in the field of language policy. So far only few authors have documented signing communities' aspirations for recognition legislation, how they work with their governments to achieve legislation which most reflects these goals, and whether and why outcomes…

This article describes and analyzes how rural Nicaraguan teachers and NGO leaders are working with a US university-based team to develop a locally responsive, critical, and inquiry-based approach to the Ministry of Education requirement for English in secondary school. This requirement has placed a new and challenging expectation upon rural…

With shifts in demographics leading to increasingly diverse student populations, and pressures from state educational accountability offices to streamline budgets and improve test scores, teachers at the secondary level are increasingly challenged to support English learners new to US schools. Teachers, often with minimal understanding of second…

A cross-national comparative study in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Madrid, Spain examines educational policies and practices that target immigrant students for whom the language variety normally spoken in the host country represents a second dialect. Policy contexts and schooling environments of the two urban centres were analyzed to gain deeper…

This article reports a case study of two Chinese-English bilingual families in Singapore and illustrates the importance of incorporating two hitherto disconnected fields of research--family language policy and family literacy practices--to an understanding of early language and literacy acquisition in the familial milieu. Specifically, this work…

This paper analyses the policies proposed by three international organisations to eliminate the use of sexist language. This research compares the main guidelines and recommendations presented at supranational level by the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the European Union to avoid the use of sexist language. It then evaluates the…

Singapore's officially bilingual education policy, in which the majority of children are schooled through a non-native medium with their "Mother Tongue" (an ethnic heritage language that is not necessarily spoken in the home) as a single school subject only, has resulted in dramatic language shifts in the population and high academic…

While theoretical conceptualizations of language policy have grown increasingly rich, empirical data that test these models are less common. Further, there is little methodological guidance for those who wish to do research on language policy interpretation and appropriation. The ethnography of language policy is proposed as a method which makes…