This study examines L2 speakers' accent attitudes in relation to their linguistic profile and current practices, recruiting 107 multilingual postgraduate students of 34 different nationalities enrolled in leading research universities in Japan. The participants completed a survey regarding their perceptions of different English varieties in…

This paper focuses on the linguistic evolution of the Tianjin speech community in Sabah, Malaysia. From the perspective of restructuring of speech community, the paper integrates both micro and macro levels of language change into the analysis. Several methods were adopted in this study. Interviews were conducted with community leaders and various…

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…

Dominant notions of what constitutes a "language" and what a "dialect" within a continuum are entirely based on sociopolitical factors (i.e. the "languages by 'Ausbau'" of Kloss), totally disregarding structural and communicative aspects. This paper argues that such stance is no longer tenable in view of the modern…

This paper tries to give answers for successful receptive multilingualism (RM) but also for its failure. It is mainly based on the results of two projects, one on inter-dialectal communication in the Baltic area during the era of the Hanseatic League and the other analyses inter-Scandinavian communication today. The main purpose of this survey is…

This study reports on the linguistic behaviour of 39 university students from Moravia (in the east of the Czech Republic) living at a hall of residence in Prague, Bohemia (an area covering the west/central parts of the Czech Republic). In Bohemia, Moravian dialects and Standard Czech (SC)--an archaic and semi-artificial standard dialect that is…

Bidialectal approaches to American public school teaching presume a relativistic view of language on the part of teachers, a requirement which has received little scrutiny since bidialectalism has become a predominant approach to divergent language in school settings. Evidence drawn from documents of the American teaching profession over the past…

This books examines the interrelation between language and society in contemporary Italy and provides an up-to-date account of linguistic diversity, social variation, special codes, and language varieties within Italian society, and in situations of language contact both within and outside Italy. Part 1 covers the evolution and variations of…

The Pacific area is generally acknowledged to manifest great linguistic diversity. Such diversity is generally assumed to be dysfunctional, an obstacle to efficient functioning of society. Such diversity must, however, have its functions at least in the circumstances in which it arose. It is also generally assumed that such diversity is the result…

Reports on three surveys of Australian Aboriginal language use, undertaken to determine the language groups' needs for translation and literacy projects, are presented. "Communicability of Some Western Desert Communilects" by K. C. Hansen evaluates mutual intelligibility between languages and dialects in that region, and addresses the complicating…