While teacher educator identities have received increasing attention over the past decade, there is a lack of research on teacher educators' professional identities in the complex and shifting higher education contexts. Informed by the sociocultural linguistic perspective, this study investigates two language teacher educators' professional…

The role of world languages in the internationalization of college campuses in the United States (U.S.) has become a recurring theme of discussions in academic, government, and private sectors. Topics have ranged from the lack of a common definition of internationalization to a review of college curricula. Klee (2009) and Bettencourt (2011) have…

A study investigated the stigma associated with not speaking a native language in a Hispanic community. Subjects were 288 male and female university students and staff, both Hispanic and non-Hispanic, in the San Diego (California) area. Two forms of a paper-and-pencil survey were administered to the subjects; one gave a stimulus figure, a Mexican…

Graduate students have long expressed difficulties adapting to different expectations graduate schools place upon them. Foreign students pursuing knowledge in the field of speech communication encounter cultural difficulties. Foreign graduate students are students at risk because they become a central locus for cultural tensions in relation to:…

Argues for a redefinition of terms and reconsideration of methodology in research on language attitudes, suggesting that mentalistic definitions of attitudes be replaced with social ones and experimentation using the matched-guise technique be replaced by discourse-analytic research. A qualitative study on Finnish college student attitudes toward…

The basic problem of communicating in Arabic today is the existence of two language varieties, one spoken and one written. These may even be considered two distinct languages. They have existed side by side for as long as one knows. Classical written Arabic became fossilized and developed as a closed system independent of common usage and…

International students face a variety of challenges related to language difficulties, immigration issues, and culture shock. Asian students are less likely to seek help for their emotional and interpersonal problems than their American counterparts, due to culturally different help-seeking preferences. A study examined levels of anxiety among…

This "communication lexicon," a new source of information in the field of language and area studies, describes how selected themes such as family, society, work, and entertainment are perceived and understood by members of the Mexican, Colombian, and United States cultures. It identifies broad trends of perceptions and evaluations…

Analysis of 642 slang terms that college students use to characterize peers at Holy Cross College (Massachusetts) and University of California, Davis suggests that undergraduate slang usage is socially complex, the language is reflective of campus and academic life, and that it portrays undergraduate life from the perspective of dominant student…

This paper focuses on language diversity in Chicano speech communities in the United States and its relation to the teaching of Spanish to Chicano bilinguals. Attempts to teach standard Spanish to Spanish-speakers in the United States have been unsuccessful for the most part, because the schools recognize only a single standard of "correctness"…

A study investigated the relationship between language contacts made outside of the classroom by Japanese foreign students and how those contacts affect their participation within the classroom and their overall academic performance. Subjects were 32 university students from Japan enrolled in an intensive language program. All of the students had…

The impact of the western educational model and the use of English on the language and traditional behaviors of young people in American Samoa was studied. Results from a 1973 study were compared with results collected in 1987 using the same instrument to measure changes in language and culture-related behaviors. A survey of nearly 190 American…

A survey of the status of language usage in Tunisia begins with an overview of patterns of usage of Arabic, the official language, and its many dialects and forms, and French, spoken as a second language by half the population. A recent, official movement toward Arabization in official and other formal communication is outlined and the popular…

A survey of the status of language usage in Iraq begins with an overview of the usage patterns of Arabic and Kurdish, especially in the context of recent political events and the agreement to make Kurdish a second official language in the Kurdish autonomous region, and to allow limited use of Kurdish in instruction and public communication. A…

A survey of the status of language usage in Algeria begins with an overview of the usage patterns of Arabic, the Berber languages, and French. The country's return to Arabic as its official language after independence from France in 1962 is discussed along with the resultant language planning, issues of language of instruction at the elementary,…