Few individuals--whether scholars or laypersons--think that the words "smart" or "intelligent" suffice to characterize a person's intellectual strengths. In this article, the author reviews a set of terms commonly used to characterize intellectual strengths and then introduces the concept of "synthesizing"--an…

This paper describes a mixed methods study of Japanese first-year tertiary learners' attitudes to English language learning models. It outlines the results from a survey comprised of a verbal guise test (measuring respondents' attitudes to both linguistic and personality features) and vocabulary elicitation, which was administered to 87…

The Spanish spoken in the U.S. contains certain elements from English due to the sustained sociocultural contact between these two languages. Unfortunately, it is for this very reason that many monolingual Spanish speakers (and even some bilinguals) denigrate bilingual varieties of U.S. Spanish, which they see as impure (Mata 2023; Rangel et al.…

This paper examines the language attitudes of first-wave members of the Ukrainian community in the UK towards the two varieties of Ukrainian present in the community (labelled Diasporic Ukrainian and Contemporary Ukrainian), and considers the language ideologies underpinning these attitudes. Drawing on the analysis of data obtained through…

In this brief forum article, I draw from the disciplinary orientation of linguistic anthropology to discuss how a collection of linguistic and semiotic resources gets "enregistered" as the "language" for specific communicative activities. Enregisterment is an ongoing social and ideological process whereby a semiotic corpus gets…

This mixed-methods study aims to examine the mediating role of attitude toward English varieties in the relationship between Informal Digital Learning of English (IDLE) and perceptions of using English as an International Language (EIL) materials in pre-service English teachers. We collected and analyzed survey data from 434 Indonesian EFL…

This study aims to identify factors contributing to linguistic insecurity and provides suggestions to support teachers in fostering linguistic security in their classrooms. The findings are based on data from interviews with 21 high school teachers from across the province of British Columbia (Canada) and a focus group with eight members of the…

In a Dialogue section of the "Journal of Sociolinguistics" (vol. 26, no. 1), author pairs introduce a number of themes and debates in sign language sociolinguistics, explore why these are debates; how the debates are situated within sociolinguistics as a whole; and how spoken language sociolinguistics does or does not have similar…

Identities are fluid, dynamic, and contextual; and identity (co)construction is a deeply contextualized process, especially when seen through postmodern and poststructural lenses. Adopting a qualitative-researcher-as-bricoleuse stance, the author presents an overarching autoethnographic narrative where she specifically analyzes three critical,…

The system of second person singular forms of address (2PS) in Medellín, Colombia is tripartite consisting of "tú, vos," and "usted," while also including the existence of a dual "usted." The current study compares usage of the intimate "usted" versus the distant "usted" with data from an oral…

As the global importance of English and its proportion of non-native speakers have continued to grow, research on Global Englishes has prioritized non-native speakers' changing attitudes toward non-native varieties. To investigate changes in attitudes among 'Inner Circle' English speakers, we conceptually replicated Lindemann's (2005) survey of…

This paper examines recent lexical expansion in New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) in the context of change in the status of the language and ongoing contact with other (spoken and signed) languages. We categorised 917 new signs documented in the past five years according to their source, semantic field, and sign formation mechanism(s), both…

Language naming systems are local ways of organising diversity, yet the language names used by linguists are sometimes incommensurable with the lived social reality of speakers. The process of assigning language names is not neutral, trivial or objective: it is a highly political process driven and shaped by understandings of group identity,…

One key tenet of Global Englishes for Language Teaching (GELT) is that the native English speaker should no longer serve as the role model for second language (L2) English users. Such a view does not discount that some degree of linguistic knowledge is necessary for successful global communication. However, GELT scholarship has remained relatively…

While addressing issues of prejudice and exclusion is crucial for helping adult second language (L2) learners acquire and critique socio-interactional norms of their pluralistic communities, there is still a lack of work examining how teachers can problematize prejudiced talk when it arises in the classroom. Within the detail-oriented frameworks…