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…

We investigate the perceptions of international and American Chinese bilingual pre- and in-service graduate students and language teachers regarding Chinese varieties. The 25 participants were currently enrolled college students or recent graduates majoring in language education or other associated programmes at an urban university in the…

This paper investigates how the presence of a minority language closely related to the majority language is received and treated on the World Wide Web. Specifically, it deals with the acceptability and treatment of texts written in Slovak in the .cz domain, which belongs to the Czech Republic, more than a decade after the split of Czechoslovakia.…