This dissertation investigates a typologically rare linguistic phenomenon found in Irish from three different perspectives: how it challenges phonological theory, how it is used by contemporary speakers, and how its written representation affects its acquisition. Initial consonant mutation (ICM), as it appears in the Celtic languages, is known to…

James P. Lantolf is George and Jane Greer Professor Emeritus of Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics and former director of the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Applied Linguistics in the same academic unit at Xi'an Jiaotong…

Second language (L2) phonological acquisition involves learning novel target-language sounds, variable forms of sounds that arise in different phonological contexts, and any phonotactic constraints that govern their appearance. Interlanguage (IL) grammars must adapt to represent sounds and constraints that are novel to the native language (L1)…

In the past century, French has shifted from being the native language of many Louisianans to being an endangered dialect. Since the creation of the state agency CODOFIL (Council for the Development of French in Louisiana) in the 1960's, efforts have been made to revitalize French in Louisiana, and since the 1980's, some parishes have offered…

From the early twentieth century to the present day, Transcarpathia has belonged to several states: the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, Czechoslovakia, the Hungarian Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and finally to Ukraine. The status of what counts as a minority and a majority language has changed each time the state affiliation has been changed. Based on…

The main aims of this qualitative study are to identify and categorise the types of lexical borrowings from the three main Malaysian languages which are the Malay language, Chinese dialects and Indian languages used by 203 ESL teachers, to what extent these lexical borrowings are used and for what reasons. This study has identified a new category…

Research into Singapore English (SgE) has undergone many paradigm shifts from the 1970s to the present. This paper first begins with a consideration of how variation in the English language used in Singapore has been studied. It then identifies the two main varieties of English commonly described in Singapore, namely, Standard SgE (SSE) and…

The relationship between language and education is considered, focusing on the central role of language in learning, and two kinds of research concerned with language and educational issues are discussed. Linguistic research focuses on the language aspects and treats the educational aspect as the contextual surrounding of the problem. Educational…

This issue includes the following articles: "Towards a Sociolinguistics of Style" (Alan Bell, Gary Johnson); "Engendering Identities: Pronoun Selection as an Indicator of Salient Intergroup Identities" (Miriam Meyerhoff); "A Majority Sound Change in a Minority Community" (Carmen Fought); "Addressing the Actuation…

The paper discusses some issues that language variation creates for English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instruction, identifies research strands relevant to program development, and describes two dialect program exemplars. It also suggests considerations for educational policy formation with respect to dialects. The introductory section gives…

Discusses approaches and problems in teaching English as a second dialect writing. Also discusses the kinds of clues student writings provide on the students' progress in mastery of standard English. (EKN)

As the field of sociolinguistics has emerged, its terminology, which like many other emerging disciplines contains many neologisms and new usages, has sometimes been called insensitive. This reaction may interfere with serious examination of the field's content. Areas of disagreement or dispute include terms used for the speech of black…

Discusses Tone sandhi, the tone changes undergone by tone-bearing syllables in juxtaposition, in several Chinese dialects. The tone group is examined as a syntatico-semantic unit in Fuzhou and Mandarin and as a syntactic boundary-marker in Shanghai and Xiamen. The theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed. (20 references) (JL)

Discusses the linguistic systems of children of Italian immigrants in Australia and the children's mastery of standard Italian and various dialects. Also reviews evidence for claims of the emergence of a new linguistic form labelled "Australitalian." (EKN)

Rejects assimilationist ideology as a way of legitimizing the educational experience of language minority groups, and proposes the adoption of a pluralist position that views the teaching of standard English as a second dialect as "additive bidialectalism" rather than remediation. (91 references) (Author/CB)