Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) is an extinct village sign language hypothesized to be a sister of British Sign Language (BSL) and a significant contributor to early American Sign Language (ASL) (Groce 1985). After the last deaf MVSL signer died, signs were elicited from five hearing signers. This study analyzes that data through a series…

To date, studies that investigate lexical overlap in signed languages have mainly considered the relationships between deaf community signed languages. The alternate sign languages of Indigenous Australia provide an opportunity to take another perspective -- they are perhaps amongst the oldest known sign languages in the world, their main users…

While language is clearly an important aspect of (labor) migration, there have not been many contemplations and interrogations, although truly compelling and necessary, on language varieties and their place and position in labor migration and transnational work in the contemporary world, and hence why we intend to do so in this article. In our…

Purpose: We investigated the role of spoken language in the acquisition of literacy in the context of Arabic diglossia, where the written language, Standard Arabic, deviates substantially from the spoken language, Colloquial Arabic, children acquire naturally from birth. Method: The participants (N = 110; 40 girls) were Saudi Arabic--speaking…

Human creativity and ingenuity partly depend on divergent thinking -- the ability to generate many varied, original, and elaborate responses. Prior research has found ample evidence of an effect of cognitive factors, including the organization of semantic networks and associative ability, on divergent thinking. Less is known, however, about how…

Imagine a scenario with a pilot and a flight attendant. How do you picture them? Now read the following anecdote: Sandra, an airline pilot with years of experience, was preparing for her flight while chatting with Mike, a flight attendant who had just joined the crew. Some of the passengers were surprised to see Sandra confidently taking control…

This cross-sectional study attempts to investigate the impacts of linguistic landscape (LL) tasks on EFL teacher candidates' understanding of English in local and global contexts. To this end, three cohorts of student teachers carried out LL fieldwork, uploaded images of English signage to an LL application, Lingscape, and submitted a mini…

This study navigates the constructive role of English as a foreign language (EFL) as a critical intercultural discourse of locus of enunciation and linguistic citizenship through which teachers in Chinese educational context act as agents of action and social change. Based on a critical discourse analysis of learner diary entries, the study traces…

This study approaches multilingualism on Phuket Island by means of a linguistic landscape (LL) analysis. The data in this study consists of 185 photographs of shop signs taken from popular streets on the island. They were analyzed via a mixed-methods approach. It was found that different languages were purposely chosen to indicate or showcase the…

The study explores the extent to which linguistic globalisation and the ever increasing dominance of English shapes the perceptions of linguistic diversity in traditional sociolinguistic milieus. We set out to investigate the attitudes of 142 respondents from Vorarlberg, an Austrian province, towards their home dialects, High German, a local…

This study analyses the multilingual linguistic landscapes made up of languages, visual materials, and built environments in Seongsu-dong, where old industrial sites and new commercial places are indiscriminately juxtaposed. This study focuses particularly on (1) how languages are associated with different built environments of new commercial…

Despite the recent proliferation of Global Englishes courses both quantitatively (in terms of the number of programs offered worldwide) and qualitatively (in various sizes, forms, modes, and modalities), large-scale systematic investigations across various contexts are conspicuously underrepresented within the existing body of literature.…

The paper foregrounds analysis of the significance of English in individual and collective life in relation to a myriad of feelings that religious and ethnic minorities experience in South and Central Asia within their multilingual ecology. The data reveal an entangling of varied yet coexisting emotions on the part of these minorities in…

In recent years, the rapid growth and unprecedented dominance of the English language has transformed the world's linguistic ecology and promoted anxiety and debates about its future. The language has developed into a leading international lingua franca used by millions of speakers in different linguistic and cultural contexts worldwide. This…

This paper reports on a research project which asked scholars to speak about their multilingual and collaborative academic practices. This case study sheds light on the complex and multilayered linguistic choices made by multilingual scholars to comply with the diverse requirements of a multilingual academic life, namely the adoption of EMI…