For many Spanish speakers, Spanglish is perceived as a bastardized form of Spanish that does not count as "real" Spanish. This view rests on the assumption that there is a "real" Spanish, which operates by a set of grammatical, lexical and morphological rules such that when bilingual speakers mix into these rules elements that…

Just like any other language, Vietnamese vocabulary includes many borrowed words from different countries that have influenced Vietnamese culture throughout its history. The majority of the borrowed words are from Chinese, French, and English. This study investigates such loan and borrowed words from cultural point of view. Examples have been…

Drawing on findings from an ethnographic study of the writing practices of three plurilingual writers in Toronto, Canada, this article focuses on the translingual practices that these writers engaged with and discusses how these practices enriched their writing processes and products both in English and in their mother tongues. The author explains…

The main argument of this paper is that the Virtual Linguistic Landscape (VLL) of advertising allows the utilisation of persuasion strategies that transcend the traditional separation of named languages to produce the maximum effect on potential customers. The paper challenges the segregational view of language, which assumes that communication…

This study investigates the use of a popular online expression 'skr' by Chinese micro-blogging users on Weibo. Used originally as a hip-hop term for the sound of cars drifting tires, 'skr' was exploited by Chinese micro-blogging users for other meanings and functions. Data were collected from Weibo users' postings over a month. Using the Search…

The present study draws on the theoretical framework of translanguaging and seeks to shed light on the patterns of translanguaging and how translanguaging affects meaning-making processes among bilingual children in preschool. This case study focuses on 8 months of observation and recordings of pupils ranging in age from 3 to 6 years. The gathered…

Communities around the world have distinctive ways of representing language use across space and territory. The approach to and method of mapping languages that began with nineteenth-century European dialectology and colonial boundary making is one such way. Though practiced by relatively few linguists today, language mapping has developed…

This paper examines the linguistic repertoires and domains of language use of the members of Victory Baptist Church at Nkwantanang (a suburb of Kade), an Akan-speaking area in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Data for the study is from observations and transcribed recordings of Sunday services, youth and women fellowship meetings, as well as…

The hashtag #justsaying is one of Twitter's global stock hashtags. The hashtag is nontopical and appears to fulfil a complex range of metapragmatic framing functions. In this paper, I shall look at Dutch-language tweets in which the hashtag is being used as a fully enregistered 'translingual' framing device, and I will attempt an analysis focused…

There is a growing phenomenon, worldwide, of inserting English words, phrases or expressions, into the local language: this is part of the acceptance of English as current world language. Indonesia is experiencing the use of this mixture of language when using either their own Indonesian or local language; English words, phrases and expressions…

Using data from Arizona, United States, the present study seeks to further our understanding of lone other language items (LOLIs) in bilingual discourse and their status as either borrowings or codeswitches by measuring the degree of incorporation that can indicate a LOLI's status as a borrowing or codeswitching. To accomplish this aim, nouns from…

The use of English-origin spontaneous loanwords (e.g., "la babysitter," "el counter," etc.) in otherwise Spanish discourse is criticized by many as a strategy that bilinguals use to compensate for a lack of lexical knowledge in Spanish. The purpose of the current research is to examine the question of lexical proficiency as a…

This study examined the presence of internal linguistic discrimination--i.e., the negative reaction of Spanish speakers towards the varieties of Spanish spoken by heritage speakers--among bilingual teachers in a school district in Texas. To this end, we conducted a study that analyzed the responses of 84 bilingual teachers to audio utterances…

Research has shown that tasks provide second language (L2) learners with many opportunities to learn the L2. Task repetition has been claimed to benefit L2 learning since familiarity with procedure and/or content gives learners the chance to focus on more specific aspects of language. Most research on task repetition has focused on adult…

Drawing on varied offline and online contexts, this article indicates that youth linguistic diversity in contemporary Mongolia is better understood from the perspective of "the ordinariness of linguascapes." The notion of "linguascapes" is important in capturing the rising complexity of youth mixed language practices…