In the British region of Cornwall, state intervention in long-standing practices of the translation of music lyrics for song competitions has created major shifts, including remarkable competitive successes. Proponents of the Kernewek (Cornish) Language have long used translated musical lyrics as a tool for language revival, especially in annual…

Taking into account the crosscultural differences in prescriptive attitudes in various linguistic communities, a theory of three types of prescriptivism--human-oriented, language-oriented, and error-oriented prescriptivism--has been offered [Strelevica-Ošina, Dace. [2011] 2012. "Kapec mes gribam, lai valoda ir pareiza? Ieskats preskriptivisma…

This study investigates diglossic patterns of language use by speakers of Zoroastrian Dari in the city of Yazd, where most of Zoroastrian population of Iran lives. Efforts have been made to find out how, when and why the spoken language of Dari is favoured by Zoroastrian community members. For this reason, the evaluation by the informants of their…

Sociolinguistic research on language attitudes has revealed that non-standard accented speakers are usually perceived more negatively than members of the dominant speech community. Few studies, however, have examined whether a speaker's ethnicity, evidenced by nonlinguistic factors such as appearance, may play a role in listeners' perception of…

The role of linguists in Lithuanian society is quite different from that in western countries. It is still broadly assumed that they not only describe the language use and codify the norms of standard variety, but that they also possess the status of moral authorities having access to the mysteries of language. In the tradition of Lithuanian…

The study examines the influence of gender, age and socio-economic status on attitudes of Foochow and Hokkien towards their ethnic language and Mandarin. The matched guise test results of 120 Foochow and 120 Hokkien participants in Kuching, Malaysia, showed positive attitudes towards Mandarin on all the 15 traits. The Hokkien participants were…

This paper explores the linguistic landscape (LL) in the southern Austrian province of Carinthia, which is home to an autochthonous Slovene minority. Following several decades of political and legal debate known as the "Ortstafelstreit" ("dispute of topographic signs"), recent legislation has strengthened the status of Slovene…

This paper, after shortly introducing "Folk Linguistics" by defining its domain of competence [cf. Preston, Dennis R., ed. 1999. "Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology." Amsterdam: John Benjamins; Niedzielski, Nancy A., and Dennis R. Preston. 2003. "Folk Linguistics." Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter], attempts to draw an…

Ethnolinguistic vitality theory asserts that Status, Demographic, Institutional Support and Control factors make up the vitality of ethnolinguistic groups. An assessment of a group's strengths and weaknesses in each of these dimensions provides a rough classification of ethnolinguistic groups into those having low, medium, or high vitality. Low…

What is the relationship between the awareness of linguistic prestige and the security or insecurity in the use of minoritised languages? Is formal linguistic insecurity (as initially described by Labov) the same as the speakers' perception of linguistic insecurity? Which are the variables related to the various types of linguistic insecurity in…

Past research has tended to ignore the emergence or existence of "middle zone" varieties such as topolects or regiolects. In addition, attitudinal dynamics have received little attention, including their contribution towards the re-evaluation of the status of language varieties. Regarding the status of Cantonese, linguistic, political…

This paper discusses language usage patterns amongst Eastern European migrants living in the East Anglia region of Great Britain. It examines the relationship between individual speakers' language use and societal factors, with an emphasis of respondents' perceptions of ethnic, cultural and linguistic vitality. A linguistic vitality and language…

Examines the decline, death, and resurrection of the Cornish language. Looks at 17th and 18th century writings on the subject and at the problems faced in reviving the language, especially in connection with the reconstruction of its phonological and lexical components. Considers the state of Unified Cornish today. (SED)

Globalisation processes, often accused of imposing uniformity the world over, also open up opportunities for minorities (including linguistic ones) to exploit a variety of spaces for self-definition and self-expression. The expansion in the use of minority languages in public signage is one consequence of this present phase of reorientation in…

The three mainland Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian) are so closely related that the speakers mostly communicate in their own languages (semicommunication). Even though the three West Germanic languages Dutch, Frisian and Afrikaans are also closely related, semicommunication is not usual between these languages. In the present…