Mangarevan traditionally contained two numeration systems: a general one, which was highly regular, decimal, and extraordinarily extensive; and a specific one, which was restricted to specific objects, based on diverging counting units, and interspersed with binary steps. While most of these characteristics are shared by numeration systems in…

This dissertation provides a formal and functional analysis of grammatical voice in Sasak, an Austronesian language spoken in Eastern Indonesia. The research addresses two primary questions, which are (1) how does Sasak clause structure and morphosyntax vary across dialects? and (2) what shapes speakers' syntactic production, namely grammatical…

Society and language cannot be separated, both have a relationship where society can be formed by the language they use. The diversity of languages used by teachers and students in EFL classroom interaction represents the existence of a bilingual or multilingual community. This research was conducted to describe how is the language use in EFL…

Decolonising the languages curriculum is a radical requirement to critically reexamine the way in which the languages curriculum has been formed in any context. It requires the examination of the power dynamics which have led to the dominance of certain languages over others and which languages are and are not accorded resources in schools,…

A writer's L1 is generally believed to influence their L2 English writing significantly. However, the extent to which L1 backgrounds influence Asian learners' L2 English writing has not been wholly elucidated due to the lack of data covering various learners in Asia. Therefore, this study analysed more than one-million-word essays written by 2,318…

"The House that Jack Built" by multi-award winning author-illustrator, Gavin Bishop, is one of New Zealand's most sophisticated picture books for children. Recently republished by Gecko Press in Te Reo Maori as well as English, it depicts the colonisation of New Zealand from 1798 to around 1845, and the beginning of the New Zealand Wars…

More than words are stories to be told. Stories tell a lot about people's thoughts, experiences, and practices which in turn speak about people's language, identity, and cultural heritage. The present study deals with the documentation and analysis of "Mag-Antsi," the native language of Ayta Mag-Antsi indigenous people in the…

Just as an expanded view of language policy now affords agency to many more actors across society than authorities and linguists alone, it also accepts that the dispositions these agents bring to language affairs influence language policy processes and outcomes. However, this paper makes the case that language policy may also be guided, to some…

The purpose of this study is to investigate Indigenous pupils' achievement in Mathematics with Bilingual (Bahasa Melayu and Temiar) versions of mathematics tests. Both tests were based on Mathematics computation and word problem items. This study involved eight Orang Asli (Indigenous) primary students from eight schools in the district of Sungai…

This article makes the case for conducting ethnographic research of a multi-scalar nature that links language policy processes and ideologies of language with everyday practices, on the ground, in local schools and classrooms. As with other researchers engaged in the ethnography of language policy (e.g. McCarty, 2011; Johnson, 2013), my concern is…

We report on two experiments that investigated the acquisition of the Tagalog symmetrical voice system, a typologically rare feature of Western Austronesian languages in which there are more than one basic transitive construction and no preference for agents to be syntactic subjects. In the experiments, 3-, 5-, and 7-year-old Tagalog-speaking…

Is it possible to track the revitalization of the Maori language statistically? Different large-scale statistical collections (censuses and surveys) in New Zealand effectively have different definitions of speaker because they ask different questions. This paper compares trends in numbers of Maori speakers as estimated from responses to questions…

New Zealand's Pacific communities face significant generational language loss and their media are increasingly produced in English, raising questions about the centrality of language for ethnic media and their audiences. By drawing on semi-structured interviews with 23 media producers, this study finds tensions within and between Pacific-language…

Level 2 Maori medium programmes with 51-80% Maori language instruction make an important contribution to developing Maori language skills and lifting Maori student achievement, yet these programmes are largely hidden from discussions about Maori education attainment. Offering lower levels of Maori immersion than kura kaupapa Maori and being…

This paper is a brief summary of a large historic research project in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The project aimed to document and analyse the nature of mathematics education from tens of thousands of years ago to the present. Data sources varied from first contact and later records, archaeology, oral histories, language analyses, lived experiences,…