Involving plurilingual immigrant parents in their children's schooling is an understudied area. However, research shows the importance of parental involvement for all. Much literature critiques the existing understanding of the term parental involvement which is based on the practices of white middle-class parents and fails to recognize the common…

This dissertation investigates the initial and ongoing motivations of language revitalization practitioners. This study extends our understandings of language revitalization from the programmatic and sociological levels to the level of the individual practitioner. It also extends theory in L2 motivation into a largely unstudied language learning…

Language documentation is increasingly seen as a collaborative process, engaging community members as active participants. Collaborative research produces better documentation that is valuable for both the academic community and the speakers. However, in many communities, speakers and language advocates lack the skills necessary to fully engage in…

Linguistic and anthropological research has demonstrated that language ideologies play a complex role in contexts of language endangerment, as well as in revitalization initiatives. In this paper, we articulate some central ways in which these beliefs and interests can translate into significant barriers to successful language revitalization.…

While many young learners of the 21st century have grown up with, and generally prefer to learn using Emerging Technologies (ETs), few teachers of Luganda language graduate with learning experiences of integrating ETs in their teaching. One of the most crucial stages of gaining experiences in any subject or object of interest is making Abstract…

This paper reports on an exploratory qualitative investigation of the discourses of plurilingual children's parents, with a view to developing an understanding of their family language policy. Drawing loosely on Spolsky [2004. "Language Policy." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press], family language policy was conceptualised as having…

The number of heritage language learners in American universities is increasing each year. Similar to monolingual students, this subgroup of learners is required to complete university level "foreign language" coursework, which can be a source of anxiety. Particularly, this subgroup of learners may experience high levels of anxiety due…

Attempts at the definition of multilingualism range from the structuralist interpretation as the coexistence of multiple codes to the critical sociolinguistic efforts to go beyond the idea of languages as fixed entities. The author's purpose is to explore the suitability of Pierre Bourdieu's model of linguistic production and circulation to…

Second language (L2) learners of tone languages do not perceive and produce the different tones of the target language with equal ease. The most common explanation for these asymmetries is that acoustically salient tones are the easiest to learn. An alternative explanation is that tones are easiest to learn when they are highly frequent in the…

In this dissertation research, I examined the overall educational experiences of Chinese immigrant students, particularly their educational experiences in the United States. Using narrative inquiry methodology in my study, I portrayed the stories of six Chinese immigrant students, including four undergraduates and two graduates in a Midwestern…

This study examined the family language policies (FLP) of Korean American parents and how the language practice, management, and ideology components of their FLP and demographic variables predict maintenance of the home language. Results of a large-scale (N = 480) survey show that different sets of FLP and demographic variables contributed to a…

In situations of extreme linguistic diversity, language promotion can be a very challenging undertaking. Decades of educational colonisation and foreign language dominance have produced inferiority complexes so that local or indigenous languages (Cameroonian mother tongues), because of their unofficial status, are perceived as liabilities rather…

As a state with a longstanding tradition of offering bilingual education, Illinois has a legislative requirement for native language instruction in earlier grades through a model called Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE). This model does not truly develop bilingualism, however, but rather offers native language instruction to English learners…

As a language, Irish is unique to Ireland and is, therefore, of crucial importance to the identity of the Irish people, to Irish culture and to world heritage. The Irish language however has had a turbulent and traumatic history and has endured a complex and varied relationship with the Irish people. Since the foundation of the Irish Free State,…

This article provides a comprehensive synthesis of research on language attrition to date, with a view to establishing a theoretically sound basis for future research in the domain of second language (L2) attrition. We identify the variables that must be tracked in populations who experience language loss, and we develop a general model for the…