Examines the religious and linguistic behavior of the Murid brotherhood in Touba, Senegal. Argues that the patterns of behavior found in the community are idiosyncratic of the brotherhood and set apart Murids from other religious groups. Argues that unlike other forms of resistance against French assimilation movements, Muridism represents one of…

Demonstrates the value of proverbs in developing the cross-linguistic understanding of professionals involved in intercultural situations. It is proposed that proverbs can provide insight into the symbol systems of English, Malay, and Arab cultures. (17 references) (Author/CK)

Investigation of the ethnolinguistic vitality perceptions of Jewish and Arab high school students in Israel showed that both groups' perceptions corresponded remarkably to objective reality in direction, although not in intensity, with the Jewish majority accentuating the differences and the Arab minority attenuating the differences. (Author/CB)

Investigates linguistic taboo in terms of its relationship with the social context in which it is used and the sociocultural factors affecting it. The article examines different processes involving the creation, development, violation, and replacement of taboo words and argues that these processes are conditioned by the cultural norms of the…

Discusses challenges to policymakers stemming from the recent change to the use of Arabic as a medium of instruction at colleges and universities in Arabic-speaking countries, including implementation plans and attitude surveys about Arabicization. It is argued that there is a need for a long-term plan for gradual implementation of the…

This article outlines a research project conducted in Perpignan in 1988 that sought to discover and describe the varieties of language present in the town, patterns of language use and language attitudes among inhabitants. The research took the form of a questionnaire survey, used with a representative sample of the population. (Contains 10…

Examines native Hebrew- or Arabic-speaking students' translations from English into their native language as a means of evaluating reading comprehension. Results show that mistranslations in vocabulary, expressions, and utterance-level were good indicators of lack of comprehension. (Author/CB)

Investigates the relationship between French instruction and the phenomena of discontinued lexical development, lexical attrition, and lexical deficiency in the speech of Mauritanians. Findings indicate native-language lexical deficiency was reflected in code switching, and subjects (Ss) with low native-language fluency code switched more than Ss…

Addresses the issue of language planning in pluralist Ethiopia. Offers an evaluative appraisal of the new policy that considers a number of obstacles to implementation of the policy and questions the move towards the preference of the roman alphabet to the Ethiopic syllabic writing system. (33 references) (Author/CK)