Chinese is a highly complex language with internal variation unprecedented in most other languages. Yet, that does not mean Chinese is unique in the sense that it cannot be compared to other languages and new concepts need to be introduced for the description of it. This paper is dedicated to the question of how to apply the notion of…

This article explores patterns in teachers' reported correction of student language use in speech and writing. The authors use the concept of language correction in student writing and student speech as a proxy for prescriptive approaches to teaching about language. By conducting a large-scale survey of all language and literacy teachers from…

Nuosu script, a unique character-based script with a long history, permeates the public spaces of Xichang, the capital of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China. Using interviews, photos, observations, and documents, this qualitative study discovers the uses and meanings of Nuosu script in the linguistic landscape (LL). The…

This article concerns Northern Catalonia, the part of the Catalan-speaking area that today is in France. A Catalan-speaking region until the first half of the twentieth century, the effects of Frenchification -- the acceptance of the French political and economic project in the contemporary era -- and the multiple demographic changes of the…

Devising a writing system, or graphisation, is a fundamental aspect of corpus planning that no language can take too lightly. This paper begins with a general introduction to graphisation and to Italian regional languages, followed by an analysis of the different orthographies in use so far or proposed for the main regional languages in Italy,…

Xinjiang has witnessed constant state attempts to reinforce the status of Mandarin Chinese as 'the Common Language' and to make local Turkic languages -- mainly Uyghur and Kazak -- more 'suitable' to the modern world. Official efforts to transform the linguistic landscape of Xinjiang have engaged in a complex interplay with Turkic speakers' own…

The phonological inventory of Old Okinawan is often reconstructed according to modern Ryukyuan languages. Although the importance of historical resources is never ignored in the study of Okinawan historical linguistics, reconstruction based on historical sources is not well investigated yet, due to the two reasons that a) authors of previous…

The present study examined the impact of "diglossia", a characteristic of the Arabic language, on the development of phonological abilities in the spoken and the literary language forms. Participants were 571 children from 10 grade levels (1-7, 9, 11 and 12), which were recruited from 10 schools by taking into account two important…

This article presents a review of the "Test of Written Language-Fourth Edition" (TOWL-4), a newly updated individual or group-based measure of written language for students aged 9 years, 0 months through 17 years, 11 months. The stated purposes of the measure are to identify students in need of support or intervention in the area of…

The present article examines the effect of population distribution on L1 (Italian) and L2 (German) acquisition in the multilingual context of South Tyrol, Italy. Population distribution is regarded as a central variable to assess the impact of two factors included in willingness to communicate (WTC) theory: (1) Fear of assimilation to the L2…

This dissertation is a study of Castilian transcodic markers in the Catalan written on the Internet. Thirty Castilian transcodic markers representing five categories were run through the interface of the Corpus d'Us del Catala a la Web (CucWeb) to collect information in order to conduct both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The major…

Illustrates the astonishing coordination of archaeological and scholarly activities surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls. First discovered by Bedouin nomads in 1947, the Scrolls consist of a few complete manuscripts and over 80,000 fragments. Discusses the early Christian sect that produced the Scrolls, and provides current perspectives on the…