Following the study of Gilman and Ford on address terms, an increasing number of studies have been conducted in several sociocultural settings. In line with this trend, the present study attempts to describe and explain address terms among the Akans of postcolonial Ghana. Using observation as the main research tool corroborated by interview and…

This study examines the process of Japanese language maintenance or shift among children who were exposed to Japanese and English through the "one parent-one language" approach in Melbourne. The aim was to identify factors that correlate with successful and unsuccessful cases of Japanese language maintenance of such children. The data…

The paper reports the results of a survey of parents (n=12), teachers (n=8) and pupils (n=20) in primary schools in rural Kenya. The sample was divided equally between multilingual and monolingual schools, the former using English or Kiswahili only, right through primary school, the latter using the mother tongue (in this case, Kalenjin) Kalenjin…

This article examines the language games played by superintendents as they work with school boards and community activists to craft school policy. We begin by examining the role of language in problem definition and the agenda-setting process. We then examine how political culture and the media affect problem definition. We argue that school…

Recent information on the incidence and types of language and communication problems experienced by female delinquents and the relation they have to emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) indicate a contribution to the problems these girls have encountered in social and academic situations. Pragmatics (i.e., use of language in interpersonal…

In multilingual societies such as Botswana, language use is an extremely complex matter, further compounded by the fact that the languages involved are themselves dynamic phenomena that often elude the planned outcomes of policies which try to shape and constrain them. The paper describes the functional distribution of the national language…

The concurrent trends of globalisation and "indigenisation" affecting the English language (varieties) around the world pose some interesting questions for language planning and reform issues (e.g. Phillipson, 1992; Pennycook, 1994; Crystal, 1997). With this project we examine the impact of these competing trends on "corpus…

Compared to its predecessor, "Answers in the Tool Box," the preponderance of the "Toolbox Revisited" story has been on the postsecondary side of the matriculation line. Implicitly, it calls on colleges, universities, and community colleges to be a great deal more interventionary in the precollegiate world, to be more self-reflective about the…

The present paper explores the role language plays in establishing power relations in multicultural teams, understood as teams comprising members from three or more than three different national, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. To this end, the general relationship between language and power is examined in an initial theoretical section and…

Minority languages in both industrialised and developing countries have seldom been considered as objects of serious study. The discussion recognises that linguistic minorities are not homogeneous in nature. Apart from their sociolinguistic settings, they also differ in their historical, cultural, and natural backgrounds which makes it difficult…

Most students who engage in name-calling or tell demeaning jokes don't have deeply thought-out and deep-seated bias towards particular groups. Often, they're just picking up on the messages they hear repeated again and again in the schools. When peers challenge the language, it not only cuts down on the degrading messages themselves, but it also…

Based on qualitative data (class observations, interviews, a letter from the researcher to the teacher about her classroom practice, videotapes, and documents), this paper reconsiders the staying-in-English rule, a popular classroom rule that requires learners to stay in English. It presents an ESL classroom example in which circumstances and…

This article examines the current usage of terms of address in the Western Ukrainian variety of the Ukrainian language. It investigates the use of pronominal ("ty"--intimate form; ["Vy"--polite, distant form) and nominal forms of address (such as first name, father's name, surname, title, "pan/pani" (Mr/Mrs), "tovarys" (Comrade) etc.) in Western…

This paper focuses on the electronic literacy practices of two Korean-American heritage language learners who manage Korean weblogs. Online users deliberately alter standard forms of written language and play with symbols, characters, and words to economize typing effort, mimic oral language, or convey qualities of their linguistic identity such…

The linguistic classification of English speakers from outer-circle countries, such as India, Malaysia, and Singapore, is often ambiguous because the Englishes they speak are considered different from interlanguages yet are not considered native varieties. This study investigates whether outer-circle speakers can be viewed as equivalent to…