This paper looks at aspects of Maori language revitalisation since the passage of the Maori Language Act, 1987 which gave official status to the language. It is a sequel to an article on Maori language in education published in this journal the following year [Benton, R. A. (1988). "The Maori language in New Zealand education."…

Australia is a country of high linguistic diversity, with more than 300 languages spoken. Today, 19% of the population aged over 5 years speak a language other than English at home. Against this background, we examine government policies and prominent initiatives developed at national level in the past 30 years to address the challenge of offering…

Using a life writing research methodology in this article, I seek to understand the complexities implicated in reading silenced narratives as a way towards reconciling internations relationships. To do so, I weave in the poetical "territories" of Josephine Bacon, Innu poet from Pessiamit, Quebec. I analyse how a poetic text has created…

This paper will seek to determine what types of legislative or policy measures should be considered as morally acceptable ones for the state to implement as part of a language maintenance effort. It will approach the issue from a liberal-egalitarian perspective. As a first step, a series of normative constraints that liberal-egalitarians would…

The Miqqut project was a participatory action research project through which Inuit language and literacy learning was embedded in a traditional skills program. Community-based researchers tracked learners' progress through entrance, exit, and post-program interviews and questionnaires, as well as through participant observation. Results show that…

Extensive linguistic research and theorising relating to maintaining the family heritage, as bilingual or multilingual family in differing language contexts, is currently available. Substantial research beneficially explores approaches to multilingual parenting, outcomes for individuals through parent and child perspectives, among linguistic and…

Many children from diverse cultures experience disconnectedness between their home and school. As they attempt to reconcile the conflicts among their multiple worlds, they must negotiate their situatedness in a variety of contexts, i.e., home community versus school, and construct a multifaceted identity. Absent support from school, Asian Indian…

This study examines the manifestations of purity and authenticity in 47 Basque bilinguals' reactions to code-switching. The respondents listened to two speech extracts with code-switching, filled in a short questionnaire and talked about the extracts in small groups. These conversations were then recorded. The respondents' beliefs can be…

In this plenary speech I examine multilingual interaction in a number of European regions in which minority languages are being revitalized. Education is a crucial variable, but the wider society is equally significant. The context of revitalization is no longer bilingual but increasingly multilingual. I draw on the results of a long-running…

In the United States, English is not the official language but the dominant one. But for many students, the dominance of English instruction has come at the expense of losing their first language. For much of our history of schooling in the United States, students have been forced to leave their heritage or home languages at the door when they…

Indigenous peoples have rightful aspirations for their languages and cultures, supported under international conventions, jurisdictional treaties, laws, policies and enquiry recommendations. Additionally, the inclusion of Indigenous languages in education can impact positively on Indigenous students' learning, engagement, identity and well-being,…

Looking at data from three siblings from a German/Polish family that immigrated to the United States in 1952, we discuss bilingual language development and the effect of teacher support in schools on language maintenance and shift. All three subjects report that they did not give up their heritage language but rather came back to it at different…

Scottish Gaelic, among the nearly 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, is endangered. In the 1980s the Gaelic Medium Education (GME) movement emerged with an emphasis on teaching students all subjects via this ancient tongue with the hope of revitalizing the language. Concomitantly, many linguists have called for problematizing traditional…

Within the discourse of language planning and policy, there is an increasing realisation of the strategic role of information and communication technologies in the promotion of indigenous African languages. The article discusses the strategic role that social software, in particular blogs and wiki, can and should play in the development of African…

Do French-Canadian (FC) minorities in New Brunswick and Ontario remain as committed as majority Francophone Quebecers in developing their vitality within Canada's bilingual belt? FCs constitute host communities for interprovincial migrants of FC and English-Canadian (EC) background who can bolster or weaken the vitality of FCs. How FCs and ECs…