Attention to trilingual education programmes in China has tended to focus on basic education; there had been little attention to date on the higher education sector. This paper will attempt to bridge this gap by exploring a Yi-English-Chinese trilingual education programme through case studies of three Yi students, using the "River of…

Inspired by Joshua Fishman's lifetime dedication to the revitalisation of minority languages, especially Yiddish, this paper presents my personal story of the loss of the Maori language in my family in New Zealand/Aotearoa and our attempts to reverse this decline over several generations. The paper includes a description of several policy reforms…

This study looks at how language ideologies affect and are revealed in language socialization practices in a majority-L1 adult ESL classroom, particularly looking at language use and policy. It draws on recent theories and critiques of language socialization (Bayley & Langman, 2011; Bronson & Watson-Gegeo, 2008; Garrett &…

Previous studies have demonstrated how primary-school-aged children learning a minority language at school revert to the use of their dominant L1 in peer-peer situations, both within and outside the classroom. Identifying the cause of this pattern is central to language policy strategies and initiatives across many minority language regions, and…

The aim of this study is to examine the strategies majority language-speaking parents use to support the development of the minority language in families who follow the pattern of exposure known as one-parent-one-language (OPOL). In this particular pattern of raising a child bilingually, each parent speaks only their own native language to their…

It is impossible to achieve the normalization of Basque schools when they are subjected to five sets of regulations on the use of the Basque language in different parts of Euskal Herria. Instead of an education system that differentiates between various language models, what is needed is a school system that recognises the right of all Basque…

One of the dangers that we should be aware of when we study issues of language policy and planning is the fragmentary perspective by which they can be approached. Reality, by contrast, is interrelated and overlapping. This is why a complexity perspective stresses the importance of studying the contexts of phenomena, that is to say, their external…

Few studies have looked at the differences in culture, language, and educational attainments among generations of Hmong in the United States since the beginning of their immigration to the United States. This study of 195 Hmong participants examines the effects of generational status on Hmong immigrants across several factors including marriage…

This article makes a case for the existence of a minority language hierarchy in New Zealand. Based on an analysis of language ideologies expressed in recent policy documents and interviews with policymakers and representatives of minority language communities, it presents the arguments forwarded in support of the promotion of different types of…

In this paper we report on a longitudinal study of the linguistic development among Turkish-speaking children in Denmark. A series of data were collected from a group of children attending a public school in Køge during the period 1989-1998 and from the same group--now in their 20s--in 2006-2007. The data set has been analyzed from a number of…

"Heritage language speaker" is a relatively new term to denote minority language speakers who grew up in a household where the language was used or those who have a family, ancestral, or racial connection to the minority language. In research on heritage language speakers, overlap between these 2 definitions is often assumed--that is,…

Language--both oral and written--is an essential driver in the process of individual and national development. But languages are living things; they need to develop, thrive, and be used effectively--and many need to be revitalized and even saved from an early death--in order for all people of the world, especially those most excluded and…

Despite the growing number of language minorities, foreign-born individuals with limited English proficiency, this population has been largely left out of social work research, often due to methodological challenges involved in conducting research with this population. Whereas the professional standard calls for cultural competence, a discussion…

This study examines the development of reading and writing from first to second grade in transparent orthography (Finnish) among three groups: language minority children (n = 49), Finnish children at risk of reading difficulties (n = 347), and Finnish speaking children (n = 1747). Findings indicated that reading and writing skills in the language…

Although the simple view of reading and other theories suggest that listening comprehension is an important determinant of reading comprehension, previous research on linguistic transfer has mainly focused on the role of first language (L1) decoding skills in second language (L2) reading. The present study tested the assumption that listening…