Reports that English, Italian, and Arabic were the official languages of Somalia 1960, even though 95% of the population spoke Somali. However, under a totalitarian regime that came to power in the early 1970's, Somalia was able to promote Somali as the official language. Offers guidance for implementation of literacy campaigns. (Contains 18…

The goal of this paper is to discuss the role of emotion-related factors in language choice in bi- and multilingual families. Most of the time, factors other than emotions govern language choice and use in such families, among them language dominance, social context and linguistic competence of the interlocutors. However, quantitative and…

This paper reports on an empirical study of street language, a multilingual youth register in the Netherlands. Nearly 300 secondary school students completed a questionnaire on their acquaintance with and use of street language. A subsample of students was also interviewed. Use of street language will be related to background information about the…

Post-apartheid South Africa has officially sanctioned multilingualism in a constitution that recognises 11 official languages. However, the status of all of the languages is not perceived as being equal. The majority of South Africans want their children to be educated in English, although this is not their mother tongue, and schools are under…

This paper examines the teaching and use of, as well as the attitude towards, English among China's ethnic minorities. Starting with a critique of China English, a term used with increasing frequency in the literature on World Englishes and English nativised in the Chinese context, the paper attempts to show that English has yet to find its way…

The "newSLATE" environment provides a Web-based infrastructure for language learning. Its design and implementation were driven by the difficulties of non-Roman-script text handling. The software features a cross-platform approach to non-Roman text input and handling and a novel method for automatically generating online quizzes from study…

In this contribution, the results of an empirical study on young immigrants' learning paths and school to job transition are presented. The study focused on the strategies of successful students from the Portuguese immigrant minority in Hamburg. One aim was to find out whether the young people could profit by their migration experiences and…

In Claire Kramsch's (2004) response to work by Mary Louise Pratt (2002) on multilingualism, identity and language in the U.S., she proposed that the four points made by Pratt be extended to the following: (1) Monolingualism is a handicap, but so is the assumption that one language = one culture = adherence to one cultural community; (2) Heritage…

This paper proposes a range of improvements to international science communication. It pictures the contemporary language situation in international scientific communication as well as its recent history with the rise of English as its most notable feature and offers explanations for this development. It discusses in which sciences languages other…

This paper discusses pupil choice in relation to foreign language (FL) planning as an instance of micro-language planning. Borrowing from established language planning theory (Haugen, 1983; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997), FL planning is conceptualised and defined here as the consideration of those aspects of language planning that reflect social,…

Objective: To address the increasing diversity in the linguistic and ethnic backgrounds of medical students at the University of Melbourne, a program was developed to prepare students for the particular challenges in cultural literacy and idiomatic English language proficiency, especially when exploring sensitive areas of patients' personal…

Language transmission occurs both in the domestic and in the public domain. These domains are typically represented by the home and the school. Viewed from the perspectives of majority-language versus minority-language speakers, language transmission becomes a very different issue. In the case of majority language speakers, language transmission…

In this paper, we explore the intersection of practice, identity, resources and literacy central to the New Literacy Studies and recent second language research informed by sociocultural theories of learning and language. Drawing on the construct figured worlds of literacy that describe how representations of literacy practices invoked in relation…

This article explores the attribution of linguistic resources to multilingual students in a primary school in the Netherlands. Drawing on an ethnographic study of a regular, multicultural classroom, it describes patterns of attribution emerging from observations of classroom activities and interviews with the teacher. Its focus is on the…

In order to become "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion" the European Union realizes its people as the most important asset. Moreover, every human becomes a value for the whole society. It makes significant to…