This paper explores the range of arguments and sentiments regarding the promotion and/or abolition of types of Chinese scripts. The written representations of Cantonese in Hong Kong, Mandarin in Taiwan as well as Mandarin in China are examined via issues of identity and of discourse both at national and international levels. Chinese scripts are…

Discussion of the role of languages in Macau focuses on three areas: forces in determination of language policy; actual language use in Macau; and prospects beyond 1999. Four main forces for language policy are identified: emergence of a middle class due to economic progress and access to higher education; arrival of well-educated, liberal…

Designed to expose teachers of Asian populations to innovative teaching techniques and to help them develop teaching skills and a deeper cross-cultural awareness and appreciation of Asian cultures, a 2-week institute covered skills in teaching English as a second language and aspects of Asian culture and language that significantly affect language…

This primary reader is intended for use in a bilingual education setting. It consists of a story about a little Hispanic boy's adventures in San Francisco's Chinatown. The story attempts to show children the value of knowing two languages and learning about different cultures. Each page has a large black-and-white illustration and presents the…

This article surveys the teaching materials available in the United States for teaching Chinese at the college level. Suggestions are made for the improvement of existing materials and for the development of new ones. The main problems associated with the production and usefulness of language materials are that: (1) languages change through time…

This ethnographic study examined Chinese-speaking parents of children with disabilities: awareness of their legal rights, their perceived barriers to being joint decision makers, and the type of supports and services they would like to receive from schools. Results suggested that Chinese-speaking parents were knowledgeable about their legal…

The Han sphere, including Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China, adopted Han characters and classical Han writing as the official written language before the 20th century. However, great changes came with the advent of the 20th century. After World War II, Han characters in Vietnam and Korea were officially replaced by the romanised "Chu…

Cognitive neuropsychological studies of bilingual patients with aphasia have contributed to our understanding of how the brain processes different languages. The question we asked is whether differences in script have any impact on language processing in bilingual aphasic patients who speak languages with different writing systems: Chinese and…

Despite the prevalence of bilingualism, language acquisition research has focused on monolingual infants. Monolinguals cannot learn minimally different words (e.g., "bih" and "dih") in a laboratory task until 17 months of age ( J. F. Werker, C. T. Fennell, K. M. Corcoran, & C. L. Stager, 2002). This study was extended to 14- to 20-month-old…

This study investigated the nature of morphological awareness and its relation to learning to read Chinese characters among 46 Chinese-speaking preschool children. The children took a morphological awareness task, which varied in semantic transparency and morpheme position. Children's vocabulary knowledge and extant character reading ability were…

When immigrant youth come to the United States, they must learn to interact with dominant and cultural groups as part of the adjustment process. The current study investigated whether the association between Chinese immigrant high school students' (N = 286) English fluency, academic and career/college help-seeking, multidimensional acculturation,…

This pilot project investigates second language (L2) learners' attitudes towards three varieties of English: American (AmE), British (BrE) and Australian (AuE). A 69-word passage spoken by a female speaker of each variety was used. Participants were 30 Chinese students pursuing Masters or Doctoral degrees in the United States, who listened to each…

Groups of Grade 3 children were tested on measures of word-level literacy and undertook tasks that required the ability to associate sounds with letter sequences and that involved visual, auditory and phonological-processing skills. These groups came from different language backgrounds in which the language of instruction was Arabic, Chinese,…

Minimal research has been conducted in reading Chinese as a second/ foreign language (CSI/CFL). In an effort to further the understanding of the reading process, this study, utilizing think aloud and retelling procedures, focuses on the identification of strategies that American university students applied to read Chinese texts (narrative and…

Debates surrounding linguistic heritage in Northern Ireland have primarily centred on Irish (Gaelic) and Ulster-Scots. However, closer analysis suggests that there have long been other languages spoken in the region. Cantonese, Mandarin, Polish, Lithuanian and Portuguese are all spoken throughout Northern Ireland as the region experiences…