Reviews misrepresentations of Native Americans that have stemmed from history books and the entertainment media so that school library-media specialists can select books that are free of bias, stereotypes, and inaccuracies. Topics include characterizations, culture, religion, language, the role of women, and quality of the writing and…

Investigates the social background of oldcomer Taiwanese in Japan while examining their language behavior in intraethnic communication and in interethnic interaction with Japanese. Analysis of two conversations reveals that many Asians seek to pass as Japanese, a behavior contributing to the reproduction of the existing social hierarchy of…

Explores the understandings that young Mexican-American students develop about the status of languages and language use in their bilingual school. A case study documents the the social and educational processes through which bilingual children in one U.S. school come to appreciate the prestige and power of English versus Spanish. (Author/VWL)

Highlights the history of Californian (Luiseno), the native language of Baja California, including how the language was recorded by a young Mexican student at the Vatican's missionary school, the Collegium Urbanum in Rome. Discusses the political impact of the grammatical recording and subsequent translation of the language during the mid-19th…

A multidimensional model is presented for understanding an ecological perspective to the study of development in language minority children. Socioeconomic and sociocultural factors influencing language minority child development are discussed, with emphasis on the effects of cultural familial factors and home language use. Recommendations for…

This paper explores the presence of African American Vernacular English patterns in the reading of one child over a 20-week period. In this paper, I present insights from linguists about African American Vernacular English, list linguistic patterns characteristic of African American Vernacular English speakers, examine the relationship between the…

This paper investigates the perception of emotional force of swearwords and taboo words (S-T words) among 1039 multilinguals. It is based on data drawn from a large database collected through a web questionnaire on bilingualism and emotions. "t"-Tests revealed that the perceived emotional force of S-T words is highest in the L1 and gradually lower…

In this paper we examine the language situation among the Gypsies of Jordan within the framework of previous theories on language maintenance and shift as proposed by Le Page, Fishman, Dorian and Kelman. The study investigates language and cultural maintenance among the Gypsies of Jordan to permit comparison of the relative influences of various…

Strategies for deciding which language to use when forms part of the sociolinguistic competence of speakers who can speak more than one language. Language choices are shaped by a number of factors, including linguistic proficiency of both speaker and interlocutor, the ingroup or outgroup status of each, and the setting in which an exchange takes…

In this paper we explore language attitudes and use in the Greek Cypriot community in London, England. Our study is based on an earlier survey carried out in Nicosia, Cyprus and we compare attitudes to language and reported language use in the two communities. We thereby highlight the significance of sociolinguistic variables on similar groups of…

Through research and classroom observation undertaken while conceptualizing and implementing the Intensive French program in Canada, many new insights were gained into the development of communication skills in a classroom situation. Five lessons learned about the development of spontaneous oral communication are presented in this article: the…

The flexible, multi-contextual use of language is essential to integrated learning and thinking. Likewise, learning and thinking in an integrated way is essential to multi-dimensional teaching. This study examines the ways pre-service secondary teachers define their subjects. Students enrolled in a secondary reading methods course were asked to…

In this paper I suggest that as educators we need to understand that the spaces and cultures our students inhabit are to be found not so much in predefinitions of cultural background or in studies of classrooms as cultural spaces as in the transcultural flows with which our students engage. Thus, my argument is not only that, as Singh and Doherty…

Five Spanish teachers working in California elementary schools participated in this project. Although they were assigned to teach in mainstream English programs, they noticed that some of the Latino students in their classrooms were officially classified as English language learners (ELLs) and, as such, had difficulties understanding their…

This paper presents the voices of 16 Latino immigrant parents whose children were upper elementary students in a bilingual education class in the southwestern United States. In interviews that focused on their children's language learning and usage, the parents spoke of a commitment to a better life for their children. All believed that English…