Maintains that caregiver language provides significant insight into caregiving behavior in general. Responsive language, which encourages reason, logic, independence, and encouragement, is preferred over restrictive language, which is based on asserting power and control, discouraging independence, and lecturing. (MDM)

Discusses the language of law and its general interest to the field of applied linguistics. Specific focus is on legal language, the problems and remedies of legal communication (e.g., language and disadvantage before the law, improving legal communication) the legislation of language (e.g., language rights, language crimes), and forensic…

Maintains that because the field of English for specific purposes deals with the language of science, technology, and business, it is in a pivotal position regarding the use or abuse of linguistic power. (Author/VWL)

Examines European and non-European cultural positions in terms of subjectivity, a postmodern concept, which eventually promotes ethics by using the nature of self in relation to the "other." Challenges the hierarchical distinction of European subjectivities and non-European subjectivities, exploring how to overcome that hierarchical…

Ludwig Wittgenstein's insights on the nature of philosophy have changed philosophy in general and the philosophy of education specifically. This essay discusses Wittgenstein's philosophy about the connection between language and life form, describes Wittgenstein's constructive philosophical account of how meaning and understanding are possible,…

Discusses the predominance of English in the world, but suggests that while more and more people are speaking English, a greater number of people around the world are learning other languages, leaving Americans behind. Points out that academics need language to move beyond a narrow context for intellectual exchange. (Author/VWL)

Considers challenges to and prospects for English in South Africa at the turn of the century. Argues that as a result of its social history and its status as a global language, English has a secure place in South Africa. (Author/VWL)

Considers how different voices create, construct, and contradict other identities. Describes how people understand themselves, their social identities, and how others understand who they are by their voices. Suggests that scholars need to be able to open up their ways of expression and the multiple identities that their voices communicate by…

Offers suggestions for future investigations of theory-of-mind development. Maintains that there needs to be: (1) greater focus on the development of understanding of desire and intention; (2) research on the role of language in theory-of-mind development integrating representational-development and social-interaction views; and (3) investigation…

This paper attempts to provide a theoretical framework for the use of intercultural allusion in narratives of transcultural identity. Identity is taken to be narrative in performance, one element of which, intercultural allusion, serves pragmatically to broker the transcultured subject's insertion into the host culture. The paper then shows how…

It is unfortunate that Wee's commendable effort (2005) to explore the theoretical underpinning of Linguistic Human Rights (LHRs) so as to explore different variants of English in Singapore empirically is marred by a substantial number of misrepresentations of what is stated in our work. We will exemplify this briefly, and otherwise refer the…

While research on globalisation can hardly be said to have ignored the phenomenon of the global corporation or the globally distributed supply chain, the focus has overwhelmingly been on "globalization from above"--on corporate structures and on the movement of global capital in global "knowledge economies". My focus in this…

This essay attempts to answer some of the basic assumptions made about English as a global language. It is argued that such assumptions, especially those concerning political and economic power, are not sufficient in themselves to explain why English has acquired such global importance. Rather, what has greatly contributed to the possibility for…

Taking its point of departure from some critical remarks about some of the most important recent theorising of learning, this article presents an alternative framework for theorising learning as a subjective process in a social and societal context, based on life history research. The key concepts of subjectivity and experience, derived from…

Mauritius is a multilingual postcolonial island of the Indian Ocean. Although the French-lexified creole, Mauritian Creole/Kreol, is the native language of 70% of the Mauritian population, it is excluded from the education system. Kreol lacks prestige because it is seen as broken French and associated with the local Creoles, a socioeconomically…