The present paper assesses the implications of the existence of two varieties of the same language for contact-induced language change in cases of bilingualism. By analysing the contact between French and Tunisian Arabic, on the one hand, and Spanish and Northern Moroccan Arabic, on the other, the purpose is to illustrate how the coexistence of…

This paper describes multiple Estonian-Russian language contacts in Estonia. For synchronic microsociolinguistic research it is usual to concentrate on the impact of a sociolinguistically dominant language A on an immigrant/minority language B. In the Soviet setting, the dominant language was usually Russian (despite Russians being a minority).…

Language education has a long tradition in the Finnish educational system owing to the official bilingualism of the country with the Finnish and Swedish languages, its geopolitical location, and the limited possibility to use the national languages in international contacts. Since the end of the 20th century, English has gained ground from other…

This paper is a general study of one of varieties of English--China English and its influence on English Language Teaching (ELT) for English majors. The status of English as an International language breaks the situation in which British English or American English is the sole standard. English becomes World Englishes, taking on a plural form,…

Arabic Literacy acquisition was studied among Israeli Palestinian low socioeconomic status kindergartners within the framework of an intervention study, implemented by teachers. On pretest, letter naming, alphabetic awareness, and phonological awareness were very low. Whereas the comparison group hardly progressed throughout the year, the…

Much has been written about the necessity of having a standard variety for a particular language. There has also been a great deal of literature on the emergence of a particular variety to be the standard language for a multidialectal language community. This report attempts to look at the various types of choice of a standard language or the…

This paper focuses on the idea that the study of language standards and standard languages must make reference to a different level of consciousness from that associated with the sort of naive language production in which the question of standards does not arise. Consciousness of language refers to the activity of reflecting upon the use of…

The Diola-Fogny of Senegal, West Africa, socially intuit with the meta-linguistic terms "big" and "thin" the tense/lax vowel contrast that is basic to their phonology. The two terms are primarily used to identify speech variation among individuals and groups. (Author/RM)

Examines language in a factory. Results include the following: (1) within a building, different terms for the same thing may be found; (2) the major boundary is spatial, between types of work; and (3) operational links, proximity and mobility between departments are major determinants of agreement and difference in usage. (Author/RM)

This is a survey of the evolution of Quebec French over the last twenty years away from anglicizations and toward a modernization which has a tendency to lessen the gap between it and International French. Examples are given of recent "refrancizations"; and reasons for, and obstacles to, this phenomenon are discussed. (Text is in…

A varieties grammar (VG) attempts to provide a unifying apparatus for various kinds of language varieties: diatopic, diastratic, and diatypic. The notion of "family grammar" appears to be especially useful in that process since it permits the postulation of a supergrammar for the whole family as well as that of subgrammars for the individual…

Makes an analogy between the formation of a Creole and the language acquisition process in a child. (AM)

Argues that the term "Castilian" should replace "Spanish" to denote the Castilian form of the language. "Spanish" may then be a more inclusive term, enbracing all the dialects of the language. (Text is in Spanish.) (CHK)

This study of language use among secondary school students calls into question the hypothesis of social class difference. (DD)

This study assesses and characterizes lexical relationships among the major urban Syro-Lebanese varieties of Arabic. To achieve this quantitative analysis of degrees of similarity or differentiation, an analytical procedure based on lexical compatibility was developed. Secondarily, a classification of these varieties is presented as a by-product…