Iranian Journal of Language Studies (IJLS) is devoted to all areas of language and linguistics. Its aim is to present work of current interest in all areas of language study. No particular linguistic theories or scientific trends are favored: scientific quality and scholarly standing are the only criteria applied in the selection of papers…

Over the last century, the small Malay Islamic Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam, on the northern coast of Borneo, has moved away from an oral tradition, to a print culture and towards mass literacy. Discovery of oil in the early part of the 20th century transformed the economic situation in the country, and led to major changes and developments in…

This study examines the multilingual and multiliteracy practices of a group of Tibetan female youths from South Asia (India, Bhutan, Nepal) newly arrived in Toronto, Canada (N = 24). The main data are derived from a questionnaire surveying their language practices across contexts indicating the roles of education, community, and society in…

Since the post-Soviet context is not particularly well known to the majority of readers, the author uses this introduction to provide a general background against which developments in particular post-Soviet countries can be better understood. The author begins by placing these developments in the sociohistoric context of language policies of the…

Government policy in England has for many years encouraged parental involvement in their children's education. In response, most primary schools have developed a range of strategies designed to assist parents in supporting their children's learning at home, particularly in learning to read. However, it is a common assumption that parents from some…

At Joyce Public School (JPS) in the Greater Toronto Area, we are engaged in ongoing collaborative action research to develop pedagogical approaches to emergent literacies that engage multilingual, multicultural, and multimodal perspectives in complex interplay. Our research is grounded in the challenges children experience in acquiring literacy…

This is a report of the first national exhibition and conference on multilingual word processing in voluntary organizations and community groups held in London, England in June 1988. The keynote speech of the conference, "Why Multi-ethnic Systems Matter" and a speech entitled "What Users and Manufacturers Should Be Talking…

After a brief discussion on the nature of the interpreter's work, a survey is made of the beginnings of interpreting as a profession in 1953 and its growth since then in North America and Europe. Attention is called to the problem of incompetence brought about by the growing number of interpreters; and to the need for professional interpreter…

This study evaluates translations from a European into a Nigerian language. By taking a close look at the Nigerian language translations of Radio Nigeria, the manner in which the Nigerian mass media copes with the problem of multilingualism is addressed. Specifically, the translation of English into Yoruba, one of the major languages of Nigeria,…

These guidelines are intended for the growing number of information services which use, or plan to use, a multilingual thesaurus. The purpose is to describe the various tasks involved in constructing and developing multilingual thesauri, and where possible, to recommend standard practices. The scope is restricted to a consideration of the problems…

This is a collection of five essays on futurism. In the first, Thomas contends that human beings will need more than ever to be taught the basic skills of communications and that communication will have to be multilingual. In the second essay, Katz explores the notion of teaching people to think, contrasting the Deway inquiry model and the…

The revival, spread, and modernization of Hebrew, the maintenance of other languages, and variation within modern Hebrew are discussed. Courses in sociolinguistics are described, followed by a bibliography of sociolinguistics in Israel. (RM)

Discusses problems for information management in dealing with multilingual documentation. The planned language, Esperanto, is suggested as a universal working language because of its neutrality, rational structure, clarity, and expressive power. (Author/CWM)

Argues that the notion of "mother tongue" is not clearly defined, and that French is easier for Frenchmen to speak simply because it is not a foreign language, and therefore not respected as a foreign language is. (AM)

Ferguson's concept of diglossia and its later extension and coupling with bilingualism is developed further into the concept of polyglossia with multilingualism by a discussion of various speech communities where these phenomena are in evidence. (Author/HP)