Reports two years of ethnographic research on efforts to use online technologies in Hawaiian language revitalization programs. Issues discussed include the Internet's role in promoting or hindering language diversity, relationship of multimedia computing to non-Western patterns of civilization, Internet use for exploring cultural and social…

Discusses evidence that social understanding informs word learning in infants. Asks: (1) Is genuine social understanding necessary for word learning?; (2) Are social clues criterial for infants' learning?; (3) Can word learning proceed without aid of social understanding?; and (4) Is social clue processing too difficult for everyday word learning?…

This paper reports on a study conducted with children belonging to a rarely studied minority group, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel, an extremely religious group that endorses patterns of voluntary segregation. The research population also demonstrates linguistic segregation, as they use only Yiddish for daily communication with…

Although the presence of three (or even more) languages in the curriculum is an expanding phenomenon in Europe, brought about by the concurrence of regionalisation and internationalisation, the number of research studies tackling the analysis of attitudes towards multilingualism is very limited. By examining the attitudes towards Basque, Spanish…

While plurilingualism is not necessarily a novel concept, the author argues that the ability to speak several languages will help Europeans to develop a European identity and to deconstruct existing cultural and even genetic barriers. To this aim it would make sense to be introduced at a very early age to elements of language and culture from…

In many Southern countries, there are multiple and conflicting perspectives regarding the central role of language, particularly in relation to educational and developmental issues. A great number of multilingual, multicultural and multi-ethnic Southern countries are using "English" or some other dominant tongue as their only…

Data from a larger ethnolinguistic study are presented to demonstrate patterns of pupil-teachers exchanges between bilingual children and monolingual teachers in an urban nursery school in England. Children were aged 3-4 years. Naturally-occurring discourse data were audiotaped and substantial contextual data was gathered. Analysis of patterns in…

This paper addresses the educational needs of children who speak English as a Second Language (ESL) and considers the issues that are critical to providing these children with beneficial classroom environments, focusing on the effective instruction of bilingual children who are placed in classrooms with monolingual teachers and monolingual…

Students' conversational skills, sense of importance, and penchant for creating drama can create thoughtful and even powerfully compelling prose but only if readers let it. Unfortunately, the ways that beginning writers express ideas do not always match all readers' expectations. What does this have to do with what teacher-researchers call voice?…

A study investigated language choice within families in a small (population 1,100) Inuit community in rural northern Quebec province (Canada). Since the settlement's formation 40 years ago, the population has become increasingly interethnic, with people speaking a mixture of Inuktitut, English, and French. Subjects were 23 couples with children…

Graduate students have long expressed difficulties adapting to different expectations graduate schools place upon them. Foreign students pursuing knowledge in the field of speech communication encounter cultural difficulties. Foreign graduate students are students at risk because they become a central locus for cultural tensions in relation to:…

This study looks at how the methodology of comparative education research has contributed, or not contributed, to understanding the role of minority languages in European education systems. An introductory chapter of the report is devoted to explanation of the work of Mercator-Education, a European center concerned with languages not commonly…

The collection of essays on discourse as a form of social interaction includes: "Discourse as Interaction in Society" (Teun A. van Dijk); "Discourse Pragmatics" (Shoshana Blum-Kulka); "Conversation Analysis: An Approach to the Study of Social Action as Sense Making Practices" (Anita Pomerantz, B. J. Fehr); "Institutional Dialogue" (Paul Drew,…

A study investigated beliefs about second language learning held by 27 adult students and 10 teachers of Arabic at the Yemen Language Center. The survey instrument consisted of 5 demographic statements and 47 statements concerning language learning in a Likert-type scaled response format. Results indicate students and teachers generally agreed…

A number of issues concerning revival and maintenance of the Irish language are discussed. First, it is found that public attitudes about language use in Ireland, outwardly positive toward revival of Irish usage but not carried through in mass media or education, reflect considerable ambiguity. Linguistic stewardship of the language has been…