The relationship between first and second language in early vocabulary acquisition in bilingual children is still debated in the literature. This study compared the expressive vocabulary of 39 ...equivalently low-SES two-year-old bilingual children from immigrant families with different heritage languages (Romanian vs. Nigerian English) and the same majority language (Italian). Vocabulary size, vocabulary composition and translation equivalents (TEs) were assessed using the Italian/L1 versions of the CDI. Higher vocabulary in Italian than in the heritage language emerged in both groups. Moreover, Romanian-Italian-speaking children produced higher proportions of TEs than Nigerian English-Italian-speaking children, suggesting that L1-L2 phonological similarity facilitates the acquisition of cross-linguistic synonyms.
This book introduces readers to basic concepts of sociolinguistics with a focus on Spanish in the US. The coverage goes beyond linguistics to examine the history and politics of Spanish in the US, ...the relationship of language to Latinx identities, and how language ideologies and policies reflect and shape societal views of Spanish and its speakers. Accessible to those with no linguistic background, this book provides students with a foundation in the study of language and society, and the opportunity to relate theoretical concepts to Spanish in the US in a range of contexts, including everyday speech, contemporary culture, media, education and policy. The book is a substantially revised and expanded 2nd edition of Spanish Speakers in the USA, including new chapters on the history of Spanish in the US, the demographics of Spanish in the US, and language policy; and expanded chapters on language ideologies, race, identity, media, and education. A Spanish-language edition of this book is also available: https://www.multilingual-matters.com/page/detail/?K=9781800413931.
Digitalised learning with its promise of autonomy, enhanced learner choice, independence and freedom, is an intuitive and appealing construct but closer examination reveals it to be a rather ...simplistic proposition, raising the following questions. -What do we mean by autonomy? -What are we implying about the role of the teacher, the classroom, and interaction between learners? -What do we understand about the impact of technology on the ecology of the learning environment? This book describes the use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) by a group of advanced English language learners in Mexico, comparing what students thought and what they did in response to the technology. The theoretical aim of the book is to work towards the construction of a theory of the development of autonomy and virtual learning in an EFL context. Enhanced understanding about the relationship between autonomy and technology has the potential to inform academics, software designers, materials writers, teacher educators, and teachers and to help learners in their quest to acquire a foreign language.
The Languages of Japan and Korea provides detailed descriptions of the major varieties of languages in the region, both modern and pre-modern, within a common format, producing a long-needed ...introductory reference source. Korean, Japanese, Ainu, and representative members of the three main groupings of the Ryukyuan chain are discussed for the first time in a single work.
The volume is divided into language sketches, the majority of which are broken down into sections on phonology, orthography, morphology, syntax and lexicon. Specific emphasis is placed on those aspects of syntactic interest, such as speech levels, honorifics and classifiers, which are commonly underplayed in other descriptions of Modern Japanese and Korean. Each language is represented in Roman-based transcription, although its own script (where there is such an orthography) and IPA transcriptions are used sparingly where appropriate.
The dialects of both the modern and oldest forms of the languages are given extensive treatment, with a primary focus on the differences from the standard language.
These synchronic snapshots are complemented by a discussion of both the genetic and areal relationships between languages in the region.
Die Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie zählen zu den renommiertesten Fachpublikationen der Romanistik. Sie pflegen ein gesamtromanisches Profil, das neben den Nationalsprachen auch ...die weniger im Fokus stehenden romanischen Sprachen mit einschließt. In der Reihe erscheinen ausgewählte Monographien und Sammelbände zur Sprachwissenschaft in ihrer ganzen Breite, zur mediävistischen Literaturwissenschaft und zur Editionsphilologie.
Based on the systematic analysis of large amounts of computer-readable text, this book shows how the English language has been changing in the recent past, often in unexpected and previously ...undocumented ways. The study is based on a group of matching corpora, known as the 'Brown family' of corpora, supplemented by a range of other corpus materials, both written and spoken, drawn mainly from the later twentieth century. Among the matters receiving particular attention are the influence of American English on British English, the role of the press, the 'colloquialization' of written English, and a wide range of grammatical topics, including the modal auxiliaries, progressive, subjunctive, passive, genitive and relative clauses. These subjects build an overall picture of how English grammar is changing, and the linguistic and social factors that are contributing to this process.
Language in Uniform Joyce, Helen de Silva; Thomson, Elizabeth A
2015, 2015-02-27
eBook
Language education and training are an important part of life for some men and women in uniform. Around the globe, police and military personnel are faced with language challenges in their domestic ...security duties, including interaction with overseas tourists and community members who speak any number of languages. They are also often called upon to manage international roles that require an understanding of languages other than their own, including participating in international policing initiatives and military deployments. Language in Uniform: Language Analysis and Training for Defence and Policing Purposes brings together a collection of papers that reflect the diverse work being done in the often overlooked Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) fields of defence, security and policing. As language learning is increasingly becoming an integral part of life in uniform, this volume extends the theoretical and practical understanding of LSP and acknowledges the ground-breaking work that has been and continues to be done with this approach in language teaching and assessment for defence, security and law enforcement purposes.
This study examines identity construction and conflict in the case of a woman whose parents replaced the local language with the official language at the home in the city of Tabriz in northwestern ...Iran, where the local language, Azerbaijani, is overshadowed by Persian as the official language of the state. In such contexts, Shifting away from the local language at the home could endanger the minority languages and affect children's identity construction and socialisation into the community. To trace the participant's identity construction over different periods of her life, her narrative accounts including autobiographical narratives and small stories were collected through multiple interviews, complemented by ethnographic observation of her interactions. Data was analyzed through extended three-level positioning and sociocultural linguistic approaches. The findings of the study revealed that the participant had an affinity to Persian over her childhood and early teens, though until then, she had felt no sense of conflict within her community. However, facing strengthening pro-Azerbaijani ideologies in the city, her struggle to maintain both identities was in vain, and she ended up feeling excluded from both communities. Findings are discussed in the light of larger sociopolitical and ideological discourse in place in northwest Iran.
This book traces the historical development of major language teaching methods in terms of theoretical principles and classroom procedures, and provides a critical evaluation of each. Drawing from ...seminal, foundational texts and from critical commentaries made by various scholars, Kumaravadivelu examines the profession's current transition from method to postmethod and, in the process, elucidates the relationship between theory, research, and practice. The chief objective is to help readers see the pattern that connects language, learning, teaching methods, and postmethod perspectives.
In this book, Kumaravadivelu:
*brings together a critical vision of L2 learning and teaching--a vision founded at once on historical development and contemporary thought;
*connects findings of up-to-date research in L2 learning with issues in L2 teaching thus making the reader aware of the relationship between theory, research and practice;
*presents language teaching methods within a coherent framework of language-, learner-, and learning-centered pedagogies, thus helping the reader to see how they are related to each other;
*shows how the three categories of methods evolved historically leading ultimately (and inevitably) to the emergence of a postmethod condition; and
*provides the reader with a solid background in several interconnected areas of L2 pedagogy, such as concepts of competence, input factors, intake processes, interactional modifications, and instructional design.
Understanding Language Teaching: From Method to Postmethod is intended for an international audience of teacher educators, practicing teachers and graduate students, researchers, curriculum planners, and materials designers in the field of second and foreign language teaching.
This book explores Indigenous, tribal and minority (ITM) language education in oral and/or written communication and in the use of new technologies and online resources for pedagogical purposes in ...diverse geopolitical contexts. It demonstrates that ITM language education transpires in both formal and informal spaces for children or adults and that sometimes these spaces are online, where they become de-territorialized discourses of teaching and learning.' The volume brings together examples of ITM language education that are challenging the forces that flatten 'languacultures' into artefacts of history. It also examines the economic and material realities of the people who live in and through their 'languacultures', or who aspire to do as much. The book will be useful for educators and all those interested in Indigenous and minority language issues, as well as for a wide range of undergraduate, graduate and research contexts where topics of language education and minority rights are the focus.