Multilingual Matters

The publication of Hugo Baetens Beardsmore’s book Bilingualism: Basic Principles by Multilingual Matters in 1982 coincided with an unprecedented upsurge of interest in bilingualism. A major reason for this was the acknowledgement that bilingualism is far more common than was previously thought, and perhaps even the norm. The number of bilinguals at the turn of the third millennium is probably greater than ever before and will continue to grow as a result of the combined forces of globalisation, automatisation, increased mobility and migration, and modernisation of foreign language teaching. The contributions in this book prove that, given the right conditions, bilingualism can confer distinct benefits like intellectual, psychological, social, cultural and economic improvement on the individual. The papers in this volume have been written by leading scholars in the field of bilingualism and deal with individual bilingualism, societal and educational phenomena, addressing issues such as bilingual usage, acquisition, teaching, and language planning and policy. The volume’s major asset lies in its diversity, not only in depth of investigation and in topical variety but also in the range of languages and geographical regions covered. Another important feature of the volume is its multidisciplinary perspective. Among the contributors are linguists, sociologists, psychologists and sociolinguists.

This book explores the role of identity in adolescent foreign language learning to provide evidence that an identity-focused approach can make a difference to achievement in education. It uses both in-depth exploratory interviews with language learners and a cross-sectional survey to provide a unique glimpse into the identity dynamics that learners need to manage in their interaction with contradictory relational contexts (e.g. teacher vs. classmates; parents vs. friends), and that appear to impair their perceived competence and declared achievement in language learning. Furthermore, this work presents a new model of identity which incorporates several educational psychology theories (e.g. self-discrepancy, self-presentation, impression management), developmental theories of adolescence and principles of foreign language teaching and learning. This book gives rise to potentially policy-changing insights and will be of importance to those interested in the relationship between self, identity and language teaching and learning.

The recognition that cultural learning is an integral part of foreign language learning is quickly taking hold among language teachers. This book offers a practical introduction to the issues by providing descriptions of classroom practice, of curriculum innovation and of experimental courses. These are accompanied by chapters on principles of methodology, on problems in assessing cultural learning and on the implications for teacher education and society at large. Michael Byram is the author of several books on language learning and culture, including Cultural Studies in Foreign Language Education (1988), and Investigating Cultural Studies in Foreign Language Teaching (1991).

This edited volume explores the educational significance of intercultural experience. It offers a broader conception of interculturality than commonly found in the area of foreign language teaching. Contributors represent a diverse range of academic and professional interests. The aim of the book is to encourage dialogue and interchange across this range, and beyond, to stimulate thinking about the educational value of intercultural experience.

The history of "language teaching" is shot through with methods and approaches to language learning - most recently with "communicative language teaching" - but this book demonstrates that a more differentiated and richer understanding of learning a foreign language is both necessary and desirable. Languages and cultures are interlinked and interdependent and their teaching and learning should be too. Learning another language is part of a complex process of learning and understanding other people's ways of life, ways of thinking and socio-economic experience.

The general perception that a good command of English is enough to gain access and to be successful in higher education hides the complexity of learning and teaching in multilingual environments, and this book shows that all higher education environments are multilingual to some extent. Strategies like translation, interpreting and switching from one language to another not only support learning but also build competence for multilingual professional environments. Whether institutions focus on widening access to minoritised communities or whether they want to attract more international students, the book argues that a multilingual pedagogy is needed to improve student access and success. Building on work by Nancy Hornberger, Colin Baker and Ofelia García, the book extends strategies and techniques from bilingual education at school level to multilingual higher education.

This book describes a particular type of educational provision referred to as ‘elite’ or ‘prestigious’ bilingual education, which caters mainly for upwardly mobile, highly educated, higher socio-economic status learners of two or more internationally useful languages. The development of different types of elite bilingual or multilingual educational provision is discussed and an argument is made for the need to study bilingual education in majority as well as in minority contexts.

This text traces the history of English language spread from the 18th to the beginning of the 21st century, combining that with a study of its language change. It links linguistic and sociolinguistic variables that have conditioned the evolution and change of English, putting forward a new framework of language spread and change.

This volume contains a collection of seminal articles and recent research which are important reading for anyone wanting to understand current theoretical developments within the field of language and literacy studies. The collection reflects a growing recognition over the past decade of the importance of social factors in language and literacy development. The focus has shifted from talking about skills and competences to investigating the relationships between language and literacy practices, personal identities and social and cultural processes. It provides an important resource of classic articles (some of which are not easily obtainable) and up-to-date research for teachers, students and researchers working in language studies, anthropology and education.

In this book, both beginning and experienced translators will find pragmatic techniques for dealing with problems of literary translation, whatever the original language. Certain challenges and certain themes recur in translation, whatever the language pair. This guide proposes to help the translator navigate through them. Written in a witty and easy to read style, the book’s hands-on approach will make it accessible to translators of any background. A significant portion of this Practical Guide is devoted to the question of how to go about finding an outlet for one’s translations.

What makes good language learners tick? What do they do that poor learners don't do? Could we help the poor learner by teaching them some of the good learners' tricks? The nature of second language learning is extremely complex and a great deal of research is needed to improve our understanding of it. In spite of much theorizing, very little has been done to study its processes directly and empirically. This study constitutes a beginning. It sets out to discover the strategies of good language learners. The book will be useful not only to researchers, but also to teachers and to those who make language teaching policy.

The relative status of native and non-native speaker language teachers within educational institutions has long been an issue worldwide but until recently, the voices of teachers articulating their own concerns have been rare. Existing work has tended to focus upon the position of non-native teachers and their struggle against unfavourable comparisons with their native-speaker counterparts. However, more recently, native-speaker language teachers have also been placed in the academic spotlight as interest grows in language-based forms of prejudice such as ‘native-speakerism’ – a dominant ideology prevalent within the Japanese context of English language education. This innovative volume explores wide-ranging issues related to native-speakerism as it manifests itself in the Japanese and Italian educational contexts to show how native-speaker teachers can also be the targets of multifarious forms of prejudice and discrimination in the workplace.

The book aims to establish the concept of attitudes as more central to the study of minority and majority languages. The strong tradition of attitude theory and research from social psychology is made relevant to language restoration and decay. Original research shows how attitude to bilingualism is conceptually distinct from attitude to a specific language. A piece of research in Wales investigates the origins of language attitudes in individual differences and in environmental attributes.

This superbly organised presentation consists of four introductory theoretical chapters dealing with the why, what and how of RLS, six chapters devoted to 13 separate cases from various parts of the world and four concluding chapters that both restate the underlying theory as well as apply it more broadly, beyond the mother tongue transmission nexus, to second language for which intergenerational continuity is pursued precisely as second languages.

The book tells the story of the Indigenous Aanaar Saami language (around 350 speakers) and cultural revitalisation in Finland. It offers a new language revitalisation method that can be used with Indigenous and minority languages, especially in cases where the native language has been lost among people of a working age. The book gives practical examples as well as a theoretical frame of reference for how to plan, organise and implement an intensive language programme for adults who already have professional training. It is the first time that a process of revitalisation of a very small language has been systematically described from the beginning; it is a small-scale success story. The book finishes with self-reflection and cautious recommendations for Indigenous peoples and minorities who want to revive or revitalise their languages.

In this monograph, Anatoliy V. Kharkhurin presents the results of his empirical investigation into the impact of multilingual practice on an individual's creative potential. Until now, the relationship between these two activities has received little attention in the academic community. The book makes an attempt to resuscitate this theme and provides a solid theoretical framework supported by contemporary empirical research conducted in a variety of geographic, linguistic, and sociocultural locations. This study demonstrates that several factors - such as the multilinguals' age of language acquisition, proficiency in these languages and experience with cultural settings in which these languages were acquired - have a positive impact on selective attention and language mediated concept activation mechanisms. Together, these facilitate generative and innovative capacities of creative thinking. This book will be of great interest not only to scholars in the fields of multilingualism and creativity, but also to educators and all those interested in enhancing foreign language learning and fostering creativity.

The relative status of native and non-native speaker language teachers within educational institutions has long been an issue worldwide but until recently, the voices of teachers articulating their own concerns have been rare. Existing work has tended to focus upon the position of non-native teachers and their struggle against unfavourable comparisons with their native-speaker counterparts. However, more recently, native-speaker language teachers have also been placed in the academic spotlight as interest grows in language-based forms of prejudice such as ‘native-speakerism’ – a dominant ideology prevalent within the Japanese context of English language education. This innovative volume explores wide-ranging issues related to native-speakerism as it manifests itself in the Japanese and Italian educational contexts to show how native-speaker teachers can also be the targets of multifarious forms of prejudice and discrimination in the workplace.

This book examines how Russian-speaking adoptees in three US families actively shape opportunities for language learning and identity construction in everyday interactions. By focusing on a different practice in each family (i.e. narrative talk about the day, metalinguistic discourse or languaging, and code-switching), the analyses uncover different types of learner agency and show how language socialization is collaborative and co-constructed. The learners in this study achieve agency through resistance, participation, and negotiation, and the findings demonstrate the complex ways in which novices transform communities in transnational contexts. The perspectives inform the fields of second language acquisition and language maintenance and shift. The book further provides a rare glimpse of the quotidian negotiations of adoptive family life and suggestions for supporting adoptees as young bilinguals.

This collection brings together research on linguistic prescriptivism and social identities, in specific contemporary and historical contexts of cross-cultural contact and awareness. Providing multilingual and multidisciplinary perspectives from language studies, lexicography, literature, and cultural studies, our contributors relate language norms to frameworks of identity beyond monolingual citizenship - nativeness, ethnicity, politics, religion, empire. Some chapters focus on traditional instruments of prescriptivism: language academies in Europe; government language planners in southeast Asia; dictionaries and grammars from Early Modern and imperial Britain, republican America, the postcolonial Caribbean, and modern Germany. Other chapters consider the roles of scholars in prescriptivism, as well as the more informal and populist mechanisms of enforcement expressed in newspapers. With a thematic introduction articulating links between its breadth of perspectives, this accessible book should engage everyone concerned with language norms.

For many Japanese women, the English language has never been just another school subject. For them, English is the tool of identity transformation and the means of obtaining what they passionately desire – mobility, the West and its masculinity. Language Learning, Gender and Desire explores Japanese women's passion for learning English and how they negotiate identity and desire in the terrain of racial, sexual and linguistic politics. Drawing on ethnographic data and popular media texts, the book offers new insights into the multidirectionality of desire and power in the context of second language learning.

Affectivity is at the core of everything we do in life. Thus, its development is also central to learning/acquisition and is important for educational contexts. The studies presented in this volume consider the different contexts of language learning and examine different types of participants in this process. Most of them look at a formal instruction context, while others look beyond the classroom and even report on the author's own affectivity and its involvement in learning experiences. Affectivity is discussed here in relation to learners but also to teachers in their own professional contexts of teaching foreign languages. In the majority of cases, affectivity is explored in the case of bilinguals, but there are also articles which focus on multilingual language users and their affectivity as an evolving factor.

Too small to be big, but also too big to be really small, medium-sized language communities (MSLCs) face their own challenges in a rapidly globalising world where multilingualism and mobility seem to be eroding the old securities that the monolingual nation states provided. The questions to be answered are numerous: What are the main areas in which the position of these languages is actually threatened? How do these societies manage their diversity (both old and new)? Has state machinery really become as irrelevant in terms of language policy as their portrayals often suggest? This book explores the responses to these and other challenges by seven relatively successful MSLCs, so that their lessons can be applied more generally to other languages striving for long term survival.

Online Communication in a Second Language examines the use of social computer mediated communication (CMC) with speakers of Japanese via longitudinal case studies of up to four years. Through the analysis of over 2000 blogs, emails, videos, messages, games, and websites, in addition to interviews with learners and their online contacts, the book explores language use and acquisition via contextual resources, repair, and peer feedback. The book provides insight into relationships online, and the influence of perceived 'ownership' of online spaces by specific cultural or linguistic groups. It not only increases our understanding of online interaction in a second language, but CMC in general. Based on empirical evidence, the study challenges traditional categorisations of CMC mediums, and provides important insights relating to turn-taking, code-switching, and language management online.

Detailing a decade of life and language use in a remote Alaskan Yup'ik community, Youth Culture, Language Endangerment and Linguistic Survivance provides rare insight into young people's language brokering and Indigenous people's contemporary linguistic ecologies. This book examines how two consecutive groups of youth in a Yup'ik village negotiated eroding heritage language learning resources, changing language ideologies, and gendered subsistence practices while transforming community language use over time. Wyman shows how villagers used specific Yup'ik forms, genres, and discourse practices to foster learning in and out of school, underscoring the stakes of language endangerment. At the same time, by demonstrating how the youth and adults in the study used multiple languages, literacies and translanguaging to sustain a unique subarctic way of life, Wyman illuminates Indigenous peoples’ wide-ranging forms of linguistic survivance in an interconnected world.

The book tells the story of the Indigenous Aanaar Saami language (around 350 speakers) and cultural revitalisation in Finland. It offers a new language revitalisation method that can be used with Indigenous and minority languages, especially in cases where the native language has been lost among people of a working age. The book gives practical examples as well as a theoretical frame of reference for how to plan, organise and implement an intensive language programme for adults who already have professional training. It is the first time that a process of revitalisation of a very small language has been systematically described from the beginning; it is a small-scale success story. The book finishes with self-reflection and cautious recommendations for Indigenous peoples and minorities who want to revive or revitalise their languages.

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages was published a decade ago and has been influential ever since, not only in its European 'home' but throughout the world. This book traces the processes of the influence by inviting authors from universities and ministries in 11 countries to describe and explain what happened in their case. There are everyday factors of curriculum development – which sometimes include coincidence and happenstance – and there are also traditions of resistance or acceptance of external influences in policy-making. Such factors have always existed in bilateral borrowing from one country to another but the CEFR is a supra-national document accessible through globalised communication. The book is thus not only focused on matters of language education but is also a Comparative Education case-study of policy borrowing under new conditions.

This book explores bilingual community education, specifically the educational spaces shaped and organized by American ethnolinguistic communities for their children in the multilingual city of New York. Employing a rich variety of case studies which highlight the importance of the ethnolinguistic community in bilingual education, this collection examines the various structures that these communities use to educate their children as bilingual Americans. In doing so, it highlights the efforts and activism of these communities and what bilingual community education really means in today's globalized world. The volume offers new understandings of heritage language education, bilingual education, and speech communities for bilingual Americans in the 21st century.

Detailing a decade of life and language use in a remote Alaskan Yup'ik community, Youth Culture, Language Endangerment and Linguistic Survivance provides rare insight into young people's language brokering and Indigenous people's contemporary linguistic ecologies. This book examines how two consecutive groups of youth in a Yup'ik village negotiated eroding heritage language learning resources, changing language ideologies, and gendered subsistence practices while transforming community language use over time. Wyman shows how villagers used specific Yup'ik forms, genres, and discourse practices to foster learning in and out of school, underscoring the stakes of language endangerment. At the same time, by demonstrating how the youth and adults in the study used multiple languages, literacies and translanguaging to sustain a unique subarctic way of life, Wyman illuminates Indigenous peoples’ wide-ranging forms of linguistic survivance in an interconnected world.

This book examines how Russian-speaking adoptees in three US families actively shape opportunities for language learning and identity construction in everyday interactions. By focusing on a different practice in each family (i.e. narrative talk about the day, metalinguistic discourse or languaging, and code-switching), the analyses uncover different types of learner agency and show how language socialization is collaborative and co-constructed. The learners in this study achieve agency through resistance, participation, and negotiation, and the findings demonstrate the complex ways in which novices transform communities in transnational contexts. The perspectives inform the fields of second language acquisition and language maintenance and shift. The book further provides a rare glimpse of the quotidian negotiations of adoptive family life and suggestions for supporting adoptees as young bilinguals.

For many Japanese women, the English language has never been just another school subject. For them, English is the tool of identity transformation and the means of obtaining what they passionately desire – mobility, the West and its masculinity. Language Learning, Gender and Desire explores Japanese women's passion for learning English and how they negotiate identity and desire in the terrain of racial, sexual and linguistic politics. Drawing on ethnographic data and popular media texts, the book offers new insights into the multidirectionality of desire and power in the context of second language learning.

This book critically examines current ELT practices vis-à-vis the use of English as an international lingua franca. It bridges the gap between theoretical discussion and the practical concerns of teaching English as an international language (EIL), and presents diverse approaches for preparing competent users of English in international contexts. Part 1 examines how the linguistic and functional varieties of English today complicate ELT, and suggests ways to address them effectively in an English language classroom. Part 2 showcases English courses and programs that are specifically based on the EIL perspective, illustrating how the issues addressed in Part 1 are realized in a real context. This section also presents a collection of EIL pedagogical ideas that have been developed and used successfully by English teachers across the world.

Plagiarism and intellectual property law are two issues that affect every student and every teacher throughout the world. Both concepts are concerned with how we use texts - print, digital, visual, and aural - in the creation of new texts. And both have been viewed in strongly moral terms, often as acts of 'theft'. However, they also reflect the contradictory views behind norms and values and therefore are essential to understand when using all forms of texts both inside and outside the classroom. This book discusses the current and historical relationship between these concepts and how they can be explicitly taught in an academic writing classroom.

Talk, Text and Technology is an ethnographic exploration of language, learning and literacy in remote Indigenous Australia. This unique work traces the historical transformation of one Indigenous group across four generations. The manner in which each generation adopts, adapts and incorporates new innovations and technologies into social practice and cultural processes is illuminated - from first mission contact and the introduction of literacy in the 1930s to youth media practices today. This book examines social, cultural and linguistic practices and addresses the implications for language and literacy socialisation.

Many educators in urban areas are faced with the challenge of educating students who have recently arrived from other countries, or are the children of immigrants; in addition, there is increasing concern about the educational needs of historical 'minority groups'. Written in a clear and straightforward style, this book outlines the relevant theoretical background and provides detailed practical advice for teachers and school administrators in schools serving culturally diverse communities. Topics include: - immigrant resettlement and adjustment; - the role of the school in welcoming newcomers and integrating them into the life of the school; - how to provide an inclusive school and classroom environment; - how to develop a curriculum that includes many cultural perspectives; - how to develop an inclusive instructional style; - how to assess student progress and achievement in the multicultural school.

Online Communication in a Second Language examines the use of social computer mediated communication (CMC) with speakers of Japanese via longitudinal case studies of up to four years. Through the analysis of over 2000 blogs, emails, videos, messages, games, and websites, in addition to interviews with learners and their online contacts, the book explores language use and acquisition via contextual resources, repair, and peer feedback. The book provides insight into relationships online, and the influence of perceived 'ownership' of online spaces by specific cultural or linguistic groups. It not only increases our understanding of online interaction in a second language, but CMC in general. Based on empirical evidence, the study challenges traditional categorisations of CMC mediums, and provides important insights relating to turn-taking, code-switching, and language management online.

Plagiarism and intellectual property law are two issues that affect every student and every teacher throughout the world. Both concepts are concerned with how we use texts - print, digital, visual, and aural - in the creation of new texts. And both have been viewed in strongly moral terms, often as acts of 'theft'. However, they also reflect the contradictory views behind norms and values and therefore are essential to understand when using all forms of texts both inside and outside the classroom. This book discusses the current and historical relationship between these concepts and how they can be explicitly taught in an academic writing classroom.

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages was published a decade ago and has been influential ever since, not only in its European 'home' but throughout the world. This book traces the processes of the influence by inviting authors from universities and ministries in 11 countries to describe and explain what happened in their case. There are everyday factors of curriculum development – which sometimes include coincidence and happenstance – and there are also traditions of resistance or acceptance of external influences in policy-making. Such factors have always existed in bilateral borrowing from one country to another but the CEFR is a supra-national document accessible through globalised communication. The book is thus not only focused on matters of language education but is also a Comparative Education case-study of policy borrowing under new conditions.

This book explores bilingual community education, specifically the educational spaces shaped and organized by American ethnolinguistic communities for their children in the multilingual city of New York. Employing a rich variety of case studies which highlight the importance of the ethnolinguistic community in bilingual education, this collection examines the various structures that these communities use to educate their children as bilingual Americans. In doing so, it highlights the efforts and activism of these communities and what bilingual community education really means in today's globalized world. The volume offers new understandings of heritage language education, bilingual education, and speech communities for bilingual Americans in the 21st century.

This book presents a novel approach to discussing how to research language teacher cognition and practice. An introductory chapter by the editors and an overview of the research field by Simon Borg precede eight case studies written by new researchers, each of which focuses on one approach to collecting data. These approaches range from questionnaires and focus groups to think aloud, stimulated recall, and oral reflective journals. Each case study is commented on by a leading expert in the field - JD Brown, Martin Bygate, Donald Freeman, Alan Maley, Jerry Gebhard, Thomas Farrell, Susan Gass, and Jill Burton. Readers are encouraged to enter the conversation by reflecting on a set of questions and tasks in each chapter.

This book examines the experiences of Indigenous students in settler schools by using the example of a Canadian school as a window into the relationship between colonial discourses, indigenized English language varieties, racialized identities, and the biased educational practices of settler schools. The book aims to develop awareness of the colonial past and its present-day influences on settler schools; to take a close look at the effects of present-day settler nationalism on constructions of race and language in settler schools; and to explore what could be done differently to lessen present-day and future educational inequity. The book will have great appeal to education students, educators, teacher educators, and educational researchers in settler contexts.

This book critically examines current ELT practices vis-à-vis the use of English as an international lingua franca. It bridges the gap between theoretical discussion and the practical concerns of teaching English as an international language (EIL), and presents diverse approaches for preparing competent users of English in international contexts. Part 1 examines how the linguistic and functional varieties of English today complicate ELT, and suggests ways to address them effectively in an English language classroom. Part 2 showcases English courses and programs that are specifically based on the EIL perspective, illustrating how the issues addressed in Part 1 are realized in a real context. This section also presents a collection of EIL pedagogical ideas that have been developed and used successfully by English teachers across the world.

This book brings together current research by leading international scholars on the often contentious nature of language policies and their practical outcomes in North America, Australia and Europe. It presents a range of perspectives from which to engage with a variety of pressing issues raised by multilingualism, multiculturalism, immigration, exclusion, and identity. A recurrent theme is that of tension and conflict: between uniformity and diversity, between official policies and real day-to-day life experiences, but also between policies in schools and the corporate world and their implementation. Several chapters present research about language policy issues that has previously not been fully or easily available to an English-language audience. Many of the chapters also provide up-to-date analyses of language policy issues in particular regions or countries, focusing on recent developments.

Japan is widely regarded as a model case of successful language modernization, and it is often erroneously believed to be linguistically homogenous. There is a connection between these two views. As the first ever non-Western language to be modernized, Japanese language modernizers needed to convince the West that Japanese was just as good a language as the national languages of the West. The result was a fervent desire for linguistic uniformity. Today the legacy of modernist language ideology poses many problems to an internationalizing Japan. All indigenous minority languages are heading towards extinction, and this purposefully created homogeneity also affects the integration of immigrants and their languages. This book examines these issues from the perspective of language ideology, and in doing so the mechanisms by which language ideology undermines linguistic diversity are revealed.

Talk, Text and Technology is an ethnographic exploration of language, learning and literacy in remote Indigenous Australia. This unique work traces the historical transformation of one Indigenous group across four generations. The manner in which each generation adopts, adapts and incorporates new innovations and technologies into social practice and cultural processes is illuminated - from first mission contact and the introduction of literacy in the 1930s to youth media practices today. This book examines social, cultural and linguistic practices and addresses the implications for language and literacy socialisation.

Social justice language teacher education is a response to the acknowledgement that there are social/societal inequities that shape access to learning and educational achievement. In social justice language teacher education, social justice is the driving force and primary organizational device for the teacher education agenda. What does “social justice” mean in diverse global locations? What role does English play in promoting or denying equity? How can teachers come to see themselves as advocates for equal educational access and opportunity? This volume begins by articulating a view of social justice teacher education, followed by language teacher educators from 7 countries offering theorized accounts of their situated practices. Authors discuss powerful components of practice, and the challenges and tensions of doing this work within situated societal and institutional power structures.

This book presents the latest developments in crosslinguistic influence (CLI) and multilingualism research. The contributors, both veteran researchers and relative newcomers to the field, situate their research in current debates in terms of theory and data analysis and they present it in an accessible way. The chapters investigate how and when native and non-native language knowledge is used in language production. They focus on lexis, syntax, tense-aspect, phonology of multilingual production and link it to a range of concepts such as redundancy, affordances, metalinguistic awareness and L2 status. The empirical data have been collected from participants with a wide combination of languages: besides English, German, French and Spanish, there is Finnish, Swedish, Polish, Chinese and Catalan.

This book explores the social construction of age in the context of EFL in Mexico. It is the first book to address the age factor in SLA from a social perspective. Based on research carried out at a public university in Mexico, it investigates how adults of different ages experience learning a new language and how they enact their age identities as language learners. By approaching the topic from a social constructionist perspective and in light of recent work in sociolinguistics and cultural studies, it broadens the current second language acquisition focus on age as a fixed biological or chronological variable to encompass its social dimensions. What emerges is a more complex and nuanced understanding of age as it intersects with language learning in a way that links it fundamentally to other social phenomena, such as gender, ethnicity and social class.

Translation and Opposition is an edited volume that brings together cultural and sociological perspectives by examining translation through the prism of linguistic/cultural hybridity and inter/intra-social agency. In a collection of diverse case studies, ranging from the translation of political texts to interpreting in concentration camps, the book explores issues of power struggle, ideology, censorship and identity construction. The contributors to the volume show how translators, interpreters and subtitlers as mediators put their specific professional and ethical competences to the test by treading the dividing lines between constellations of ‘in-groups’ and cultural or political ‘others’.

Style, Identity and Literacy: English in Singapore is a qualitative study of the literacy practices of a group of Singaporean adolescents, relating their patterns of interaction – both inside and outside the classroom – to the different levels of social organization in Singaporean society (home, peer group and school). Combining field data gathered through a series of detailed interviews with available classroom observations, the study focuses on six adolescents from different ethnic and social backgrounds as they negotiate the learning of English against the backdrop of multilingual Singapore. This book provides social explanations for the difficulties and challenges these adolescents face by drawing on current developments in sociolinguistics, literacy studies, English language teaching and language policy.

This collection of essays brings together a decade of writings on translation by leading international translation studies expert, Susan Bassnett. The essays cover a range of topics and will be useful to anyone with an interest in how different cultures communicate. Bassnett draws upon her personal experience to explore issues such as why the same things cannot be expressed in all languages, why translators in war zones risk their lives for their work, whether humour can travel across cultures, why translated menus are often so bad and whether poetry does indeed get lost in translation.

The Acquisition of L2 Phonology is a wide-ranging new collection which focuses on various aspects of the acquisition of an L2 phonological system. The authors are researchers and practitioners from five different countries. The volume has been divided into three major sections. Phonetic Analysis presents five studies of language learners in both naturalistic and formal-educational settings, which illustrate aspects of L2 production and perception. In Phonological Analysis a more abstract and comparative perspective is taken, in order to use recent theories modeling the route of L1/L2 pronunciation and reading ability development to account for observable tendencies in learner behavior. Pedagogical Perspectives consists of four contributions of high practical value, which look at the mastery of native-like or highly intelligible pronunciation as an important component of L2 education.

This volume addresses the complex issues surrounding language teacher education, especially in EFL, and the development of professionalism in this field. By applying such concepts as Shulman's "pedagogical content knowledge", the development of teachers' knowledge base is investigated in a variety of settings, thus underpinning the contextual nature of teacher learning. The vital role of critical reflection at all stages of teacher development is shown to be an integral part of language teachers' knowledge constructions in areas such as pedagogical grammar, assessment and testing. The contributions shed light also on the perception and development of teacher expertise. This volume sets out to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and in so doing shows that these constructs are far from monolithic. Rather, both theory and practice are created and developed dynamically in close interrelation.

This book focuses on creative writing both as a subject in universities and beyond academia, with chapters arranged around three organising sub-themes of practice, research and pedagogy. It explores the ‘creative’ component of creative writing in the globalised marketplace, making the point that creative writing occurs in and around universities throughout the world. It examines the convergence of education, globalisation and economic discourses at the intersection of the university sector and creative industries, and foregrounds the competing interests at the core of creativity as it appears in the neo-liberal global discourse in which writers are enmeshed. The book offers case studies from the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia and Singapore that are indicative of the challenges faced by academics, postgraduate students and creative industry professionals around the world.

Japan is widely regarded as a model case of successful language modernization, and it is often erroneously believed to be linguistically homogenous. There is a connection between these two views. As the first ever non-Western language to be modernized, Japanese language modernizers needed to convince the West that Japanese was just as good a language as the national languages of the West. The result was a fervent desire for linguistic uniformity. Today the legacy of modernist language ideology poses many problems to an internationalizing Japan. All indigenous minority languages are heading towards extinction, and this purposefully created homogeneity also affects the integration of immigrants and their languages. This book examines these issues from the perspective of language ideology, and in doing so the mechanisms by which language ideology undermines linguistic diversity are revealed.

This book brings together current research by leading international scholars on the often contentious nature of language policies and their practical outcomes in North America, Australia and Europe. It presents a range of perspectives from which to engage with a variety of pressing issues raised by multilingualism, multiculturalism, immigration, exclusion, and identity. A recurrent theme is that of tension and conflict: between uniformity and diversity, between official policies and real day-to-day life experiences, but also between policies in schools and the corporate world and their implementation. Several chapters present research about language policy issues that has previously not been fully or easily available to an English-language audience. Many of the chapters also provide up-to-date analyses of language policy issues in particular regions or countries, focusing on recent developments.

A selection of Professor Fishman's writings, during the past two decades, on language and ethnicity in minority perspective, this volume concentrates on six major topics:
• What is ethnicity and how is it linked to language?
• Language maintenance and language shift in ethnocultural perspective
• The ethnic dimension in language planning
• Language and ethnicity in education: the bilingual minority focus
• Elites and rank-and-file: contrasts and contexts
• Ethnolinguistic homogeneity and heterogeneity: national and international causes and consequences.
Each major topic is prefaced by a specially written introduction, as is the volume as a whole, thereby integrating the material and focusing it on minority group concerns. Joshua Fishman's well-known dedication to worldwide cultural democracy and cultural pluralism, not only as moral imperatives but as empirical assets, shines through all of these selections and unifies them philosophically as well as scientifically.

This book describes an alternative way to teach Creative Writing, one that replaces the silent writer taking criticism and advice from the teacher-led workshop with an active writer who reflects upon and publically questions the work-in-progress in order to solicit response, from a writers' group as well as from the teacher. Both accompany the writer, first as readers and fellow writers, only later as critics. Because writers ask, they listen, and dialogues with responders become an inner dialogue that guides later writing and revision. But when teachers accompany writers, teaching CW becomes even more a negotiation of the personal because this teacher who is listener and mentor is also a model for some students of the writer and even the person they would like to become - and still the Authority who gives the grades.

This book explores the role of identity in adolescent foreign language learning to provide evidence that an identity-focused approach can make a difference to achievement in education. It uses both in-depth exploratory interviews with language learners and a cross-sectional survey to provide a unique glimpse into the identity dynamics that learners need to manage in their interaction with contradictory relational contexts (e.g. teacher vs. classmates; parents vs. friends), and that appear to impair their perceived competence and declared achievement in language learning. Furthermore, this work presents a new model of identity which incorporates several educational psychology theories (e.g. self-discrepancy, self-presentation, impression management), developmental theories of adolescence and principles of foreign language teaching and learning. This book gives rise to potentially policy-changing insights and will be of importance to those interested in the relationship between self, identity and language teaching and learning.

This book is an in-depth examination of education and media under occupation. The contributors to this volume engage dialogue to explore these domains and their roles and functioning under occupation while keeping an eye toward resolution, using the on-going conflict between Palestine and Israel as the focus. The uniqueness of this collection is not limited to the willingness of its authors to investigate topics that have often been left out of the mainstream, but that they actually enter into dialogue with one another. Education and media are exemplified as domains that can either maintain the status quo of oppression when used by policymakers and governments to do so or can be utilized as mechanisms for change and peacemaking. These contradictory roles are highlighted throughout this book by multiple voices.

This book explores the social construction of age in the context of EFL in Mexico. It is the first book to address the age factor in SLA from a social perspective. Based on research carried out at a public university in Mexico, it investigates how adults of different ages experience learning a new language and how they enact their age identities as language learners. By approaching the topic from a social constructionist perspective and in light of recent work in sociolinguistics and cultural studies, it broadens the current second language acquisition focus on age as a fixed biological or chronological variable to encompass its social dimensions. What emerges is a more complex and nuanced understanding of age as it intersects with language learning in a way that links it fundamentally to other social phenomena, such as gender, ethnicity and social class.

This volume provides a state-of-the-art snapshot of language and education research and demonstrates ways in which local and global processes are intertwined with language learning, use, and policies. Reflecting but also expanding on Nancy Hornberger’s ground-breaking contributions to educational linguistics, this book brings together leading international scholars. Chapters present new research and cutting-edge syntheses addressing current theoretical and methodological issues in researching equity, access, and multilingual education. Organized around three central themes --- bilingual education and bilingualism, the continua of biliteracy, and policy and planning for linguistic diversity in education --- the volume reflects the holistic and dynamic perspective on language (in) education that is the hallmark of educational linguistics as a field.

This collection of essays brings together a decade of writings on translation by leading international translation studies expert, Susan Bassnett. The essays cover a range of topics and will be useful to anyone with an interest in how different cultures communicate. Bassnett draws upon her personal experience to explore issues such as why the same things cannot be expressed in all languages, why translators in war zones risk their lives for their work, whether humour can travel across cultures, why translated menus are often so bad and whether poetry does indeed get lost in translation.

This volume addresses the complex issues surrounding language teacher education, especially in EFL, and the development of professionalism in this field. By applying such concepts as Shulman's "pedagogical content knowledge", the development of teachers' knowledge base is investigated in a variety of settings, thus underpinning the contextual nature of teacher learning. The vital role of critical reflection at all stages of teacher development is shown to be an integral part of language teachers' knowledge constructions in areas such as pedagogical grammar, assessment and testing. The contributions shed light also on the perception and development of teacher expertise. This volume sets out to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and in so doing shows that these constructs are far from monolithic. Rather, both theory and practice are created and developed dynamically in close interrelation.

The general perception that a good command of English is enough to gain access and to be successful in higher education hides the complexity of learning and teaching in multilingual environments, and this book shows that all higher education environments are multilingual to some extent. Strategies like translation, interpreting and switching from one language to another not only support learning but also build competence for multilingual professional environments. Whether institutions focus on widening access to minoritised communities or whether they want to attract more international students, the book argues that a multilingual pedagogy is needed to improve student access and success. Building on work by Nancy Hornberger, Colin Baker and Ofelia García, the book extends strategies and techniques from bilingual education at school level to multilingual higher education.

Multilingual Aspects of Speech Sound Disorders in Children explores both multilingual and multicultural aspects of children with speech sound disorders. The 30 chapters have been written by 44 authors from 16 different countries about 112 languages and dialects. The book is designed to translate research into clinical practice. It is divided into three sections: (1) Foundations, (2) Multilingual speech acquisition, (3) Speech-language pathology practice. An introductory chapter discusses cross-linguistic and multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children. Subsequent chapters address speech sound acquisition, how the disorder manifests in different languages, cultural contexts, and speakers, and addresses diagnosis, assessment and intervention. The research chapters synthesize available research across a wide range of languages. A unique feature of this book are the chapters that translate research into clinical practice. These chapters provide real-life vignettes for specific geographical or linguistic contexts.

As a field in its own right, Minority Language Media studies is developing fast. The recent technological and social developments that have accelerated media convergence and opened new ways of access and exchange into spaces formerly controlled by media institutions, offer new opportunities, challenges and dangers to minority languages, and especially to their already established media institutions. This book includes debates on what convergence and participation actually mean, a series of case studies of specific social media developments in minority language, as well as comparative studies on how the cultural industries have engaged with the new possibilities brought about by media convergence. Finally, the book also offers a historical review of the development of Minority Language Media worldwide, and evidences the areas in which more extensive research is required.

This book describes an alternative way to teach Creative Writing, one that replaces the silent writer taking criticism and advice from the teacher-led workshop with an active writer who reflects upon and publically questions the work-in-progress in order to solicit response, from a writers' group as well as from the teacher. Both accompany the writer, first as readers and fellow writers, only later as critics. Because writers ask, they listen, and dialogues with responders become an inner dialogue that guides later writing and revision. But when teachers accompany writers, teaching CW becomes even more a negotiation of the personal because this teacher who is listener and mentor is also a model for some students of the writer and even the person they would like to become - and still the Authority who gives the grades.

This book is an in-depth examination of education and media under occupation. The contributors to this volume engage dialogue to explore these domains and their roles and functioning under occupation while keeping an eye toward resolution, using the on-going conflict between Palestine and Israel as the focus. The uniqueness of this collection is not limited to the willingness of its authors to investigate topics that have often been left out of the mainstream, but that they actually enter into dialogue with one another. Education and media are exemplified as domains that can either maintain the status quo of oppression when used by policymakers and governments to do so or can be utilized as mechanisms for change and peacemaking. These contradictory roles are highlighted throughout this book by multiple voices.

This volume provides a state-of-the-art snapshot of language and education research and demonstrates ways in which local and global processes are intertwined with language learning, use, and policies. Reflecting but also expanding on Nancy Hornberger’s ground-breaking contributions to educational linguistics, this book brings together leading international scholars. Chapters present new research and cutting-edge syntheses addressing current theoretical and methodological issues in researching equity, access, and multilingual education. Organized around three central themes --- bilingual education and bilingualism, the continua of biliteracy, and policy and planning for linguistic diversity in education --- the volume reflects the holistic and dynamic perspective on language (in) education that is the hallmark of educational linguistics as a field.

Developing the ability to speak in a foreign language is an arduous task. This is because it involves the mastery of different language subsystems, simultaneous focus on comprehension and production, and the impact of a range of social factors. This challenge is further compounded in situations in which learners have limited access to the target language. Thus, there is a need to explore issues related to teaching, learning and testing speaking with a view to translating the guidelines based on theoretical positions and research findings into feasible and context-specific pedagogical recommendations. This is the rationale behind this book, which considers speaking from leading theoretical perspectives, investigates individual variables which affect its development, and reports the results of studies focusing on different aspects of its instructed acquisition.

Until recently, the history of debates about language and thought has been a history of thinking of language in the singular. The purpose of this volume is to reverse this trend and to begin unlocking the mysteries surrounding thinking and speaking in bi- and multilingual speakers. If languages influence the way we think, what happens to those who speak more than one language? And if they do not, how can we explain the difficulties second language learners experience in mapping new words and structures onto real-world referents? The contributors to this volume put forth a novel approach to second language learning, presenting it as a process that involves conceptual development and restructuring, and not simply the mapping of new forms onto pre-existing meanings.

This book is a theoretical and practical discussion of intercultural communication and interaction and is aimed at academic courses as well as professional development programmes. It focuses, from a critical perspective, on the intercultural dynamics established between the members of multicultural groups/teams in various types of work environments. Selected academics and other experts on intercultural communication and interaction, representing different approaches and professional experience, joined, collaborated and contributed to the fulfilment of a three-year project where they developed a model in eight axes: - Intercultural Responsibility, Emotional Management, Intercultural Interaction, Communicative Interaction, Ethnography, Biography, Diversity Management and Working in Multicultural Teams. Each chapter provides an interdisciplinary account of its topic as well as an activity which aims to illustrate the ideas proposed.

This book presents a novel approach to discussing how to research language teacher cognition and practice. An introductory chapter by the editors and an overview of the research field by Simon Borg precede eight case studies written by new researchers, each of which focuses on one approach to collecting data. These approaches range from questionnaires and focus groups to think aloud, stimulated recall, and oral reflective journals. Each case study is commented on by a leading expert in the field - JD Brown, Martin Bygate, Donald Freeman, Alan Maley, Jerry Gebhard, Thomas Farrell, Susan Gass, and Jill Burton. Readers are encouraged to enter the conversation by reflecting on a set of questions and tasks in each chapter.

The multiliteracies approach to literacy education has become established as an accessible and effective paradigm for classroom practice in the 21st century. The Multiliteracies Classroom enlivens this theory with its vivid description of events in a real classroom. Teachers will identify with the lively transcripts of classroom interactions, and be inspired to widen students’ access to new literacy practices in an increasingly digital and globalised world. The possibilities and constraints that can be encountered when implementing multiliteracies are explored in detail. Educators know from experience that students begin their classroom journey with entirely unequal opportunities for literacy success. The Multiliteracies Classroom does not ignore this reality, highlighting the influence of society’s patterns of power on literacy learning in the digital age. Its key themes provide a blueprint for the future of literacy research and practice.