Opening with a discussion of the key issues of globalization, migration, multiculturalism, multilingualism and global cities, David Block then turns to four detailed case studies: East Asian students living and working in London; foreign language teachers from France; London's growing Latino community; and second generation South Asian university students. Via these case studies the book explores the ambivalent and multi-layered identities of individuals who have crossed geographical and psychological borders during the course of their lifetimes and settled in London, the quintessential global city.

"Multilingual Living "presents speakers' own accounts of the challenges and advantages of living in several languages at individual, family and societal levels. Individuals note profound differences in their sense of themselves, their relationships and their parenting, depending on which language they use--their experience highlights the interlinking of language, subjectivity and identity construction. The author further considers effects of the hierarchy of languages and power relationships. The book provides rich interview material of considerable interest to sociolinguists, psychologists, sociologists and lay readers interested in language and identity and in the dynamics of bilingual and multilingual living.

This book examines the ideological underpinnings of language-in-education policies that explicitly focus on adding a new language to the learners' existing repertoire. It examines policies for foreign languages, immigrant languages, indigenous languages and external language spread. Each of these contexts provides for different possible relationships between the language learner and the target language group and shows how in different polities different understandings influence how policy is designed. The book develops a theoretical account of language policies as discursive constructions of ideological positions and explicates how ideologies are developed through an examination of case studies from a range of countries. Each chapter in this book takes the form of a series of three in-depth case studies in which policies relating to a particular area of language-in-education policy are examined. Each case examines the language of policy texts from a critical perspective to deconstruct how intercultural relationships are projected.

As European lawyers dealing with cross-border issues quickly learn, the terms contract, contrat, and contratto signify three very different legal concepts. This illustration highlights the importance of studying the relationships between language and law, particularly in the context of strong pressure from the European Community to harmonise the laws of the Member States - a process which appears difficult, if not impossible, unless there is an understanding of the profound differences which exist between the various legal systems, and the development of a common European legal language from the 21 official languages now a feature of the European Union. This admirable collection of essays brings together the work of practitioners and scholars in three fields pertinent to this endeavour: representatives of Community institutions who are involved in drafting, translating, and interpreting multilingual texts; jurists and comparative lawyers from both civil law and common law systems; and researchers in linguistics and language issues. Among the many relevant matters they discuss are the following: terminologies of rights and remedies; the role of the European Court of Justice as interpreter; multilingualism in parliamentary practice; the role of the European Commission's legal revisers; and translation at the European Court of Justice. The essays were originally presented as papers at a conference held in Como in April 2005, organized by the Faculty of Law of the University of Insubria together with the Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca in Diritto Comparato (Interuniversity Centre for Research in Comparative Law) set up by the Universities of Milan, Bologna and Insubria. This event took place in the context of a research project co-financed by the University of Insubria and the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research. The particular objective of the conference was to make a comparison between the day-to-day working requirements within the Community institutions, each with its own particular needs, and the longerterm analysis which the academic world could bring to bear on the problems of the translatability of legal terms. As the first in-depth appraisal of this crucial matter, this book cannot fail to find interested readers among all the branches of European law, practitioners and scholars, local and international. It is sure to be a highly valuable resource for many years to come.

Focuses on the endangering effects of language-ideological processes. This book looks at the challenges imposed by globalization and super-diversity on the nation state and its language situations and ideologies, and demonstrates how many of its problems rise from the tension between late-modern diversity and the (pre-)modernist responses to it.

Sociolinguistics and the social sciences more generally tend to take an interest in norms as central to social life. The importance of norms is easily discernible in the sociolinguistic canon, for instance in Labov's definition of the speech community as 'participation in a set of shared norms' and Hymes' concepts of 'norms of interaction' and 'norms of interpretation'. Yet, while the notion of norms may play a central role in sociolinguistic theory, there is little explicit theoretical work around the notion of norms itself within the discipline. Instead, norms tend to be treated as conceptual primes - convenient building blocks, ready-made for sociolinguistic theorizing - rather than theoretical constructs in need of reflexive attention. The aim of this book is to assess and advance current understandings of norms as a theoretical construct and empirical object of research in the study of language in social life. The contributors approach the topic from a range of complementary disciplinary perspectives, including sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, EM/CA, socio-cognitive linguistics and pragmatics, to provide a multifaceted view of norms as a central concept in the study of language in social life.

This book deals with early multilingual acquisition from a holistic, dynamic, and multilingual perspective. It focuses on the analysis of pragmatic awareness and language attitudes of consecutive multilingual children in relation to other variables, such as the linguistic model or the age factor. This volume makes an important contribution to the field, providing evidence for the Dynamic Model of Multilingualism proposed by Herdina and Jessner.

* An original volume that comprehensively addresses principles, strategies, and techniques of teaching Arabic * Brings together renowned TAFL scholars from around the world to present a range of perspectives * Presents both research findings and pedagogical techniques on teaching Arabic as a second or foreign language * Covers both Arabic grammar and SLA (second language acquisition) research and theory

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.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

This book details innovative developments in the pragmatics and lexicogrammar of speakers using English as a lingua franca. There have been considerable recent demographic shifts in the use of English worldwide. English is now undoubtedly(and particularly) an international lingua franca, a lingua mundi. The sociolinguistic reality of English language use worldwide, and its implications, continue to be hotly contested. Plenty of research has questioned, for example, the ownership of English, but less attention has been paid to the linguistic consequences of the escalating role English plays. This is one of the first books to provide a detailed and comprehensive account of recent empirical findings in the field of English as a lingua franca (ELF). Dewey and Cogo analyze and interpret their own large corpus of naturally occurring spoken interactions and focus on identifying innovative developments in the pragmatics and lexicogrammar of speakers engaged in ELF talk. Dewey and Cogo's work makes a substantial contribution to the emerging field of empirical ELF studies. As well as this practical focus, this book looks at both pragmatic and lexicogrammatical issues and highlights their interrelationship. In showcasing the underlying processes involved in the emergence of innovative patterns of language use, this book will be of great interest to advanced students and academics working in applied linguistics, ELF, sociolinguistics, and corpus linguistics.

This book is the very first collection of first-person language learning narratives that offers rich introspective data on the various processes and forces shaping the development and maintenance of multiple languages (seven and more) in a single individual. The writers are twelve multilinguals who have been influenced by quite different contextual factors and who have learned a wide range and combination of dialects and languages from both similar and very different linguistic families. The combinations explored in the narratives include some lesser-known languages that come from under-researched areas, such as the African continent, certain parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Also unique are two theoretical chapters which analyze the narrative data against the background of language development research findings within several thematic areas: multiple language learning as a complex dynamic system; the influence of bilingualism/multilingualism on the acquisition of additional languages; cross-linguistic influence; and also emotions, motivation, and identity. The aim of this juxtaposition and analysis is to allow a meaningful comparison of the extent to which etic, researcher-generated, and emic, learner-offered perspectives match or diverge, and to identify new questions that the emic data may add to research agendas. The book is an excellent resource not only for researchers but also for teachers as well as for students of language at the graduate and undergraduate level.

This book presents, for the first time, an overarching, trans-Scandinavian, comprehensive and comparable account of linguistic developments and practices in late modern urban contact zones. The book aims to capture the multilingual realities of all young people in urban contexts, whether they are of migrant descent or not. Taking a multi-layered approach to linguistic practices, chapters in the book include structural and phonological analyses of new linguistic practices, examine how these practices and their practitioners are perceived, and discuss the sociolinguistic potentials of speakers when constructing, challenging and negotiating identities. The book also contains three short overview articles describing studies of multilingual practices in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The editors have aimed to make Scandinavian research on urban multilingualism accessible to scholars and students who don't speak Scandinavian languages, and also to make a valuable contribution to the global study of multilingualism.

This book focuses on bilingualism in the context of migration and minorization processes. Its aim is to integrate recent research in this fast growing field of scientific and social interest into a single and coherent academic reference. The book has four parts. Part One goes into processes of early bilingual development. Part Two focuses on bilingual development of children at school age. In Part Three the constraints in processes of code-switching and borrowing are dealt with. Part Four discusses the issues related to processes of language maintenance and language loss. Taken from these four perspectives, the volume offers a comprehensive state of the art, with contributions from different combinations of language parts.

This comprehensive guide to research and debate centres around language learning in childhood, the age factor and the different contexts where language learning happens, including home and school contexts. The scope is wide, capturing examples of studies with different age groups, different methodological approaches and different languages.

Mathematics classrooms are increasingly multilingual, whether they are found in linguistically diverse societies, urban melting pots or planned bilingual programs. The chapters in this book present and discuss examples of mathematics classroom life from a range of multilingual classroom settings, and use these examples to draw out and discuss key issues for the teaching and learning of mathematics and language. These issues relate to pedagogy, students' learning, curriculum, assessment, policy and aspects of educational theory. The contributions are based on research conducted in mathematics classrooms in Europe, South Asia, North America and Australia. Recurring issues for the learning of mathematics include the relationship between language and mathematics, the relationship between formal and informal mathematical language, and the relationship between students' home languages and the official language of schooling.

"Through an innovative and interdisciplinary approach that combines critical sociolinguistic ethnography, multi-modality, reflexivity, and discourse analysis, this groundbreaking book reveals the multiple (and sometimes simultaneous) ways in which individuals engage and invest in representations of languages and identities.This timely work is the first to consider the significance of multilingualism and its relationship to citizenship as well as the development of linguistic repertoires as an essential component of language education in a globalized world. While examining the discourses and interconnections between multilingualism, globalization, and identity, the author draws upon a unique case study of the experiences, voices, trajectories, and journeys of Canadian youth of Italian origin from diverse social, geographical, and linguistic backgrounds, participating in university French language courses as well as training to become teachers of French in the urban, multicultural and global landscape of Toronto, Canada. In doing so, Byrd Clark skilfully illustrates the multidimensional ways that youth invest in language learning and socially construe their multiple identities within diverse contexts while weaving in and out of particularistic and universalistic identifications. This invaluable resource will not only shed light on how and why people engage in learning languages and for which languages they choose to invest, but will offer readers a deeper understanding of the complex interrelationships between multilingualism, identity, and citizenship. It will appeal to researchers in a variety of fields, including applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, language acquisition and linguistic anthropology."

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

In the wake of recent federal legislation entitled No Child Left Behind, high-stakes standardized testing for accountability purposes is being emphasized in educational systems across the U.S. for all students - including English Language Learners (ELLs). Yet language proficiency mediates test performance, so ELLs typically receive scores far below those of other students. This book explores how tests have become de facto language policy in schools, shaping what is taught in school, how it is taught, and in what language(s) it is taught. In New York City, while most schools responded to testing by increasing the amount of English instruction offered to ELLs, a few schools have preserved native language instruction instead. Moreover, this research documents how tests are a defining force in the daily lives of ELLs and the educators who serve them.

In John McWhorter s Defining Creole anthology of 2005, his collected articles conveyed the following theme: His hypothesis that creole languages are definable not just in the sociohistorical sense, but in the grammatical sense. His publications since the 1990s have argued that all languages of the world that lack a certain three traits together are creoles (i.e. born as pidgins a few hundred years ago and fleshed out into real languages). He also argued that in light of their pidgin birth, such languages are less grammatically complex than others, as the result of their recent birth as pidgins. These two claims have been highly controversial among creolists as well as other linguists. In this volume, Linguistic Simplicityand Complexity, McWhorter gathers articles he has written since then, in the wake of responses from a wide range of creolists and linguists. These articles represent a considerable divergence in direction from his earlier work."

Immersion education serves as a highly successful pathway to multilingualism. This volume focuses on the evolution of perspectives and practices within language immersion education and showcases an international roster of scholars who offer theoretical perspectives, research reviews and empirical studies on teaching, learning and language development in immersion programs. This collection of studies and discussions represents three branches of immersion education, foreign language ("one-way"), bilingual ("two-way") and indigenous immersion programs. Each branch has its unique situational dynamics to address, and such dynamics must be carefully considered particularly in the interpretation of research findings. Nevertheless, the volume's co-editors argue that much can be learned from research and practices carried out in closely related immersion settings that experience similar challenges related to the delicate balance between language and content. This volume presents an opportunity for thoughtful cross-context dialogue and knowledge exchange.

The view that a bilingual speaker, or a speaker acquiring more than one language, is the sum of two -or more- monolinguals is proving to be a myth rather than a reality. Accordingly, this book provides a new profile of children and young people becoming bilingual or multilingual in today's multicultural Spain. The chapters present studies on the acquisition of the four official languages plus the languages of several new communities. They include descriptive, functional, pragmatic and formal perspectives, covering phonetics, lexis, morphology and syntax, as well as code mixing and input, bilingual twins, SLI bilingualism, narratives, literacy, age and stay abroad effects. The book should be of interest to graduate students and researchers working in the field of second and foreign language acquisition and multilingualism, language planners, language teachers and families alike.

This collection of case studies from around the world examines how struggles for equality unfold in policies, programs, and practices in educational settings in multilingual contexts. Using sociolinguistic, interactional and discourse analysis, Heller and Martin-Jones examine the complex ways in which dominant ideologies of education, pedagogy, language and identity intersect in a wide variety of educational settings. They focus in particular on how those ideologies are reproduced or challenged, and on the consequences of such processes for changing or maintaining social relations of difference and inequality. Written for policy-makers, educators, and anyone else interested in education and multilingualism, the book places questions of power at the center of thinking about language and education. This collection of case studies from around the world examines how struggles for equality unfold in policies, programs, and practices in educational settings in multilingual contexts. Using sociolinguistic, interactional and discourse analysis, Heller and Martin-Jones examine the complex ways in which dominant ideologies of education, pedagogy, language, and identity intersect in a wide variety of educational settings. They focus in particular on how those ideologies are reproduced or challenged, and on the consequences of such processes for changing or maintaining social relations of difference and inequality. Written for policy-makers, educators, and anyone else interested in education and multilingualism, the book places questions of power at the center of thinking about language and education. It invites us to link questions about minority language maintenance, individual multilingualism, immigrant language education, and the use of former colonial languages in post-colonial settings to the politics and economics of our globalizing age, and to look locally for the spaces for change and action that always present themselves.