Although the terms 'heritage speakers' and 'heritage languages' are relatively new, the phenomena themselves date back to the beginning of migration. In many situations heritage languages do not survive these changes, but in others they are maintained successfully. This research explores the individual factors that promote the maintenance of…

Australia lags behind other linguistic and culturally diverse countries in policy direction and approaches to early multilingual education, despite well-established research documenting the intellectual, linguistic, sociocultural, familial and economic benefits of multilingualism in the early years. This is evidenced by the absence of a national…

Professional interpreters are obliged by their codes of ethics to interpret the speakers' speech faithfully, including offensive, profane or vulgar language. In order to achieve this goal, interpreters need to be pragmatically competent, so as to understand the intention and effect of the offensive remark in the source language and be able to…

Variability in the form of article (i.e., a and the) omissions and stressing has been attributed to a mismatch between first (L1) and second language (L2) prosodic and syntactic structures. An overlap between the L1 and L2 systems, on the other hand, is expected to contribute to native-like article productions. This case study aims to explore the…

Scientific reasoning competencies are relevant science competencies and therefore the development of assessment instruments for scientific reasoning competencies has become an integral part of science education research. However, some authors have questioned the validity of the instruments available so far, since their psychometric quality has not…

Because English is widely used as a lingua franca, language testers have started to consider the introduction of non-native accents into English listening tests. This study investigates how accents influence test-takers' performance, and also elicits test-takers' subjective perception of accents. Eighty adolescent L1-Mandarin test takers were…

Researchers and teachers often invoke context to explain their particular research/teaching issues. However, definitions of context vary widely and the direct impact of the context is often unexplained. Based on research showing contextual differences in second language (L2) learner beliefs and interactional behaviors, the current project compared…

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,…