This paper examines the linguistic situation in Morocco, with a particular focus on Arabic. The Ministry of Education's approval of a grade two Arabic textbook that employs dialectal Arabic (Darija) words instead of Standard Arabic, which is the usual writing mode, created fierce controversy in the social and political scene between the defenders…

The study was a humble attempt at cross-analyzing court decisions drafted in American, Philippine, and Indonesian Englishes in the perspective of world Englishes (WEs). Using the contrastive genre analysis framework of Le, Kui, and Ying-Long (2008), and Cheng, Sin, and Li (2008), the study examined three authentic court decisions taken from the…

A comparative analysis of four studies that emphasized linguistic similarities (rather than differences) between nonstandard speakers and other groups focused on developmental characteristics of the semantic categories encoded by nonstandard speakers compared with other speakers. Implications for language assessment are discussed. (JW)

The children of Appalachia, a region characterized by a strong oral tradition, are constantly defining their roles in their society through language. In so doing they are contributing to the maintenance of the patterns of life in that society. Children observe the functional uses of story at a very early age, and narratives emphasize group…