This article seeks to situate Spanish as a global language by exploring both the top-down institutional processes that promote it and the bottom-up grassroots actions that are also increasingly important in the spread and maintenance of global Spanish. This article argues that one of the most important influences now in the explosion of Spanish…

The Cisco Kid was born over 100 years ago in 1907 from the pen of the genial and bilious author O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910). He is still going strong both in film and television. Before 1913, the year when films became long features, dozens of short films were based on the character. After 1913, feature films either used the actual…

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…

Describes a project whose purpose is to set up a computerized database of bilingual texts to be used by researchers in the field of language interaction (i.e., codeswitching, borrowing, and other outcomes of contact between varieties). Current work includes adaptation of the CHILDES system to take account of the different needs of researchers in…

"Dialectic" and "dialogic" are terms that can be used to describe the internal textual conflict and engagement between two cultures. Codeswitching is a linguistic strategy used by Native poets to emphasize the dialectic or dialogic cross-cultural interaction between the hegemonic Euro-American and First Nations cultures. This idea is well…

This article examines the efforts of a school in a Mexican community in Chicago to help children and parents capitalize on the language and culture of their 2 worlds. It builds on the concepts of border crossings and hybridity, metaphors used to describe the sociocultural and linguistic reality of people living transnationally. Some US communities…

Discusses the code-switching in English and Spanish of adjectives or nouns inside a noun phrase containing both. Proposes that the device that prevents switched prenominal Spanish adjectives is the same one that prevents the same classes of adjectives from normally appearing in prenominal position in Spanish. (SED)

This paper discusses research on bilingualism, describing how language development proceeds under exceptional circumstances (for example, when processing must be shifted to another modality, and in abnormal development of one kind or another). It examines exceptional bilingualism, focusing on research on deafness (e.g., hearing children of deaf…

Appraises some of the major research in Spanish-English code-switching which has implications for determining the linguistic competence of bilinguals and the manner in which the two languages are represented in the cognitive apparatus. (EKN)

Linguistic structures and cultural conflicts are the reasons why African-American students fare poorly in literacy instructions in classrooms. Some ideas for creating an accessible, research-based approach to language arts in dialectally diverse classrooms are presented.

Code switching is a widely observed phenomenon especially seen in multilingual and multicultural communities. In ELT classrooms, code switching comes into use either in the teachers' or the students' discourse. Although it is not favoured by many educators, one should have at least an understanding of the functions of switching between the native…

A description is given of a model of the bilingual speaker. The model is based on Levelt's (1989) "speaking model," which sketches a framework in which a number of highly autonomous information processing components are postulated. (56 references) (JL)

Arabic Literacy acquisition was studied among Israeli Palestinian low socioeconomic status kindergartners within the framework of an intervention study, implemented by teachers. On pretest, letter naming, alphabetic awareness, and phonological awareness were very low. Whereas the comparison group hardly progressed throughout the year, the…

Compares controversies surrounding actions by school boards in Hawaii and Oakland, California, to promote student fluency in standard English. Public reactions to these actions demonstrated general lack of understanding about languages and nonstandard dialects. Myths and characterizations about Hawaiian Creole English and African American…

This article focuses on the identity accounts of a group of Chinese children who attend a heritage language school. Bakhtin's concepts of ideological becoming, and authoritative and internally persuasive discourse, frame our exploration. Taking a dialogic view of language and learning raises questions about schools as socializing spaces and…