This narrative case study examines the multilingual practice and identity of Haben, a refugee-background Somali-Bantu in a larger one-year (2019-2020) ethnography with refugee arrivals in coping with new linguistic and cultural environment in a northeastern U.S. city. Framed by the entangled transnational-translocal approach to multilinguals,…

Focusing on how a world of possibilities is opened up by language learners themselves, imagination has been regarded as an elusive but indispensable element in second language (L2) education. Drawing on notions of international posture (Yashima 2002), Ideal L2 Self (Dörnyei 2009), and imagined communities (Norton 2001), we theorised imagination…

This paper outlines a new model of language revitalisation that understands language to be a characteristic of a nexus of social activities rather than an independent object. Language use is one of an overall set of factors contributing to the wellbeing of a particular community. Our model treats language as one node (or a cluster of nodes) in a…

We draw on Rampton's "Crossing: Language and Ethnicity Among Adolescents" (2014. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge) notion of "crossing" to explore contestations in ethnolinguistic, cultural and racial affiliations at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), a university built for "Coloureds" in apartheid South Africa, but…

The research reported in this paper adopts a sociocultural approach to the comparative study of Thai and Serbian foreign language learning settings, seeking to identify similarities and differences in student perception of teacher approaches to teaching EFL. The participants in the research included a total of 439 Thai and 106 Serbian students.…

This article presents an overview of the perceived importance and accelerated spread of English language education, both formal and informal, in three East Asian countries (i.e. China, Japan and South Korea) against the backdrop of globalisation and emergent ideological, sociocultural and educational trends. It begins with a review of the recent…

This study investigated the role of several sociocultural variables involved in the acculturation process and their relationship to second-language learning and well-being. A causal modeling analysis indicated that an assimilation mode of acculturation was positively related to self-rated English proficiency and preference for responding to the…

Highlights the potential demands for the services of the speech therapist. In a linguistic assessment, the therapist needs to differentiate between first and second language learning problems. An assessment procedure must allow a child to respond in either of his/her two languages and be given credit for such responses. (Author/PJM)

Two sociocultural value clusters that predict an English-as-a-Second-language and an English-as-a-Foreign-Language approach are juxtaposed, respectively, to English language acquisition management. The two approaches are described in educational terms and related to the changing functions of English in the world and to national language…

Examines the interactional sociolinguists' treatment of context and its contribution to understanding how sociocultural information enters into the interpretation of intent and evaluation of motives and abilities. Negative perceptions of Zulus by White "gatekeepers" are explained in terms of interactional asynchrony stemming from…

A study of limited-English-speaking Vietnamese children (K-12) showed that the best predictors of reading performance were grade, Vietnamese language background, amount of English spoken at home, higher level paternal occupation, and ESL class participation. Predictors not found significant included gender, siblings, television viewing, library…

Increased use of English in Singapore, a multiracial, multilingual country, especially its use for cultural purposes, has met with some controversy. This article traces the historical development of Singaporean literature in English and the sociocultural and political problems such literature faces in a country where the official languages and…