Language naming systems are local ways of organising diversity, yet the language names used by linguists are sometimes incommensurable with the lived social reality of speakers. The process of assigning language names is not neutral, trivial or objective: it is a highly political process driven and shaped by understandings of group identity,…

This paper reports on how a prominent American football player, Joe Burrow, from the state of Ohio adopts the Cajun English spelling system used in Louisiana, a southern state in the U.S., in a symbolic and innovative way during his short stay there when he relocated to Louisiana from Ohio for the final two years of his college career. In previous…

Literature on early language acquisition has observed that age of onset of acquisition (AoA) is relevant for certain grammatical phenomena. Simultaneous bilinguals receive regular and extensive exposure to two languages from birth (Müller, 2009), whereas sequential child learners get in extensive contact to L[subscript B] once the L[subscript A]…

Koh Lipe, Satun is a famous tourist destination along the Andaman Sea, Southern Thailand where linguistic landscape is structured mainly in English. Monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual signage in this island displays distinctiveness of linguistic elements and linguistic diversity manifested in a variety of English lexicons. Thus, this study…

Many languages make a T/V distinction when addressing an interlocutor, and Basque also has two main levels of formality: "zuka" (formal) and "hika" (informal). The peculiarity of the Basque informal form of address "hika" is that its verbal morphology varies depending on the addressee's gender. The use of…

In this dissertation project, I examine how professionals in the South use their Southern United States English (SUSE) to communicate in business situations. My goals are to (1) understand how regional language variety rhetorically shapes written professional communication and (2) establish a pedagogical framework for business writing that attunes…

Recent research has shown that a distinct variety of American Sign Language, known as Black ASL, developed in the segregated schools for deaf African Americans in the US South during the pre-civil rights era. Research has also shown that in some respects Black ASL is closer than most white varieties to the standard taught in ASL classes and found…

One of the features of the growing prominence of English across the globe is the proliferation of English-medium instruction (EMI) programmes at all levels of education, driven by a neoliberal agenda which places a disproportionate value on English over other languages. While this spread has primarily affected more developed, urban contexts, EMI…

This paper analyzes the status of the Andalusian variety within Spanish language pluricentricity. It offers an example of the rise of new systems of normative stratification in the traditional 'linguistic peripheries' and of how the different linguistic agents deal with the vindication of social and linguistic identities. This fact makes us treat…

This study examines how language choice in epitaphs in Alsatian cemeteries mirrors language shifts in Alsace, a region in Eastern France that changed nationalities between France and Germany four times between 1870 and 1945. Language choice on tombstones was expected to be made according to the language of the ruling power, but the results show…

South Africa is a country characterised by great linguistic diversity. Large indigenous languages, such as isiZulu and isiXhosa, are spoken by many millions of people, as well as the languages with European roots, such as Afrikaans and English, which are spoken by several millions and used by many more in daily life. This situation provides a…

High-stakes testing can be a major hurdle for individuals who know the material well, but have trouble understanding the language of the test. Many people have difficulty understanding test questions when the wording of the question is different from the language variation typically used by the test-taker. This research builds on prior research…

Descriptions of regional pragmatic variation in French are lacking to date the focus has been on a limited range of speech acts, including apologies, requests, compliments and responses to compliments. The present paper, a systematic analysis of invitation refusals across regional varieties of French, is designed to add to the research on…

Academic publication is an international phenomenon, annually involving thousands of scholars, publishers, and institutions worldwide. Despite global authorship, influential publications operate primarily zones of geopolitical and economic power in North America and Western Europe. The primary objective of this paper is to examine the effects of…

This article examines the current situation of regional language bilingual primary education in Alsace and contends that the regional language presents a special case in the context of France. The language comprises two varieties: Alsatian, which traditionally has been widely spoken, and Standard German, used as the language of reference and…