The evolution of Rwanda's language policies since 1996 has played and continues to play a critical role in social reconstruction following war and genocide. Rwanda's new English language policy aims to drop French and install English as the only language of instruction. The policy-makers frame the change as a major factor in the success of social…

For decades there have been linguists who proclaimed the significant role of kinesic expression in carrying the meaning of spoken language (e.g. Efron, 1941; Birdwhistell, 1952; Kendon, 1972). Drawing on such studies, there have also been pioneer studies of gesture in second language learning and use (McNeill, 1992; Gullberg, 1998, 2006), and…

What makes people, in shifting power positions of a post-independence period, plan on disusing an already known L2 or learn a new L2? What are the reasons for such shifts and what outcomes can, therefore, be predicted for the future of societal bilingualism surviving alongside ongoing efforts at monolingual unification in a newly independent…

The ideology of monolingualism prevails throughout society, including within minority ethnic communities who are bilingual and multilingual. Some minority ethnic communities in Britain believe that the response to the dominance of English language is to replace it with other languages. Complementary schools--language and culture classes organised…

This article demonstrates how evidence related to performance in computer mediated communication (CMC) can be used as a vehicle for researching pupils' thinking about using and learning a foreign language. The analysis is based on a qualitative study of pupils from two contrasting schools who had taken part in a multinational CMC project involving…

In this article, we present an approach to the automatic correction of preposition errors in L2 English. Our system, based on a maximum entropy classifier, achieves average precision of 42% and recall of 35% on this task. The discussion of results obtained on correct and incorrect data aims to establish what characteristics of L2 writing prove…

The paper discusses the various situational features and linguistic devices reflected in the three most interesting and the three least interesting postgraduate second language acquisition lectures taught by three lecturers. Students attending the classes were invited to record their interest level at regular intervals throughout the session. For…

This paper discusses the use of grammatical terminology in English language teaching. Accepting that it is a common feature of many classrooms, the paper attempts to help teachers understand the role and nature of terminology. A distinction is made between terms which are transparent (e.g. "countable"), opaque (e.g. "verb") or…

Globalisation processes, often accused of imposing uniformity the world over, also open up opportunities for minorities (including linguistic ones) to exploit a variety of spaces for self-definition and self-expression. The expansion in the use of minority languages in public signage is one consequence of this present phase of reorientation in…

Psycholinguistics is the study of how the mind handles language. There is some lack of consensus as to how far the scope of the field extends, but this article focuses on its most central concerns, namely, how language is acquired, how it is stored in the mind, and how it is processed in use. It aims to build bridges to some of the more important…

It has been increasingly recognised that classroom discourse plays an important social role as a semiotic mediator of knowledge construction with respect to curriculum content. The assumption is that through active verbal engagement with a topic of interest, students are enabled to master the modes of language use associated with schooling--the…

In this article, we begin by delineating the background to and motivations behind Firth and Wagner (1997), wherein we called for a reconceptualization of second language acquisition (SLA) research. We then outline and comment upon some of our critics' reactions to the article. Next we review and discuss the conceptual, theoretical, and…

This dissertation is a study of diverse linguistic resources and contentious identity politics among indigenous Amazonian Kichwas in the city of Tena, Ecuador. Tena is a rapidly developing Amazonian provincial capital city with a long history of interethnic and interlinguistic contact. In recent decades, the course of indigenous Kichwa identity…

The father's role in children's L1 maintenance and L2 learning is a relatively unexplored area. This study considers the L1 and L2 proficiency of 30 Korean-English late bilinguals who immigrated to New Zealand during their adolescence and how their L1 and L2 proficiency is influenced by the language use of family members. Data were collected…

Using an exploratory case study approach, the language use of five bilingual special education teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs) with disabilities was examined. Audio tapes, classroom observations, and teacher interviews yielded data on the language used by the bilingual teachers. Data revealed information on the frequency of the use of…