Although a growing body of literature has explored multilingual users' digital practice, dialects adoptions have received relatively little attention. As an important part of the Chinese language, spoken dialects, or '[Chinese characters omitted]' (fangyan), are highly complex in their classification and colloquial usage. Nevertheless, Chinese…

When the written language that children learn to read and write is distinct from the oral language they acquired as their mother tongue, they may encounter substantial challenges. The linguistic distance between two varieties of the same language could have an impact on the literacy acquisition journey. The present study focuses on Arabic, a…

Possessive determiners (PDs) "his" and "her" are challenging for L2 learners to acquire, and this difficulty has been attributed to several factors, including negative L1 transfer effects (White et al., 2007). What researchers have not yet considered is how PDs are acquired by learners whose L1 predicts positive transfer…

Developing sociolinguistic competence in Arabic can be a complex process given how Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Colloquial Arabic (CA) are used within a changing sociolinguistic environment in Arabic-speaking communities. Findings from empirical research suggest that second language (L2) Arabic learners who receive multidialectal training in…

Since independence in 1975, Papua New Guinea, the most linguistically diverse country in the world, has had both unofficial and official policies of mother-tongue education. However, limited resources and support for mother-tongue education has led communities to incorporate bottom-up language planning as well. In particular, this paper examines…

In order to distinguish between language-related ideologies, Ruiz (1984) proposed three language orientations, namely 'language-as-problem', 'language-as-right' and 'language-as-resource'. Although this typology has been applied to various countries and regions around the globe, relevant research in China, a multi-ethnolinguistic country, remains…

Nonmainstream American English, or dialect, among children may have important implications for reading research and practice. However, much of the research involving relations between dialect and literacy has analyzed dialect use in only one context and has omitted students with speech, language, and learning disabilities. Consequently, we…

This study examines heritage speakers' knowledge of Standard Arabic (SA) and compares their patterns of SA acquisition to those of learners of SA as second/foreign language (L2). In addition, the study examines the influence of previously acquired language varieties, including Colloquial Arabic (QA), on SA acquisition. To this end, the study…

The present study examined the impact of "diglossia", a characteristic of the Arabic language, on the development of phonological abilities in the spoken and the literary language forms. Participants were 571 children from 10 grade levels (1-7, 9, 11 and 12), which were recruited from 10 schools by taking into account two important…

Educators often do not recognize biliteracy and bidialectalism in African American Language (AAL) speakers. Chronicling the experiences of twin four/five-year old AAL and emergent Standard English speakers, we discuss the importance of recognizing and building on the routines and identities of African American children and families. We present…

The present study aims at analyzing the acquisition of dialect variation by native English-speaking university students who study Spanish for a semester in Spain. The selected variable is the phoneme /[theta]/ (theta). The goal is to assess learner awareness, opinion, and use of [theta]. Data were elicited through a set of oral and written tasks…

The present study aimed to investigate the contribution of oral language skills, linguistic skills, and transcription skills to Chinese written composition among Grade 4 students in Hong Kong. Measures assessing verbal working memory, oral language skills, linguistic skills (i.e., syntactic skills and discourse skills), transcription skills (i.e.,…

Discusses the deviation of early Welsh literature from standard literary form and looks at the change process from the earlier literature in its oral form to written form. It is suggested that some forms and features apparent in the early literature, which suffered extinction because of a movement toward standardization, still survive in some…

Discusses four general areas of linguistics studies that are particularly relevant to literacy issues: (1) discourse analysis, including text analysis, spoken and written language, and home and school discourse; (2) relationships between speech and writing, the distance between dialects and written norms, and developmental writing; (3)…

One way to alleviate the hostile feelings of students whose dialects or idiolects interfere with their writing of Edited American English is to spend class time studying the differences between written and spoken English and examining the reasons such differences exist. The concept of a "grapholect," a national written language used by speakers of…