In the decades since the formal end of colonialism in Africa, classrooms have become a crucial space where students and teachers negotiate issues of identity, agency, and self-determination. One key area in which this struggle has been engaged is the role of language in education and whether it can be a tool for both academic discourses and…

Code-switching or using a native language (L1) is commonly employed in an EFL classroom to facilitate comprehension to low-proficiency learners. However, in a context where teachers and learners do not share the same mother tongue, it causes some challenges to language teachers. As teachers' beliefs directly influence their practices, and research…

The study presented here, theoretically framed at the crossroads of sociocultural and decolonial perspectives, draws attention to the sudden proliferation of two specific neologisms in the area of language, education and identity across time and space. It particularly highlights concerns regarding the ways in which these are deployed within…

This present book addresses language and its diverse forms in an array of professional and practical contexts. Besides discussing the intricacies of specialized settings such as legal, medical, technical or corporate, the collection also focuses on the role of education in relation to professional contexts ranging from challenges in professional…

The notion of language as a homogenous, stable and bounded system of communication has waned partly because of increased understanding of the language behaviour of bi/multi-linguals whose language use in different domains is now more appropriately described as translanguaging. The thrust of most definitions is that translanguaging involves the…

In this paper we discuss a multilingual interactional event that involves both interpreting and literacy work, part of a large scale study on translanguaging in superdiverse urban settings. In the first part of the interaction, the center/periphery dynamic is played out in what might be called "contested translanguaging" between Standard…

This paper considers the construction of social difference in the interactions of a couple as they communicate at home and work, with one another, their colleagues, and strangers in a superdiverse English city. In our linguistic ethnographic approach we observed, wrote field notes, audio-recorded key participants, took photographs, made…

Parental input represents an important source of language socialization. Particularly in bilingual contexts, parents may model pragmatic language use and metalinguistic strategies to highlight language differences. The present study examines multiparty interactions involving 28 bilingual English- and Marathi-speaking parent-child pairs in the…

The study examined the use of code-switching by English and science teachers in secondary schools in Malaysia. It focuses on the functions of code-switching in multilingual classrooms where English is the language of instruction, examining in particular the reiterative function of code-switching and its association with translation. Thirty six…

The collection of papers, dedicated to Maria Antonieta Alba Celani, a celebrated English professor in Brazil, consists of writings by colleagues on four themes: developments stemming from Dr. Celani's Brazilian national project for the teaching of English for special purposes; language teacher training; language processing; and analysis of…