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…

This article reports on our experience of collecting language data from informants in video-conferencing settings under a research design originally developed with face-to-face interactions in mind. We had set out to investigate whether individual stylistic features persist in different modes of textual production and designed a complex set of…

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…

This study investigates the simplifications used with English consonant clusters by EFL learners of Saudi Najdi Arabic dialect (a dialect spoken in the central region of Saudi Arabia). More particularly, it focused on the Saudi Najdi speakers when they pronounce English final three-consonant clusters such as /lps/ as in "helps." The…

Chinese is a highly complex language with internal variation unprecedented in most other languages. Yet, that does not mean Chinese is unique in the sense that it cannot be compared to other languages and new concepts need to be introduced for the description of it. This paper is dedicated to the question of how to apply the notion of…

Haitian Creole, or Krey'ol, has a unique history because it is historically an oral language; however, significant efforts have been made to standardize its orthography and to promote its literacy base. It also comes from a diglossic society: Haitian Creole is spoken in familiar settings such as the home, while French is used in formal settings…

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…

This dissertation examines the dynamic relationship between written language and literary fiction in modern and contemporary Japanese-language literature. I analyze how script and narration come together to function as a site of expression, and how they connect to questions of visuality, textuality, and materiality. Informed by work from the field…

We tested the effects of diglossia and orthography on reading in Arabic, manipulating reading in Spoken Arabic (SA), using Arabizi, in which it is written using Latin letters on computers/phones, and the two forms of the conventional written form Modern Standard Arabic (MSA): vowelled (shallow) and unvowelled (deep). 77 skilled readers in 8th…

In contrast to French, the vast majority of regional languages of France can be considered as under-resourced. In this article, we present the results of a research project aiming to produce annotated resources for three regional languages of France: Alsatian, Occitan, and Picard. These languages cover three different language families (Germanic…

This research discusses language ideologies in Amazigh/Berber in Morocco. It analyzes Amazigh activists' views on the process of Amazigh standardization, including dialect unification, script selection and reclaiming of Amazigh identity. Drawing on findings in the study of language ideologies and discourse analysis, this paper examines interviews…

Ethnocultural units comprise verbal, non-verbal and mental expressions, symbolically representing cultural and spiritual values of an ethnic group or a nation. These units can help in transmitting not only the history and culture of an ethnic group but also preserve its traditions and values across generations. The purpose of this diachronic…

This paper examines the use of the two written Norwegian language standards, Nynorsk and Bokmål, by companies in Norway. By adopting a legal perspective on the language policy of Norway as stipulated by the Language Council of Norway (2005) and the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Church (2008), the paper investigates how 492 of the largest…

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…

This paper proposes a tripartite model describing the lexical categories across different registers and levels of formality in the Cantonese language in contemporary Hong Kong: (1) native Cantonese words; (2) Sino-Cantonese words, and (3) Anglo-Cantonese words. Examples of authentic Cantonese use were used to illustrate the histories and etymology…