A discussion of the use of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines in teaching and testing less commonly taught languages (LCTL) describes a two-year project on that topic and looks at specific problems with four languages or language groups. The project was to familiarize LCTL teachers with the…

Six hundred, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old bilingual, rural, and urban children from southwestern, midwestern, eastern, and southern United States participated in a national study of Spanish/English bilingual development. Half of these children completed the English version of CIRCO (1980) sub-test 10-C, a productive language measure that requires…

This study measured pupil and teacher attitudes toward language variation in a bilingual Spanish/English environment; attempted to determine whether teacher attitudes could be changed in workshops dealing with sociolinguistic concepts of speech variation; and attempted to determine whether teacher and pupil attitudes have a relation to pupil…

Forty bilingual Ss were tested in four experiments to see if decoding of linguistically mixed texts with one-word substitutions in the other language would take more time than decoding of unilingual material. The overall aim was to further explore the nature of the language switch mechanism as it functions in input. In the first experiment,…

This paper reports findings from a study of bilingual language alternation by first grade Korean-American schoolchildren. Growing up as members of the Korean immigrant community in New York City, the children in this study all entered school with Korean as their mother tongue, and at the time of the investigation, alternated between Korean and…

Examines how the teacher incorporates elements of both "Bahasa Melayu" and Brunei Malay into content lessons and views code switching in the primary classroom within the wider framework of community language norms and the linguistic pressures on students and teachers. Espiritu shares Martin's concern regarding the quantity and quality of…

Examined whether there is an earlier developmental stage than 2 years of age when bilingual children do not use their languages in pragmatically differentiated ways. Analyses of recordings of four French-English bilingual children in Canada during free play sessions with their mothers and fathers suggest a stage very early in development when…

In the process of language shift from the immigrant languages to English, everyday communication within the family can become increasingly problematic due to strong divergences in the linguistic competences of the older and the younger generations. This article explores the process of language mediation between different generations, as it occurs…

A study investigated the syntactic properties and functions of English-Spanish code-switching in literary, political, and news magazines in Mexico. It is proposed that oral code-switching in Chicano communities and written code-switching in the Mexican press differ both syntactically and pragmatically, with the latter more syntactically…

This study investigated the ways in which a bilingual's choice between the minority first language (L1) and the dominant second language (L2), in this case English, suggests the value the language has for the social and in-group identity of the bilingual. Adult bilinguals (n=38) of widely varying L1 backgrounds were surveyed concerning their…

This study analyzed doctor-patient communication from a sociolinguistic perspective, focusing on two issues: (1) why patients are not more effective in asserting themselves in talking with doctors, and (2) why doctors don't talk more like normal people (i.e., patients). Research on communication in health care contexts is reviewed, looking at such…

The acquisition of Irish as a second language in a four-year-old child of bilingual parents attending an Irish-language preschool group in Ireland is chronicled, with emphasis on the characteristic features of her language learning process and the factors determining which language she uses with others. The study was based on transcribed…

The purpose of this paper is to provide classroom teachers with background information about code switching and its role and function within a bilingual community. The many facets of code switching and its varying characteristics are described in some detail, as well as code switching in the classroom and the importance of the teacher's attitude…

Sociolinguistically oriented studies of the Chicano speech community cluster around two subject areas: (1) conversational code-switching, and (2) language loyalty and maintenance. Research representative of each of these areas is reviewed. It is felt that the large body of findings regarding the language use of the Chicanos have failed to take the…

This study of code switching among Puerto Rican children attending a New York City public school focuses primarily upon the correlation between interaction rules, as perceived by the participants, and code switching. Code switching strategies of a seven-year-old boy, an eight-year-old girl, and a 10-year-old girl in the bilingual third grade class…