The aim of the Regional Dossier series is to provide concise descriptions of minority languages in education, mainly in Europe but also in other parts of the world. In the Slovene Littoral, Slovene and Italian are official languages and thus they share equal status in public and private life. Learners in this region attend schools either with…

Developing young learners' language awareness is becoming an important educational goal in a rapidly globalised world characterised by linguistic and cultural diversity. Drawing upon previous research in the field, the article highlights the importance of promoting language diversity and nurturing language awareness from an early age. We present a…

This study investigates the processing of long-distance syntactic dependencies by native speakers of Slovenian (L1) who are advanced learners of Italian as a second language (L2), compared with monolingual Italian speakers. Using a self-paced reading task, we compare sensitivity of the early-acquired L2 learners to syntactic anomalies in their L2…

There is scarce evidence of publications pertaining to the phenomenon that a foreign teachers' language in fact is a language for specific purposes. In the field of (foreign) languages for specific purposes, traditionally linked to a vast variety of professional and academic domains, it seems that LSP teachers' language has not yet gained due…

The Italian language in the ethnically mixed coastal area of Slovenia is an official language, regulated by the principle of ethnic autochthony, which recognizes the rights of linguistic minorities regardless of their number of speakers. Slovenia has been always very sensitive toward its two national minorities (Italian and Hungarian) and set up…

The paper considers whether bilingualism has an economic value in Slovenia's two ethnically mixed regions, or whether its value is more related to identity, and restricted primarily to the personal, educational and cultural spheres. Specifically, it asks whether bilingualism is rewarded on the labour market and what local people think about this…

The two different models of bilingual/multilingual education that have been developed in Slovenia since the 1950s in the regions of Prekmurje (minority language Hungarian) and Slovene Istria (Italian) are the result of international agreements, education and language policies, social and demographic factors. The basic aim in both cases is to help…

The historical background, political changes, migration processes, EU membership and the current socio-linguistic situation have all influenced language policy and language planning in Slovenia. This article presents the most important aspects of language policy in Slovenia with a focus on the concept of linguistic diversity. The ethnic make-up of…

The paper focuses on education language policy in Slovene Istria and of Slovenia in Italy. On both sides of the Slovene-Italian border there is an ethnically mixed population of Italians and Slovenes, an Italian minority in Slovenia, and a Slovene minority in Italy. On both sides of the border apparently similar systems of bilingual education have…