Attempts to tackle theoretical and empirical problems of measurement in the study of linguistic minorities from sociological and demographic perspectives. The operations of a language community, the growth of a language group, language shift, and language maintenance are addressed in terms of language community membership, current language…

The Communication Committee of the South African National Council for the Deaf is currently developing an artificial sign language which could be used with all of the country's ethnolinguistic groups. Guidelines and constraints for developing such an artificial language are outlined. (CB)

Summarizes contact-linguistic research on the Samis and Finns, the northernmost minorities in Scandinavia. The monolingual view of northern Scandinavian languages in the past is complemented with a multilingual perspective of the interaction between minority and larger languages. Among contact patterns discussed are North Germanic-Sami,…

Suggests the use of principal components analysis as an alternative solution to the problem of grouping speakers by sociological characteristics prior to quantitative analysis. An example is presented of its application to vowel variation data collected as part of a sociolinguistic survey of English in Sydney, Australia. (Author/CB)

Examples of the Croats in the Burgenland and the Slovenes in Carinthia (Slavic minorities in Austria) are presented to illustrate the importance of comparing different multilingual communities to make a typologically relevant description of them to understand typological similarities and certain idiosyncratic characteristics. (Author/CB)

Describes the characteristics of language conflict and examines the areas of emphasis in the literature, including multilingualism and linguistic identity, glottophagia and minority/majority relations, the danger of reliance on language censuses, conflict resolution/avoidance, and the importance of ecolinguistics in conflict description and for…

Provides a linguistically valid definition of minority language, as well as language expansion, contraction, and death. The definitional model presented features the establishment of a continuum which also is shown to have predictive power, yielding an effective operational definition of majority/minority status and predicting new data. (Author/CB)

Reviews available research on the effects of school-sponsored ethnic language programs on students' attitudes toward the ethnic language, their own ethnic group, and themselves. Studies indicate a generally positive effect of programs on attitudes, including attitudes toward speakers of other languages and other ethnic groups. Discusses findings…

Discussion of languages in Australia looks at the multicultural makeup of the society, the role of English, dynamics of language contact situations (community language change, intergenerational language shift, other factors in maintenance and shift), societal and individual multilingualism, and support for multilingualism (language policies,…

A study examines the dynamics of cultural pluralism and language in the ethnic mobilization, and resulting dissolution, of the USSR. It first examines ethnic composition, dominant nationalities, language groups without separate nationalities, patterns of ethnic populations within nationalities, and the influence of this multiculturalism on…

Research findings on written language and literacy in Europe over the past five years are summarized, including the following areas of study: construct of literacy, assessment of literacy problems, emergent literacy, reading and writing development, and individual differences in literacy acquisition. (140 references) (LB)

This review of research literature written from 1971 to 1979 on Maori education integrates and highlights findings in the following areas: historical studies, language studies, scholastic achievement studies, methodological issues, and general issues. Historical studies suggest that there is no comprehensive social history of the relationships…

Reviews demographic and linguistic consequences of recent processes of migration and minority group influx in Western Europe and describes the case of the Netherlands to illustrate these effects. Highlights first- and second-language studies of immigrant and ethnic minority groups and notes resulting major demographic trends in Dutch society and…

Reviews recent research in multilingualism in Southern Africa, focusing on the role of languages in education, sociolinguistics, and language policy. Much of the research is on South Africa. Topics discussed include language of instruction in schools, teacher education, higher education, adult literacy, language contact, gender and linguistic…

This report synthesizes knowledge and instructional practices appropriate for effective instruction in classrooms comprised of students from three or more linguistic backgrounds. It specifically targets beginning teachers in Arizona, California, and Nevada schools where numbers of ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse students have…