This paper provides a background to recent developments in language planning in South Africa. Following a historical review, it focuses on a Bill of Rights in the new constitution which has, since 1993, demanded a shift towards rights-based language policy within a liberal framework. Debates within the Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB)…

Research has increasingly recognized the importance of rhetoric to organizational functioning. However, there remains a paucity of detailed analyses probing its nature, particularly in such contexts as public accounting. The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct two forms of rhetoric, which are prominent within international public accounting…

This issue deals with the problems of reviving the study of French in general, and the use of French in Louisiana in particular. "Rebirth of French in New Orleans" describes a conference on French language teaching held in New Orleans on December 26-30, 1975, and organized jointly by the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF),…

A study was made of aspects of communicative competence in a diglossic situation. Communicative competence in this situation is regarded as an interaction process between speech diversities. This report covers the first stage of a longer study in which there was an attempt to link attitudinal factors with linguistic components in particular…

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)

Compares the format frequencies of the six basic Russian vowels as spoken and perceived by native speakers from Moscow, Minsk, and Kiev. Three experiments examine (1) perception of artificial vowel stimuli; (2) production of vowels from three dialect groups; and (3) dialectal perception of an English vowel. (LMO)

Discusses research on the development of different models of schooling in Catalonia and on the linguistic abilities and qualifications of teachers of Catalan. Recent research has shown that the proficiency of pupils of Catalan and Castillian is determined by environmental and individual factors. (Author/SED)

A discussion of multilingualism in Hungary begins with an overview of the role of minority and majority languages in the population since World War I, then focuses on the language situation as of 1991. It examines public policy concerning language, the importance of the existing multilingualism in language planning, the pervasiveness of…

The same semantic strategies for requesting are available in Spanish and English. Bilingual children use more polite strategies in speaking Spanish and more neutral ones in speaking English. (PMJ)

Examines the role that Yoruba greetings play in understanding the culture of the speakers. Illustrates that these greetings not only establish an atmosphere of sociability, but also communicate cultural information and serve as value reinforcement for participants and observers. Also emphasizes that teaching greetings in Yoruba involves teaching…

Discusses bilingual educational policies in Catalonia, where the official aim is to reverse a language shift in favor of Catalan. Chamberlain's response focuses on the decline of Catalan under Franco, similarities between some minority languages in Europe and the language situation in Brunei, and the role of the school and the media in language…

Examines the teaching of English in Tanzania under four headings: (1) the changing view of language and language syllabus design; (2) the role of sociolinguistic environments in second language learning; (3) the role of objectives in second language teaching; and (4) the emerging trend of documenting second language teachers' classroom practices.…

Examines the use of e-mail to facilitate second language acquisition in an immersion education setting, with particular focus on an e-mail exchange between college students of Japanese as a second language in Australia and native speakers in Japan. Suggests that e-mail is a potentially valuable medium in language learning and could be useful in…

Examines the evaluative component in bilingual discourse in order to show that for the purpose of evaluation, the bilingual often switches from one language to the other. The study examines spontaneous stories, unplanned short narratives and conversational exchanges occurring in the recorded speech of two Finnish-English bilingual children. (32…

Traces the controversy about the medium of instruction in Pakistan, beginning with the use of English for elitist education in pre-partition days. Notes that the official policy is opposed by the indigenously educated proto-elite, who would find entry into positions of power easier if Urdu was used and nobody was educated in English. (63…