The city of Montreal provides an example of how residential patterns are related to linguistic background and how linguistic pluralism is maintained under conditions of constant contact and extensive bilingualism. Residential segregation between linguistic and ethnic groups is determined by the index of dissimilarity; this index has been applied…

The purpose of this study was to develop a data base concerning the home background of Puerto Rican pupils as it relates to present and potential educational progress. Specifically, the study was designed to secure and summarize systematic data concerning the following factors: (1) the educational level of the parents and their educational…

Surveys the linguistic and social situation along the French-Dutch language boundary in Belgium. Based on a series of interviews and a questionnaire used with senior secondary school students in seven towns in or near the language boundary, the statistical analysis shows the limited extent of bilingualism in this area. (Author/LMO)

This introduction to sociolinguistics is presented in four parts. The first part gives an overview of this branch of language study, its scope and principles of inquiry, and its basic and key concepts. This portion is written for individuals with no prior knowledge or expertise in the subject. Topics covered in this section include: the nature of…

To study lexical knowledge relevant for school success, 40 monolingual Dutch and 40 bilingual Turkish 9 and 11-year olds were asked to explain the meanings of common Dutch nouns in an extended word definition task. Compared to the monolingual Dutch children, the bilingual Turkish children allotted less extensive and varied meanings to Dutch words.…

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),…

Noting that reading development is a crucial factor in breaking down social, intellectual, and political barriers, this paper uses Nigeria as an example of a developing multilingual country in order to examine the problems and challenges that learners and educators in multilingual societies face. The discussion is focused on children at the…

English is spreading throughout the world far more rapidly than any other language; however, the level of sentimental attachment or genuine liking for English falls far short of the level of necessity-based desire to learn it. There is a possibility that the spread of English is decreasing: given some rapid economic or military change around the…

This study of a group of American teenagers living in Mexico uses a series of questionnaires to measure their degree of bilingualism (in English and Spanish) and biculturalism (in American and Mexican culture). The main hypotheses of this investigation were: (1) after five or more years in Mexico, the teenage subjects will be at least functionally…

This conference report of a UNESCO meeting concerns the aspects that are essential in planning and implementing a second language teaching program in a plurilingual context. The relevance of the following kinds of factors are described: (1) the variety of plurilingual contexts; (2) the specific didactic components of teaching a second language in…

Language-related attitudinal differences between two bilingual students at the University of Texas at El Paso are examined. The student designated "R" is found to exhibit language loyalty to both English and Spanish. Spanish is his language of choice chiefly when his conversational partner expects Spanish. Student "L" maintains…

The linguistic situation in Nigeria might be represented as a pyramid with a base composed of 400-500 native languages of which about 100 have been alphabetized. Of these, 51 with more than 100,000 speakers each, are considered regional languages; ten, with more than 1 million speakers each, are considered inter-regional languages; and three…

In a survey of the Maori population of New Zealand, it was determined that the use of Maori is in alarming but not irreversible decline. The decline is most evident in urban areas, where Maori speakers face pressures from an English-speaking majority. Younger Maori were generally found to be less proficient than their older relatives. Even rural…

This booklet is designed to give Oklahoma school administrators some basic understanding of the rationale behind bilingual-bicultural education, and some guidance in implementing such programs. The beginning sections are aimed at explaining bilingual programs from a historical, sociological, and linguistic point of view. The remaining sections of…

This work attempts to provide an overview of linguistic diversity in South Asia and to place this diversity in a cultural context. The work tries to describe the current state of knowledge concerning socially conditioned language variation in the subcontinent. Each of five major language families contains numerous mutually intelligible and…