The study of language maintenance and shift (LMS) has attracted a large body of empirical work in language policy and planning (LPP) contexts, including allochthonous (immigrant) and autochthonous (indigenous) languages. However, some critical ontological questions that relate to the scope and terminology of language maintenance studies remain…

Despite the prevalence of quantitative approaches in applied linguistics (AL) and second language acquisition (SLA) research (Gass, 2009), evidence indicates a need for improvement in analyzing and reporting SLA data (e.g., Larson-Hall & Plonsky, 2015). However, to improve quantitative research, researchers must possess the statistical…

The "Common European Framework of Reference" (CEFR) is the most widespread reference tool for linking language tests, curricula, and national educational standards to levels of foreign language proficiency in Europe. In spite of this, little is known about how the CEFR levels (A1-C2) relate to empirical learner language(s). This article…

This year's conference theme, "Be Seen, Be Heard," reflected not only our goal of celebrating our achievements but also represented our intent of making sure everyone's voices are heard, especially during 2017's difficult political climate. The conference opened with a motivating address from Dean Laura E. Lyons, followed by an…

This book, written for both seasoned and novice researchers, presents a theory of what is called Basic and Higher Language Cognition (BLC and HLC), a theory aimed at making some fundamental issues concerning first and second language learning and bilingualism (more) empirical. The first part of the book provides background for and explication of…

Language testing and second language acquisition research are both concerned with proficiency in the second language; given this shared interest, the rapprochement between these two domains may prove revealing and productive not only in terms of teaching practices, but also in taking a wide view of language, ranging across cognition, society and…

This article traces the historical foundations of the identification of language disorders in childhood through an international perspective. It describes the development of the profession of speech-language pathology, initially in Western Europe and later in North America. The roles played by key researchers in the area of child language are…

This paper discusses inclusion of the Russian language in European language resource development. It is suggested that European initiatives to develop language resources can not afford to ignore Russian, and that there is much work to do to resolve differences in resources on the two sides of the former Iron Curtain. A 1995 project, undertaken by…

Papers on the situation of linguistic minorities in Western Europe and Canada include: "Linguistic Minorities: West European and Canadian Perspectives" (Colin H. Williams); "Geographical Aspects of Minority Language Situations in Italy" (Paul White); "Defining the Gaeltacht: Dilemmas in Irish Language Planning" (Reg…

Humor, a reversible, string-based unification approach for lemmatizing and disambiguating language data, has been used for both language corpus analysis and creation of a variety of linguistic software applications such as spell-checking. The system is language-independent, allowing multilingual applications for a variety of language types. Its…

Currently, no machine translation (MT) system is capable of successfully imitating the behavior of a human translator, and there exists no formal description of what an MT system is supposed to do. The biggest problem in practice is disambiguation. However, various types of existing systems do help reduce language barriers, even if they are poor…

MULTEXT is a European Union project to identify and develop language resources, language-related software, and standards to make the resources maximally usable. MULTEXT-EAST is a spinoff project to develop significant resources for six Central and Eastern European (CEE) languages (Bulgarian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovenian) and…

A discussion of the Dutch situation looks at how growing immigrant numbers and resulting second language groups have prompted a rethinking of traditional concepts of education. First, ethnic population trends across national boundaries in Western Europe are examined and basic statistics on ethnic minorities in the Netherlands are presented. The…

A research project concerned with the development of English as a school subject in the Norwegian elementary and junior high school identifies and describes British and American influences on the theoretical climate of foreign language teaching in Western Europe from the 1950's to the 1970's. A distinct British influence, the so-called Palmer,…

This paper outlines trends and activities in Central and Eastern European language research and language-related software development (language engineering) and briefly describes some specific projects. The language engineering segment of the European Union's Fourth Framework Programme, intended to facilitate use of telematics applications and…