Research on minority languages is ordinarily not well known by speakers of "big" languages but it has focused on several areas of Applied Linguistics and it is relevant to many areas. This current volume of "AILA Review" features five articles. Each of the articles emphasizes some aspects of research, depending on the recent…

This paper focuses on the development of Prosodic Word shapes in Catalan, a language which differs from both Spanish and English in the distribution of PW structures. Of particular interest are the truncations of initial unstressed syllables, and how these develop over time. Developmental qualitative and quantitative data from seven…

The aim of the article is to analyse the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the skills of reading and text-understanding, focusing on the comparative analysis of experiences of meaning in native language, Romanian and English in the case of Hungarian pupils. We attempted to present the qualitative indexes and factors of the process of reading…

The growing presence of children of immigrant families in the public school system in the bilingual region of Catalonia provides us with an opportunity to study how young multilingual and multicultural speakers construct their social competencies and their identity within the specific context of a gate-keeping social institution such as the…

Discusses various language border theories for the Belgian-Northern French area, and summarizes the results of 40 years of research into the development of the Romance-Germanic language border at large. Suggests that a late Roman Latin-Germanic opposition has functioned as a direct predisposition for the early medieval Romance-Germanic language…

This article presents perceptions of Portuguese teacher education students concerning their participation in the Galanet project's plurilingual online communication (with Romance languages) and, particularly, the contribution of this participation in the development of their educational competence in relation to personal, intercultural and…

After an introduction to the Italian linguistic situation, highlighting the remarkable number of language varieties present in Italy today, the paper goes on to review briefly the history of micronationalism in Italy, and to propose a classification of language planning based on the distinction between macro- and micronationalism. There follows a…

A theoretical discussion is offered on whether the subjunctive in the Romance languages is by nature thematic, as suggested in previous studies. English and Spanish samples are used to test the hypothesis; one conclusion is that the subjunctive seems to offer speaker-related information and may express the intensity of the speaker's involvement.…

Objective: To examine the associations between duration of institutionalization, age at abandonment, and mental and physical health outcomes of young institutionalized children in Romania and to examine patterns of associations between placement history, physical growth variables, and psychiatric symptoms. Method: Institutionalized children (ages…

The shift from a centrally-controlled to a market-oriented economy in the early 1990s put pressure on the Romanian education system to reform both the curriculum and methods of instruction employed in primary and secondary education. At least part of the pressure to implement educational reforms came from the relatively poor performance of…

Rhaeto-Romansh is a Neo-Latin language with three varieties. Occidental Rhaeto-Romansh (Romansh) is spoken in Switzerland, in the Canton of the Grisons. Central Rhaeto-Romansh (Dolomite Ladin) is spoken in some of the Italian Dolomite valleys, in the Province of Belluno, Bozen/Bolzano, and Trento. Oriental Rhaeto-Romansh (Friulian) is spoken in…

Delineates the incorporation and analyzes the impact of European borrowings in Brazilian racio-ethnic terminology. This overview covers French, Italian, Spanish, and English influences. Borrowings from European languages have had a small impact on the calculus of Brazilian racio-ethnic terms. (43 references) (Author/CK)

Six-day residential intensive language courses in German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian, sponsored by the City Lit language department and Wansfell college, were extremely successful due to careful planning in site selection, various learning activities, and courses structure. (Author/BP)

This special issue, written in French, is dedicated to highlighting the past 74 issues of the journal since its inception 35 years ago. The first article reflects on the journal's history and evolution, in particular with regard to volume, the distribution of languages (French, German Italian, and Raeto-Roman), the distribution of articles written…

Discusses the experiences of a Malaysian student studying Spanish as a Second Language in an all-female Irish secondary school, focusing on common difficulties encountered by Asian students of Romance languages. It is argued that the teaching of Romance languages often unfairly presupposes a knowledge of Latin or French on the part of learners.…