Examines the future spread of English around the globe and the challenges of maintaining common standards and mutual intelligibility among different varieties of English. Discusses changes in Kachru's three circles of English speakers, and features of English as a global language. (Author/VWL)

Explores the Indian variety of English from the point of view of the discoursal strategies speakers adopt in verbal interaction. In particular, the paper examines how discoursal markers function in the Indian English conversational context. (29 references) (GLR)

Gondi, a Dravidian language spoken by 2.2 million people in central India, is a chain of dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible. This study looked at a two-step sound change, responsible for this dialect division. (ER)

Focuses on semicommunication and accommodation and discusses two longer extracts from a large corpus of authentic communication from Scandinavia. Various aspects of a comprehensive model of semicommunication are presented and discussed, showing code switching and accommodation are not considered antagonistic but rather as scalar phenomena covering…

Describes a project that aimed to find a more contextualized method of testing the comprehensibility of spoken language and then to use this method to test the comprehensibility of five native and nonnative varieties of South African English with as international an audience as time and resources would allow. (Author/VWL)

Two broad issues in the international teaching of English as a second language are discussed: the language standard to be taught (i.e., British, North American, Canadian, Australian, or some other native form), and mutual intelligibility as a principle by which to teach English. It is proposed that while language models are necessary for the…

A study of dialectal variation in Mexican Sign Language (MSL), the primary language for a large segment of Mexico's deaf community, is presented. Signs used by nine different sources representing various locations, ages, and social groups are compared. The first section reviews a number of previous informal assessments of dialectal variation in…

A discussion of the need to promote mutual comprehension among speakers of Romance languages describes one university program in France and looks at the possibility of extending multilanguage instruction to secondary education. The potential, and problems, of trying to teach students listening comprehension in several related languages are…

This article presents a survey of Greek EFL teachers' (N = 421) attitudes regarding their pronunciation beliefs and practices. It touches on two sets of questions. First, it refers to teachers' viewpoints regarding pronunciation-specific issues and the possible links between pronunciation teaching, English as an international language (EIL), and…

Mutual understanding and the strengthening of ties among the higher education systems of different countries depends largely on overcoming language barriers, and the national and international standardization of terminology would help in that process. (MSE)

Pronunciation teaching of the segmental aspects needs to be balanced with the inclusion of learner awareness of stress, rhythm, intonation and meaningful production. Yet many formats for pronunciation teaching do not place these skills and an awareness of the suprasegmental features in either a communicative format or a specific speaking…

Describes an experiment comparing communication accuracy within and between various sign languages from different countries. Longer communications were generally more successful than shorter ones. Deaf signers understand their own sign language better than they do foreign sign languages. (Author/LMO)

This books examines the interrelation between language and society in contemporary Italy and provides an up-to-date account of linguistic diversity, social variation, special codes, and language varieties within Italian society, and in situations of language contact both within and outside Italy. Part 1 covers the evolution and variations of…

Scaffolding strategies occurring in interactions between speech pathologists and migrant children are discussed. Various contexts and strategies are first defined, and the role of the concept of scaffolding in different types of research is examined. Finally, a corpus of therapist-child interactions is analyzed, focusing on problems of mutual…

A study of Greek speakers' ability to understand and produce two varieities of codes--Katharevousa (K) and Demotic (D)--is reported. The investigation was undertaken to provide evidence supporting or refuting the Greek government's decision to legislate Demotic as the official language of the country. A sample of 545 informants were tested with a…