A study examined the relationship of young Alsatians' language attitudes to both their language behavior at school and their linguistic norm and attitudes toward maintenance of their dialect. Results suggest that maintenance of minority languages can be helped by teaching linguistic minority youth to value their language and combat stereotypes.…

Discusses verbal performances of East Austin (Texas) Chicano children; how their attitudes about language influence their choice of English-Spanish codes, the verbal code favored being Spanish-English code-switching; their ability to maintain code separation; and how their two major cultural heritages are fully exploited to create a resolutely…

The study involved (1) a sociolinguistic description of Spanish/English use by 10 children (ages two to three) and eight mothers in two different bilingual preschool contexts (instruction and freeplay), and (2) an experimental attempt to encourage the use of Spanish, using Spanish "immersion" in a freeplay setting. (Author/DS)

Discusses the language policy existing in the "New South Africa," which provides for the use of 11 official languages. The article argues that this policy poses challenges and that the development process is complicated by attitudes that indigenous languages are inferior to English and other Western languages. The study explores the…

Describes the ebb and flow of developments in language education in Tasmania. Notes priorities and developments in second language learning there while emphasizing that the island state of Tasmania is geographically isolated from the rest of the world, a situation leading to indifference toward second language learning. (Author/CK)

Describes switch from secrecy in the plan to realign the inconsistent system of orthography in the Dutch language by the Dutch and Belgian governments to an emotional public controversy. Explores how this struggle turned out to be less a debate on suitable spelling changes than an issue about how legitimate spelling reforms were to be reached and…

Notes the increasing use of English language testing in Australia for nonlinguistic purposes in contexts governed by political pressures. Explores recent test examples and the pragmatic considerations giving rise to such test development. (28 references) (Author/CK)

Examines life styles of the inhabitants of Sele, a village in the Slovene-speaking minority area of Austria, over two decades and presents statistics demonstrating enormous changes in work and marriage patterns, which, with educational changes, reflect the surge in mobility and communication of the 20th century. Also examined are four aspects of…

Presents details of the language shifts among the various sections of the Chinese-speaking population in Hong Kong and analyzes patterns of allegiance. Notes that complex social, economic, and political pressures will affect future language in Hong Kong and that, within the domains of family, work, and others, the use of Modern Standard Chinese is…

Describes two major events--mass migration to New Caledonia in the 1950s and the conversion from a protectorate to a French overseas territory in 1961--that have confronted Wallis and Futuna (Central Polynesia) with the same sociolinguistic problems that have beset other Pacific islands for decades. (Author/CB)

Presents a historic overview and analysis of the Sardinian language (actually a system of dialects), and defines diglossia and bilingualism. A discussion focuses on research conducted in two junior high schools to determine the differences in linguistic behavior in two contrasting situations (village and city) in regard to Sardinian and Italian.…

Discusses the patterns of language usage in international families in which the native language of one parent is Japanese and the other English. Using data from several surveys of such families, this article analyzes patterns of language use between spouses, parents and children, and among siblings. Also discussed are the problems that…

Examines communication training aimed at women, such as assertiveness training, as an example of linguistics applied to real-world problems and argues that both the problem and the proposed solution are sociolinguistically and politically misconstrued. Such training often makes overgeneralizations regarding women's communication skills and assumes…

A Chicana bilingual teacher from Arizona lived with a middle-class Mexican family during a 5-week Mexican immersion program. Her complaints about "harsh reactions" toward her and her Spanish showed how her use of a few stigmatized characteristics of nonstandard Spanish were judged by standard Spanish speakers to indicate an uneducated…

To examine the process of language shift (bilingualization) in an area where there is a local dialect equivalent to a "language of solidarity" and a national language equivalent to a "language of power," language interactions in the impoverished village of San Marcos in the highlands of Guatemala were examined. Although Spanish…