This paper analyzes how language is framed as a route to full inclusion, particularly for unaccompanied asylum-seeking students labelled as disabled. It is based on a qualitative study carried out in the Italian city of Rome, which, although cosmopolitan, is often characterised by nationalistic political landscapes. The manuscript reveals how…

This article explores playfulness and creativity in translingual family interactions. In particular, it focuses on how and to what ends adolescents mobilize multilingual resources in family interactions. It investigates the cases of two multilingual families with adolescent children (13-18 years old). The families have different linguistic…

Although the Igbo are one of the most widely travelled people in Nigeria, little is known about the sociolinguistic impact of migration (international or internal) on their language. Based on interview data collected from 24 Igbo youth in Ibadan, this study explores the space available for young Igbo migrants and the role of language in accessing…

Children and young people from migrated families often learn host languages faster than their parents might do, and from very young ages they help their parents, families or community members by translating or interpreting, known as child language brokering (CLB). Language brokers need to mediate with different languages in different contexts and…

Growing efforts in the study of digital literacies push for continued (re)shaping of policy and pedagogical interventions. In this column, we take up concerns in participatory cultures to revisit a longstanding issue pertaining to language. Evident in the literature on digital literacies is an implicit treatment of language, particularly around…

This article examines the alternative English spelling practices of a student who is considered to be a "long-term English learner." It draws on a theoretical framework that integrates a social perspective on spelling with a rejection of idealized conceptions of bilingualism. The analyzed English spellings presented in this article were…

This paper studies reflexivity in interaction among adolescents in Helsinki in the light of stylised performances that are labelled by participants as "bad Finnish". Stylised "bad Finnish" can be seen as an enregistered discourse register. It is an emblem in which certain linguistic features are connected to ideas about certain…

Recent research into sexuality and education shows that homophobia is particularly prevalent and problematic in schools. However, little of this work has drawn on linguistic frameworks. This article uses the tactics of intersubjectivity framework to examine how a group of LGB-identified young people understand their sexuality identities in…

Communication is increasingly taking place through written messaging using online and mobile platforms such as email, instant messaging and text messaging. A number of scholars have considered whether these texts reflect spoken or written language, though less is known about the role of punctuation. In fact, it is commonly assumed that punctuation…

In this article, the "multiple voices" of 13-15-year-old German and Italian adolescents in internet guest-books are analyzed. The study is based on guest-books texts with a mixture of different registers, languages and dialects. In particular, the German adolescents from the Augsburg region (Bavaria) display a strong regional linguistic…

Recent studies of Asian American youth language practices have presented compelling insights about the identities and migration experiences of young people of Asian descent. This article offers a detailed examination of the relationship between language use and select issues concerning Asian American youth, including social life, schooling,…

Results of a sociolinguistic analysis of bilingualism indicated a statistically significant difference in the amounts of English and Spanish used in two contexts: formal and familial settings. The data suggest that Spanish-English bilingualism is at a crossroads: youths are bilingual by grade 12 but appear to be shifting toward English as their…

Consideration of the use of Panjabi by British Black adolescents and White adolescents in a mixed peer group, analyzing contexts of Panjabi occurrence and crossing, showed that Panjabi was important in managing the divisions that cross-cut youth community and in extending horizons beyond the confines of local neighborhood experience. (31…

Investigates the relative effects of directing adolescents' attention, either toward the "correctness" of their speech or toward the expression of their attitudes, on the amount, fluency, and syntactic structure of speech produced in a subsequent standardized interview. (HOD)

Sociolinguists have recently demonstrated the value of directives in indicating the relationship between status and linguistic form. The purpose of the instrument developed for this study was to quantify the coerciveness of directives on the basis of the theoretical approaches in the literature to objectify the comparison of directive forms.…