This paper focuses on the model of politeness developed by Brown and Levinson (1987), which has had a huge impact on the field up to the present day--it provides a universal(istic) model to capture politeness across languages and cultures. In addition, this study provides some details of the attested weaknesses of the model and highlights its…

We aimed to explore the most and least used strategies of apology responses, as well as the differences between native and non-native speakers of English in formulating such responses. Additionally, we investigated the role of gender in the formulation of apology responses. The participants were 100 native and non-native speakers of English at an…

The African worldview of Ubuntu predates Vygotskian theory, but the Ubuntu view that the community defines the person aligns uncannily with Vygotsky's biosocial proposition and contemporary conceptions of deaf ontology and epistemology. Unlike prevailing Euro-American thought, Ubuntu accentuates the view that it is not any physical or…

In this article, I examine an ongoing qualitative and ethnographic research project in a transnational, multilingual setting. I am not primarily a queer scholar, nor do I study queer issues, gender, or sexuality, as a primary focus in my research agenda or career. However, I am the primary research instrument in these projects, and I am also a…

In this article, parental role construction is framed from a sociocultural perspective. Applying this perspective foregrounds the need for researchers and practitioners to gain an insider's understanding of how families themselves construct their roles in supporting children's education. By doing so, the field can reimagine family-school…

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is one of the most widely consulted reference works that define international standards for the learning, teaching, and assessment of languages. Since its appearance in 2001, the CEFR has been translated into more than 40 languages, including Turkish, making it the second…

International Sign (IS) and American Sign Language (ASL) have both been used as lingua francas within international deaf contexts. Perspectives on the uses of IS and ASL as lingua francas in such contexts are connected to discourses pertaining to the form, function, status, value, languageness, and global reach of IS and ASL. While there are some…

The practice of making string figures, often called cat's cradle, can be found all over the world and is particularly widespread in Melanesia. It has been studied by anthropologists, linguists and mathematicians. For the latter, the ordered series of moves and the resultant string figures represent cognitive processes that form part of a practice…

As schools seek to bridge the cultural and linguistic gap between special educators and students at the intersections of learning and language, the case described in this article illustrates how educators can continue to apply one of the key tenets of special education, the strengths-based approach. The hegemony of English has become so pervasive…

This article examines the experiences of a group of Japanese study abroad students in response to the purposeful replication of a Japanese environment by the New Zealand-based institution where they studied. Data were collected from 12 students via interviews spread over approximately 20 months, and revealed that management provided specifically…

The paper presents results from a fieldwork study with Russian Roma children. Two groups of children, 6-8 years and 8-10 years old, were involved in the study. Before the pandemic crisis began in Russia, a large number of Roma children were kept home by the parents. The study was conducted in a Roma settlement of a small town not so far from…

The lives of children seeking asylum and refuge are complex; invariably both transnational and intersectional. Their educational needs and schooling experiences are often overlooked or lack nuanced understandings. This article focusses on Kurdish children seeking asylum in Germany. Qualitative data is presented to uncover the perceptions and…

The purpose of this study is to describe the politeness approach of the Japanese-Balinese family realm language. The study explores how the use of language politeness strategies is affected by the cultural background of both spouses in intercultural marriages. The study also examines the various factors that influence language politeness…

Learners' interaction with lecture materials has remained underexplored despite the growing body of studies on the use of materials. The current study explored the actions EFL learners employed during the use of lecture materials in tertiary classrooms in China through the lens of a transactional view. This empirical study involved forty-two…

The current study seeks to probe the use of refusal strategies and their frequency among Saudi EFL students of Bachelor of Science (BS) at Moon University (pseudonym), Saudi Arabia. Through a convenient sampling procedure, 20 students were selected, and Discourse Completion Test (DCT) was administered. This test comprised 12 situations eliciting…