Discusses linguistic imperialism, race, tribal nations, and representation as themes in debates over racial difference and inequity in education, challenging the boundaries of manufactured ethnocentric ethnic images, creating English words to best express a multicultural voice, and highlighting the need to move from terms like Indians and Native…

Dissents with Virginia Sauve's argument that "culture is not about content, but about the making and remaking of relationships." The article argues that there is a strong knowledge basis for any culture and that stereotypes of other cultures evolve from knowledge of how people act and talk. The article concludes that Canadians must share…

Focuses on the discourse skills used by some white, middle-class, advantaged preschool girls to manage their disagreements. The article shows how their management of opposition is a jointly constructed achievement requiring the coordination of high levels of sociolinguistic skill to arrive at cooperative as well as self-serving, competitive or…

Outlines a research project conducted in Brittany in 1994 and 1995. The object was to investigate the attitudes of young people in Brittany (ages 8-18) toward varieties of language in the region, using a questionnaire survey and interviews. A brief description of the project is followed by a discussion of the sociolinguistic situation in France.…

In-depth interviews with 34 English immigrants living in the "Anglophilic" eastern United States examined the social status of various English accents, anxiety engendered by creeping Americanization of their accents, how they coped with claiming an identity undermined by changing accents, and mechanisms to distance themselves from…

Discusses Ocracoke English as an endangered dialect, examining the social responsibility linguists and dialectologists should assume in documenting and disseminating information about the state of moribund dialects and describing a community-based, collaborative model involving the development of materials and programs that foster knowledge of and…

Discusses linguistics in the teaching of science, specifically the key linguistic processes through which students learn rather than the mechanics of classroom interaction. Demonstrates the importance of communication skills in the classroom and the value of language analysis in determining the effectiveness of a teacher's instruction. (Contains…

Investigates the learning of sociostylistic variation by students in French immersion programs in Ontario. Focused on their learning of the four expressions of restriction ("ne . . .que,""seulement,""rien que," and "juste"). (Author/VWL)

This paper sets out to review current approaches to world Englishes from a range of perspectives, from English studies to sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, lexicography, popularizers and critical linguistics. It then proceeds to consider current debates on English worldwide and world Englishes, noting the recent criticisms of the world…

Space is largely ignored in both the theory and the practice of education. At the same time, however, there is an abundance of spatial metaphors that are used to describe schooling, the curriculum and educational processes. Some of these (top of the class, department) have their origins in spatial arrangements that once dominated schools and…

This paper examines the use of regional languages and dialects of Dutch in the Netherlands, and the relation of such to the Dutch language proficiency of primary school pupils. The data from the large-scale primary education PRIMA cohort study are analysed. A total of nearly 35,000 pupils participated in five measurement rounds covering the period…

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the traditional division between bilingual education programmes offered to speakers of majority languages and those available to minority language speakers in Colombia should be reconsidered within a wider, integrated vision of bilingual provision. Initially, developments will be situated in relation to…

Does the language one speaks influence the way he thinks? Does it help define his world view? Anyone who has tried to master a foreign tongue has at least considered the possibility. Little linguistic peculiarities, though amusing, don't change the objective world people are describing. So how can they alter the way they think? Scientists and…

The ways in which children learn a language--be it their mother tongue or their second language--can have a strong influence on their success in school. Researchers in linguistics and early child development have tried to determine the factors that can help and hinder language acquisition in young children, with some conflicting results. In this…

Following the study of Gilman and Ford on address terms, an increasing number of studies have been conducted in several sociocultural settings. In line with this trend, the present study attempts to describe and explain address terms among the Akans of postcolonial Ghana. Using observation as the main research tool corroborated by interview and…