Suchergebnisse

Abstract
The aim of this article is twofold: first, we apply the concept of "Language Making" – which is introduced in this thematic issue – to the domain of foreign language learning and teaching. More specifically, we investigate the role of teachers, as well as other social actors in the domain of foreign language education, in the making of foreign languages, i.e., their role in selecting varieties and forms that they deem appropriate to be learned. We assess how they justify their selections and which language ideologies inform their choices. A specific focus is on how these "foreign Language Makers" construe their linguistic expertise: how do they argue for the legitimacy of their "foreign Language Making"? Second, we argue that present day conceptions of the "ideal language teacher" have their roots in the past. Therefore, we include two case studies: our first case study zooms in on the Early Modern period and draws on introductions to foreign language textbooks from the 16th and 17th centuries. Our main sources are the multilingual textbooks of the Colloquia, et dictionariolum as well as the work of Gerard De Vivre, a language teacher and textbook author from Ghent who published French language textbooks for Dutch- and German-speaking learners in the second half of the 16th century. The second case study focuses on present-day teachers who teach Dutch as a foreign language at universities outside of the Dutch-speaking language area. For this analysis, we make use of data from qualitative interviews with 20 teachers, collected in 2015. We analyse, contrast and compare these cases, thereby taking into account the dynamics of socio-political and language ideological changes of the past centuries.

This collection of articles provides theoretical foundations and perspectives for language attrition research. Its purpose is to enable investigations of L1 attrition to avail themselves more fully and more fundamentally of the theoretical frameworks that have been formulated with respect to SLA and bilingualism. In the thirteen papers collected here, experts in particular disciplines of bilingualism, such as neurolinguistics, formal linguistics, contact linguistics and language and identity, provide an in-depth perspective on L1 attrition which will make the translation of theory to hypothesis easier for future research.

This study examines the language attitudes of members of three (formerly) Afrikaans-speaking congregations of the multilingual Moravian Church in South Africa (MCSA) with regard to current language practices within the Church and their ideas for a future language policy. It is based on interviews held with members of these congregations, while concepts of identity serve as a theoretical framework. Through these, it is shown that the MCSA could neither pursue a monolingual nor a consistently multilingual language policy in order not to aggravate the identification of its members with the Church.

This paper addresses the paucity of research on women's language use in regional Japan by investigating Iwate Dialect (ID) and Japanese Women's Language (JWL) in face-to-face interactions among women in northeastern Japan. By bringing a consideration of region to bear on investigations of women's language use in Japan, the aim is to contribute to work that breaks down essentialist categories of "the way Japanese women speak" to a more fruitful focus on the range of resources women employ in situated interactions. Analysis is based on ethnographic data and a close analysis of interactions, and focuses on speakers' use of ID and JWL as devices for negotiating roles. Findings show ID is used by speakers in hesitating to take on a high-status role, and to mitigate direct challenges to claims made by other participants. JWL features are used when reiterating a point or disclaiming a role.

"National linguistic ideology has been at the base of most historical processes that -whether they are complete or not - have brought us to the current reality: a world of languages that represent, with greater or lesser exactitude, the diversity - and convergences - of human groups. Various of today's thinkers have predicted the decline or even the end of national ideologies. In the area of language, postmodernism would make the linguistic affiliation of the individuals of a community irrelevant, de-ideologise language use, and extend plurilingualism and language alternation in association with a new distribution of (physical or functional) spaces of linguistic practice. But is this true everywhere? Are languages now nowhere the core of collective identity? Or are we witnessing a distinction between languages that, because of their magnitude, status, strategic position, etc., can continue to exercise the function of national languages and languages that have to renounce this function? Has national linguistic ideology really ceased to make sense? What other strategies should the historic language of a given geographic area employ if it wants to continue forming part of the life of the community that is set up there? What kinds of languages are desired by politicians, intellectuals and philologists? This book aims to bring some thoughts about these questions"--

Sammelband mit ausgewählten Beispielen zu sprachwissenschaftlichen und sprachpolitischen Problemen des Landes

Living in several languages encompasses experiencing and constructing oneself differently in each language. The research study on which this article is based takes an intersectional approach to explore insider accounts of the place of language speaking in individuals' constructions of self, family relationships and the wider context. Twenty-four research interviews and five published autobiographies were analysed using grounded theory, narrative and discursive analysis. A major finding was that learning a new language inducted individuals into somewhat 'stereotyped' gendered discourses and power relations within the new language, while also enabling them to view themselves differently in the context of their first language. This embodied process could be challenging and often required reflection and discursive work to negotiate the dissimilarities, discontinuities and contradictions between languages and cultures. However, the participants generally claimed that their linguistic multiplicity generated creativity. Women and men used their language differences differently to 'perform their gender'. This was particularly evident in language use within families, which involved gendered differences in the choice of language for parenting – despite the fact that both men and women experience their first languages as conveying intimacy in their relationships with their children. The article argues that the notion of 'mother tongue' (rather than 'first language') is unhelpful in this process as well as in considering the implications of living in several languages for systemic therapy.

V prispevku se s stanjem na področju oblikovanja slovenske jezikovne infrastrukture ukvarjam kot z jezikovnopolitičnim vprašanjem. Prispevek prinaša analizo aktualne pravne, finančne in organizacijske ureditve področja, predstavlja pa tudi ključne izsledke o infrastrukturnih potrebah uporabnikov, kot so bile prepoznane na podlagi analize in interpretacije podatkov iz ankete, izvedene v okviru projekta Jezikovna politika Republike Slovenije in potrebe uporabnikov. The article deals with Slovene language infrastructure as a language-policy issue. It presents an analysis of the current legal, financial and organizational arrangements in the field of language infrastructure, as well as key findings on users' infrastructural needs, as identified on the basis of the analysis and interpretation of data from the survey conducted within the framework of the Language Policy of the Republic of Slovenia and the Needs of Users project.

Since 1984 and the election of a fourth Labour Government, New Zealand has been characterised as one of the most neoliberal countries in the world. Neoliberal theory frames most policy, including educational language policy. In this paper I report on the effects of neoliberalism on Pacific languages in schools, focussing on several policy positions the current National-led government has taken over the last three years. These include the Inquiry into Pacific Languages in Early Childhood Education, the Pacific Education Plan and the Pacific Languages Strategy. These policies present community language maintenance and language decline and even extinction as private matters to be dealt with at individual, family and community levels, rather than as issues that should be explicitly addressed and supported within the education system. The paper examines Pacific languages in New Zealand in their historical context and problematises the government's privatised and individualised approach to Indigenous languages of the Pacific.

There is a shift underway in many areas of Indonesia from local, ethnic languages like Javanese, to the national language, Indonesian. Few studies have explored the complexities faced by radio stations targeting the audiences undergoing this shift. This article explores the attitudes influencing the design of radio language at three local radio stations in East Java. Semi-structured interviews, based on extracts of radio language, are conducted with program directors and announcers at these stations. These data are used to outline how radio stations approach the design of radio talk amidst language shift. This paper explains this shift using two overlapping frames of media and language: audience design and mental scripts. Analysis shows both frames to be useful for understanding the design of radio language in East Java. A concluding discussion shows how a multi-dimensional understanding of radio language can provide important information on speech communities in-flux.