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The selected articles compiled in the present volume are based on contributions prepared for the 17th International L.A.U.D. (Linguistic Agency University of Duisburg) Symposium held at the University of Duisburg on 23-27 March 1992. The 13 papers in this book focus on problems and issues of intercultural communication. The first part is devoted to theoretical aspects related to the interaction of language and culture and deals with the issue from anthropological, cognitive, and linguistic points of view. Part II raises issues of language policy and language planning such as the manipulation of language in intercultural contact; it includes case studies pertaining to multilingual settings, for example in Africa, Australia, Melanesia, and Europe. The volume opens with a foreword by Dell H. Hymes.

This review is an overview of the newly developing field of language rights. It distinguishes between (a) historical/descriptive studies where language rights are treated as the resultant variable with no attempt to predict consequences, and (b) exhortatory and ideologically based studies in which language rights are considered a causal variable. An attempt at definitions follows, set within the field of language planning. Principal concerns, such as territoriality versus personality principles and individual versus collective rights, are discussed.The review ends with an argument to consider language rights as emic rights, which is to say culture-language-context–specific rights, rather than to consider linguistic human rights from a universal rights perspective which overstates issues and masks rights to as also being rights against. We need a careful exploration of the nature of language rights and their consequences.

Surveys the development of language policy over the last 40 or more years, particularly with respect to linguistic minorities and the attendant problems of illiteracy and lack of access to basic eduction among these groups. (Original abstract-amended)

Examines choices regarding language of instruction in multilingual countries with traditional minority groups, which were under colonial domination into the 20th century. Some focus on the Philippines, Cameroon, Indonesia, Tanzania, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Guatemala, Colombia, and Peru.

As demand for proficient English speakers increases worldwide, there is growing concern about the standard of English achieved by students during their schooling. With English teachers (rightly or wrongly) receiving much of the blame for a perceived decline in language standards, policy-makers are increasingly interested in the language-related competencies of English teachers: both their language proficiency (or 'communicative language ability', CLA) and their 'knowledge about language' (or Teacher Language Awareness, TLA). As a result, the assessment of English teachers' language-related competencies has become more widespread. In any attempt to measure those competencies, however, several important interrelated issues have to be confronted. Some relate to the precise nature of the knowledge/awareness that English teachers have of the language they teach, and the difficulties inherent in setting/measuring standards of Teacher Language Awareness. Others concern the language model(s) of which English teachers are expected to be aware, and about which teachers themselves feel they should be aware. The present paper examines some of these issues. It begins by exploring the nature of TLA, and some of the challenges in TLA measurement. It then considers questions relating to the varieties of English which form models for TLA, with particular reference to Hong Kong.