Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor Educationis in the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education Faculty of Education University of Zululand, South Africa, 2012. / The aim of this investigation was to determine learners’ attitudes towards language choice in secondary school. The focus was on secondary school learners attending schools where the medium of instruction is not in their mother tongue. An introductory literature review was provided of mother tongue education versus English as medium of instruction. Advocates of mother tongue education argue that a child learns better and quicker through the mother tongue than through an unfamiliar linguistic medium and it is also an important means of identification among the members of the community to which the child belongs. However, black communities are generally opposed to instruction in their home language because they view the indigenous languages as low status languages and as barriers to their upward mobility in a world dominated by English. In the South African society English is associated with prestige as it is in many other countries. An overview of the current language-in-education practices in South African high schools revealed that depending on which language is taught, as first language either English or Afrikaans is compulsory as a second language. English, as a first language and Afrikaans, which is their third or fourth language, as a second language. The problems experienced with second language instruction were discussed with reference to reading, writing, speaking and listening. For the purpose of the empirical investigation, a self-structured interview was conducted with the educators. A quantitative descriptive analysis was undertaken of the completed questionnaires and a qualitative analysis of the interviews. In conclusion a summary of the study and findings emanating from the literature and empirical investigation was presented. Based on these findings the following recommendations were made:  A school based language policy should be formulated in accordance with the national language-in-education policy but must also take into consideration the language needs of the learners in the school.  Indigenous languages must be developed and promoted by providing financial assistance and/or incentives for literature works and textbooks in the indigenous languages.  Educator training should include strategies to teach multilingual classes.

En este trabajo se analiza la elección de lengua de encuentros de servicio (inglés y español). Las herramientas metodológicas empleadas son tres: una observación de carácter etnográfico, una tarea controlada y un experimento de percepción visual en línea. La hipótesis central es que el fenotipo étnico juega un papel importante en la elección de lengua en encuentros de servicio que se llevan a cabo por primera vez. El lugar en donde se realizó la investigación es un panadería ubicada en el centro este de la ciudad de Tucson, Arizona.En el primer componente metodológico es la observación etnográfica, donde se analizaron las interacciones de las trabajadoras con los distintos clientes que frecuentaron el lugar. El análisis se centró en cuatro aspectos: (i) la expresión de identidad y membresía de grupo mediante el uso de los pronombres nosotros y nuestro, (ii) el traslado de roles domésticos en las dinámicas de interacción de las parejas latinas, (iii) la existencia de una co-membresía expresada a través de la realización de las pequeñas charlas y (iv) el valor simbólico del español en este establecimiento.Seguidamente, se realizó un experimento de percepción visual, cuyo objetivo fue decidir sobre la etnicidad de los 21 clientes que acudieron a la panadería y las trabajadoras del lugar. Dentro de los resultados se obtuvo un juicio de etnicidad para cada participante. De la misma forma, se observa que el grupo de los jueces bilingües sobresale dado que es el único grupo que presentan un 100% de acuerdo en cuanto a la asignación de etnicidad de una imagen dada. Por otra parte, los jueces bilingües y los monolingües (con una tendencia menos fuerte), conforme más tiempo vivan en la comunidad, mayor será el tiempo de respuesta. Los resultados anteriores ilustran el hecho de que vivir en la comunidad y convivir cotidianamente con ambos tipos de fenotipo hace a los hablantes más conscientes de las sutilezas que deben ser consideradas al momento de evaluar fenotipicamente a un interlocutor.Finalmente se analiza la tarea controlada, en la cual se reclutaron a 21 participantes para que acudieran a la panadería y actuaran como clientes. El análisis consiste en la correlación de distintos aspectos de la interacción tales como aspectos sociodemográficos. Dentro de los resultados destaca que el fenotipo étnico no es un factor de importancia cuando las trabajadoras abren el encuentro de servicio; éste no tiene gran influencia en su elección de lengua, ellas siempre abren el encuentro mercantil en español sin importar la etnicidad del interlocutor. No obstante, cuando los clientes abren el intercambio comunicativo ellos tienen la opción de hacerlo en inglés o en español y para aquellos que pueden hacerlo en español la elección de lengua es por defecto el español. Asimismo, se destaca que la influencia del contexto en el que sucede la elección de lengua es un espacio ideológico que brinda un valor simbólico al español.

An international school (BES) in Greece, overwhelmingly attended by Greek origin children, has adopted, as its language policy, English as the ‘official’ medium of interaction, including in the Reception classroom, the target of this research. That is, through its language policy, the school aims to promote the learning and use of English throughout school. At the same time, the school has adopted ‘free interaction’ in designated play areas as its pedagogical approach. The aim of this approach is to promote learners’ autonomy and, in the particular case, it could be interpreted as including the possibility of using Greek. Thus, a conflicting situation has developed: how to reconcile the school’s English monolingual language policy and the pedagogical approach in the play areas? Reception educators are expected to police the use of English in the kids’ play areas without however undermining children’s autonomy and/or disrupting their ‘free interaction’. The feelings and views expressed by educators show that they are seriously concerned about how this conflicting situation can be approached. The aim of this thesis is to respond to this issue of concern by providing a detailed description of how the school’s conflicting policies are actually lived in the educators’ and pupils’ language choice practices in the play areas of their classroom. By adopting the Applied Conversation Analytic perspective of “description-informed action” (Richards 2005), a perspective whereby practitioners are made aware of their own practices and are left to “make (their own) decisions regarding the continuation or modification” of their own policies and practices (Heap, 1990: 47), the aim is to raise BES stakeholders’ awareness about the possible advantages, possibilities and limitations of their policies and practices in Reception, and thus pave the way to more informed language policy making and practice in the school. The data consists of audio-recorded naturally occurring child-child and childadult interactions in the school’s play areas. The analytic framework draws on Spolsky (2004), for whom “the real language policy of a community” resides in its language practices (hence the notion of ‘practiced language policy’), and on conversation analytic methodologies applied to language choice (Auer 1984, Gafaranga 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007a, 2009). The key finding is that, adult school members and children respond to the school’s conflicting policy demands in different ways, i.e. by orienting to different ‘practiced language policies’. On the one hand, as the adults’ ‘medium request’ (Gafaranga 2010) practices in the kids’ play areas demonstrate, from the adult perspective, at all times, participants need to attend to a language preference that is ‘institutionally-assigned’, i.e. adults orient to a ‘practiced language policy’ that is in line with the “declared” (Shohamy 2006) English monolingual language policy of the school. This shows that they have responded to the school’s conflicting policy demands by prioritising the school’s language policy (use of English) at the expense of the pedagogical approach (learners’ autonomy). On the other hand, children approach the conflicting situation differently. Children seem to have developed an alternative ‘practiced language policy’ according to which language choice during peer group interaction is not organised around the school’s “declared” (ibid) language policy but around their interlocutor’s “linguistic identity” (Gafaranga 2001). This alternative language policy allows the kids to attend to the pedagogical approach (learner autonomy and free interaction).

The aim of this dissertation is to describe the language choice among Saamis in Övre Soppero, and to relate their language choice to social and cultural factors in order to establish whetheror not there exist systematic connections. The population studied (55 informants) consists of trilingual Saamis living in the village of Övre Soppero in the far north of Sweden. The informants all speak Saami, Swedish and Finnish. The study is based on interviews and observations, i.e. partly on information provided by the informants themselves concerning language choice in different discourse situations, and partly on my own observations of their language behaviour in different contexts. Language choice has been related both to domains and discourse situations and to the social backgrounds and attitudes of the informants. A description is given of the linguistic uncertainty in different discourse situations. A discourse situation comprises the following elements: interlocutors, the role relationship between them, and the scene and/or activity. The term "domain" is an abstraction of concrete discourse situations. By linguistic uncertainty, I mean the individual's use of more than one language in one and the same discourse situation. Discourse situations are divided into the following domains: family, circle of friends, casual acquaintances, religion, free time, social participation, consumer activity and public matters. All three languages occur in all domains. In the majority of domains, there is great variation in language choice depending on the discourse situation at hand. The degree of linguistic uncertainty also varies. Discourse situations have also been divided into groups according to the degree of linguistic uncertainty, and according to whether the situation is personal or transactional. Linguistic uncertainty is low, for example, when the interlocutors' roles are unambiguous and clearly established, whereas it is high when, for example, the interlocutors' roles are ambiguous and varied. Language choice has also been related to the age, profession, education and geographic mobility of the informants. The thing that most separates the different categories of informants from each other is the fact that the youngest group and those with unspecified professional category more often speak Swedish than the other groups. The former groups have a comparatively higher level of education and are socially and geographically mobile. The group that most often uses Saami is the professional category "reindeer herders". For this group, the Saami language is primarily a means of communication, whereas the youngest informants use the Saami language as an ethnic marker. The factors that seem to have the greatest influence on language choice are, for example, whether the discourse situation is public or private, and whether the relationship between the interlocutors is intimate or not, and whether it is intra- or inter-ethnic. Of crucial importance are also the sender's age, profession, social and geographical mobility, and the sender's degree of ethnic consciousness. / digitalisering@umu

In the West African country of Mali, fourteen languages are recognized by the constitution as official. Of these, one is French, the language of the former colonial power, and the other thirteen are indigenous African languages. These languages have traditionally been used for oral communication and storytelling, but as the technology of writing has been introduced, the languages have been codified and used by some writers in creative writing. This thesis explores the reasons writers in this plurilingual environment select the language in which they write. It provides a portrait of how writers perceive their role in the traditionally oral culture of Mali. Through an examination of connected institutions such as education and development, my work exposes the different forces that shape the choices made by these writers.

This dissertation is comprised of three articles that discuss the linguistic choices made by six Mormon missionaries who had been assigned to work with the Spanish speaking population of southern Arizona. Data was collected through interviews, reflective journals, and participate observations. The first article chronicles the missionaries' feelings about a temporary language use rule that required them to speak Spanish from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm for one week. The missionaries experienced elevated confidence as they increased their Spanish use, but also found it to be tiring. The rule provided sufficient motivation for them to significantly alter their linguistic behavior, but once the week was over they reverted back to mostly speaking English. The second article examines how their behavior changed during that week. The missionaries explained their temporary goal to the Spanish-English bilinguals they worked with who were happy to also alter their language use and accommodate the missionaries' Spanish speaking objective. However, other language learning missionaries outside of the group of six were less accommodating and often continued speaking to the missionaries in the study in English even when spoken to in Spanish. The third article discusses the factors that influence which language missionaries choose to use. They often felt uneasy in initial encounters when speaking to someone who might be a native Spanish speaker. Many of their linguistic choices were made based on phenotype, but they preferred to speak to a new person in whichever language they overheard them speaking. The missionaries also felt that native Spanish speakers rejected their invitations to speak Spanish simply because they were white. While race played a large role in language choice, both the missionaries and their interlocutors were invested in conversing in the language that made the other most comfortable. This paper shows that Spanish language learning missionaries in the United States are eager to improve their linguistic abilities, but often require external motivation and community support to use the target language.

This study investigates how migration to Ghana affects the language use and language choice of East African migrant students and workers in specific domains. The study explores strategies employed by these migrants to negotiate challenges encountered during communication in selected linguistic spaces to meet their socioeconomic needs in Ghana. The paper also aims to explore the effect of migration on their language use both in Ghana and their home countries. Specific linguistic spaces considered include residential, work/campus, and market environments. The main findings of the study show that due to the completely different linguistic landscape in Ghana, migration compels East African migrant students and workers to use English or learn Ghanaian local languages, especially, in domains such as their places of residence, work/campus and the market place, rather than their preferred language choice, which would be Kiswahili. Particularly, to negotiate in communicative situations at the market places, they usually have to resort to strategies such as soliciting interpretation assistance from local people and/or using signs and body gestures.

Examensarbetet handar om språkval Engelska. Mitt intresse väcktes när jag erfor detta kontroversiella ämne som lärarstuderande. Meningen med ämnet är att det är en hjälp för elever som inte klarar av att studera ytterligare ett språk och för elever som behöver extra stöd i engelska. Ämnet har dock misskötts då många elever väljer ämnet utav lathet eller utav taktiska skäl. Iden med att endast låta de elever som som verkligen behöver extra stöd i engelska har förlorats. Jag har utfört intervjuermed sex olika lärare på fyra olika skolor angående hur språkval engelska är organiserat. Alla skolor har olika organisationer. Jag använde mig av formella intervjuer. Resultatet av dessa var att organisationen fungerar olika bra på de olika skolorna. Orsakerna till detta är många. På de skolor där det inte fungerar lika bra anges orsaker så som att ämnet har låg status, stora heterogena grupper och lärare och elever som är omotiverade. / This dissertation deals with what in Swedish schools is called ”Språkval Engelska”. It will be refered to as Language Choice English in the ongoing text. My interest was aroused after having experienced this controversial subject as a student teacher. I found that different schools work with the subject in different ways. There is no clear syllabus for the subject since the grading is a part of the ordinary English grade. Language Choice English is an option for those who do not want to choose French, German or Spanish as Language Choice. The idea is that the subject is meant for those who cannot cope with yet another language and who need extra support in English. This study shows that not only the so-called weak pupils choose to study Language Choice English. There has been a mismanagement of the subject since so many pupils who are good at English choose it out of convenience and for tactical reasons. The idea of only letting those pupils, who actually need more support choose it, has been lost. Four different secondary schools have been investigated concerning how Language Choice English is organized. I learned that all of these schools have different organizations. The method I used was formal interviews with six different teachers at four different schools. The results of the interviews show that at some schools the subject works well. At other schools it does not. The reasons for this seem to be many. Reasons such as low status of the subject, large and heterogeneous groups and pupils and teachers who are unmotivated can be mentioned.

Eight families with Japanese mothers and English-speaking fathers were followed from the 1990s to 2007 as they strove to raise their children as bilinguals. The issues that were investigated were: (1) the language environments afforded; (2) factors influencing family decisions in creating those language environments; and, (3) conclusions about the efficacy of different language environments for raising bilingual children. Parental sacrifice was evident. Some mothers suppressed their native Japanese language and culture as they tried to afford their children solid backgrounds in what they considered a high-prestige language (English), while some fathers changed jobs in order to spend more time at home. Some families also moved in order to be near desirable schools. An optimal English environment at home was the key to success. Fathers spent quality time with their children every day, reading English books, doing homework together, talking about school activities, and reading bedtime stories. Families provided children with many English videos, DVDs, and other audiovisual sources. Summer travel to the father's country for summer camps and other enjoyable activities, especially spending time with English-speaking cousins, promoted positive images of English language and culture. Mothers faced issues of identity, power relations, and gender roles. The mothers' own experiences of learning English played a crucial role in the choices they made in raising their children as bilinguals. Typically, power relations between husbands and wives were determined by the wives' self-perception of being subordinate to their husbands. The results indicated that different theories of bilingual child-raising, no matter how stringently followed, did not seem to matter; what mattered was balancing the time the child spent with each parent. Usually before parents expected it, the child's own identity asserted itself in the pursuit of particular language environments, and progress toward fluency was sometimes erratic, as in the case of one boy whose development in both languages appeared to be delayed but who later was viewed as having native-speaker proficiency in both languages. Overall, more important than any particular method or theory, sustained sincere efforts and flexibility can produce bilingual children. / CITE/Language Arts

This essay investigates the pupils, in Swedish upper secondary school in the greater Stockholm area, who choose to study the Russian language as a foreign language. The essay asks; who are these students, and what is motivation behind their language choice? In order to answer these two questions the essay uses both interviews and paper survey. The theoretical background ofth is essay is based on the works and theories of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and thus the question; who are these students is aimed at the students' social and economical background in lines with Bourdieu's theories. The essay also uses the earlier study of Swedish sociologist Mikael Palme, in which he maps the different schools and programs in the greater Stockholm area, in a socio-economical context based on habitus. The results of the essay are that the students mostly come from relatively wealthy homes and have parents with highereducation. Half of the students are girls and the other boys. Most of the students have a Swedishbackground and as many as 96% of them intend to continue to study after upper secondary school. The most frequent reason, for students choosing to study Russian, is the notion language is exotic, exclusive and interesting. The essay also found that very few of the students had any plans for future studies with any connection to the Russian language