Language planning and policy formulation is a complex exercise. The purpose of this research was to explore and expose the challenges of language planning and policy formulation in Africa, with specific reference to Zimbabwe as the case study. To carry out the study, critical stages, approaches, theories and models of language planning were used. This analysis further established the attitudes of indigenous communities towards the use of indigenous languages in major domains of life. The study revealed the dilemma African Governments face in ‘officializing’ indigenous languages. The study proposes that in a multilingual nation like Zimbabwe, there is strong need to provide legal recognition to African languages as both official and national languages within Zimbabwe’s constitution. The research comprises six chapters. The conclusion restates the problem identified at the beginning and summarizes the findings. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

The research project takes a hard look into the linguistic challenges faced by foreign migrant workers and informal traders in Gauteng province, South Africa. The research makes a panoramic view into the linguistic challenges faced by foreign migrant workers and informal traders. The focus of the research is on the challenges regarding language use in business domains. It dissects into business communication dynamics and the cultural contexts in the developing economies of Southern Africa. The study focused on finding out language challenges for immigrants as a consequence of migration. The research undertakes to discover language policy frameworks operating in industries and informal business environment in Gauteng. It seeks to establish the strategies that could be used to solve the language problems faced by foreign migrants taking into consideration that most of the immigrants in the construction industry and informal sector are semi-literate or illiterate. In other words, the research explores alternatives and the different roles of different organizations in the approach to language challenges when doing business. The study attempts to make some recommendations that can rescue immigrant challenges. These include language training programmes and changing attitudes as they have to learn the indigenous languages used in Gauteng province. The discussion reviews the sociolinguistic aspects in view of the changing demands of the developing economies of Africa where languages are used as vehicles for economic development and technological innovation. It attempts to reflect on why European languages continue to dominate business operations in Africa while African languages remain marginalized. / African Languages / (D. Litt et Phil. (African Languages))

combining approaches to family language policy with a language socialization approach, the present thesis examines family interoctions in five bi/multilingual lronian families in Sweden. The foci of the thesis have emerged from viewing and analyzing video-recordings of the families' everyday interactions, interviews and observations conducted during two phases of fieldwork. The thesis explores family - parents' and children's - language practices and the ways they contribute to the construction, negotiation and instantiation of family language policies. Considering children's active role in family interactions, it explores parents' heritage language maintenance practices and children's responses to these practices. In addition, the thesis examinas siblings' contribution to familial language choices and practices. The thesis documents parental strategies aimed at heritage language maintenance and children's bi/multilingual development. Recurrent interactional practices - through which parents attempted to enforce a monolingual, heritage language, context for parent-child interactions - were explored (Study Il. Through such exchanges the parents positioned themselves as "experts", insisting on the child's compliance, whereas the child's (affectively aggravated) resistance was frequent, and the parents recurrently accommodated the child's language choices by terminating language instruction. Such language maintenance strategies at times resulted in explicit and implicit language negotiations, and the child's growing resistance cantributed to changes in parents' language practices over time (Study Il). Siblings' contribution to shaping the language practices and language environment of immigrant families was explored in Study 111. It shows that siblings corrected each other's language use and choices and provided language instruction (in Swedish, English and heritage languages) when language-related problems occurred. By predominantly using swedish, siblings contributed to language shift. The thesis shows how family members' language practices contribute to heritage language maintenance or language shift and to shaping family language policies. / Denna avhandling använder och kombinerar språksocialisations- och språkpolicy-ansatser och undersöker återkommande samspelssituationer i fem flerspråkiga Iranska familjer i Sverige. Avhandlingens material är videoinspelningar av familjers vardagliga interaktioner, intervjuer och observationer insamlade under två perioder av datainsamling. I fokus för analyserna är familjers språkliga praktiker och hur föräldrar och barn etablerar eller förhandlar om familjers språkpolicy. Särskilt uppmärksammas barns aktiva roll i familjers interaktioner och det dynamiska samspelet mellan föräldrars försök att bevara hemspråket och barnens agerande och förhållningssätt. Vidare studeras syskonens roll i familjernas språkval och språkanvändning. Avhandlingen delstudier beskriver föräldrars strategier för att bevara hemspråken och för att bidra till barns flerspråkighet. Återkommande interaktionella praktiker som föräldrar använde för att upprätthålla en enspråkig hemspråkskontext för förälder-barn interaktioner beskrivs i studie I. Studien visar att barnet ofta gjorde motstånd mot föräldrars insisterande strategier. Motståndet resulterade i olika typer av explicita eller implicita förhandlingar. Barnens växande motstånd bidrog till att föräldrarna ändrade sina språkpraktiker över tid och delvis anpassade sig till barnens språkval (studie llJ. Syskonens bidrag till att utforma familjers språkliga praktiker undersöks i studie 111. Studien visar att syskon korrigerade varandras språkanvändning och språkval och initierade instruktioner på svenska, engelska och hemspråken när olika språkrelaterade problem uppkom. Syskonen använde svenska i stor utsträckning och bidrog på så sätt till språkskifte i familjerna.

Institutions of higher education (HEIs) in the United States recruit numerous international graduate students, many of whom serve as teaching assistants. HEIs’ motivations for employing international teaching assistants (ITAs) include not only economic incentives but also humanistic aims of internationalization, for example, increasing cross-cultural cooperation. However, integrating ITAs into the institution, making them welcomed and respected members of the community, has proven difficult. In particular, problems in ITA-student communication have been reported for decades. I argue that the crux of these integration difficulties lies in how linguistic diversity is approached. Policymakers and researchers usually treat ITAs’ Englishes as the cause of communication difficulties, with the implication that ITAs should more closely conform to norms of ‘native’ English. I propose instead that the primary problem is not linguistic diversity itself but ideological perceptions of other Englishes and unproductive responses to the difficulties that arise in trying to communicate across linguistic difference. This study examined policies and perceptions related to ITA-student communication at one internationalizing university through document collection, interviews, and classroom observation. I found that, despite its strategic plan calling for preparing students to enter a globalizing world, the institution’s response to ITA-student communication difficulties targets only ITAs’ competencies, mainly by assessing and remediating their language proficiency. Discussions with students and observations of classroom interaction revealed that many students appeared to orient to communication with ITAs in ways that did not help promote successful communication or prepare them to communicate across linguistic difference in a globalizing world. I also found that available ideological stances and strategies for addressing linguistic difference made it difficult for ITAs to be simultaneously liked and respected as instructors. This study has implications for HEIs seeking to create internationally inclusive communities and prepare their students and other stakeholders for communication across linguistic difference. First, ITA preparation should be reframed so as not to stigmatize ITAs’ Englishes. It should also prepare ITAs to become active agents in socializing students into productive and respectful orientations to linguistic difference. Second, HEIs must more comprehensively seek to confront students’ deficit language ideologies and unproductive responses to communication difficulties.

published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Language issues, often linked with ideas of history, sentiment, identity, ideology, maintenance, revitalization, minority, and indigenous peoples, are raised constantly in Taiwan. This study focused on examining issues related to language planning and bilingual education at the elementary school level in Taiwan. The research purposes were: 1) to examine the current language education practices in the elementary school by employing perspectives of language planning and bilingual education in Taiwan; and 2) to make recommendations about the current language planning and policy of Taiwan with respect to elementary school language education. There were 123 participants involved in this study. They were elementary school language teachers, language professionals, and parents. Data collection began in the winter of 2004 and continued through the summer of 2005. The research context was elementary school language education. Transcripts and questionnaires were the primary sources for data analysis. Five major phenomena with respect to elementary school language education in Taiwan were found. First, there was no systematic language planning for the present elementary school language education in Taiwan. Second, the three language subjects, Mandarin, English, and Dialects, within the Language Arts area were seen as independent courses without any interdisciplinary integration. Third, parental decisions about the prior order of language learning were structured upon a profound process related to language ideology and instrumentalism. Fourth, the elementary school language curriculum was guided by the concept of Han-centrism. Fifth, because of the phenomenon of language shift, Mandarin has become most children's mother tongue rather than the local languages. Based on the five findings, I suggest that first, team teaching is helpful for elementary school language teachers to integrate children's learning of different languages. Second, parents, language professionals, and language teachers should have more opportunities to communicate with each other about children's language learning. Third, language planners should bear the Han-centric phenomenon in mind, especially when considering issues of educational resources and opportunities and social justice. Fourth, the definition of mother tongues needs to be redefined. Fifth, it is important for every elementary school to develop its own school-based language policy.

The spread of English in the world today is not only the result of colonizing campaigns (Canagarajah, 1999, 2005; Pennycook, 1994a, 1998a, 2000; Phillipson, 1992, 2000) but also of the compliance of the governments associated with the "expanding circle" (Kachru, 1986). In part, this compliance is a consequence of the different mechanisms of the circulation of discourse, in particular the idea that speaking English is a sine qua non condition to be a worldwide citizen. Colombia is a good example of this phenomenon, because its national government is implementing a National Bilingualism Project (PNB) where there is an explicit interest in the promotion of English over all other languages spoken in the country. This dissertation is a critical discourse analysis of the handbook Estándares básicos de competencias en lenguas extranjeras: Inglés. Formar en lenguas extranjeras, el reto" (Basic standards for competences in foreign languages: English. Teach in foreign languages: the challenge) published by the Ministry of Education of Colombia. This handbook is aimed at establishing the national standards for the teaching of English in Colombian public schools. The objective of the study is to offer an interpretation of the way in which bilingualism, English, and teachers are constructed through the language used in the handbook. The analysis of data follows Fairclough’s textual analysis and is supported by other written texts and informed by scholarly articles. The analysis of data shows that the official discourse creates a whole new meaning for “bilingualism” since it indexes exclusively the learning of English in Colombia. Along with this, the authors of the handbook perpetuate mainstream concepts and ideas about the symbolic power of English as the one and only necessary tool for academic and economic success. This is achieved by a redundant discourse on the neutrality of English on the one hand, and the benefits it brings to its speakers, on the other. In relation to the portrayal of teachers in this document, the data show that their role is either downplayed or made invisible, which also correlates with the low prestige that school teachers have in Colombia. The study leads to the conclusion that a document that contains national standards for the teaching of a language should include multiple voices where local knowledge gets the same recognition as global knowledge, and where the diversity of the country is represented, respected and promoted. In that way, official institutions would be legislating to benefit the majority of the population, and not the small number of elites of the country.

A large body of research exists concerning teaching students of Mexican background whose primary language is not English, who I call Potentially Biliterate Students (PBLs) in this study. The focus of the research around these students often addresses bilingual education, academic achievement, the impact of language policy, and segregation, among other areas. Yet inequalities still prevail when educating this group of students. Language policies such as Proposition 203 and House Bill 2064 in Arizona, which are not research-based, target this particular population -perpetuating inequalities that have been visible since the Mexican-American War of 1848. This dissertation is informed by sociocultural (Vygotsky, 1978) and sociocultural-historical (Rogoff, 2003) perspectives. Theories of second language (Krashen, 1982; Cummins, 1991; Collier, 1995) and the interplay with mathematics education (Moschkovich, 2002, Khisty, 1995) are also important components that frame my study. This study took place in two different third-grade classrooms, a mainstream and an English Language Development/Structured English Immersion (ELD/SEI), in an English-only environment. The school is part of a school district in southern Arizona where most students are of Mexican background. I employed ethnographic tools to address my research questions. The data sources of this study come from field notes from participant observations, video-recorded sessions, interviews (video- and/or audio recorded) with both teachers and students, and teachers autobiographies regarding their language and mathematics learning experiences, offering a rich source for analysis of the resources and classroom practices in the teaching-learning environment. This data allowed me to develop in-depth case studies for both teachers based on the nature of their classrooms. Thought the two case studies presented, I document how the sociopolitical-historical context and the teachers' training and professional development shape their classroom practices, language ideology, attitudes towards the subjects they teach, as well as their perceptions about their students and families; in particular around students of Mexican background. Additional research is needed to connect results similar to this study with the impact on students' outcomes and behavior, as also the impact on participation of the different school members -parents and other community members.

This ethnographic study of language use and English language learners in Central Java, Indonesia examines globalization processes within and beyond language; processes of language shift and change in language ecologies; and critical and comprehensive approaches to the teaching of English around the world. From my position as teacher-researcher and insider-outsider in an undergraduate English Department and the community surrounding the university, I engaged in reflections with students and educators in examining local language ecologies; needs for and access to English language resources; and how English majors negotiated "double positionalities" as both members of a global community of English speakers and experts in local meaning systems within which English forms played a role. In order to understand English, language ecologies, and globalization in situ, I triangulated these findings with language and education policy creation and negotiation at micro-, meso- and macro- levels, (Blommaert, 2005; Hornberger & Hult, 2010; McCarty, 2011; Pennycook, 2001, 2010).Globalization is found to be part and parcel of the distribution of English around the world; however, English's presence around the world is understood to be just one manifestation of contemporary globalization. More salient are the internationalization of standards, global corporate and media flows of information, and access to educational and information resources. These are all regulated by the state which, while working to maintain an Indonesian identity, relegates local languages to peripheries in space and time, and regulates access to all language resources, creating an upward spiral of peripheralization wherein the levels of proficiency in local, national, and English languages represent access gained to state-provided educational resources.

This thesis is a study of patterns of language attitudes and use among Xhosa home language speakers at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Speakers of Xhosa, according to Statistics South Africa 2000, form the second largest speech community in South Africa (17.9% of the total population), second only to speakers of Zulu (22.9% of the total population). The University of the Western Cape, which is situated just outside Cape Town, was originally intended to serve only the Coloured (mixed-race) population of South Africa. Coloureds form the majority group in the population of the Western Cape, one of the nine provinces of South Africa. In 1982, the university took the bold step of defying the apartheid regime, by opening its doors to students of all races. Students from all over South Africa now attend the university, but Xhosa students, drawn mainly from the provinces of the Eastern and Western Cape, form the largest language group or speech community on the campus. The thesis presents a study of the patterns of language attitudes and use with which Xhosa students enter the university, as well as patterns of change in language attitudes and use revealed by a longitudinal study of a smaller group of Xhosa students.