This study aimed to investigate the experiences of teachers and learners in being multilingual in resource-constrained environments where the LoLT is English. The sociocultural theory was used as the theoretical framework for this study. Given the factors involved, a mixed-method approach was favourable for collecting and analysing data. The qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews with five teachers and focus group discussions with an overall number of seventeen learners from two different township schools in Pretoria. The quantitative data was collected from the same schools through a survey questionnaire with a total number of forty-seven respondents. Inductive thematic analysis and descriptive statistics were utilised for analysis of data. The key recurring discoveries from the participants were overcrowding, language diversity, insufficient training received by teachers, limited educational resources, lack of LoLT proficiency from learners, and being restricted to use other languages by the school policy. Educational resources serve as a bridge to mediate inefficient language development in multilingual learners, the lack of resources hinders positive learning experiences. Experiences of the participants across languages are regarded as problematic instead of a resource. Although these experiences are known to act as barriers to the process of teaching and learning, this study contributes by providing a deep comprehension of multilingualism in the South African setting. It provides resolutions to enhance the use of multilingualism for effective teaching and learning. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Educational Psychology / MEd / Unrestricted

U. S. does not have an official language even though the country is home to the highest number of English speakers in the world and English is the primary language spoken there. Since 1980s, there have been efforts to make English the official language of the land. However, they have not been successful so far. The paper Language Policy in the U. S.: Debating Official Language attempts to clarify why English has never been officialized. First, the language policy debates since the American Revolution are examined and the role of official language in the debates is defined. Second, the actors of official English debates are introduced, their motivation is explained and arguments for and against making English official are presented. Third, potential impact of official language legislation is scrutinized based on a comparative analysis of five official English bills. Thus, the paper provides an overview of the topic of official English debates and gives reasons why the U. S. Congress has never passed an official language law.

Languages are not just systems for communication, they are also often a marker of ethnic and/or national identity and sometimes a politically contentious issue. A country where this is the case is Latvia, which has a large Russian-speaking population. During the Soviet occupation of Latvia, Russian became the dominant language in public life. Since regaining independence, Latvia has pursued language policies aimed at strengthening the position of the Latvian language, at the expense of the Russian. Latvian is the single official language and over the last decades, the bilingual education system inherited from the Soviet Union has moved towards an increasing share of Latvian as the language of instruction. In 2018, the Latvian parliament amended two educational laws, meaning the share of subjects being instructed in Latvian in so-called minority schools increased markedly. The decision was controversial and was opposed by parties with a large Russian-speaking voter base. The purpose of the thesis is twofold. The first is to describe and analyse the arguments of political actors[1] regarding mono- and multilingual education, focusing on the reform of 2018. The arguments will be analysed in relation to theory regarding the connection between nationalism/nationhood and language, and theory on linguistic minority rights. The second part of the purpose is to advocate normatively and constructively for an approach regarding two different areas of policy: 1) Whether Russian should be an official language or not. 2) Language policy in education. The point of departure for the analysis is the aspiration to create a sense of national belonging, where both Russian-speakers and Latvian-speakers are seen as a part of the Latvian imagined community. In order to create this sense of inclusive imagined community, the approach seeks to be impartial in relation to the “pro-Latvian” and “pro-minority” positions with regards to language policy. The normative argumentation also seeks to include and balance the values of linguistic minority rights and preserving small languages (such as Latvian). For the first part of the thesis, a descriptive idea analysis is applied. The arguments are analysed in relation to my theoretical framework, which consists of various concepts relating to the relationship between language and nationalism and models regarding linguistic rights. The main analytical tool is the concept of an imagined community, where a sense of national belonging and social cohesion can be based on either mono- or multilingualism. In the second part, a normative and constructive method is used to argue for my position in a systematic fashion.   The arguments of the proponents of the 2018 reform can be described as based on the idea that Latvian is the common and unifying language of all the Latvian residents and one of the foundations of the imagined Latvian community. At the same time, the proponents claim wanting to ensure that members of linguistic minorities can preserve their language, and that the reform provides the right to learn a minority language. The opponents of the reform argue that, while it is important that students learn the Latvian language, drastically decreasing the level of instruction is an assimilatory policy that will weaken rather than strengthen the national unity.   In the second part, the author suggests that Latvian will remain the single official language since granting the Russian language official status may cause the language decline of Latvian, and because the issue is very divisive. In terms of language in the school system, the author concludes that Latvian ought to have a special position in Latvia and should therefore be the dominant language. Therefore, Latvian should be the main language of instruction, in the proportions prescribed by the 2018 reform. Another conclusion is that all students, regardless of mother tongue, should learn Russian on at least an elementary level. [1] Specified under “Delimitations”.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate conditions of the Afrikaners in the "New" Republic of South Africa and whether the Afrikaners have a strong desire for claiming their right for self-determination and would be able to establish their own ethnic-state, so-called volkstaat. The Afrikaners are a significant minority, the descendants of the Western European settlers who came to South Africa in the 17th century and during the following centuries they developed their own culture, language, religion and national heritage including their own national identity and politics. The strong national awareness, patriotism and the affiliation with the new-born nation gave the birth for the Afrikaner nationalism, which was enhanced with the important historical event, today known as the Great Trek and series of the Anglo- Boer Wars. The Afrikaner National Party was a leading proponent of the racial segregation and proposed the idea of apartheid under the persuasion of the white supremacy and the political dominance of so-called whiteness. In 1994, when the racial equality was promoted and the black African National Congress came into power, the Afrikaners became politically underrepresented and economically, socially and culturally marginalized. This article examines changes and the current positions of the...

The current study aims to explore how PMI instruction and other psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors that might affect the production of Mandarin consonants by Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong. A total of 63 participants were invited to participate in a Mandarin consonant production test in which they had to pronounce words starting with these three pairs of Mandarin consonants /ts/-/tʂ/, /tsh /-/tʂh / and /s/-/ʂ/. 6 participants were invited to a post-experiment interview. Results of the Mandarin production tests showed that secondary school students who had completed PMI instruction had the highest Mandarin production score. However, no significance could be found between the use of PMI instruction and the production of Mandarin consonants by Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong. Results of the interview showed that age, length of exposure to Mandarin, instrumental motivation were the factors that led to a higher accuracy in Mandarin production whilst a lack of motivation, low social acceptance towards Mandarin, high social distance towards mainland China and political factors are the factors that led to a lower accuracy in Mandarin production. To improve Cantonese speakers' Mandarin consonant production accuracy, the government should introduce Mandarin to the curriculum starting from kindergartens and improve the image of Mandarin among Hong Kong people.

Bibliography: pages 70-80. / Language planning and language policy are currently being debated by both politicians and educationists. Language policy is seen by both Afrikaner nationalists and some progressive educationists as the key to political and economic power. This dissertation argues that language policy-making alone cannot achieve political goals. It also proposes that the most successful and most democratic policies are those which are "facilitatory and enabling rather than compulsory and punitive" (Fishman, 1991: 82) and which are differentiated to take account of existing sociolinguistic contexts. Chapter 1 begins by looking at definitions of language planning and language policy. Following this, it examines some of the terms that people use to speak about language and languages in language planning. The concern here is not with establishing fixed meanings but with how the use of these terms constructs certain "realities", for example relationships amongst languages. This chapter also looks at some of the proposed relations between language and "reality". Chapter 2 briefly outlines the history of language planning in South Africa, focusing on language medium of instruction in education. It examines the Nationalists' and the ANC's language policy positions. A postscript discusses the agreement reached in November 1993. Chapter 3 looks at the role of various non-governmental associations in the language policy debate. It also examines the phenomenon of white advocacy of increased status for African languages. Chapter 4 deals with the process of language planning. Who decides on language goals and through what mechanisms are goals promoted? Chapter 5 asks questions about what bilingual or multilingual medium of instruction models would mean in terms of classroom practice and underlines the lack of consensus in bilingual education research about universally applicable solutions. Chapter 6 summarises the main arguments covered in the dissertation and makes some general recommendations about language-in-education policy.

Few studies have investigated the impact of language policies on voter turnout. India is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world, where hundreds of languages are spoken by the population, but only certain languages are granted official status. At the subnational level, all States have the right to decide upon their own official languages. Across States, there is great variation in terms of how large shares of their populations that speak (one of) the official language(s). Using aggregate level data from the Election Commission and the 2011 Census, this quantitative study of 624 Indian districts investigates the relationship between voter turnout in State elections (dependent variable) and the share of the population speaking the official State language (independent variable) through a multivariate OLS regression analysis. The preliminary results indicate a positive relationship between voter turnout and more inclusive language policies, implying that more people vote in districts where more people speak the official State language.

This dissertation investigates language policy in a Dutch-medium secondary school in Brussels. The school in question endeavours to implement a language policy in which languages other than Dutch are formally included, which is in stark contrast to their peers, who often implement a strict, Dutch-only policy in order to respond to the increasing linguistic diversity and “Frenchification” in Brussels Dutch-medium education. This thesis addresses the question of how the teachers negotiated such a pro-multilingual language policy in this setting. The research is designed as a (socio)linguistic ethnographic case study based on a conceptualisation of language policy as (1) operating on different levels; (2) consisting of three components; and inseparable from the social world in which it is effectuated. The study combines ethnographic field work and participant observation with interview data, linguistic analyses of interactional data, document analysis and analyses of elements of the linguistic landscape to gain insights into the nature and extent of the school’s unique pro-multilingual project. Although the school profiles itself as an institution which aims to prepare its pupils for future educational and professional success by increasing their language skills, the school’s policy declarations harbour an ambivalent stance vis à vis multilingualism. In terms of individual teachers’ perceptions and practices, then, we demonstrate that they, too, voiced contradictory sentiments and displayed behaviour in the classroom which was at once welcoming of pupils’ use of linguistic resources other than monolingual Dutch, and restrictive of it. / Doctorat en Langues, lettres et traductologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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“Family language policy” (FLP) is the accepted term for the field of study of the explicit planning and practices concerning language within a family unit in a home. Previous research has shown that FLP aids in the bilingual acquisition of a child (DeCapua & Wintergerst 2009; Kayam & Hirsch 2014; King, Fogle, & Logan‐Terry 2008; Li 1999; Oh; Schwartz 2008). However, there has been little research providing answers to whether FLP has a direct influence on language maintenance in adulthood, especially whether they acquire and maintain a native or native-like accent in both languages. The purpose of this study is to determine if any and to what degree FLP influences the bilingual accent acquisition of Spanish/English heritage speakers in the United States. This is a qualitative case study performed through sociolinguistic interviews of three families containing now adult simultaneous bilinguals who learned Spanish and English throughout childhood. After obtaining information of each family’s FLP, each participant (n = 9) was asked to provide a speech sample in both English and Spanish (the heritage language). These samples were then rated by native speakers of English and Spanish respectively. Results suggest that the level of perceived foreign accent of the heritage language may be influenced by certain factors included in an individual FLP, as well as the speaker’s language confidence and individual differences including language aptitude.