This study aims to examine if English as a L2 influences the construction of Swedes’ social identities but also whether any linguistic strategies are used to strengthen their identity. Furthermore, the study aims to study if there is a difference in bilingual Swedes' reflections on the topic compared to multilingual Swedes. With Giles and Johnson’s Ethnolinguistic Identity Theory and Gumperz’ Interactional Theory as theoretical backgrounds, data was gathered through both quantitative methods, such as an online questionnaire, and qualitative methods in the form of a focus group consisting of both bilingual and multilingual Swedes. The results vary as some of the participants see English as influential to their identity construction while others view it merely as a practical tool. Moreover, the data also shows that it is more common amongst multilingual Swedes to use linguistic strategies such as code-switching, to strengthen their in-group relationships whilst bilingual participants used linguistic strategies for a different purpose: to distance themselves from their in-group identity.

Magister Artium - MA / The study focuses on the application and use of linguistic landscapes in health institutions. Furthermore, the research is centred on a social semiotic analysis of the healthcare signage at selected public and private hospitals in the Western Cape with comparisons being drawn between Melomed Private Hospital and Tygerberg Academic (Public) Hospital. Access to healthcare facilities in South Africa is a continuing concern in terms of gaining healthcare information and services. Currently, most research in the area of access to healthcare facilities and information focuses on the limitations and challenges of access to the health services and information in rural areas of South Africa. There is limited research that focuses on the influence spatial material in place and linguistic landscapes have on access to hospital facilities within urban areas, in the Western Cape. The research is an explorative and analytic study of the official or formal as well as unofficial or informal signage at a private hospital (Melomed) and a public hospital (Tygerberg academic hospital) in the Western Cape. The research is based on the tenets of social semiotic theory of multimodality and linguistic landscapes and multilingualism theorems. The conceptual framework of the study includes subtopics such as navigation/way-finding, placement of signage, and language diversity and health signage among others. The data for the research project is of a qualitative nature and, is concerned with understanding the process and the social and cultural contexts which underlie the production and consumption of unofficial and informal signage at a private hospital (Melomed) and a public hospital (Tygerberg academic hospital) in the Western Cape Province. Linguistic Landscapes (LL) utilises signs and symbols to communicate messages to the public. Signage are an expected and common feature within both private and public health institutions and are classified in accordance with the message(s) it intends to convey. These signs and symbols are used to communicate messages or directions to the public in the absence of hospital personnel. During the presentation and analysis of the data, the differences and similarities between Melomed private hospital and Tygerberg academic (public) hospital were looked at. The data presented that Tygerberg academic (public) hospital has a vast amount of informal signs constructed in and around its hospital buildings with a mixture of older and new signs displayed, often next to each other. Therefore, it became evident that Tygerberg hospital does not have a uniformed standard when it comes to its LL. In contrast, Melomed private hospital’s signs are constructed from the same grey metallic materials and are displayed with a singular text format. Furthermore, it was discovered that Melomed only utilise one official business language, English, unlike Tygerberg who strives to use the three official languages, English, Afrikaans and IsiXhosa, prevalent in the Western Cape region. Additionally, Tygerberg academic (public) hospital’s irregular placement of signage demonstrated to be another complex facet. This complexity was partially attributed to its complex structural layout and building design. Melomed’s strategically placed signage, as opposed to Tygerberg, led to the conclusion that the placement of signs, symbols and directories at hospitals can impede or aid the navigation and information provision. The impediment of navigation and information provision can cause visitors, patients and staff extra anxiety which can prolong their arrival at their destination. Moreover, the study concludes that no provisions were made at both Tygerberg and Melomed hospitals to adapt to the recent demographical changes in terms of the influx of migrants and foreign nationals and that the geographical locations of health institutions have a major impact on access to its products and services.

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

There are three different strategies for language learning, translation, code switching and translanguaging. In this systematic review we have investigated how important translanguaging is for students language- and knowledge development. The aim of the review is to acknowledge which support there is for teachers when using translanguaging in the classroom. We have analyzed eight different studies focusing on students and teachers development when using translanguaging, to find a conclusion to if it is important. The results show that translanguaging is presented positively both in general but mostly in classrooms and that translanguaging is a helping tool for students to show their full knowledge.

Sverige är sedan decennier tillbaka ett flerspråkigt land och flerspråkighet är en naturlig del av dagens samhälle. Minst en femtedel av alla elever i skolan har ett annat modersmål än svenska. För lärare blir det mer aktuellt att bedriva språkutvecklande undervisning som ger eleverna förutsättningar att utveckla både språk och ämneskunskaper. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur lärare i åk 4–6 beskriver hur de arbetar språkutvecklande inom ämnet svenska med flerspråkiga elever. Studien utgår från det sociokulturella perspektivet och grundar sig i semistrukturerade intervjuer. Resultatet visar att lärarna arbetar språkutvecklande hela skoldagen och de poängterar hur viktigt det är att arbeta språkutvecklande för elevernas språk- och kunskapsutveckling. Modellering och EPA- modellen är två konkreta och effektiva arbetssätt som lärarna använder i undervisningen. Dock framkom det att lärarna oftast inte reflekterar över sitt arbetssätt då det sker per automatik och att elevernas modersmål inte används som en resurs i klassrummet. / For decades, Sweden has been a multilingual country and multiligualism is a natural part of today’s society. At least one fifth of all pupils in the school have a different mother tongue than Swedish. For teachers, it will be more relevant to conduct language development teaching which gives students the conditions to develop both language and subject knowledge. The purpose of this study is to investigate how teachers in elementary school describe their language development methods with multilingual pupils in the Swedish subject. The study is based on the sociocultural perspective as well as semistructured interviews. The result shows that the teachers work on language development throughout the school day and they point out how important it is to work on language development for students’ language and knowledge development. Modelling and the EPA- model are two concrete and effective working methods that are used by the teachers. However, it emerges that the teachers usually do not reflect on their way of working as it happens automatically and that the students mother tongue is not used as a resource in the classroom.

To investigate whether multilingualism can be used to predict working memory in older adults this study has used a categorical variable as well as a continuous variable to measure multilingualism. This was done while also accounting for possible confounding variables such as intelligence. Furthermore, subjective memory was investigated regarding how it can be affected by multilingualism and if subjective memory is an accurate measure of objective memory. A positive correlation between the Ospan score and composite language score was found while correlations could not be found for subjective memory. However, according to the hierarchical multiple regressions that were done, composite language score was not a significant predictor of Ospan score when demographics and intelligence were accounted for, only intelligence could predict both Span and Ospan scores. In regards to subjective memory, it was found that composite language scores could predict subjective memory and that those who spoke four languages rated themselves worse than monolinguals. Working memory tasks could not, however, predict subjective memory. The conclusions that were made were that multilingualism does not have an effect on working memory capacity but that composite language score and quadrilingualism have an effect on subjective memory.

A dissertation submitted in fulfilnent of the Requirements for the degree of D. Litt in Communication Science University of Zululand, 2002 / In this study I looked at the issue of the Afrikaans language, which is most often approached from a position of strong vested interest, either in support or against it. This study was intended as an intellectual response to an intensely debated issue. It is a survey of scholarly and tendentious reporting regarding the status of Afrikaans and the other official languages of South Africa. As we move into the 21st century the .Afrikaans language has once more moved into a position of status, not for ideological purposes but for practical communication. Previously it was associated with the struggle for survival, and with an image of kitchen patios. As it takes its rightful place in our multilingual country, one in which the playing fields are levelled for all indigenous languages, major processes in society will determine its future and to what extent Afrikaans would function as an African language. For this to happen the language has to create a survival niche for itself, on behalf of the other nine indigenous languages. As one of the official languages it needs to create a space beyond hegemony and social legislation. By ensuring that it is always 'ahead and to the side' (rather than "on the side') of English and the other nine languages, the Afrikaans language will experience a growth phase continuing to interrogate its own traditions where people are empowered to use the language of their choice. The Afrikaans language must not be continually punished for its perceived complicity in apartheid politics but should be protected and advanced with an overarching structure of multilingualism. The downgrading of Afrikaans has not affected the language adversely; on the contrary it has triggered stronger support from influential persons and the rest of the population. It has found a new identity and status alongside the other ten official languages. Each of these languages should be encouraged to flourish with political will and patience. Afrikaans has a significant role to play in the 'African Renaissance' and remain an important language of all South Africans. Its role as a South African language can be redefined in terms of the constitution. In the words of President Thabo Mbeki, "when the sun rises, it must show a rebirth of South Africa, driven by the enormous talents of all our people, and made possible by the knowledge and realisation that we share a common destiny. / National Research Foundation (NRF)

The thesis focuses on mother tongue education in The Gambia, attempting to analyse factors affecting its implementation in public lower basic schools across the country. The work is based on a field study investigating the strategies and the controversies behind multilingual education, with reference to a project launched in 2015 and aimed at the introduction of the seven Gambian national languages beside English

The purpose of this study is to generate knowledge about how the preschool's physical and social literacy environment is used and can be used to support multilingual children in their language and literacy development and highlight the opportunities and difficulties that preschool teachers experience in their work with language development of multilingual children. The questions that are answered are: How do the respondents describe the literacy environment in their preschool department? And: How do the respondents describe their support of multilingual children's language development and their conditions for teaching? Surveys and qualitative interviews were used as the method to answer the questions and were analyzed in relation to the study’s theoretical framework, constituted by discourse analytical theory. The results show that four different discourses emerged, each describing different perspectives of multilingualism in preschool education. In one of the preschool departments in the study, where the teachers seem to have put less focus on making the home language of multilingual children visible in the physical environment, they had a home language teacher who came every week. The children then had the opportunity to develop their home language with someone who knows the language. In the departments where the physical environment more clearly reflected the multilingualism that was represented, the teaching was more focused on including and making children's home language visible. The reason was most likely that no one in the team spoke the children's home language. Most of the preschool teachers in the study expressed that they lacked the conditions needed to be able to conduct the teaching they wanted. Some of the preschool teachers expressed that poorer conditions mainly affected the children who needed the most support.

Under de senaste decennierna har translanguaging fått mycket intresse inom SLA-sfären (SecondLanguage Learning). Samtida migration och den ständigt ökandeglobaliseringen har lett till en omvärdering av tvåspråkighet och flerspråkighet. Medan forskningavsett de lätt observerbara metoderna hos lärare och studenter har fått mycket uppmärksamhet, har det material som valts av lärare inte. Således är målet med denna studie att undersöka omoch hur translanguaging-metoder främjas inom ett urval av vanliga engelska läroböcker. För att uppnå detta använde studien innehållsanalys för att identifiera möjliga översättningsmetoder inom läroböckernas uppgifter. Resultaten av studien visar att översättningsmetoder kunde identifieras i alla utvalda läroböcker. Den vanligast identifierade transspråkliga uppgiften var översättning, både när det gäller översättning av ord samt meningar och fraser. Det analyserade materialet indikerade dock en trend att användningen av svenska som undervisningsspråk helt enkelt var ett pragmatiskt verktyg som användes för att kompensera för elevernas bristande språkkunskaper. Detta gjorde det svårt att bedöma om identifierade uppgifter faktiskt kunde karakteriseras som pedagogiskt translanguaging material (PTM). För framtida forskning skulle nästa logiska steg vara att observera om de identifierade typerna oftasks faktiskt leder till translanguaging praxis i klassrummet samt genomföra forskning om mer varierat klassrumsmaterial.