In many parts of the world the language education scenario is increasingly dynamic, as demographic, economic and social changes powerfully influence socio-political agendas in the sphere of language education. These in turn impact on complex issues such as linguistic pluralism, multiculturalism, and marginalization. This is especially so in the sphere of second language education where local, national and regional concerns often dominate the objectives underpinning policy choice and prioritisation.
This volume brings together scholars and researchers from a wide range of different educational contexts and turns a sociolinguistic lens on some of the key areas of concern for researchers in language education: critical awareness of power and identity issues; competence in dealing with new sociolinguistic repertoires, modalities and literacies; ethical concerns for all who are involved. The 'case study' approach enables the reader to reflect on and critically engage with these issues in a rich variety of contextual situations, and the volume as a whole provides a useful overview of (second) language education in the world today.
 

Speech Acts and Politeness are among the main areas of interest in pragmatics. These communicative phenomena can be considered universal and at the same time language and culture-specific. It is this latter dimension that has been at the centre of recent developments in pragmatics, and it is also the focus of this book.
The aim of this book is to reflect this development, providing evidence from four main areas crucial to pragmatics across languages and cultures: a description of a variety of speech acts and politeness strategies in different languages and cultures, a cross-cultural comparison of several speech acts and patterns of politeness, an in-depth analysis of issues concerning the learning and teaching of speech acts and politeness in second/foreign languages, as well as some methodological resources in pragmatics.
This book is intended for researchers, scholars and students interested in the field of pragmatics, in general, or in the fields of cross-cultural and second/foreign language pragmatics, and specifically for those interested in speech acts and politeness. It will also be useful to any scholar interested in how communication and culture are related.
 

The Dynamic Systems Theory perspective offers new lenses to probe into long-term foreign language development. This book reports on findings of a longitudinal multiple-case study on the vocabulary development of eight university-level Chinese learners of English. Framed within the Dynamic Systems framework, the study assumes a holistic perspective towards vocabulary knowledge and aims to project a comprehensive picture of vocabulary development in a typical foreign language learning setting such as the Chinese context. To this end, a wide array of quantitative measurements and qualitative methods was employed. In-depth examination was given to both psycholinguistic and sociocultural processes involved in the complex and dynamic development of vocabulary knowledge. Efforts were also made to establish meaningful links between the learners' cognitive, mental, pedagogical and social contexts. Although the focus is on vocabulary development, what is discussed in the book is applicable to a wide range of topics in foreign language learning and development.

Learner characteristics have been at the center of second language acquisition and foreign language education research in response to the puzzling questions: Why are there often large differences in second language (L2) learning achievement and why do many learners, though proficient first language speakers, not succeed in learning a L2? The papers in this book explore and challenge the three key factors in individual difference research: language aptitude, language learning strategies and motivation.

The volume contains a collection of studies on how the analysis of corpus and psycholinguistic data reveal how linguistic knowledge is affected by the frequency of linguistic elements/stimuli. The studies explore a wide range of phenomena , from phonological reduction processes and palatalization to morphological productivity, diachronic change, adjective preposition constructions, auxiliary omission, and multi-word units. The languages studied are Spanish and artificial languages, Russian, Dutch, and English. The sister volume focuses on language representation.

Documenting endangered languages has become a major goal in the linguistic sciences. This volume showcases recent developments in methodology, technology and analysis, drawing on experience gained in a global range of documentation projects. It illustrates the significance of documentary linguistics not only as a set of documentary practices, but as a scientific discipline in its own right.

The need of the national language Setswana to participate actively in society, politics and democratisation as both national language and lingua franca of Botswana, has caused language domination and suffocation on the part of the 25 or so minority languages. As a result, these languages are now going through a process of language shift and death. Consequently, their cultures, too, suffer great losses in order to keep pace with the mainstream society.
The aim of the book is threefold: (a) to inform the large public, both local and international, about the sociolinguistic and related issues regarding the minority languages of Botswana, (b) to provide facts about the state and future trends of the minority languages in order to sensitise the public and the relevant authorities about the issues involved, and (c) to present ideas and insights in order to stimulate academic debates on the minority languages.
Linguists from Botswana as well as from Europe and U.S.A. present their latest field research findings to shed light on the present situation of the minority languages.
 

As a culture area, the Arab world has had different ecological structures - nomadic (bedouin) and sedentary (rural and urban) - with parallel linguistic systems. Throughout the long history of the Arabic language, the development of transitional stages has generated linguistic correlates in Arabic dialects. The notion "ecolinguistics", combined and reinforced with the concepts of "compatibility" and "lexical diffusion", is introduced in this study to identify such a sociolinguistic change. The domain of change for this ecolinguistic variation is the extended family wherein the middle generation develops new lexical items by the application of ecolinguistic rules. Cadora describes these rules, which speakers generate as they gradually acquire an awareness of the social parameters for their use. The theoretical framework and the putative results of this study are offered to stimulate further research in the causation and implementation of linguistic change, especially in terms of quantitative analyses of ecolinguistic variation and lexical diffusion in the Arabic language.

Jasperrek azalduko du nola jarri zen Elkartea berekin harremanetan eta, aldi berean, tinko jardungo du bere misioan: droga trafikoan dabilen banpiroen sare bat desegin behar du. Horretarako, aztien talde bati egin beharko dio aurre; ahalik eta jende gehien hiltzeko prest dagoen deabrua gurtzen dute azti horiek. Jasperrek, aztien dohainak baititu, deabrua mendean hartzea eta atzera infernura bidaltzea lortuko du, baita banpiroak garaitzea ere.
Girotzea: Paris, gaur egun
 

Zizili andreak ez du ezer ikusten, 207 dioptria dauzka begi bakoitzean. Mundu betaurreko guztiak probatuta dauzka, baina alferrik. Hala ere, esan diote Londresen badela jostun bat, apurtutako artaziekin betaurreko berezi batzuk egiten dituena, eta hara joatea erabaki du Zizilik, Anbrosio bere mamu txikia lagun hartuta. Bidean, ordea, mila abentura eta xelebrekeria gertatuko zaizkie, zein baino zein zoroagoa, baita lagun mordoa ezagutu ere, umorez eta fantasiaz beteriko historia honetan.