Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Multilingualism practices'

Language diversity continues to create a language barrier to international tourism. Tourists from non-English speaking countries face a language barrier in South Africa and this affects their experiences in the country. Measuring and understanding something of this challenge is the purpose of this study. The focus is on how the tourism industry in Cape Town uses languages to sell and promote the city internationally. The study investigates procedures, strategies, and policies adopted by the tourism industry in Cape Town to cater for tourists from across the world. In addition, the study also investigates how tourists from non-English speaking countries adapt linguistically to cope with their stay in Cape Town. The study targeted both tourism organisations and international tourists who use tourist facilities in most popular tourist areas in Cape Town. Both primary and secondary data were collected. Convenience sampling was used to select both tourism service providers and tourists. To enhance validity, reliability, and accuracy, various tools have been deployed to collect the data. Primary data were collected from both tourism service providers and international tourists using questionnaires, interviews, photographs and observations. Secondary data collection involved observations of public signage as well as analysis of electronic and printed promotional materials such as brochures, guidebooks, menus, newspapers and websites. Collected data were captured in spread sheets to enable descriptive analysis of tourists&rsquo
languages and of language use in tourism organisations in different of forms of niche tourism in Cape Town. Survey results reveal that a little more than half of all surveyed tourism organisations in Cape Town sell and promote their products using only South African languages including English whilst a minority sell and promote their products using English coupled with foreign languages. The majority of multilingual staff in those surveyed tourism organisations who have adopted multilingualism are working part-time or employed temporarily. In addition, results also indicate that English dominates other languages in public signs and printed and electronic promotional publications used by surveyed tourism organisations in Cape Town. Foreign languages are used most in tour operations and travel agencies sector whilst South African languages dominate in accommodation and restaurants sectors. On the other hand the research shows that a big proportion of foreign tourists in Cape Town were able to speak English and other foreign languages. The research shows that the majority of tourists from non-English speaking countries are more interested in learning foreign languages compared with their counterparts from English speaking countries. Only less than a quarter of all surveyed tourists from non-English speaking countries in Cape Town are monolingual in their home languages. These tourists struggle to communicate with service providers in Cape Town. Translators and gestures were used by non-English speaking tourists as a way of breaking down communication barriers in Cape Town. Contrarily, a big proportion (two thirds) of all surveyed tourists from English speaking countries in Cape Town does speak only English. Foreign tourists in Cape Town speak tourism service providers&rsquo
language rather than tourism service providers speaking tourists&rsquo
languages. The majority of tourism service providers in Cape Town are reluctant to learn foreign languages and to employ multilingual staff. This means that most tourism organisations sell and market their product in English only. Other South African languages such as Afrikaans and Xhosa are used frequently in informal communication in the tourism industry in Cape Town. Seemingly, Afrikaans dominates Xhosa in all forms of tourism except in township tourism where the majority of service providers are Xhosa-speakers. To market and promote Cape Town internationally, the tourism industry in Cape Town should employ multilingual staff who can communicate in tourists&rsquo
native languages. Multilingualism should be practised in all tourism sectors rather than in one or few sectors because all tourism sectors compliment each other in meeting customer&rsquo
s satisfaction. Failure in one tourism sector may affect other tourism sectors&rsquo
performance.

In this ethnographic inquiry, I examine how a selected group of Chinese immigrant children in Montreal, Quebec negotiate literacy practices in three languages, Chinese, English and French. I collected data between 1998--2002 through participant observations in different socio-cultural-linguistic contexts that include a Chinese Heritage Language school and the students' home domains. Data sources also include interviews, classroom discourses, field-notes and the students' written texts in the three languages. I draw on Vygotskian socio-cultural theory as an overarching framework to conceptualize my understanding of Chinese immigrant children's triliterate actions. I use Wertsch's concept of "mediational means", Bakhtin's notions of "utterance, voice, dialogicality" and Ivanic's theory of "writing and identity" to present portraits that illustrate the complex relationships among the children's contexts, agency, cultural positionings and uses of literacy as mediational means. I examine the children's perceptions of their multiple school experiences, their school and language affiliations and identity. Lightfoot's concept of "portraiture" is a useful methodology to illustrate how multilingual children present and negotiate their life worlds in the three languages and spaces---from home to school and from heritage language school to formal public school. The reflective understandings that emerge from this inquiry are integrated within the contexts of the historical role of Confucianism and the characteristics of the written Chinese language. The results of my inquiry suggest that multilingual children's literate actions are interwoven with issues of agency, access, choice, identity, power and status in different contexts. Results further indicate that maintenance of a heritage language in its written form is possible when children receive appropriate parental support and guidance and have access to literacy materials. The development of multili

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.

This thesis is an exploration of the historical, socio-cultural, economic, and political settings in which identities are negotiated and performed among Cameroonian immigrants in Cape Town. Focusing on language as localized practices and different interaction regimes, the thesis investigates how Cameroonian immigrants maintain and reconfigure the Anglophone/Francophone identity options in novel and hybrid ways. In addition, the study examines how ideologies favouring different languages are reproduced and challenged in translocal and transnational discourses. Guided by the poststructuralist theories the thesis explores the stance that reality is socially constructed, based on symbolic and material structural limitations that are challenged and maintained in interaction. That is, whatever we do or believe in, is supported by some historical or cultural 
frames of meanings in our lived world, which often gives room to some manoeuvre to do things in a new way. The study adopts a multiplex interpretive approach to data 
collection. This entails a qualitative sociolinguistic approach where interviews, discussion and observations at different socio-economic places namely
meetings, workplaces, 
homes, restaurants, drinking spots and many sites from all over Cape Town, were explored. The study suggests that Cameroonians have a multiplicity of identity options, which are manifested and negotiated performatively through language, dress code, song, food, business, and other practices that comprise their lifestyles. These identities are 
translocal and transnational in nature, and tend to blend South African, Cameroonian, and even American traits. It is also suggests that the different identity options which they manifest are highly mobile, enabling Cameroonians to fit into South African social structures as well as the Negotiation of Identities and Language Practices Cameroonian ways of doing things. Additionally, the multiplicity of identities that Cameroonians manifest, blur the fault-line between Anglophone/Francophone identities. It is evident from the study that hybridity and the reconstruction practices are not only confined to languages. Hybridity also extends to discourse orders especially in terms of how meetings are conducted. The Cameroonian meetings captured through the activities of Mifi Association and CANOWACAT are characterised by &lsquo
disorder of discourse&rsquo
in which both formal and informal versions of English and French are used separately or as amalgams alongside CPE and their national languages, not only in side talks, but also when contributing to the meeting proceedings. Ultimately, the study concludes that Cameroonians are social actors making up an indispensable part of the social interaction in the Cape Town Diaspora. Just as they influence the languages, the entrepreneurial practices, and spaces in which they interact, the Cameroonian immigrants are also transformed. The major 
contribution of the study is that it adds to the recent debates about the nature of multilingualism and identities in late modern society. It emphasises that languages and identities are fluid, complex, and unstable. The distinction or boundaries between the various languages in multilingual practices are also not as clear-cut. This leads to a reframing of voice and actor hood as meaning is constructed across translocal and transnational contexts and domains in a networked world transformed by the mobility of endless flows ofinformation, goods, ideas, and people. Thus, the study contributes to those arguing for a paradigm shift in sociolinguistic theory in which language is not a property of groups, nor is it an autonomous and bounded system fixed in time and space. Thus, identities, languages and the spaces of interaction are not fixed systems
identities, languages, and spaces are dynamic and in a state of flux. This in turn questions the notions of multilingualism and language itself, as well as the veracity of concepts such as code-switching, 
speech community, language variation, as the search for a sociolinguistic framework that can deal with phenomena predicated by motion, instability, and uncertainty, continues.

Magister Educationis - MEd
In South Africa, there has been little research into the language practices of multilingual students in tertiary institutions or into how such students negotiate identities in these globalising contexts where the dominance of English remains an important factor. This research was aimed at exploring the appropriateness of 1997 Language-In-Education policy for schools and the national Language Policy for Higher Education (2002) for equipping students for tertiary teaching and learning. It therefore investigated the relationship between the language practices and construction of identities of a group of multilingual first year students in the Education Faculty at a Western Cape university. In this integrated institution, in spite of the current political and socio-economic transformation that has been at the centre of new policies, the medium of instruction is still predominantly monolingual. The premise of the research was that in a multilingual country such as South Africa with 11 official languages, tertiary institutions ought to more vigorously engage with their current language policies in order to value and extend the language practices of multilingual students for academic learning. Here multilingual repertoires are understood as resources rather than problems. The research draws extensively on Bourdieu's notion of 'linguistic capital' quantifying language itself as a form of capital with a market value. Through thematic analysis of themes drawn from questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation in both tutorials and lectures, the investigation concluded that a monolingual medium of instruction to non-native speakers should be practised alongside other languages as means to support in their academic attainment. Finally the research emphasised the importance of code switching as a strategy that facilitates learning and promotes understanding of the role language resources play in social and academic interaction.

The thesis investigates the phenomenon of multilingualism from a Bourdieusian-derived perspective with a focus on the conditions enabling second-generation immigrant agents to produce, reproduce, and negotiate linguistic practices with non-autochthonous minority languages in the officially bilingual context of Cardiff, Wales. The thesis follows in the footsteps of Pierre Bourdieu, using his model of linguistic production and circulation as a conceptual lens for the analysis of the linguistic biographies of thirteen second-generation multilingual participants. In doing so, the project also tests the suitability of this model to account for the production of alternative linguistic practices other than the dominant ones, for transformation, and ultimately, for the phenomenon of multilingualism associated with the process of immigration. The analysis of the linguistic biographies focuses on the development of the linguistic habitus of the second-generation agents taking into consideration the socio-historically constructed power relations which have influenced their trajectory. This involves understanding the relationship between such a linguistic habitus and the linguistic market(s) with which the interviewees have interacted. First, the thesis suggests that in Cardiff English is recognized as the legitimate language, Welsh is partially legitimate, while non-autochthonous minority languages are illegitimate. Second, in light of the linguistic biographies the project examines how the interplay between the home, the school, religious practices, and digital practices influenced the construction of alternative linguistic markets according to which the linguistic habitus of the participants developed, enabling them to reproduce linguistic practices with Arabic, Bengali, Somali, Urdu, or Punjabi. The study thus suggests that the phenomenon of multilingualism can be redefined from the perspective of an individual’s linguistic habitus understood as an integral and generative set of dispositions which develops and functions according to the socio-historically constructed conditions and power relations within and, crucially, among multiple linguistic markets.

Magister Educationis - MEd
Rwanda has taken a strong move towards language-in-education policy shift whereby English became the sole medium of instruction in 2008, despite her rich linguistic diversity. The language shift occurred at the time when the country had resolutely embraced Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) as one of the country’s key development plans for socioeconomic development. In spite of these changes, research on multilingualism and digital identity in Rwanda is very limited. Given the pressing need for Rwanda to play an increasing role in the global economy, it is important to explore the ways in which the new generation negotiates multilingual digital identities in second language learning. The aim of this study, therefore, was to investigate the ways in which secondary school learners used digital technologies to negotiate new identities in two or more languages in order to understand the implications for English second language learning in the multilingual context of postcolonial Rwanda. Specifically, my interest was to examine Grade 11 learners’ current digital practices and the ways in which existing multilingual repertoires were drawn on as resources in navigating digital literacies. I also aimed at understanding how such practices could be harnessed as resources for English second language learning in the classroom. This study is informed by post-structural theories of identities as well as of Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, field and capital. The post-structural frame of analysis underlying issues of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has also been important to establish a bridge between the learners’ digital practices and their English learning processes. It draws on debates around digital literacies, multilingualism, and identity, theories of access to ICTs and digital technologies and English as Additional Language Acquisition. The research sites were two urban based high schools mainly selected for their proximity to digital technologies, namely cyber cafes and/or computer laboratories and by their representativity in terms of gender and subject choices. Drawing on the qualitative research tradition and informed by ethnographic methodology, the study investigated Grade 11 learners’ insider views of the affordances of digital technologies for language learning. To reach this end, non-participant observations, focus group discussions and a questionnaire were used. Issues of research ethics namely, informed consent, anonymity and confidentiality were adhered to throughout the research process. With regard to access to technologies, the research findings reflect Bourdieu’ post-structural theory notion of ‘habitus’ as they show that the social dimensions the learners were involved in influenced their engagement with several digital technologies. In relation to Warschauer’s model of access, this study was able to identify the following: (1) material access’ linked to the learner’s access to the internet connection; (2) skills access’ concerning the learner’s ability to interact with computers and communicate with peers or fellow friends by typewriting and (3) usage access’ associated with the learner’s opportunity to use ICT facilities. The findings also generated insights into the learners’ construction of multiple digital identities and the fluidity and hybridity of ‘youth digital literacies’. The learners created a form of global digital identity by simply interacting or engaging with various multimodal literacies. Findings also indicated that learners negotiated digital identities by immersing themselves in Social Networking Sites (SNS) that fall under ‘Web 2.0’, an online platform which online users make use of to interact, share and perform different activities, focusing chiefly on social media. It was observed further that learners constructed a national language identity in the digital world by visiting mostly popular sites whose medium of communication was the national vernacular “Kinyarwanda”, thus stimulating the sense of national language identity of ‘ Rwandaness’. Additionally, it was apparent that Grade 11 learners had a great sense of attachment to their language as a significant characteristic of their digital practices through ‘translanguaging’ which became one of the resources in the digital space. The findings also indicate that technology served as a bridge between learners’ digital practices and their learning of English as an additional language, although language power relations were apparent as English was conferred a status of symbolic capital. The study concludes that various forms of access to ICTs do not only inform and strengthen Grade 11 learners’ process of learning English as additional language, but also support the construction of their multiple identities. There is a need to capitalize on face-to-face interaction and integrate ICT in teaching and learning so that learners can create their own learning space whereby they construct their digital identities as adolescents in the different languages they get exposure to.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this dissertation I report on an ethnographic survey study undertaken on bi-/multilingual education in ten primary schools in Uganda. The primary aim of this study was to explore how teachers understand and manage the process of transitioning from mother tongue (MT) education to English as a language of learning and teaching (LoLT). In this study I used a multi-method approach involving questionnaires, classroom observations, follow-up interviews and note taking. Data was analysed using a theme-based triangulation approach, one in which insights gleaned from different sources are checked against each other, so as to build a fuller, richer and more accurate account of the phenomenon under study. This data was gathered firstly from teachers and classes in the first three years of formal schooling (P1 to P3) in order to understand the nature of multilingualism in the initial years of primary schooling and how teachers use MT instruction in preparation for transition to English-medium education that occurs at the end of these three years. Secondly, data from P4 and P5 classes and teachers was gathered so as to examine the manner in which teachers handle transition from MT instruction in P4 and then shift into the use of English as LoLT in P5. The study has identified discrepancies between de jure and de facto language policy that exist at different levels: within schools, between government and private schools in implementing the language-in-education policy, and, ultimately, between the assumptions teachers have of the linguistic diversity of learners and the actual linguistic repertoires possessed by the learners upon school entry. Moreover, the study has revealed that it is unrealistic to expect that transfer of skills from MT to English can take place after only three years of teaching English and MT as subjects and using MT as LoLT. Against such a backdrop, teachers operate under circumstances that are not supportive of effective policy implementation. In addition, there is a big gap between teacher training and the demands placed on teachers in the classroom in terms of language practices. Moreover, teachers have mixed feelings about MT education, and some are unreservedly negative about it. Teachers’ indifference to MT education is partly caused by the fact that MTs are not examined at the end of primary school and that all examination papers are set in English. Furthermore, it has emerged that Uganda’s pre-primary education system complicates the successful implementation of the language-in-education policy, as it is not monitored by the government, is not compulsory nor available to all Ugandan children, and universally is offered only in English. The findings of this study inform helpful recommendations pertaining to the language-ineducation policy and the education system of Uganda. Firstly, there is a need to compile countrywide community and/or school linguistic profiles so as to come up with a wellinformed and practical language policy. Secondly, current language-in-education policy ought to be decentralised as there are urban schools which are not multilingual (as is assumed by the government) and thus are able to implement MT education. Thirdly, the MT education programme of Uganda ought to be changed from an early-exit to a late-exit model in order to afford a longer time for developing proficiency in English before English becomes the LoLT. Fourthly, government ought to make pre-primary schooling compulsory, and MT should be the LoLT at this level so that all Ugandan children have an opportunity to learn through their MTs. Finally, if the use of MT, both as a subject and as a LoLT, is to be enforced in schools, the language of examination and/or the examination of MTs will have to be reconsidered. In summary, several reasons have been identified for the mentioned discrepancies between de jure and de facto language-in-education policy in Uganda. This policy was implemented in an attempt to improve the low literacy levels of Ugandan learners. It therefore appears as if the policy and its implementation will need revision before this achievable aim can be realised as there is great difficulty on the teachers’ side not only in the understanding but also in managing the process of transitioning from MT education to English as LoLT.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie proefskrif lewer ek verslag oor ‘n etnografiese opname van twee meertaligheid wat in 10 laerskole in Oeganda uitgevoer is. Die hoof doel van die studie was om vas te stel hoe onderwysers die oorgang van moedertaalonderrig na Engels as taal van onderrig en leer (TLO) verstaan en bestuur. Ek het ‘n veelvuldige metode-benadering in hierdie studie gevolg en gebruik gemaak van vraelyste, klaskamerwaarnemings, opvolgonderhoude en veldnotas. Data is geanaliseer deur gebruik te maak van ‘n tema-gebaseerde trianguleringsbenadering, een waarin insigte verkry uit verskillende bronne teen mekaar geverifieer is om sodoende ‘n voller, ryker en meer akkurate verklaring vir die studieverskynsel te gee. Hierdie data is eerstens onder onderwysers en leerders in die eerste drie jaar van formele skoolonderring (P1 tot P3) ingesamel om vas te stel (i) wat die aard van veeltaligheid in die beginjare van laerskool is en (ii) hoe onderwysers moedertaal (MT) gebruik om leerders voor te berei vir die oorgang na Engels-medium onderrig wat aan die einde van hierdie drie jaar geskied. Data is tweedens onder P4- en P5-onderwysers en in P4- en P5-klaskamers ingesamel om sodoede die wyse te ondersoek waarop onderwysers die oorgang van MT-onderrig in P4 en die skuif na die gebruik van Engels as TLO in P5 hanteer. Die studie het diskrepansies tussen de jure- en de facto-taalbeleid op verskeie vlakke geïdentifiseer: binne skole, tussen die regering en privaatskole in die implementering van die taal-in-onderwys-beleid, en ook tussen die aannames wat onderwysers oor die talige diversiteit van leerders het en die werklike talige repertoires waarmee hierdie leerders die skoolsisteem betree. Die studie het verder getoon dat dit onrealisties is om te verwag dat oordrag van vaardighede van MT na Engels kan plaasvind ná slegs drie jaar van (i) Engels en MT as vakke en (ii) gebruik van MT as TLO. Teen hierdie agtergrond werk onderwysers onder omstandighede wat nie effektiewe beleidsimplementering ondersteun nie. Daar is ook ‘n groot gaping tussen onderwyseropleiding en die eise wat aan onderwysers in die klaskamer gestel word in terme van taalpraktyke. Verder het onderwysers gemengde gevoelens oor MTonderrig, en sommiges is sonder voorbehoud negatief daaroor. Onderwysers se onverskilligheid teenoor MT-onderrig word gedeeltelik meegebring deur die feit dat MTe nie aan die einde van laerskool geëksamineer word nie en dat alle eksamenvraestelle in Engels opgestel word. Dit het ook geblyk dat Oeganda se voorskoolse onderwyssisteem die suksesvolle implementering van die taal-in-onderwys-beleid kompliseer, aangesien hierdie vlak van onderwysg nie deur die regering gemonitor word nie, nie verpligtend of toeganklik vir alle Oegandese kinders is nie en universeel in slegs Engels aangebied word. Die bevindinge van hierdie studie maak nuttige aanbevelings moontlik aangaande die taal-inonderwys- beleid en die onderwyssisteem in Oeganda. Eerstens is daar ‘n behoefte aan die opstel van ‘n landswye taalprofiel van gemeenskappe en skole sou ‘n goed-ingeligte en prakties uitvoerbare taalbeleid daargestel wou word. Tweedens behoort die huidige taal-inonderwys- beleid gesentraliseer te word, aangesien sommige stedelike skole (in teenstelling met wat deur die regering aangeneem word) nie veeltalig is nie en dus wel daartoe in staat is om MT-onderrig te implementeer. Derdens behoort die MT-onderrigprogram in Oeganda verander te word van een waarin leerders MT-onderrig vroeg verlaat tot een waarin hulle MT-onderrig laat verlaat, sodat daar meer tyd is vir die verwerwing van Engelse taalvaardighede voordat Engels die TLO word. Vierdens behoort die regering preprimêre onderwys verpligtend te maak en behoort MT die TLO op hierdie vlak te wees sodat alle Oegandese kinders die geleentheid het om deur middel van hul MTe te leer. Laastens, as die gebruik van MT (as ‘n vak sowel as as TLO) in skole verplig gaan word, behoort die taal van eksaminering herbesin te word en/of die eksaminering van MTe heroorweeg te word. Opsommenderwys: Daar is verskeie redes geïdentifiseer vir die genoemde diskrepansies tussen die de jure- en de facto- taal-in-onderwys beleid in Oeganda. Hierdie beleid is ingestel in ‘n poging om die lae geletterdheidsvlakke van Oegandese leerders aan te spreek. Dit blyk dat die beleid en die implementering daarvan hersien sal moet word voordat hierdie haalbare doelwit gerealiseer sal kan word, want onderwysers vind dit merkbaar moeilik nie net om die huidige beleid te verstaan nie maar ook om die proses van oorgang van MT-onderrig na Engels as TLO te bestuur.
Ekisengejje (Luganda) Mu kiwakano kino, njogera ku kunoonyereza okwesigamizibwa ku kwekaliriza ekibinja ky’abantu ab’awamu n’engeri gye bakwatamu ebyenjigiriza nnanniminnyingi mu masomero ga pulayimale kkumi mu Uganda. Ekigendererwa ky’okunoonyereza kuno ekikulu kyali okwekaliriza engeri abasomesa gye bategeeramu ne gye bakwatamu enseetuka y’okuva mu kusomera mu lulimi oluzaaliranwa okudda mu Lungereza. Mu kunoonyereza kuno, nakozesa enseetuka mpendannyingi omuli olukalala lw’ebibuuzo, okwekaliriza okw’omu kibiina, okubuuza ebibuuzo eby’akamwa n’okuwandiika ebyekalirizibwa. Ebiwe byakenenulirwa mu miramwa nga giggyibwa mu ebyo ebyakuηηaanyizibwa mu mpenda ez’enjawulo. Enkola eno yeeyambisa ebyakukuηηaanyizibwa mu mpenda ez’enjawulo nga buli kimu kikkuutiriza kinnaakyo ne kiba nti ekijjo ekinoonyeerezebwako omuntu akitebya mu ngeri enzijuvu era engagga obulungi. Okusooka, ebiwe byakuηηaanyizibwa okuva mu basomesa ne mu bibiina ebisookerwako ebisatu (P1 okutuuka ku P3) n’ekigendererwa ky’okutegeera ennimi eziri mu myaka egisooka egya pulayimale n’engeri abasomesa gye batandikamu okusomesereza mu nnimi enzaaliranwa nga bateekateeka abayizi okubazza mu kuyigira mu Lungereza. Okuyigira mu Lungereza kutandika okubaawo ng’emyaka esatu egisooka giweddeko. Ebibiina, P4 ne P5 nabyo byatunuulirwa n’ekigendererwa ky’okwekaliriza engeri abasomesa gye bakwatamu enseetuka y’okuggya abayizi mu kuyigira mu nnimi enzaaliranwa mu P4 okubazza mu kuyigira mu Lungereza mu P5. Okunoonyereza kuno kuzudde empungu wakati w’enteekera y’ebyennimi eragirwa n’ekozesebwa ku mitendera egy’enjawulo: Empungu esooka eri mu kussa mu nkola enteekera y’ebyennimi mu byenjigiriza wakati w’amasomero ga gavumenti n’ag’obwannannyini ate ne wakati w’ebyo abasomesa bye bakkiririzaamu ku nnimi abayizi ze boogera n’ennimi abayizi bo ze boogera nga tebannayingira masomero. Mu ngeri y’emu okunoonyereza kuno kukizudde nti si kya bwenkyanya okusuubira abayizi okuzza mu Lungereza ebyo bye bayigidde emyaka esatu mu nnini enzaaliranwa nga mu myaka gye gimu egyo Olungereza n’olulimi oluzaaliranwa babadde baziyiga ng’amasomo. Mu mbeera efaanana bw’etyo, abasomesa bakolera mu mbeera etabasobozesa kutuukiriza nteekera ya bya nnimi mu byenjigiriza. Mu ngeri y’emu, waliwo empungu nnene wakati w’obutendeke abasomesa bwe balina n’ebyo ebibasuubirwamu okukola mu kibiina nga beeyambisa olulimi. Si ekyo kyokka, abasomesa si batangaavu ku kusomeseza mu nnimi enzaaliranwa, era n’abamu boogera kaati nga bwe batawagira nkola eno. Endowooza y’abasomesa ku kusomeseza mu nnimi enzaaliranwa yeesigamiziddwa ku kuba nti ennimi enzaaliranwa tezibuuzibwa ku nkomerero ya pulayimale ate era n’okuba nti ebibuuzo byonna ku nkomerero ya pulayimale bibuuzibwa mu Lungereza. Ng’oggyeeko ekyo, kyeyolese mu kunoonyereza kuno nti okusoma kwa nnasale mu Uganda kukaluubiriza okussa mu nkola enteekera y’eby’ennimi mu byenjigiriza kubanga eddaala ly’okusoma lino terirondoolwa gavumenti, si lya buwaze ate era abaana bonna mu Uganda tebafuna mukisa kusoma nnasale, n’ekirala nti okutwaliza awamu ebisomesebwa ku ddaala lino biba mu Lungereza. Ebizuuliddwa mu kunoonyereza kuno bisonga ku bisembebwa ebiyinza okuyamba mu kutereeza enteekera y’eby’ennimi mu byenjigiriza ko n’omuyungiro gw’ebyenjigiriza gwonna mu Uganda. Okusooka, kyetaagisa okukuηηaanya ennimi ezoogerebwa mu bitundu ne/oba mu masomero ne kiyamba mu kussa mu nkola enteekera y’eby’ennimi mu ngeri entangaavu. Eky’okubiri, kisaana obuyinza bw’enteekera y’eby’ennimi mu byenjigiriza eriwo kati buzzibweko wansi kubanga waliwo amasomero g’omu bibuga agataliimu nnimi nnyingi (nga gavumenti yo bw’ekitwala) era nga bwe gatyo gasobola okussa mu nkola enteekera y’eby’ennimi mu byenjigiriza. Eky’okusatu, enteekateeka y’okusomeseza mu nnimi enzaaliranwa eya Uganda esaana eyongezebwe okuva ku myaka 3 etuuke ku myaka 6 okutuuka ku 8. Ebbanga eryo eggwanvu liyamba omuyizi okukaza Olungereza n’oluvannyuma asobole okuluyigiramu. Eky’okuna, gavumenti esaana efuule okusoma kwa nnasale okw’obuwaze era ennimi enzaaliranwa zisaana zibeere olulimi oluyigirwamu ku ddaala lino kibeere nti abaana bonna mu Uganda bafuna omukisa okuyigira mu nnimi zaabwe enzaaliranwa. N’ekisembayo, bwe kiba nti okukozesa ennimi enzaaliranwa mu masomero ng’olulimi oluyigirwamu ate era ng’essomo kinaagobererwa mu masomero, olulimi olubuulizibwamu ebibuuzo ne/oba okubuuzibwako ebibuuzo bisaana bifiibweko nate. Mu bufunze, ensonga nnyingiko ezinokoddwayo ng’ezireetawo empungu wakati w’enteekera y’eby’ennimi mu byenjigiriza n’ebyo ebikolebwa mu masomero mu Uganda. Enteekera eno yassibwa mu nkola n’ekigendererwa ky’okwongera ku mutindo gw’okuyiga okusoma n’okuwandiika mu bayizi b’omu Uganda. Wabula ate kifanana okuba nti enteekera eno n’engeri gy’essibwa mu nkola bijja kwetaaga okuddamu okufiibwako olwo ekigendererwa ekyabiteekerwa kiryoke kituukibweko. Kino kiri bwe kityo kubanga waliwo enkalubira ya maanyi mu basomesa mu kutegeera ne mu nkwajja y’okuteekateeka abayizi okubaseetula

Grâce à une observation ethnographique menée durant trois ans sur trois terrains d’étude différents (une agence d’architecture, une organisation intergouvernementale et un réseau social professionnel), et à partir d’une approche inspirée de l’analyse conversationnelle (Schegloff, Jefferson et Sacks, 1974)d’inspiration ethnométhodologique (Garfinkel, 1967), notre recherche vise à repérer les « méthodes » qu’utilisent les membres afin de se coordonner dans la résolution des problèmes, dans la prise de décision et dans la co-élaboration des solutions professionnelles en mobilisant pour ce faire plusieurs ressources langagières.Lorsque l’on parle de « plurilinguisme » en milieu professionnel, la question sur ses conséquences en tant que ressource ou obstacle est souvent posée. Loin de considérer la diversité linguistique comme un phénomène pré-existant à l’interaction dans des espaces professionnels internationaux, nous essayerons d’approcher cette « diversité » à partir d’une perspective analytique endogène. C’est pourquoi dans le cadre du projet européen Dynamiques des Langues et Gestion de la diversité (DYLAN), la présente thèse s’intéresse avant tout au caractère contraignant ou non du plurilinguisme pour l’accomplissement d’une activité. À cet égard, nous étudierons la manière dont les acteurs sociaux se servent des ressources langagières plurilingues pour organiser leurs actions (Mondada, 2007) et participer chacun à sa manière aux activités communicatives et traiter par là même des difficultés dues à l’utilisation d’une langue. C’est en tenant compte des limites de la dichotomie ressource ou obstacle que nous décrirons comment le plurilinguisme est une pratique ajustée aux contingences de la situation communicative d’où elle émerge.Nous nous intéressons particulièrement à l’analyse des événements de la parole où la co-existence de plusieurs « répertoires verbaux » (Gumperz, 1964) apparaît, soit comme un ensemble de ressources conversationnelles utilisées dans leur continuité linguistique, soit comme un problème résolu localement pour la progression de la communication. Dans cette thèse, nous avons identifié deux configurations principales du plurilinguisme en situation de travail. Il s’agit d’une hétérogénéité des répertoires verbaux constituée en objet du discours et exploitée par les participants dans la résolution des problèmes communicatifs. Cette hétérogénéité exhibée par les membres eux-mêmes est observable dans des séquences de thématisation du choix linguistique, dans des séquences de recherche de mots (Goodwin et Goodwin,1986) et dans des séquences de réparation (Schegloff, Jefferson et Sacks, 1977). Il s’agit aussi d’une hétérogénéité ignorant toute structuration du répertoire concerné en langues. Cela a été reconnu au sein des séquences de désaccord ou de désalignement (Stivers, 2008) et dans des séquences insérées dans des formats spécifiques de participation (Goffman, 1963, 1981) où les ressources plurilingues ne sont pas thématisées,mais bien mises à la contribution de l’accomplissement pratique de l’activité
Based on a three-year ethnographic study in several multilingual professional settings (an architecture firm, an intergovernmental organization and a professional social network) with an approach grounded in ethnomethodologically-inspired conversational analysis (CA) studies (Garfinkel, 1967;Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks, 1974), our research seeks to discern the methods used by members incoordinating their actions to resolve problems, making decisions, and co-elaborating professional solutions,all with the help of a variety of linguistic resources.When we speak of “multilingualism” in the professional setting, the question of its consequences as a resource or obstacle is often posed. Rather than considering linguistic diversity as a phenomenon that preexists interaction in international professional settings, we will attempt to approach this “diversity” from an endogenous analytical perspective. In the framework of the European project Language Dynamics and Management of Diversity (DYLAN), this dissertation is therefore interested above all in the constraining versus non-constraining character of multilingualism in the accomplishment of an activity. In this respect, we will study the way in which social actors use multilingual language resources to organize their actions(Mondada, 2007), participate in their own manner in communicative activities, and treat difficulties linkedwith the use of a language in this very way. By taking into account limits of the resource or obstacle dichotomy, we will describe how multilingualism is a practice adjusted to the contingencies of the communicative situation from which it emerges.We are particularly interested in analyzing speech events featuring the coexistence of several “verbalrepertoires” (Gumperz, 1964), either as a group of conversational resources used in their linguisticcontinuity, or as a problem resolved locally by the progression of communication. In this dissertation, we have identified two main configurations of multilingualism in the workplace. This entails heterogeneity inverbal repertoires represented in an object of discourse and used by participants in the resolution of communicative problems. This heterogeneity displayed by the members themselves is observable inlinguistic choice topicalization sequences, word search sequences (Goodwin and Goodwin, 1986), and repair sequences (Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks, 1977). This also entails heterogeneity that disregards all repertoire structuring concerned in languages. This has been recognized within disagreement or disalignmentsequences (Stivers, 2008) and in sequences inserted into specific formats of participation (Goffman, 1963,1981), in which multilingual resources are not topicalized, but rather, contribute to the practical accomplishment of the activity

Magister Educationis - MEd
The study's main starting premises is that there is a disjuncture between the rich educational engagements of these students in their environmental space and how their learning practices are framed, informed and positioned in the institutional space. My study is underpinned by an interpretivist paradigm in terms of which I set out to describe and understand the meanings that the student respondents assign to their learning practices when they are involved in discursive practices of speaking, knowing, doing, reading and writing. Qualitative research instruments: field notes, participant and non-participant observations and formal and informal interviews were used in order to answer my research question and achieve the desired research aims of this thesis. The findings are presented in a narrative format after deriving at categories and themes using narrative analysis. Finally, my research shows how these students are positioned in and by their lived spaces (whether environmental or institutional) in specific ways, and they, based on their own resources, networks and interactions, and by exercising their agency, actively construct their own spaces of learning. I describe these active constructions by these students as their 'conceptual space of learning' to highlight the complex ways in which they go about to establish their learning practices in their lived spaces. The study provides an analysis of the basis upon which each of these four students go about constructing their learning practices.
South Africa

Recently, multiliteracy has received lots of attention. Due to increased migration, globalisation and intermarriage, as of 2017, there are 203 Hoshukos (Japanese school located outside of Japan) spread across 56 different countries, all of which are supported by the Ministry of Education in Japan. This study analysed writing samples written by 11 Spanish-Japanese children who attend Hoshuko in Barcelona. Also, interviews with their mothers and teachers were conducted. The collected writing samples were written in Spanish, Catalan, English, French and Japanese, and were drawn from their literacy practices at school and at home. As a result of my study, I discovered that keeping a diary (personal diary and/or academic diary), writing cards, letters and essays, etc. were typical literacy activities these children engaged in. From interviews with Japanese teachers, it was revealed that this Hoshuko does not encourage multilingual children to use other languages whilst in Japanese classes (translanguaging). Regarding the use of technology by children, most mothers regulate strictly the hours of usage and exhibit a negative perspective. The data also shows that in addition to the regular classes, the children spend lots of time after school in order to supplement their development of Japanese writing skills, which is supervised by mothers. The mothers develop various initiatives and suggestions (living in Japan, cramming school, leisure activities, games, etc.) to increase the exposure of their children to the Japanese language and to create authentic written communication situations in that language.
Recientemente la multiliteracidad ha despertado mucho interés académico. Dada la creciente migración, la globalización y el incremento de matrimonios entre personas procedentes de diferentes culturas, en 2017 había 203 Hoshukos (o escuelas japonesas en el extranjero) a lo largo de 56 países, todas apoyadas por el Ministerio de Educación de Japón. Este estudio analiza las prácticas letradas plurialfabéticas de 11 niños que asisten a este tipo de centros educativos, en Barcelona, a partir del análisis de sus producciones escritas y de las entrevistas realizadas a sus progenitores y docentes. Los textos escritos utilizan castellano, catalán, inglés, francés y japonés y proceden de situaciones didácticas de aula o de actividades privadas realizadas en casa. Entre los resultados obtenidos, descubrimos que escribir un diario (personal o de aprendizaje), felicitaciones de año nuevo y cumpleaños, cartas o redacciones son las prácticas de producción escrita más comunes. En cuanto a las entrevistas realizadas al profesorado, se descubrió que en este tipo de escuelas se limita el uso en clase de las lenguas que no sean el japonés, evitando los fenómenos de cambio de idioma o de uso de otro idioma para la producción textual (translanguaging). Por lo que respecta al uso que hacen los niños de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación, las entrevistas muestran que está fuertemente regulada por sus progenitores y que la mayoría tiene actitudes negativas. Finalmente, los datos también muestran que la apropiación de la escritura japonesa que realizan los niños ocupa una parte importante del tiempo extraescolar, el cual está tutelado por las madres. Estas desarrollan varias iniciativas y propuestas (estancias en Japón, cursos de refuerzo, prácticas de ocio, juegos, etc.) para incrementar la exposición de sus hijos a la escritura japonesa y para crear situaciones auténticas de comunicación escrita en ese idioma.
Recientement la multiliteracitat ha despertat molt interès acadèmic. Tenint en compte la migració creixent, la globalització i l’increment de matrimonis entre persones procedents de cultures diverses, al 2017 hi havia 203 Hoshukos (o escoles japoneses a l’estranger) en 56 països, recolzades pel Ministeri d’Educació del Japó. Aquest estudi analitza les pràctiques lletrades plurialfabètiques d’11 nens que assisteixen a aquest tipus de centre educatiu, a Barcelona, a partir de l’anàlisi de les seves produccions escrites i de les entrevistes realitzades als seus progenitors i docents. Els textos escrits utilitzen castellà, català, anglès, francès i japonès i provenen de situacions didàctiques de l’aula o d’activitats privades realitzades a casa. Entre els resultats obtinguts, vam descobrir que escriure un diari (personal o d’aprenentatge), felicitacions de cap d’any i d’aniversari, cartes o redaccions són les pràctiques de producció escrita més habituals. Quant a les entrevistes realitzades al professorat, vam trobar que en aquesta mena d’escoles es limita l’ús a classe de les llengües que no siguin el japonès, evitant els fenòmens corrents de canvi d’idioma o d’aprofitament d’una altra llengua per a la producció textual (translanguaging). Pel que fa a l’ús que fan els nens de les tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació, les entrevistes mostren que està fortament regulada pels progenitors i que la majoria té actituds negatives. Finalment, les dades també mostren que l’apropiació de l’escriptura japonesa que fan els nois ocupa una part molt important del temps extraescolar, el qual està tutelada per les mares. Aquestes despleguen diverses iniciatives i propostes (estades al Japó, cursos de reforç, pràctiques d’oci, jocs, etc.) per incrementar l’exposició dels seus fills a l’escriptura japonesa i per crear situacions autèntiques de comunicació escrita en aquest idioma.

Cette thèse de doctorat porte sur la première crèche parentale bilingue anglais-français établie dans la ville de Strasbourg, France. En utilisant une approche ethnographique, cette recherche examine le lien qui existe entre la politique linguistique identifiée et les facteurs sociaux. La problématique de recherche a été formulée ainsi : comment fonctionne une structure éducative bilingue dédiée à la petite enfance du point de vue des politiques linguistiques, quelles sont les implications du choix de la politique une personne, une langue (UPUL) sur les pratiques des acteurs éducatifs et des familles au sein de la crèche en question, et quel est le lien entre le bilinguisme déclaré de la structure et le multilinguisme des familles ? Enfin l’étude des choix de langues dans un contexte tel que celui de la petite enfance apporte-t-elle une compréhension nouvelle de la notion de politique linguistique éducative ? De plus, cet effort de recherche vise à combler une lacune dans les études de LP qui, dans une certaine mesure, sont concentrées soit sur le cadre familial, soit sur le cadre de l’éducation formelle
This doctoral thesis focuses on the first parental English-French bilingual crèche established in the multilingual city of Strasbourg, France. Using an ethnographic approach, this research looks into the relationship of language policy with social factors. With the one person, one language (OPOL) policy as this ECEC setting’s identified language policy (LP), my aim is to understand its language policy processes. Primarily informed by Spolsky’s tripartite LP conceptualisation, I seek to analyse the following: the declared language policy or what the proponents say about how they manage languages; the perceived language policy or what they believe about OPOL; and the practiced language policy or what they do and how they implement the said LP. Moreover, following Johnson (2009), I also address the multilayered dimension of LP and look at the agents, goals, processes and discourses involved in the creation of this crèche. Moreover, this research endeavour aims to address a gap in LP studies that to a certain extent have focused on either family or formal educational settings

Magister Artium - MA
Terminology such as mother tongue, first language and second language remain prevalent in South African schools’ language policies. These monolingual terms seem out of place within our multilingual landscape (Banda, 2018). With the emergence of the concept of translanguaging (Garcia, 2009, 2014; Banda, 2018), the linguistic practices that people of the Western Cape (and elsewhere in South Africa) have now been legitimised as a useful communicative tool within multilingual spaces. Despite research showing the advantages of using translanguaging in classrooms to enhance comprehension (Banda, 2018), language policies remain monolingual in nature. By conducting research at two schools in Delft, Western Cape, I am able to show how learners and teachers defy the monolingual structure of the language policy, by translanguaging, to make learning and teaching more comprehensible. Using Heller’s (2007) concept of language as social practice, it becomes apparent how learners become social actors within the classroom, by languaging to make meaning. In addition to looking at classroom practices, I use supplementary data, an analysis of the school’s language policy, observations of and commentary on linguistic practices outside of the classroom, to further support the idea that school’s confinement of language is incongruous with the language practices in the area. Finally, I propose that translanguaging be legitimised as classroom practice and teaching materials also be adapted likewise, by producing trilingual posters, showing Afrikaans, English and isiXhosa terms, for the Western Cape.

À côté des études, en France, sur le plurilinguisme des familles de migrants et des travaux internationaux sur les politiques linguistiques familiales, cette thèse s’intéresse aux pratiques langagières intergénérationnelles de familles transnationales. Résidant en Ile de France, à Berlin ou à Antioche au Sud de la Turquie, où les membres les plus âgés sont nés, leur répertoire linguistique comprend l’arabe, le turc et le français ou l’allemand. À partir d’une ethnographie multi-sites auprès de 13 familles dont 100 membres ont été rencontrés, et d’analyses quantitative puis interactionnelle de quatre corpus recueillis dans deux familles à Paris et Berlin, les notions de language shift, de transmission ou d’agentivité sont notamment discutées. Dans un contexte où les participants présentent tous des profils différents et des ressources asymétriques dans les différentes langues, on observe l’utilisation de toutes les langues et en particulier de l’arabe dont la pratique est favorisée, pour les plus jeunes, par des phénomènes d’alignement aux choix linguistiques qu’ils initient dans l’interaction. Le turc se trouve pour sa part utilisé dans des prises de parole multilingues. Les reformulations, aides et traductions font ressortir le rôle prépondérant de la bienveillance entre les adultes et les plus jeunes pour favoriser la communication intergénérationnelle et, par là, l’utilisation des langues familiales.Cette thèse constitue une contribution à la description de pratiques langagières familiales, à l’approche de politiques linguistiques de familles transnationales, à la documentation de la variété d’arabe antiochien en interaction et à l’étude de corpus hétérogènes trilingues
Along with many French studies on migrant families’ multilingualism and international studies on family language policy, this thesis deals with intergenerational language practices within transnational families. The linguistic repertoire of these families living in Paris, Berlin or Antioch in South Turkey, where the oldest members were born, includes Arabic, Turkish, French or German. Drawing on a multisited ethnography with 13 families and 100 members interviewed, along with quantitative and interactional analysis of four corpora collected in two families in Paris and in Berlin, notions of language shift, transmission and agentivity are discussed. In this context where all the participants present different profiles and show varying resources in the languages used, we observe the use of all languages. Arabic is being used in particular by the youngest thanks to the phenomena of alignment by the oldest to the linguistic choices they initiate in the interaction. Turkish, in contrast, is more used in multilingual turns. The help of family members together with rewording and translating, fosters the role of goodwill between adults and the youngest family members, which enables the intergenerational communication and the use of heritage languages. This thesis is a contribution to the description of family language practices, approaches transnational families’ language policy, allows the documentation of Antiochian Arabic and contributes to the analysis of the trilingual heterogeneous corpora

Notre questionnement autour des politiques linguistiques familiales au sein des familles plurilingues vivant dans l’environnement multilingue et multiculturel luxembourgeois est motivé par le trilinguisme qui caractérise le Luxembourg, la forte mixité de la population, l’intérêt que suscite les questions linguistiques des enfants issus de l’immigration et scolarisés au Luxembourg ainsi que notre expérience personnelle avec les langues au quotidien. À cet effet, nous cherchons à comprendre comment les parents issus de divers socles linguistiques ou ayant la même langue d’origine communiquent entre eux avant la naissance des enfants et comment la naissance des enfants reconfigure les usages linguistiques familiaux. Entre autres, nous cherchons à comprendre les motivations des choix linguistiques parentaux, les stratégies de communication mises en place par les parents pour établir un climat de communication en famille et l’influence des enfants sur l’environnement linguistique familial. Pour ce faire, sur le plan méthodologique, en couplant les entretiens ethnographiques avec les enregistrements des conversations familiales, nous avons eu accès aux pratiques linguistiques déclarées et effectives de dix familles aux profils linguistiques très variés et dont la résidence des parents au Luxembourg varie entre sept et quarante-deux ans. La méthodologie de l’analyse de contenu nous a permis de comprendre que l’expérience migratoire de chaque parent, les conditions d’acquisition/d’apprentissage et d’utilisation des langues qu’offre l’environnement luxembourgeois et le désir de développer le capital linguistique des enfants sont certaines des raisons qui poussent les parents à adopter une attitude positive envers le plurilinguisme. Plus loin, nos résultats suggèrent que bien que les enfants ne participent pas activement aux prises des décisions sur les choix des langues à véhiculer en famille, ils exercent cependant une influence sur l’environnement linguistique familial. Dans la même lignée, nous avons découvert que dès les premiers contacts des enfants avec des langues autres que celles de la famille, ces enfants ont tendance à avoir une préférence pour les langues dominantes de l’extérieur. En outre, nos résultats suggèrent qu’il n’y a pas de stratégie de communication parentale standard pour la transmission des langues familiales, mais que dans chaque famille, en fonction des objectifs que les parents se sont fixés, ces derniers peuvent adopter diverses stratégies face aux usages linguistiques de leurs enfants. En somme, nos travaux ouvrent de nouvelles pistes de recherche en politiques linguistiques familiales dont la dimension éducative des enfants issus de l’immigration nous semble particulièrement importante
The importance of investigating the family language policies within multilingual families living in Luxembourg is primarily based the trilingualism that characterizes Luxembourg, the heterogeneity of its population, problems faced by immigrant children schooling in Luxembourg’s school and individual’s personal experience with everyday language use as well. Hence, this thesis’s aim is to investigate how parents from different linguistic backgrounds or having the same language of origin communicated with each other prior to the birth of their children and how the birth of these children reshapes the family language environment. Specifically, we aim to understand the parents’ motivations with regard to their language choices and the communication strategies they implement in order to establish a family communication environment. In addition, considering the effects of language contact, we focus on the school languages and their influence on the children’s language at home. In order to achieve this, from a methodological point of view, by combining ethnographic interviews with the recordings of a family conversation, we gained access to the declared and real linguistic practices of ten families with highly diverse linguistic profiles. These families reside between seven and forty-two years in Luxembourg. Further, content analysis was used to examine the migratory experience of each parent. Some of the major reasons why parents adopted a positive attitude towards multilingualism were (a) the language learning and use opportunities offered by Luxembourg and (b) the desire to develop the linguistic capital of their children. Our results later suggest that although children do not participate actively in the language use decision-making process they actively influence the family language environment. Because the languages they learn in school impact the ways in which they speak at home. Moreover, we discovered that once these children have contact with the officially recognised languages in Luxembourg, which might be different from that of the family, they tend to shift their preference towards these dominant languages. In addition, we discovered that there is no standard parental communication strategy for passing the family languages on to the children. Rather, depending on the parents' objectives, they can adopt different strategies. Overall, this thesis opens new perspectives for research that investigates the family language policies of multilingual families byhighlighting the relevance of educational dimensions of children with immigrant backgrounds
Die Relevanz der Untersuchung der Sprachenpolitik von mehrsprachigenFamilien im Großherzogtum Luxemburg gründet sich vor allem auf die vorhandene Dreisprachigkeit als einzigartiges Charakteristikum von Luxemburg, die gesellschaftliche Heterogenität, die schulischen Probleme von Kindern mit Migrationshintergrund, sowie auf die individuelle Sprachnutzung von Personen im Alltag. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es daher zu untersuchen in wie fern die Geburt eines Kindes und der Austausch mit den eigenen Kindern den Sprachgebrauch von Eltern mit unterschiedlichen Herkunftssprachen beeinflusst. Ein großes Interesse galt dabei insbesondere der Untersuchung der persönlichen Motive der Eltern bezüglich der Auswahl von Sprachen und der Entwicklung dazugehöriger familiärer Kommunikationsstrategien. Zusätzlich wurde der schulische Sprachkontakt der Kinder betrachtet sowie dessen Einfluss auf den Sprachgebrauch der Kinder zuhause untersucht. Die Kombination von ethnographischen Interviews und Tonaufzeichnungen von Gesprächen der Familien zuhause ermöglichte die Gegenüberstellung des explizit angegebenen und des tatsächlichen Sprachgebrauchs von zehn Familien mit äußerst vielfältigen Sprachprofilen. Zum Zeitpunkt der Untersuchung wohnten diese Familien zwischen sieben und 42 Jahre in Luxemburg. Darüber hinaus wurde eine qualitative Inhaltsanalyse durchgeführt, um die Migrationserfahrungen beider Elternteile genauer zu beleuchten. Die Hauptgründe, welche zu einer Entwicklung einer positiven Einstellung der Eltern gegenüber Mehrsprachigkeit geführt haben, waren demnach (a) das (eigene) Erlernen der Sprachen und die Möglichkeiten zum vielfältigen Einsatz dieser Sprachen in Luxemburg sowie (b) ihr Wunsch sich das sprachliche Repertoire ihrer Kinder anzueignen. Unsere Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass die Sprachen der Kinder, welche sie in der Schule gelernt haben einen Einfluss auf den familiären Sprachgebrauch haben, obwohl die Kinder keine aktive Rolle im Entscheidungsprozess bezüglich der familiären Sprachennutzung trugen. Des Weiteren konnte gezeigt werden, dass der Kontakt mit den offiziellen Sprachen in Luxemburgs Schulen dazu führte, dass Kinder eine Präferenz für diese dominanteren Sprachen entwickelten, selbst wenn die Familie eine andere Sprache spricht. Bezüglich des von denEltern initiierten Sprachenlernens konnten keine standardisierten Kommunikationsstrategien festgestellt werden. Vielmehr scheint es so, dass verschiedene Strategien in Abhängigkeit der individuellen Ziele der Eltern angepasst werden können. Insgesamt zeigt diese Arbeit neue Perspektiven zur Erforschung der familiären Sprachenpolitik in mehrsprachigen Familien auf, indem die Bedeutung der Bildungsinstitutionen in den Vordergrund gestellt wird

The dissertation Litteracitet genom interaktion [‘Literacy through Interaction’] spotlights how literacy interaction can work in the primary school’s multilinguistic environments. It investigates conversations that occur in and around teaching about writing. The study material was collected from three different schools from year zero to year three, and special focus is given to what I call literacy chains. These chains are connected by the fact that they all concern a writing assignment that every pupil must complete, which in my material involves the text types narrative, factual text and poem. During the teaching sequences that unfold, there is an interplay of literary events in connection with speech, writing and various artefacts. My main object of inquiry is the interaction that occurs in these literacy chains. The dissertation demonstrates that the teachers’ lessons with the class as a whole lead to fixed conversational patterns, with pupils asked questions that require specific responses. The conversations tend to form either a so-called IRE pattern, where the reader’s initiative for a question demands a given answer in response which is then evaluated by the teacher, or a list pattern, with the pupils filling in answers. In situations involving the whole class, persistent, determined pupils are needed to break into the teacher’s monologue. When persistence wins out, from the pupil’s perspective, pupils can contribute new aspects to these conversations. In small groups and in one-on-one conversations, there are more pupil initiatives, since conversational patterns are not as fixed or predetermined. One key finding is that multilinguistic resources are sometimes made use of even though the schoolwork is usually based on a single-language conversational norm. Yet it is clear that multilingualism is a useful resource regardless of the teacher’s language background. On several occasions, we encounter participants who together construct a multilinguistic environment where languages are interwoven. All three literacy chains provide pupils with clear templates for writing, which determine what the pupils are supposed to do. The writing template in the poem chain serves as support for their writing but is not a straitjacket. This can be compared to the template for the factual text, which includes a copy of the model text. The written language norm of writing properly is communicated in great detail by the teachers to the pupils. Writing properly is not just having good, legible handwriting, but in school the writing norms to be applied in writing assignments are made relevant. On a more general level, the study illustrates that material resources vary in the schools, from green chalkboards to classroom resources that include laptops. However, schoolwork is predicated on paper-based writing. There is built-in stress, since schoolwork is governed by time, with a schedule that determines learning activities down to the minute, with them ending at a precise time. There is a race against time.
Avhandlingen belyser hur litteracitetsinteraktion kan gå till i grundskolans flerspråkiga miljöer. Det handlar om samtal som uppstår i och kring skrivundervisning. Undersökningsmaterialet är insamlat från tre olika skolor inom skolår F-3, och i det materialet är det särskilt det som jag kallar litteracitetskedjor som uppmärksammas. Kedjorna hålls samman av att de berör en gemensam skrivuppgift, som i mitt material handlar om texttyperna berättelse, faktatext och dikt. I de undervisningsförlopp som uppstår samsas litteracitetshändelser knutna till tal, skrift och olika artefakter. Mitt huvudsakliga analysobjekt är interaktionen som uppstår inom litteracitetskedjorna. Avhandlingen visar att lärarnas genomgångar i helklass leder till fasta samtalsmönster genom att de ställer frågor till eleverna som kräver bestämda svar. Samtalen tenderar att bygga antingen på s.k. IRE-mönster, där läsarens frågeinitiativ pockar på ett givet svar som respons, vilket sedan evalueras av läraren, eller på ett listmönster, där elever fyller i svar. I helklassituationer krävs det envisa och målmedvetna elever för att bryta igenom lärarmonologen. Genom att trägen vinner, ur elevperspektiv, kan eleverna bidra med nya aspekter till samtalen. I smågrupper och samtal en mot en förekommer fler elevinitiativ, eftersom samtalsmönstren inte är så fasta och förutbestämda. Ett viktigt resultat är att flerspråkiga resurser ibland tas i bruk, även om skolarbetet oftast bygger på en enspråkig samtalsnorm. Men det är tydligt att flerspråkighet är en användbar resurs oavsett lärarens språkbakgrund. Vi möter vid några tillfällen deltagare som tillsammans konstruerar en flerspråkig miljö där språken flätas ihop. Alla tre litteracitetskedjorna erbjuder elever tydliga skrivmallar, vilket reglerar vad eleverna ska göra. Skrivmallen i diktkedjan fungerar som ett stöd för skrivandet, men ingen tvångströja. Att jämföra med faktatexten där det sker en avskrift av modelltexten. Skriftspråksnormen att skriva fint förmedlas nogsamt av lärarna till eleverna. Skriva fint är inte bara att ha en fin och läsduglig handstil, utan i skolan relevantgörs de normer för skrift som ska tillämpas i skrivuppgifter. På ett mer allmänt plan illustrerar undersökningen att materiella resurser varierar i skolorna från den gröna krittavlan till klassuppsättningar med laptoppar. Skolan stöder sig dock på en pappersbaserad skriftlighet. Det finns en inbyggd stress, för skolarbete är reglerat av tid. Skolan regleras av ett minutbundet tidsschema och de lärande aktiviteterna klipps av utifrån exakta klockslag. Det pågår en kapplöpning med tiden.

This doctoral thesis centres on six children, aged four to nine, who relatively recently immigrated to Sweden. The children’s encounters with literacy are in focus. These children are not only new arrivals to Sweden, they also have in common that Swedish is their second language and that their parents have had little or no formal education prior to arriving in Sweden. The study draws on sociocultural approaches to literacy, and more specifically the field of New Literacy Studies. In this study, reading and writing are viewed as social practices comprising different related sociocultural aspects such as norms, values, habits, traditions and ideologies, and the study concentrates on social and ideological perspectives on literacy. Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and symbolic capital have also been used for the analysis. The empirical material was collected through an ethnographic approach. Each child was followed for one year, particularly at school/preschool. The children’s homes were also visited, and their parents and teachers were interviewed. Observations involved different degrees of participation and were documented through field notes and photographs. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. In addition, artefacts and school material from the field were collected or photographed. A qualitative content analysis of the collected data was performed. The analysis show that sociocultural incongruence, coupled with flawed communication between the schools and the homes, caused the children less continuity between school and home practices. Though, the results also show, that the children studied to a considerable extent adapted to the monolingual, homogenous norms when they participated in school practices. These children are therefore highly adaptable, while their teachers found it much harder to handle or even be aware of sociocultural incongruences.
I denna avhandling studeras litteracitetspraktiker hos en grupp nyanlända barn i åldrar mellan fyra och tio år. Det specifika för barnen är att deras föräldrar inte har någon eller endast en kort skolbakgrund från ursprungslandet. Under ett års tid har barnen följts i förskolan eller skolan samt i hemmet. Deras föräldrar och lärare har också intervjuats. Avhandlingens syfte är att skapa förståelse för hur samspelet runt barnens språkande ter sig samt vilka förutsättningar och villkor som råder för detta samspel. Studien visar hur barnen skapar kontinuitet mellan hemmet och skolan, trots att deras tidigare erfarenheter och modersmål har en ytterst perifer plats i skolans och förskolans litteracitetspraktiker och trots att kommunikationen mellan skolan/förskolan och hemmet haltar. Barnen och deras föräldrar strävar efter att anpassa sig till de svenskspråkiga och monokulturella normer som skolans och förskolans litteracitetspraktiker vilar på. Avhandlingens bidrag är att öka kunskapen om hur nyanlända barn, och i synnerhet barn till föräldrar utan eller med endast kort skolbakgrund, bättre kan tas emot i skolan och förskolan.

Cette étude relève de la didactique des langues et s´inscrit dans la réflexion sur le plurilinguisme et l’acquisition d’une troisième langue. Plus particulièrement, cette étude examine le phénomène de l’activation d’une autre langue que celle attendue dans la production orale en français d’étudiants grecs suivant des cours dans le secteur LANSAD à l’Université d’Athènes. Nous avons envisagé le développement d’une troisième langue comme un processus émergentiste et la démarche adoptée dans notre travail suppose de se focaliser à sa dimension psycholinguistique. Dans le présent travail, nous tenterons de décrire un microcontexte, celui de l’acquisition du français comme troisième langue, auprès d’adultes apprenant cette langue dans un milieu guidé et hétéroglotte. Notre objectif est de décrire dans un premier temps le phénomène de l’activation d’une autre langue que celle attendue, tel qu’il se manifeste dans la production orale du discours en français L/C3, ainsi que l’activité métalinguistique chez les apprenants. Ensuite, la langue y est envisagée dans notre travail comme un ensemble de pratiques et de représentations.Nous avons réuni un corpus oral afin d’explorer l’activation du grec L/C1 et de l’anglais L/C 2, lors de la production orale en français L/C3 d’apprenants grecs. La recherche de terrain a été conduite en Grèce, au sein d’un établissement public d’enseignement supérieur, auprès d’étudiants suivant des cours de français à l’Université d’Athènes. Il s’agit d’une population plurilingue où le français constitue au moins la troisième langue : ils ont comme première langue le grec et ont déjà appris l’anglais, l’allemand et d’autres langues au cours de leur scolarisation
This study lies in the field of foreign language education, but it also refers to multilingualism and third language acquisition. In particular, this study examines the activation of another language in the speech production of greek-speaking learners of french as a foreign language. The study refers to ESP learners at university level. We postulate third language development as an emergent process and the approach adopted is focused in the psycholinguistique dimension. In this rechearch we are trying to describe a microcontext, this of the acquisition of French as a third language, whith adults learning the language in a guided and heteroglossic environment. Our goal is to describe the phenomenon of the activation of a language other than expected, manifested in oral speech production in French L/C3, as well as the metalinguistic activity that accompanies. Also, the language is considered in our work as a set of practices and representations. We have assembled an oral corpus to explore the activation of L/C1 Greek and English L / C 2 in the oral production of L/C3 French Greek learners. Field research was conducted in Greece, in a public institution of higher education, with students taking courses in French at the University of Athens. It is a multilingual population where French is at least the third language as their first language is Greek and they have learned English, German and other languages during their schooling

Cette thèse s’inscrit au sein de la recherche sur le plurilinguisme et l’acquisition d’une troisième langue et a pour vocation d’étudier les conditions d’émergence d’une compétence plurilingue, ses composantes et ses spécificités. Deux aspects caractérisent l’acquisition d’une troisième langue : la mise en place d’un réseau d’influences multidirectionnelles entre les systèmes linguistiques connus et l’existence des savoirs et d’un savoir-faire développés lors des apprentissages préalables. Notre étude s’articule autour de ces deux objets de recherche, l’objectif étant de décrire, d’une part, les phénomènes d’interaction interlinguistique dans la production du discours en espagnol L3 et, d’autre part, l’activité métalinguistique des apprenants, qui permet la mise en relation des langues en présence et qui est de nature à favoriser le processus acquisitionnel. L’enquête, conduite à l’Université de Technologie de Compiègne et à l’École Polytechnique auprès d’étudiants ingénieurs qui apprenaient l’espagnol dans le cadre de leur formation, cherche à relever des traces d’appui sur des ressources qui peuvent être associées à leur condition d’apprenants et de locuteurs plurilingues. Sur le plan des relations interlinguistiques, l’hypothèse que toutes les langues connues jouent un rôle dans la construction de compétences en L3 est explorée. L’analyse des stratégies d’appui ou de passage interlingual tourne autour des facteurs pouvant conditionner le recours à d’autres langues que la L1, tels que le degré de maîtrise, la distance perçue entre les langues et leur statut. Sur le plan métalinguistique, l’étude porte sur la capacité d’analyse des fonctionnements linguistiques et de contrôle des tâches langagières que l’on suppose élevée chez les apprenants plurilingues et qui peut constituer un atout pour l’appropriation d’une L3
Within the framework of multilingualism and third language acquisition research, this dissertation aims to describe the conditions for the emergence of a multilingual competence, its components and specific features. L3 acquisition is different from L2 acquisition in at least two ways: L3 acquisition is characterised by a network of multidirectional crosslinguistic interactions and the L3 learner possesses prior language knowledge and experience. These two areas of research constitute the backbone of our study, whose objective is to address crosslinguistic phenomena in speech production and the metalinguistic activity of L3 learners, which creates the conditions for the establishment of crosslinguistic comparisons thus favouring the acquisition process. Fieldwork has been conducted among engineering students who were learning Spanish as part of their degree programmes at the Université de Technologie de Compiègne and the École Polytechnique in France. Their speech production is analysed in order to identify the instances of reliance in multilingual resources. At the level of crosslinguistic interaction, our hypothesis is that all known languages play a role in the development of competences in Spanish L3. The analysis of crosslinguistic strategies is based on the factors that condition learners’ disposition to rely on non-native languages, such as proficiency, perceived linguistic distance and language status. At the metalinguistic level, the study focuses on the capacity to analyse linguistic knowledge and to monitor the language task that we assume to be higher in multilingual learners and that can become an asset in L3 learning

Traditionally, language policy (LP) has been conceptualised as a notion separate from that of practice. That is, language practices have usually been studied with a view to evaluate the extent to which a LP is (or is not) implemented (e.g. Martin, 2005; Johnson, 2009). Recently, however, Spolsky (2004, 2007, 2008a) has argued that policy and practice need not be seen as distinct and that, in fact, there is policy in language practices themselves (I use the term ‘practiced language policy’). Therefore, Spolsky’s claim represents a decisive development in the field of LP research. However, this proposal remains essentially programmatic since Spolsky does not indicate how practiced language policies can be investigated. The aim of this thesis is to address this methodological gap. The main claim of the thesis is that Conversation Analysis (CA) – a method specifically developed to describe conversational practices – can be used to investigate practiced language policies. In order to support this claim, a case study has been conducted on the language practices of an induction classroom for newly-arrived immigrant children in France. In the thesis, a broad view of CA is adopted, incorporating both sequential and categorisation analysis (Membership Categorisation Analysis). More specifically, I have used the conversation analytic approach to code-switching (as developed over the last few years by researchers such as Auer, 1984; Li Wei, 2002; Gafaranga, 2009; Bonacina and Gafaranga, 2010) and investigated a corpus of audio-recorded classroom interactions I collected in the above mentioned setting. Observation of these interactions revealed a number of “norms of interaction” (Hymes, 1972) the classroom participants orient to in order to go about the routine business of talking in an orderly fashion. For example, it was observed that each of the languages available can potentially be adopted as the “medium of classroom interaction” (Bonacina and Gafaranga, 2010) depending on who is doing being the language teacher. When no one is doing being the language teacher, it was observed, a key determinant of language choice is participants’ language preference. Finally, in the absence of any shared preferred language, French was adopted. The practiced language policy of this induction classroom consists of the set of such interactional norms. It is because CA can be used to discover and describe such interactional norms that this thesis claims it can be used to investigate practiced language policies in this induction classroom and in other settings as well. In summary, this thesis is primarily a contribution to the field of LP research. It starts from recent proposals in the field, especially by Spolsky (2004, 2007, 2008a), that there is policy in practices and shows how this programmatically formulated proposal can be implemented. More specifically the thesis shows that and how CA can be used to discover a practiced language policy. The research reported here has adopted a case study methodology, investigating language choice practices in a multilingual educational setting. It therefore contributes to the study of bilingual classroom talk, albeit indirectly. This is particularly the case as there has been very few, if any, studies of bilingual classroom talk which combine both sequential and categorisation analysis.

This study explores the emotional perceptions, language practices, and language experiences of Palestinian multilinguals in Palestine, and the more under-studied population in the diaspora - focusing on Arabic, English, and Hebrew. A total of 47 participants filled out the adapted Bilingual Emotional Questionnaire (Dewaele & Pavlenko, 2001-2003) in order to compare and contrast positive and negative emotional perception of participant reported languages via a Likert scale, and overall language practices and experiences via open-ended questions. Several independent sample t-tests were run by location of participants in order to determine significant differences in emotional perception, and a thematic analysis was run on selected open-ended responses in order to synthesize and better understand language practices and experiences. The findings of this study revealed that overall, there were very few differences between Palestinians in Palestine and in the diaspora with regard to emotional perception, and very similar categories revealed with regard to language practices and experiences. This study concludes with a call to further research the complexities of location regarding the reality of occupation and its impact regarding the role of languages.

Magister Artium - MA
The purpose of this study was two-fold: firstly, to do a multimodal analysis of the multilingual signage, advertisements and graffiti present on different surfaces in the main business hub of a multicultural community called Wesbank, situated in the Eastern Metropole of the city of Cape Town. Signage of this nature, taken together, constitute the „linguistic landscape‟ (Gorter, 2006) of a particular space. My analysis of the signage included interviews with a number of the producers of these signs which reveal why their signs are constructed in particular ways with particular languages. Secondly, I interviewed 20 mature women from the community in order to determine their level of understanding of these signs as well as whether the linguistic landscape of the township had an impact on their levels of literacy. The existing literacy levels of the women being surveyed as well as those of the producers of the signs were also taken into account. My main analytical tools were Multimodal Discourse Analysis (Kress, 2003), applied to the signage, and a Critical Discourse style of Analysis (Willig, 1999; Pienaar and Becker, 2007), applied to the focus group and individual analysis. Basic quantitative analysis was also applied to the quantifiable questionnaire data. The overriding motivation for the study was to determine the strategies used by the women to make sense of their linguistic landscape and to examine whether there was any transportation of literacy from the signage to these women so that they could function more effectively and agentively in their own environment. This study formed part of a larger NRF-funded research project entitled Township women’s discourses and literacy resources, led by my supervisor, Prof. C. Dyers. The study revealed the interesting finding that the majority of the vendors in Wesbank, especially in terms of house shops, hairdressers and fruit and vegetable stalls, are foreigners from other parts of Africa, who rely on English as a lingua franca to advertise their wares. The signage makers had clearly put some thought into the language skills of their multilingual target market in this township, and did their best to communicate with their potential customers through the complete visual image of their signs. The overall quality of the codes displayed on the signage also revealed much about the literacy levels in the township as well as language as a local practice (Pennycook 2010). While English predominated on the signs, at times one also found the addition of Afrikaans (especially in the case of religious signage) and isiXhosa (as in one very prominent advertisement by a dentist). The study further established that the female respondents in my study, as a result of their different literacy levels, made use of both images and codes on an item of signage to interpret the message conveyed successfully. Signage without accompanying images were often ignored, or interpreted with the help of others or by using one comprehensible word to work out the rest of the sign. As has been shown by another study in the larger research project, these women displayed creativity in making sense of their linguistic landscape. The study further revealed that, as a result of frequent exposure to some words and expressions in the linguistic landscape, some of the women had become familiar with these terms and had thereby expanded their degree of text literacy. In this way, the study has contributed to our understanding of the notion of portable literacy as explored by Dyers and Slemming (2011, forthcoming).

In South Africa, the medium-of-instruction (MOI) debate has continued to demand the attention of educators and academics, particularly after the promulgation of the 1997 multilingual language-in-education (LIE) policy and the introduction of the OBE-NCS curriculum in the schools. Using a survey questionnaire, classroom observations and focused interviews, this study aims at establishing how teachers in selected urban and rural high schools in the Mthatha District understand, interpret and implement MOI policies within their practice. It also seeks to establish reasons for implementing the MOI policies in the ways they do. The study utilizes Phillipson’s English Linguistic Imperialism Theory, Brock-Utne’s Qualification Analysis, and Vygotsky’s Social Constructivism to explain the findings. The main findings of the study are that MOI policies are not implemented uniformly in urban and rural contexts or within each context. Learner linguistic profiles, mismatch between a teacher’s home language (HL) and that of his/her learners, the subject being offered, the need to promote understanding of content, teachers’ understandings, misconceptions and beliefs about the role of language in education: all these were found to be factors which may influence a teacher’s language choice during lesson delivery. Generally, teachers endorse the use of English as a language of learning and teaching (LOLT) at high school, together with the learners’ HL. Although some teachers believe that they use English mainly for teaching, indigenous languages are also used extensively, especially in rural and township schools; code-switching, code-mixing, translation, repetition, and township lingo all make the curriculum more accessible to learners. The anomaly is that assessments are conducted only in English, even in contexts in which teaching has been mainly in code-switching mode. An English-only policy was employed in the following situations: in a desegregated urban school; in a rural high school where there was a mismatch between the teacher’s HL and that of his learners; and also in a rural high school where English was offered as a subject. The most cited reasons for using English only as an LOLT were: school language policy, teachers seeing themselves as language role models, the use of English as a LOLT at tertiary level, and past teacher training experiences. The study concludes that the major factors influencing school language policies in a multilingual country such as South Africa are the school context and the teacher and learner profiles. In addition, teaching and assessing learners in languages with which they are familiar, as well as using interactive teaching strategies, would develop learner proficiency, adaptability and creative qualifications, resulting in an improved quality of education.
Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011.
Education Management and Policy Studies
unrestricted

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study examines the language policy and implementation outside and inside the classroom in a multilingual and multicultural international school. Specifically, it aims at giving an insight into how linguistic and cultural diversity is managed at Windhoek International School (WIS). It takes a specific interest in the kinds of language policy that determine which languages are used in education in a context where both teachers and learners are L1 speakers of a considerable number of different languages. The participants in this study are multilingual learners and teachers of WIS. The study uses data from the school records, a questionnaire, interviews and observation. The analysis of the data is descriptive, interpretive and explanatory. The findings of the study are that the language policy at WIS is articulated in such a manner that it encourages monolingual norms although the school’s community is multilingual. English is the MoI, used in official communication across the school and also as a language of communication with the school’s stakeholders. Other European languages, namely- French, German and Portuguese are officially taught as modern foreign languages. Significantly, none of the local Namibian languages are taught in the school. However, the school does not bar its learners and teachers from using their LotE especially outside of the classroom. The study also shows that the language ecology at WIS demonstrates a situation of polyglossia where English is on top of the language hierarchy. From the findings, it is suggested that since WIS recognises the multilingual and multicultural composition of its learners and teachers, its whole school policy should be looked at again to reflect current thinking in language-in-education policy. The policy should place emphasis on dynamic bilingualism by supporting and encouraging the teaching and learning of LotE, including local indigenous languages, as a means of scaffolding and as a means of bridging knowledge development in the school. However, for purposes of examination, the school should place emphasis on the extensive use of English to enable its learners to meet the requirements of external examiners.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie bestudeer die taalbeleid en implementering daarvan binne en buite klaskamerverband, by ‘n veeltalige en multikulturele internasionale skool. Spesifiek, is die doel om insae te gee in hoe talige en kulturele diversiteit by Windhoek Internasionale Skool (WIS) hanteer word. Dit stel belang in die verskillende soorte taalbeleid wat bepaal watter tale in onderrig en leer gebruik word in ‘n konteks waar sowel die onderwysers as die leerders eerstetaalsprekers is van ‘n aansienlike aantal verskillende tale. Die deelnemers in hierdie studie is veeltalige leerders en onderwysers aan die WIS. Die studie gebruik data wat bekom is uit skoolrekords, vraelyste, onderhoude en deur waarneming. Die analise van die data word gedoen in die vorm van beskrywing, interpretasie en verduideliking. Die bevindinge van die studie hou in dat die taalbeleid aan die WIS so geartikuleer is dat dit eentalige norme ondersteun, alhoewel die gemeenskap wat deur die skool bedien word, veeltalig is. Engels is die medium van onderrig (MvO/MoI) aan die skool, word in amptelike kommunikasie binne die skool gebruik, en is ook die kommunikasietaal by alle belanghebbendes van die skool (ouers, borge, ens.). Ander Europese tale, naamlik Frans, Duits en Portugees, word as moderne vreemde tale binne die skool se leerplan aangebied. Heel opvallend, word geeneen van die plaaslike Namibiese tale in die skool aangebied nie. Ten spyte van hierdie taalreëlings word leerders en onderwysers van die skool nie beperk in die gebruik van ander tale as Engels (LotEs) nie, veral buite die klaskamers. Die studie toon aan dat die taalomgewing by WIS tekenend is van ‘n sg. poliglossiese gemeenskap waar Engels in die taalhiërargie bo-aan te staan kom. Die bevindinge suggereer dat die WIS, in die lig van hulle erkenning van die veeltalige en multikulturele samestelling van die leerders en onderwysers, sy skoolbeleid in die geheel behoort te heroorweeg, sodat dit belyn word met die mees resente denke oor taal-in-onderrig-beleid. Die beleid behoort op dinamiese tweetaligheid klem te lê deur die onderrig en leer van ander tale as Engels (LotEs), ook plaaslike inheemse tale, aan te moedig en te ondersteun. Dit moet so gedoen word dat dit as “steierwerk”kan dien in die oorbrugging wat nodig is vir leer deur medium van ‘n tweede of vreemde taal. Daarbenewens word aanbeveel dat die skool vir eksamineringsdoeleindes aandag skenk aan die uitgebreide gebruik van Engels, sodat leerders in staat is om aan die vereistes wat eksterne eksaminatore stel, te beantwoord.

This study aims to gain a broader view, within the frame of a comparative international perspective, of the relationship and dilemmas between the theoretical visions of the curriculum and their applicability in practice by mother tongue teachers within the current organizational structures and given resources. The research uses a qualitative and comparative method and semi-structured interviews of ten mother tongue teachers, five Chinese Mandarin and five Spanish, teaching Compulsory School level 7 to 9 in Sweden. The interviews and dialogues with the teachers make it possible to see phenomenon from many different perspectives and build knowledge after the interpretation and exploration of their testimonies and experiences. The study is comparative and one can see that there are more similarities than differences among the interviewed Spanish and Chinese mother tongue teachers. Both groups defined MTE (Mothet Tongue Education) as essential in the lives of children and youths and mention aspects such as intellectual development, identity, and interculturalism linked to the labour market. Also the feeling of a sense of community with other cultures in the world would empower the students with a capacity for social relationships, tolerance, and understanding of different peoples. Thereafter I investigate if the mother tongue teachers find it difficult to interpret and implement the formulations of the SNAE (Swedish National Agency for Education) curriculum and the policies that govern their specific role in the school system. It also implies identifying some of the external, contextual factors that can affect the effective application of the curriculum. Concerning the curricular aspects, the conclusion is that many of the visions described in the texts are not compatible with the situation of mother tongue teaching or to the reality of the students. Organizational factors, incomprehension and lack of platform-based research affect negatively the ambitions of effective and equitable MTE in Sweden. In addition, these teachers are also preoccupied with the future of MTE in Sweden. The political discourse would appear to be driving Europe towards right-wing political ideas in which MTE would not be a priority.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze teachers approach to multilingual children's behavior in certain situations. I will also explore the educator’s attitude and approach toward the situation where children who are excluded by other peers, because of the peers use of divergent language. I choose qualitative interview as method, interviewing seven teachers working at pre-schools, with chosen choice I expect to gain insight into the teacher's reasoning behind their approach and strategy towards situations where children use other language than Swedish. The results shed light on several interesting factors that determined how the educator responded to the forth mentioned situation. The general perception at pre-schools is that multilingual children should be given space to use their native tongue, as this flourishes their language developments. We can also find basis for this when reading the official pre-school steering documents, the Swedish curriculum, Läroplanen. What this document lack though is presenting solutions how the educators can work constructively with the children. It's rather encouraged for each school to discuss their own methods and approaches as a team. My conclusion is that there is no blue print to follow for solving these situations, the educator's conduct and strategy is based on individual experience and situational. But a common thread that emerged in my research is that all educators expressed the importance to acknowledge all children and involve them in the activities regardless of language, it is the teacher’s duty to support and to be present as the children will need pedagogical support in this matter. Not to forget though, that teachers are frequently faced with situations where they have to decide whose rights to prioritize; the single child who ends up alone outside the peers group and lose his/her entitlement based on the norm "everyone should be involved" or the playing children who is doing nothing but employing their rights to speak in their mother language?

In recent years, some of the research within the field of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) seems to have gone through a re-orientation, shifting focus from form to practice. This has highlighted the dynamic nature of languages and identities performed in interaction, leading to the conceptualization of ‘English as a multi-lingua franca’, which refers to placing emphasis on multilingualism in ELF interactions. While much of ELF research has favored in-person spoken interaction, the increasing presence of electronically mediated intercultural communication (EMIC) in society encourages a consideration of online communication as a setting for ELF usage. Online interactions veer between written and spoken communication, thus providing many ways for speakers to express their linguistic identities and show ownership of the language produced. As such, in this paper a temporary multilingual social configuration was observed with regards to participants’ linguistic behavior. Six participants were asked to engage in discussion throughout one week in an online group chat, with the aim of acquiring further insight into how linguistic identity is performed in relation to language ownership and linguistic innovation by ELF speakers within the context of an online environment. The EMIC data was supported by individual interviews that took place prior to the group discussion, and follow-up interviews after the chat had ended. Through a qualitative thematic analysis, the research questions were discussed in relation to the three main focal issues of the study, i.e., linguistic identity, language ownership and linguistic innovation. The findings are in line with recent research that indicate that ELF is a multilingual practice that is shaped by its speakers, as well as the specific context of the interaction.

Notre recherche relève de la didactique des langues et s´inscrit dans la réflexion sur le plurilinguisme et l’acquisition des langues. Cette étude examine le processus d’activation partielle d’une langue autre que la langue cible pendant l’apprentissage des langues. Notre étude a été conduite dans deux établissements scolaires au Liban auprès des apprenantes des classes d’EB7, possédant un répertoire langagier plurilingue et ayant appris la diglossie arabe comme l’arabe (dans une version dialectale à la maison et standard à l’école) comme L1 et la langue française comme L2 et l’anglais comme L3. Lors de leur apprentissage et production du français L2 et de l’anglais L3, ils mettent en œuvre leur compétence plurilingue à travers l’activation partielle de leur potentiel plurilingue. Nous allons montrer quelles sont les processus cognitifs qui entrent en jeu lors de l’apprentissage de la nouvelle langue l’anglais L3. Ainsi que les facteurs qui conditionnent l’activation des langues connues par les apprenantes et à quel niveau linguistique se réalise le plus fréquemment l’activation partielle de la langue autre langue que la langue cible
Our research comes from the didactics of languages and is part of the reflection on plurilingualism and the acquisition of languages. This study examines the process of partial activation of a language other than the target language during language learning.Our study was carried out in two schools in Lebanon with students of EB7 classes, having a multilingual language repertoire and having learned the Arabic diglossic language as L1 and the French language as L2 and English as L3.During their apprenticeship and production of the French L2 and the English L3, they apply their plurilingual competence through the partial activation of their plurilingual potential.We will show what are the cognitive processes that come into play when learning the new L3 English language. As well as the factors that condition the activation of the languages known by the learners, and at which linguistic level, is most frequently realised, the partial activation of the language other than the target language

En dépit du rôle crucial qu’elles peuvent jouer dans les appropriations de langues et de cultures, les pratiques culturelles plurilingues restent peu documentées. Cette thèse en didactique des langues et des cultures étudie les pratiques plurilingues de lecture de livres d’adultes vivant en Europe de l’Ouest. Elle recourt également à des données et des outils relevant de la sociolinguistique, la sociologie, la littérature, l’histoire et l’anthropologie. Elle s’appuie sur des entretiens menés avec des lecteurs et des observateurs résidant en Catalogne, en Île-de-France, au Pays basque français et en Suisse romande, ainsi que des questionnaires remplis par des apprenants de français langue étrangère dans une université parisienne.Cette exploration des pratiques de lecture en plusieurs langues met au jour la continuité des pratiques plurilittéraciées au fil de l’histoire, mais aussi les impacts de la mondialisation, dans sa forme actuelle, sur l’incessante construction des répertoires individuels. Elle montre l’importance des rapports de force linguistiques et culturels dans les usages de l’écrit. L’analyse des finalités, supports et modalités des lectures déclarées, sans oublier leurs dimensions affectives et identitaires, fait ressortir l’hétérogénéité et la variabilité des pratiques culturelles plurilingues. Les propositions pédagogiques et théoriques qui en découlent encouragent une plus grande adaptation des activités de lecture en classe de langue-s aux réalités des pratiques autonomes, ainsi qu’une meilleure prise en compte, dans les recherches didactiques, de la complexité des plurilinguismes et des pluriculturalismes individuels
Despite their key role in language acquisition and learning, little is known about plurilingual cultural practices outside the educational context. This PhD research in Applied Linguistics investigates the plurilingual book-reading practices of adults living in Western Europe. This work uses data, theoretical and methodological constructs from Language Education, Sociology, Literature, History and Anthropology. The study is based on in-depth interviews of readers and observers carried out in Catalonia, Ile-de-France, French Basque Country and Western Switzerland, and questionnaires collected from foreign university students in Paris. This exploration of reading habits in several languages reveals the continuity of pluriliteracy practices throughout History, but also the impacts of globalization –in its current form– on individuals’ linguistic and cultural repertoires. It shows the influence of power relations between cultures and between languages on the literacy uses. The analysis of the aims, circumstances and materials of reading practices, as well as of their emotional and identity issues, highlights the heterogeneity and variability of plurilingual cultural practices. The resulting pedagogical and theoretical recommendations support a greater adaptation of classroom reading activities to the realities of autonomous practices, and a better consideration of the complexity of individual plurilingualism and pluriculturalism in language learning studies
A pesar de su papel en las apropiaciones de lenguas y culturas, las prácticas culturales plurilingües están poco documentadas. Esta tesis doctoral en didáctica de las lenguas y culturas estudia los hábitos plurilingües de lectura de libros de adultos que viven en Europa occidental. Utiliza datos y herramientas metodológicas de varias disciplinas, como la sociología, la sociolingüística, la literatura, la historia y la antropología. Se basa en entrevistas con lectores y observadores realizadas en Cataluña, Île-de-France, País Vasco francés, Suiza romanda, y cuestionarios completados por estudiantes de francés como lengua extranjera en una universidad parisiense. Esta investigación arroja luz sobre la continuidad de la prácticas de literacidad plurilingües a lo largo de la Historia, así como sobre los efectos de la globalización, en su forma actual, en la construcción continua de los repertorios individuales. Muestra también la influencia de las relaciones de poder lingüísticas y culturales en los hábitos de lectura. El análisis de las finalidades, los soportes y las modalidades de las lecturas declaradas –sin olvidar sus dimensiones afectivas e identitarias– destaca la heterogeneidad y la variabilidad de las prácticas culturales en varios idiomas. Las propuestas pedagógicas y teóricas consiguientes animan a adecuar más las actividades de lectura en clase de idioma-s a las realidades de las prácticas autónomas, y a tener más en cuenta, en los estudios de didáctica, la complejidad de los plurilingüismos y pluriculturalismos individuales

Studiens syfte är att bidra med kunskap om några grundskollärares och en specialpedagogs upplevelser av och syn på språk- och kunskapsutvecklande arbetssätt med särskilt fokus på transspråkande förhållningssätt. Studiens syfte är också att bidra med kunskap om speciallärarens roll i arbetet med att främja transspråkande i undervisningen för elever i behov av språkligt stöd. De teoretiska ramarna för studien utgörs av sociokulturella perspektiv och interkulturellt pedagogiskt perspektiv. Studiens ansats är kvalitativ och studiens data samlades in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Utifrån lärarnas beskrivningar synliggörs såväl fördelar som utmaningar med transspråkande förhållningssätt i undervisningen. Den enskilt mest framträdande framgångsfaktorn för att transspråkande undervisning kan ske är enligt studiens resultat lärarens förhållningssätt och positiva inställning till alla språk. Resultatet visar vidare att transspråkande förhållningssätt i undervisning kan vara ett sätt att förebygga diskriminering och främlingsfientlighet. Studiens specialpedagogiska relevans synliggörs genom att studien visar att specialläraren kan vara en resurs i att utforma stöttande undervisning för flerspråkiga elever samt i att utbilda och informera lärare kring transspråkande.
The purpose of the study is to contribute with knowledge of some teachers' and a special educator's experiences of and views on language and knowledge development working methods with a special focus on translanguaging approaches. The purpose of the study is also to contribute with knowledge about the role of the special needs teacher in the work of promoting translanguaging in teaching for students in need of language support. The theoretical framework for the study consists of socio-cultural perspectives and intercultural pedagogical perspectives. The study approach is qualitative and the study data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Based on the teachers' descriptions, both advantages and challenges with translanguage approaches in teaching are made visible. According to the results of the study, the single most prominent success factor for translanguaging teaching to take place is the teacher's positive attitude towards all languages. The results also show that translanguaging approaches in teaching can be a way to prevent discrimination and xenophobia. The study's special pedagogical relevance is made visible by the fact that the study shows that the special needs teacher can be a resource in designing supportive teaching for multilingual students and in educating and informing teachers about translanguaging.

__Les réflexions sur le FLE en Angola sont envisagées dans le cadre historique, sociolinguistique et pédagogique. Elle a pour objectif la mise en place d’un dispositif du FLE niveau A1 vers A2 et B1 vers B2 en vue d’aider les enseignants du FLE qui se trouvent en difficultés d’améliorer leurs pratiques et aux étudiants de mieux s’approprier le FLE.La recherche porte sur une problématique spécifique qui est les difficultés langagières des étudiants en FLE qui nous interpelle et nous nous sommes posés les questions suivantes : dans quelle mesure les difficultés langagières des étudiants seraient en lien avec les difficultés des enseignants peu formés pour enseigner le français langue étrangère.Qui enseigne ? Quelle est sa formation ? Comment enseigne-t-il ? À qui enseignent-ils ?Les réponses à ces questions ont nécessité l’élucidation des plusieurs concepts. Ce travail a privilégié une approche comparative avec des vidéographies de classe et des entretiens. Nous avons décrit les activités de classe en nous intéressant à la fois à la circulation des savoirs et surtout à l’analyse des gestes professionnels des professeurs de nos institutions universitaires. Ainsi, deux types d’analyse ont été privilégiés à savoir linguistique et didactique.La thèse a vérifié l’hypothèse selon laquelle la didactique du français langue étrangère permet d’élaborer des savoirs linguistiques et culturels adaptés au contexte angolais, de pallier les difficultés dans l’activité enseignante et de faire des apprenants les acteurs de leur propre apprentissage. ________________________________________ ______________________________________
French as a Foreign Language (with the French acronym FLE) in Angola is first considered in its historical, socio-linguistic and pedagogic contexts. This thesis focuses on teaching methods with the objective of proposing a teaching strategy for FLE from level A1 to A2 and from B1 to B2. The aim is to assist those FLE teachers who find themselves in difficulty to improve their practice as well as to increase students’ mastery of FLE. The research centres on the specific problem which is the language difficulties of the poor results that students achieve in FLE, which is a cause for concern and has led to the following questions: to what extent the language difficulties of students would be linked to the difficulties of teachers who are poorly trained to teach French as a foreign language? Who are the teachers? What training have they received? How do they teach? Whom do they teach to? The answers to these questions have required the clarification of linguistic concepts and different aspects within linguistics. This study has adopted a comparative approach using video recordings of classes and interviews. We have described classroom activities with a focus on the exchange of knowledge and in particular on an analysis of the professional practice of teaching staff in our university institutions. Two types of analysis have thus been undertaken: linguistic and pedagogic. The results confirm the hypothesis that the approach adopted in teaching French as a Foreign Language allows the acquisition of linguistic and cultural knowledge appropriate to the Angolan context, overcomes difficulties faced by teachers and enables learners to take an active role in the own learning

The development of language and communication skills in young children is directly related to future academic success. Young children who are at risk for language impairment should, therefore, be identified as early as possible so that their language development may be optimised. Multilingualism, which has become a universal phenomenon, may mask the presence of language impairment if the pre-school teacher or speech-language therapist is not proficient in the young multilingual learner’s primary language. In some urban areas of South Africa, where many languages are represented in each pre-school classroom, it is likely that the teacher or therapist will lack proficiency in the primary language of quite a number of the pre-school learners. In these contexts, the language of mutual understanding is English and assessment of learners’ language behaviour will also be conducted in English. Against this background the aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of constructing a profile of typical English language behaviours for pre-school EAL learners in a circumscribed urban area. The profile is intended to provide speech-language therapists and pre-school teachers in collaborative practice with a dual-purpose tool: an instrument for identifying those learners who are at risk for language impairment/language learning disabilities, and a means of obtaining guidelines for the development of an appropriate programme for facilitating language development. The literature study reviewed the language diversity in South African pre-schools, and the role of speech-language therapists in these multilingual pre-schools. The aspects of language to be included in a profile of typical English language behaviours for young EAL learners were discussed. A quantitative descriptive research design was selected. The language database for 30 EAL pre-schoolers from a circumscribed geographical area was collected during 20 minutes of conversation between each pre-school participant and a trained speech-language therapist who acted as research fieldworker. The language data was analysed to identify typical language behaviours relating to language form, language content and language use. The results show that it was possible to construct a profile of typical English language behaviours for nine aspects of language form, one aspect of language content, and six aspects of language use. The information was used to construct two versions of a profile of typical English language behaviours, as well as a profile of risk indicators for language impairment in the specified group of EAL pre-schoolers. An action plan was designed to indicate the way in which these three profiles – the comprehensive profile, the essential classroom profile, and the profile of risk indicators – may be used by the collaborative team of speech-language therapist and pre-school teacher for language assessment, the identification of learners with language impairment, and the facilitation of language development for all EAL learners.
Thesis (DPhil (Communication Pathology))--University of Pretoria, 2007.
Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
Unrestricted

Das Schulregister des Kultusministeriums MIUR verzeichnet, dass mehr als jede/r zehnte aller Schüler/innen in Italien keine italienische Staatsbürgerschaft hat, obwohl sie mehrheitlich dort geboren wurden. Zahlreiche Erhebungen weisen für sie im Vergleich zu den italienischen Mitschülern/innen geringere Italienischkenntnisse und weniger schulischen Erfolg auf. Innerhalb dieser explorativen Feldforschung haben Einzelinterviews mit 121 Schülern/innen (5.-8. Klasse) in Turiner Schulen und mit 26 Eltern, sowie die Auswertung von 141 an 27 Italienisch- und Herkunftsprachlehrer/innen verteilten Fragebögen ergeben, dass viele Schüler/innen "zweisprachige Natives" sind, da sie mit Italienisch und einer anderen Sprache aufwachsen. Dieser Polyglottismus, den die Interviewten sehr positiv bewerteten, findet jedoch in der Schulpraxis keine Entsprechung: Gezielte Förderung im Italienischen und der Unterricht der Familiensprache sind meist Wunschdenken. In der Kohorte haben die Schüler/innen mit den besten Italienischkenntnissen einen italophonen Elternteil bzw. kamen im Vorschulalter nach Italien und besuchten dort den Kindergarten. Dagegen sind, wie auch bei den INVALSI-Tests, die in Italien geborenen und die dann die Krippe besuchten, leicht benachteiligt. Was die Familiensprache angeht, verbessert ihr Erlernen die Kompetenzen darin, ohne dem Italienischen zu schaden: Im Gegenteil. Diese Ergebnisse bestätigen die wichtige Rolle der "anderen" Sprache für einen gelungen Spracherwerb. Das MIUR sollte also sein Schulregister mit Sprachdaten ergänzen, um die Curricula im Sinn der EU-Vorgaben umzuschreiben und den sprachlich heterogenen Klassen gezielte Ressourcen und definierte Vorgehensweisen zur Verfügung zu stellen. Mit geringeren Mitteln, im Vergleich zu den jetzigen Kosten für Herunterstufung, Klassenwiederholung und Schulabbruch würde man Schulerfolg, Chancengerechtigkeit und Mehrsprachigkeit fördern, mit positiven Folgen für den Einzelnen sowie für die Volkswirtschaft.
The Italian Ministry of Education (MIUR) student register records that today in Italy more than one out of ten students is not an Italian citizen, although the majority of them were born there. Several statistical surveys indicate that "foreign" students, when compared to native students, show a poorer performance in Italian and in academic achievement. This exploratory fieldwork carried out in schools in Turin (5th to 8th grade) analyzed data obtained through semi-structured interviews with 121 students and 26 parents as well as 141 questionnaires filled in by 27 teachers of Italian and family language. It showed that many students are "bilingual natives", as they grow up acquiring both Italian and another language; however, despite the fact that the interviewees rate polyglottism positively, schools don't usually offer targeted support in either language. Within the cohort the broadest range of competences in Italian are found first among those with an Italian-speaking parent, then among those who arrived in Italy at pre-school age attending kindergarten there; this latter group shows higher competences than those born in Italy attending nursery there, as also in the INVALSI tests. As far as family language is concerned, data illustrate that its teaching increases its competences without affecting those in Italian: quite the opposite in fact. These results confirm the remarkable role played by the "other" language in successful language education. MIUR is therefore called upon to include also linguistic data in its student register, so as to redefine its curricula according to EU Guidelines, and to identify specific procedures and resources for multilingual classes. This new policy would reduce the current cost of placing students in a lower grade, grade retention and drop-outs, and would promote school success, equal opportunities and multilingualism, with positive consequences both for the individuals and for the national economy.
L'anagrafe studenti del MIUR registra come oggi in Italia più di uno studente su dieci non è cittadino italiano, pur essendo la maggioranza di loro nata in questo paese. Numerose indagini statistiche mostrano come gli allievi "stranieri" presentino, rispetto a quelli italiani, ridotte competenze in italiano e minore successo scolastico. Questa ricerca esplorativa svolta in alcune scuole di Torino (V elementare-III media) ha analizzato dati ottenuti tramite interviste semi-strutturate a 121 studenti e 26 genitori e 141 questionari compilati da 27 insegnanti di italiano e di lingua di famiglia. Da essa è emerso che molti studenti sono "nativi bilingui", poiché crescono usando l'italiano e un'altra lingua. Questo poliglottismo, valutato dagli intervistati assai positivamente, non si rispecchia però nella prassi scolastica: un supporto mirato in italiano e l'insegnamento della lingua di famiglia sono di regola una chimera. All'interno del campione le più ampie competenze in italiano si trovano fra chi ha un genitore italofono e chi è arrivato in Italia in età prescolare frequentandovi la scuola materna; come constatato anche nei test INVALSI, chi è nato in Italia e vi ha frequentato l'asilo nido è leggermente svantaggiato. Rispetto alla lingua di famiglia risulta che il suo studio porta a migliori competenze in essa, senza nuocere all'italiano: anzi. Emerge quindi il ruolo significativo della lingua "altra" per un'educazione linguistica efficace. L'invito al MIUR è quindi di integrare la propria anagrafe con dati linguistici, così da ridefinire i propri curricula secondo le Linee Guida Comunitarie, individuando procedure e risorse specifiche per le classi multilingui. Con un investimento ridotto, paragonato con il costo attuale dato da retrocessioni, ripetenze e abbandono scolastico, si riuscirebbe a sostenere il successo scolastico, le pari opportunità e il plurilinguismo, con conseguenze positive per i singoli e per l'economia nazionale.

In the Rwandan multilingual context, an overwhelmingly dominant language of everyday communication (viz.: Kinyarwanda) is vying for space on the national linguistic market with three co-official languages. Of these, two (viz.: English and French) are influential internationally and one (viz.: Kiswahili) is influential regionally. This is a rather unique context of language use; and the present study set out to examine how “Translanguaging” as a teaching/learning strategy is likely to foster subject content learning and language competence development at the secondary school level. In this endeavor, the study specifically aimed (1) to describe the nature of Translanguaging as actually practiced in this particular context; (2) to ascertain the way in which it enhances subject content learning; and (3) to determine how it is likely to improve students’ language competence. The following findings were thus reached. With regard to the nature of Translanguaging; the study found that the aspects of the practice referred to as “Integrated Use of Languages” and “Centre Stage to Home Language” were extensively and usefully harnessed, especially through English-Kinyarwanda/KinyarwandaEnglish codeswitching. At the same time, however, the study found that a most important aspect of Translanguaging, the “Integrated Language Use Planning and Activity Structuring” was not observed, and this represents an crucial defect in the practice. As concerns the way in which Translanguaging facilitates Subject Content Learning, the study found that knowledge is effectively delivered and accessed, even though appropriate expression of that knowledge in the academic context is likely to be a big challenge. Finally with respect to how Translanguaging enhances Language Competence Development, the study found that; of all the “linguistic varieties (Franceschini 2011)” most likely to be used in the context under study; only one (viz.: Kinyarwanda-English codeswitching) is sure to develop rapidly, whereas the other varieties (English, French, Kiswahili, and Kinyarwanda) are likely to be learnt and/or developed moderately, owing mainly to the above mentioned “Integrated Language Use Planning” defect. Overall, it has appeared from the present study that; to a certain extent; it is good for secondary school education that teachers and students have intuitively adopted “multilingual practices” as a teaching/learning strategy. However, it would be highly recommended that the practice be consciously planned and systematically monitored and evaluated. Only in that way, it is suggested, multilingual practices can be fully and beneficially harnessed for concomitant advancement of subject content learning and language competence development
MT 2019

This research report engages with the concern that African learners attending English medium, multiracial schools are losing their proficiency in African languages. In so doing, the report explores the language practices of four multilingual Grade 9 learners at a desegregated private high school in Gauteng. In a school environment that does not overtly support the use of African languages, I explore the extent to which multilingual learners use African languages in the school context, to position themselves and others, as an identity building resource, and the extent to which the use of African languages is implicated in their identities. I also explore the possible influence of the learners’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds on their language practices, and related to this, the expression of their identities. I look at how their language practices help them shift identities with space and purpose, and the contradictions therein. The study draws on poststructuralist theories of language and identity (Weedon, 1997; Zegeye, 2001), in considering how language constitutes identity (Pennycook, 2004) and self and other ‘positioning’ (Davies and Harre`, 1990) It also draws on Bourdieu’s (1991) theorizing of language and power and language as a form of cultural capital. I draw on two traditions in qualitative research: case study and ethnography. In my analysis of the data, I argue that both African languages and English are important in learners’ identities. I indicate that through their language practices, the learners continue to position themselves in multiple and contradictory identities that continue to shift with context. I also argue that the learners’ proficiency in English has not led to them losing proficiency in their home languages, which are retained and used as a primary marker of ethnic identities and for ideas of ethnic purity. This purity is in turn not constructed in a staidly ‘traditional’ manner, but negotiated through joking and verbal competition. Notions of ethnic purity are also often discursively constructed through the use of English, illustrating the contradictory nature of identities. I also point out that some learners protected apartheid constructed ethnic compartmentalization by setting boundaries of belonging. I point to language being a site of struggle for power and contestation in an effort by the learners to resist linguistic assimilation.

abstract: ABSTRACT This study examines the language and literacy experiences of Kurdish minority children during their first year of mainstream schooling in a southeastern village in Turkey. I employed ethnographic research methods (participant observation, multi-modal data collection, interviewing, and focus groups) to investigate the language practices of the children in relation to language ideologies circulating in the wider context. I focused on the perspectives and practices of one 1st grade classroom (14 students) but also talked with seven parents, three teachers, and two administrators. A careful analysis of the data collected shows that there is a hierarchy among languages used in the community—Turkish, English, and Kurdish. The children, their parents, and their teachers all valued Turkish and English more than Kurdish. While explaining some of their reasons for this view, they discussed the status and functions of each language in society with an emphasis on their functions. My analysis also shows that, although participants devalue the Kurdish language, they still value Kurdish as a tie to their ethnic roots. Another key finding of this study is that policies that appear in teachers’ practices and the school environment seemed to be robust mediators of the language beliefs and practices of the Kurds who participated in my study. School is believed to provide opportunities for learning languages in ways that facilitate greater participation in society and increased access to prestigious jobs for Kurdish children who do not want to live in the village long-term. Related to that, one finding demonstrates that current circumstances make language choice like a life choice for Kurdish children. While Kurds who choose Turkish are often successful in school (and therefore have access to better jobs), the ones who maintain their Kurdish usually have only animal breeding or farming as employment options. I also found that although the Kurdish children that I observed subscribed to ideologies that valued Turkish and English over their native language, they did not entirely abandon their Kurdish language. Instead, they were involved in Turkish- Kurdish bilingual practices such as language broking, language sharing, and language crossing.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2015

abstract: In a growlingly digital world, scholars must understand the changes in textuality and communication associated with Web 2.0 technologies to incorporate potential pedagogical benefits to language curricula. For example, with the affordance of these technologies, language learners (LL) are increasingly exposed to language contact zones found both on and offline. A practice that could potentially support the communicative practices of LL within these multilingual spaces is translanguaging, or the use of strategies employed by LL when engaging with diverse codes by utilizing the resources of their semiotic repertoire as well as their language(s). Previous research has focused principally on contexts of bilingual education and identity formation vis-à-vis translanguaging. Therefore, the present study is the first to examine the actual translanguaging practices of second language (n=5) and heritage language learners (n=5) of Spanish in a digital language contact zone: Facebook affinity spaces, or common interest spaces. The dynamic data gathered from screen capture recordings of the participants’ interactions and think-aloud protocols in the affinity spaces, stimulated recall interviews, and written reflections were analyzed using content analysis and critical discourse analysis. This analysis revealed key findings in the data that focused on translanguaging practices, negotiation strategies, and performative competence - or the procedural knowledge which focuses on how learners communicate rather than what they communicate. First, the participants displayed a preference toward the separation of languages in written output, adhering to the ideals of linguistic purism, while simultaneously engaging in translanguaging practices via non-linguistic semiotic resources, such as the use of emojis, in their communication. Second, the participants’ self-reported proficiency levels for their writing abilities in Spanish correlated with their use of outside digital resources as a mediation tool. The findings show that, theoretically, the conceptualization of communicative competence must be expanded in order to incorporate the languaging practices of interlocutors in digital contexts. Pedagogically, educators need to support the development of LLs’ digital literacies, or communicative practices that are facilitated by technology, and address the bias toward linguistic purism to help students reap the cognitive benefits offered by translanguaging practices.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Spanish 2018

This case study was conducted in one elementary French-language school in Ontario with 1 administrator, 4 teachers and their culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. Through the integration of bhabha’s (1994) notion of Third space, multiple literacies theory (Cummins, 2001; Masny 2009) and by drawing on interviews, observations, and students’ work samples, I conceptualise an alter(n)ative literacies framework to address growing diversity in French-language schools. The term alter(n)ative is developed to express the intertwined benefit of expanding traditional notions of literacy to include alternative language practices and the potential alter-ative effect of re-envisioning the resources children bring to their literacy and language development at school. This thesis argues that teachers can critically (re)interprete official policies concerning Frenchlanguage schools in order to effectively foster students’ alter(n)ative literacies development. In doing so, teachers affirm the plurality of students’ multiple identities as a foundation for their participation within evolving cosmopolitan franco-ontarian communities.

This dissertation documents a critical-ethnographic-action-research (CEAR) project conducted in two elementary schools in Oaxaca, Mexico, with the collaboration of one language teacher educator and ten language student teachers. The two schools have a diverse student body composed of mestizo children and children from different Indigenous groups. The CEAR Project challenged historical and societal ideologies that position Indigenous children as deficient learners and their translanguaging and multiliteracies practices as inappropriate for schools. The CEAR Project was also a response to a world phenomenon that associates English with “development” and economic success and Indigenous and “minoritized” languages with backwardness marginalization. The CEAR Project’s purpose was to use the student teachers’ English language praxicum in order to: (a) develop elementary school teaching expertise, (b) co-construct affirming identities among all the participants, (c) foster multilingual, multiliteracies, and intercultural practices, and (d) dialogue with the children in order to change pejorative ideologies that regard certain languages, literacies, and cultures as better than others. The Transformative Multiliteracies Pedagogy developed by Cummins (in press) and critical pedagogies theory (Freire, 1970; Norton & Toohey, 2004) informed the CEAR Project and the data collected through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and children’s work samples. Using narrative, photos, and videos, this dissertation presents the migratory lives, the families, and the language and literacy practices of 50 children, and their views regarding the English language and Indigenous languages and peoples. It portrays the vivid critical moments and changes that occurred in the praxicum as the children became teachers and linguists. Through the construction of identity texts and the translanguaging and multiliteracies practices that the student teachers and the children engaged in, stories emerge that portray them as the intelligent, creative, and genuine individuals that they really are. This dissertation also documents how the children’s complex lives challenged constructs such as “family” and “Indigenous,” and the new Mexican educational policy that brings English into public elementary schools using a generic English software. It is concluded that every policy, theory, social construct, pedagogy, and curriculum should be challenged on a daily basis if we are truly to serve the ever-evolving diverse classrooms of today.

The study&rsquo
s main starting premises is that there is a disjuncture between the rich educational engagements of these students in their environmental space and how their learning practices are framed, informed and positioned in the institutional space. My study is underpinned by an interpretivist paradigm in terms of which I set out to describe and understand the meanings that the student respondents assign to their learning practices when they are involved in discursive practices of speaking, knowing, doing, reading and writing. Qualitative research instruments: field notes, participant and non-participant observations and formal and informal interviews were used in order to answer my research question and achieve the desired research aims of this thesis. The findings are presented in a narrative format after deriving at categories and themes using narrative analysis. Finally, my research shows how these students are positioned in and by their lived spaces (whether environmental or institutional) in specific ways, and they, based on their own resources, networks and interactions, and by exercising their agency, actively construct their own spaces of learning. I describe these active constructions by these students as their &lsquo
conceptual space of learning&rsquo
to highlight the complex ways in which they go about to establish their learning practices in their lived spaces. The study provides an analysis of the basis upon which each of these four students go about constructing their learning practices.

This is a qualitative research that draws on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis methodology to analyze the discourse practices of the mathematics teacher educators in initial teacher training colleges in Malawi. The study involved four mathematics teacher educators in two teacher training colleges located in two different regions of Malawi. Specifically the study explored the following questions: 1) What are the discourse practices that mathematics teacher educators display in their descriptions of multilingual mathematics classrooms? 2) a) What are the discourse practices that mathematics teacher educators display in a college mathematics classroom? b) How do they make available the discourse practices for the student teachers to draw on? Data was collected through pre-observation interviews, classroom observations, reflective interviews and focus group discussions with the mathematics teacher educators. This study has shown that while there are some disconnections between the discourse practices produced in a school multilingual mathematics classroom and a college mathematics classroom, some of the discourse practices that mathematics teachers produced in a college mathematics classroom reinforces the common discourse practices being produced in multilingual mathematics classroom. There are three common discourse practices that were displayed in a college mathematics classroom. These discourse practices are: Initial-Response-Evaluation (Pimm, 1987), traditional lecturing and group discussions. I observed that the IRE and traditional lecturing discourse practices were accompanied by directive discourses for procedural control, and the procedural discourse was the prevalent discourse in all the discourse practices produced. iv Three major themes have emerged from the data analysis. Firstly, the research findings indicate that the mathematics teacher educators regard multilingualism and the language practices that come with it such as code-switching more as a problem rather than a resource for teaching and learning. Secondly, code-switching in college mathematics classroom is not as spontaneous as is research shows it to be in schools; rather it is very much controlled and restricted. Thirdly, the dilemmas of code-switching as discussed by Adler (1998, 2001) are more acute in teacher training colleges, mainly because of the mismatch in the Language-in-Education Policy (LiEP) in schools and tertiary level.

The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes of a predetermined sample population of SABC TV viewers towards SABC’s language policies, and to identify and critically analyse the factors that influenced these attitudes by approaching the subject matter from a variety of methodological positions. This is an especially important undertaking when considering that the South African media landscape has for decades been the site of political, social and ideological confrontation, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) notwithstanding. Since operating as a mouthpiece for the National Party during the apartheid era, the role of the SABC in contemporary post-apartheid South Africa has come into sharp focus. The SABC’s role in South African society, allied to its status as a public service broadcaster, is significant in terms of encouraging nation-building and a unified national identity or cohesive national identities. Furthermore, the relationship between the public broadcaster and national policy makers is central to attaining goals such as linguistic parity in multilingual situations, such as in South Africa. For the SABC, what would be a difficult task under normal circumstances is made even more challenging when considering the numerous linguistically harmful legacies that remain after the apartheid period, where African languages were devalued and disempowered in the eyes of their speakers. The status of English as an international language, as well as the role that it played near the end of the apartheid era, would also come to be an obstacle in the path to the equitable treatment of South Africa’s eleven official languages. As such, this study aimed in part to determine whether SABC TV has embraced, or is perceived to have embraced, the ethos of the Constitution (Act 108 of 1996) and its own multilingual policies. More importantly, the main focus of this project was to ascertain the effect of SABC TV’s linguistic policy and practice decisions on the attitudinal dispositions of its viewing public, and to attempt to frame these language attitudes in terms of the ideologies operating within South Africa and the SABC. To achieve this, an assortment of complementary data-gathering techniques were arranged in a multi-method and triangulation approach to investigating the complex research problem. A historical analysis of South Africa’s and the SABC’s social, political, and media landscapes identified ideologically significant events from South Africa’s history, and these included the introduction of tangible linguistic and ideological boundaries between the African languages, the hegemony of English as a language of social and economic mobility and as the language of the indigenous African populations struggle against apartheid, speakers of African languages being placed in opposition to their own languages thanks to the misuse of mother tongue education, the association of Afrikaans with the apartheid state and the theoretical commitment of the democratic government and the SABC to fostering inclusive multilingualism. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the SABC’s current language policy and language practices were also conducted. Whilst at face value SABC TV was seen to more or less meet the language delivery quotas stipulated by ICASA (a regulatory body) during the given period, further investigation determined that the manner in which the quotas were framed made it easy for the SABC to implement practicable strategies in implementing the multilingualism espoused by the Constitution (Act 108 of 1996). A survey and focus group interview were employed to investigate the language attitudes of the sample population in terms of the following themes: standardisation of languages (standard Sotho or Nguni), the efficiency of multilingual broadcasting in South Africa, the social and functional capability of African languages, the perceived positions of English and the African languages in South African society, and the role and responsibilities of the public broadcaster. The predetermined sample population comprised of mainly first language English and isiZulu speakers, and the linguistic attitudes between these two language groups were observed to significantly different on a number of key criteria, potentially due to those ideologically significant events uncovered with the historical description, as well as to the language policies and practices utilised by SABC TV. First language English speakers were neutral with regards to many of the issues surrounding the efforts of SABC TV at inclusive multilingual broadcasting, possibly influenced by the hegemony of English, as well as having a vested interest in maintaining the elite closure enjoyed by its speakers. Juxtaposed to the first language English speaking component of the sample population were the first language isiZulu speakers who exhibited much more of a loyalty towards their language, and towards the African languages in general. This study hopefully contributed in a small way to developing an understanding of the relationship between these speakers, as well as of their attitudes towards and expectations of language policies and practices at the level of both the SABC TV and government. By better understanding the intricacies of the complex and unique social milieu within it works, the SABC can be better equipped to formulate and execute policies and practices to best serve the needs of all South Africans.
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

This study attempts to examine language policy and language training and development in industry, with specific reference to departmental practice at ESKOM. ESKOM is South Afiica's largest electricity supplier with wide national and international business dealings. The organisation has extensive training and development programmes and is committed to supporting equity and the development of employees' potential through training and development. It is for these reasons that I selected the organisation as the basis for my study. The study is conducted within the parameters of the Constitution 's multilingual language policy, the Skills Development Act of 1998 and the Employment Equity Act of 1998. According to the Constitution, the state must take practical measures 10 elevate the status and advance the use of indigenous languages (Section 6: C). The state may also not discriminate against anyone on the grounds of language and culture (Section 9:3). The study argues that in order to ensure equity, all South African languages must be used. One way of ensuring equitable language usage is through training and development. The broad issues that are examined include: '" language policy and practice '" languages used in industry * the dominance of English in industry *upliftment of black languages * the language of training and development programmes at ESKOM * language training and development programmes at ESKOM The study is based on qualitative and quantitative approaches. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit information from management and middle-management about language policy and practice at ESKOM. Individuals involved with training were interviewed about language in training and development, and to narrow the focus, workers attending literacy training were issued with questionnaires in Zulu or English, according to preference and proficiency. to elicit information about their language usage, English proficiency and literacy training. Data was therefore gathered from all possible areas, including areas of policy, practice and implementation. The results were analysed and a discussion of subjects' responses was presented. In summary, English is the dominant language at ESKOM, despite the Constitution's eleven language policy and the call for equity. In addition, although the majority of the subjects attending literacy classes stated that they did not understand English well, they felt that training should be conducted in English medium. The majority of the subjects also felt that it is imperative for all South Africans to acquire black languages, at least at regional level. Finally, the limitations of the study and suggestions for further research are also outlined.
Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

The elections of the democratic government in South Africa in 1994 led to the formulation of the new Language-in-education policy (LiEP), which was adopted by government in July 1997. This study evaluated the implementation of this policy in selected secondary schools of the Limpopo Province. In making this evaluation the study wanted to answer the question: How should schools implement the new LiEP in Limpopo Province? The major findings of the study are that the new LiEP remains largely ignored and unimplemented in Limpopo Province. The status quo remains unchanged in most schools and English and Afrikaans continue to be the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) in all schools investigated. The study therefore argues that there is a serious discrepancy between policy and practice. The study concludes by making recommendation to address the problems identified and to provide guidelines on how the policy may be implemented in Limpopo Province, such as the gradual phasing in of African languages as LoLTs.
Linguistics
M.A. (Specialisation in Sociolinguistics)

After independence, in 1990, the government of the Republic of Namibia perceived the need to replace the old Language-in-Education Policy (LiEP) for schools with a new one that promotes the use of the mother tongue alongside English in schools and colleges of education. Consequently, the new Language-in-Education Policy was implemented in all 13 educational regions. The aim of this study is to evaluate the implementation of this policy in the upper primary schools in Oshana Region. The findings of the study were analysed according to relevant literature to determine if they were in line with the theories of language policy evaluation. At least five major findings emerged from this study that are described in relation to relevant themes, namely; home language, language preferences, language practices, policy awareness and government support. The study revealed that the majority of learners in Oshana Region are Oshikwambi speakers, followed by Oshikwanyama speakers. In addition, the majority of teachers who teach Oshindonga are also not Oshindonga speakers. Furthermore, the study revealed that the majority of learners, teachers and principals preferred English as LoLT to Oshiwambo. Another major finding of the study is that despite the fact that English is the LoLT, both teachers and learners are still struggling to communicate in English. In general, successful communication often takes place in Oshiwambo. The study revealed that the majority of teachers, learners and parents are neither aware of the new LiEP nor were they consulted prior to its implementation. In addition, the LiEP related materials are not available in most of the schools. Finally, the study found that there is a serious shortage of textbooks and well qualified teachers in African languages. This shortage of textbooks prevents teachers from giving adequate homework to learners. Consequently, the LiEP cannot be successfully implemented. A number of recommendations are made regarding the shortage of textbooks in Oshiwambo, the use of the mother tongue as LoLT from Grade 1 to Grade 7 and the recognition of other Oshiwambo dialects. Ongoing consultation and awareness should be a vital part of the review process.
Linguistics
M.A. (Sociolinguistics)

This dissertation interrogates the deficit assumptions about English proficiency of skilled immigrants who were recruited by Canadian governments between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Through the lens of literacy as social practice, the eighteen-month ethnographic qualitative research explores the sequential experiences of settlement and economic integration of seven well-educated Chinese immigrant professionals. The analytical framework is built on sociocultural approaches to literacy and learning, as well as the theories of discourses and language reproduction. Using multiple data sources (observations, conversational interviews, journal and diary entries, photographs, documents, and artifacts collected in everyday lives), I document many different ways that well-educated Chinese immigrants take advantage of their language and literacy skills in English across several social domains of home, school, job market, and workplace. Examining the trans-contextual patterning of the participants’ language and literacy activities reveals that immigrant professionals use literacy as assistance in seeking, negotiating, and taking hold of resources and opportunities within certain social settings. However, my data show that their language and literacy engagements might not always generate positive consequences for social networks, job opportunities, and upward economic mobility. Close analyses of processes and outcomes of the participants’ engagements across these discursive discourses make it very clear that the monolithic assumptions of the dominant language shape and reinforce structural barriers by constraining their social participation, decision making, and learning practice, and thereby make literacy’s consequences unpredictable. The deficit model of language proficiency serves the grounds for linguistic stereotypes and economic marginalization, which produces profoundly consequential effects on immigrants’ pathways as they strive for having access to resources and opportunities in the new society. My analyses illuminate the ways that language and literacy create the complex web of discursive spaces wherein institutional agendas and personal desires are intertwined and collide in complex ways that constitute conditions and processes of social and economic mobility of immigrant populations. Based on these analyses, I argue that immigrants’ successful integration into a host country is not about the mastery of the technical skills in the dominant language. Rather, it is largely about the recognition and acceptance of the value of their language use and literacy practice as they attempt to partake in the globalized new economy.