Young immersion learners’ language use outside the classroom in a minority language context

An increasing number of children in the UK and Ireland are growing up speaking more than one language. The many advantages of bilingualism are acknowledged; however, this increased linguistic diversity presents particular challenges for speech and language therapists (SLTs). The case is often more complex with speakers of minority languages such as Welsh and Irish, which are acquired almost exclusively in bilingual contexts. Lack of appropriate standardized assessments for bilinguals is a key issue for SLTs internationally; however, little is known about the practices, personal perspectives or wider challenges faced by SLTs in assessing minority language skills. We focus on SLTs working with English-Irish bilinguals across Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) where status, use and exposure to Irish differ significantly. To investigate the perceptions and practices of SLTs in NI and the ROI in the assessment of bilingual English-Irish-speaking children. A 33-item online survey was distributed to SLTs working with children in community settings in NI and the ROI. A total of 181 SLTs completed the survey. The majority of respondents had bilingual English-Irish-speaking children on their caseloads; however, less than one-quarter had assessed Irish language skills. Responses indicate confusion as to whether best-practice guidelines applied in this particular context where the majority of speakers have English as their first language and limited domains of exposure to Irish outside of the education system. Resources available to assess Irish language skills were found to be limited. Informal analysis of language samples emerged as the most popular assessment tool. SLTs in the ROI had a significantly higher level of competence in the Irish language than SLTs in NI. This reduced the challenge of assessment. Many SLTs reported scoring assessments standardized on monolingual populations when assessing English language skills in bilingual English-Irish-speaking children. Our findings highlight the challenges faced by SLTs in meeting best-practice guidelines in the assessment of speakers of minority languages such as Irish. Further work is needed to ensure clinicians and other professionals have access to information and enhanced training on bilingual language acquisition in minority language contexts and implications for assessment and diagnosis. This study underlines the need for further research on the acquisition of minority languages as well as the development of alternative assessment tools to assist SLTs in meeting the needs of this population. What is already known on the subject Existing research indicates that SLTs face challenges in assessing bilingual clients. Lack of assessment resources is a global issue, particularly with respect to minority languages. Emerging research indicates that SLTs and other professionals are dissatisfied with current resources for assessing Irish-speaking bilinguals and are struggling to meet best-practice guidelines. What this paper adds to existing knowledge The status of the Irish language differs significantly between NI and the ROI, while English is the dominant language in both areas. This study provides the first exploration of current assessment practices for bilingual English-Irish-speaking children as reported by SLTs across both regions. The challenges of assessing bilingual clients in many other countries are mirrored by SLTs in NI and the ROI. The majority of children acquiring Irish are doing so in a specific context: the immersion education setting. This raises uncertainty for SLTs about whether the definition of bilingualism actually applies. Despite clinicians and clients sharing the same majority language, the complexity of minority language assessment remains. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? SLTs require specific support and resources to help them meet the assessment needs of bilingual English-Irish-speaking children. Ongoing education and training are required for clinicians and other professionals to facilitate understanding of the complexities surrounding bilingual speakers of minority languages and the application of best-practice guidelines. A greater understanding of the context in which children are acquiring Irish and the impact this may have on their acquisition of English would further support clinicians in identifying speech, language and communication needs in this population.

The preservation of linguistic diversity has recently become a major concern to many researchers, politicians and leaders of linguistic communities in Europe. The issue of linguistic minorities has taken on a particular urgency because of the increasing recognition of the threat of extinction faced by many minority languages. The need for immediate action has become obvious. Europe has slowly but steadily started to come up with responses to how to keep the most vulnerable languages from extinction and guarantee rights to speakers of such languages at the same time. Today we can talk about the emergence of a European minimum standard of protection of language rights as it has developed since the 1990s in the European conventions and their monitoring activities. There is general understanding that three areas of the use of languages – education, administrative affairs and the media – are determinant for the survival of minority languages. The present article focuses on one of such areas, which has revealed to be particularly contentious and a source of ever-increasing concern. It investigates the guarantees provided in the Council of Europe's instruments pertaining to the use of minority languages before public authorities, the practical difficulties and ways of their overcoming in the implementation of the rights enshrined in European treaties.

Resuscitation and sustainability of endangered minor Nigerian Languages are highly imperative for cultural, religious, social, economic, political and educational purposes. They preserve the cultural identities and heritages of ethnic groups; assist in intergenerational communications and allow inclusivity of social lifestyles and equities. Against this backdrop, this study investigates endangered minor Nigerian languages with a view to identifying their statuses, examining the attitudes of the users with a view to identifying whether or not they have positive or negative influences on the languages; and suggesting how they can be revitalised and sustained through multimodality. Data were randomly obtained from the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria; in the North-central (Koro and Igede), in the North-East (Bade and Tera) in the North-West, (Kamuku and Duwai) in the South-East (Ikkwere and Ohuhu Igbo), in the South-South (Ibibio and Ogoni) and in the South-West (Akoko and Egun), (a total of twelve Nigerian languages) were selected for this study. The mixed-methods research design and Cultural Sustainability Theory were also adopted. One of the major findings is that consistent use of minor languages in cultural festivals can rejuvenate and sustain minor languages in Nigeria. The study, therefore, recommends that minor Nigerian languages should be revived and sustained through multiple modes such as the use of social media and technology; and native speakers' readiness to interact and communicate using these languages in private and public spaces freely.

Children's exposure to a minority language is often limited to the education domain. Consequently, educational establishments have an important role to play in maintaining and enhancing the linguistic achievements of minority first language (L1) speakers whilst at the same time developing the competence of those learning it as a second language (L2). This not only involves the provision of continuous exposure to the language, but also the need to elicit extended speech from the child. In order to identify the extent to which Welsh-speaking children (and L2 speakers in particular) are given enough opportunities to participate actively in extended conversations in Welsh, the linguistic interchanges between teacher and child in the classroom were examined in 10 schools across Wales. The results revealed that whilst children do have opportunities to respond in Welsh to verbal requests through extended speech in class, the extent to which L2-speaking children – and boys in particular – engage in such practices is limited. The implications of the results for classroom discourse strategies in minority language contexts are discussed.

Children, childhoods and bilingualism: Exploring experiences, perspectives and policies

My five Tibetan individuals’ stories of their journeys towards becoming bilingual indicate that their bilingual development was related to changing policy. The frequently changing policies of treasuring minority languages, banning the use of minority languages and then again restoring minority languages in educational institutes in China fundamentally affected the development of their identity, indicating that the person is always situated in history. In addition, because of the socio-political history and the different personal circumstances each of my five participants found themselves in, their abilities in two languages are diverse. Their differing contexts and the role of education in promoting or impairing bilingualism also affected their personal bilingual proficiency. Their use of language shift showed that my five Tibetan individuals live with two languages.

In September 2005 ICANN approved the first top–level Internet domain to be dedicated to a particular human language and culture: ‘.cat’. This paper describes the history of the Catalan campaign to win the ‘.cat’ domain against political opposition from the former conservative Spanish government and the reluctance of some decision–makers within ICANN circles. While ‘.cat’ creates a precedent for greater use on the Internet of ‘minority languages’, there are significant hurdles for other candidates for language–based top–level domains. The paper discusses the concomitant factors needed to support the greater use of any minority language on the Internet.

This paper deals with linguistic inequality and the use of standard language. Language inequality has a wide and multifaceted meaning with several interpretations. It should be noted that the habits of informal use of the language do not define all inequality because the same user in another circumstance may use the language standard and manage to indicate a certain degree of use of the language. From the research with students of Albanian language, it turns out that these students, starting from the first year of the studies, show the efforts, the ability and the skills of using the linguistic standard despite a linguistic conformism. Linguistic individuality highlights the linguistic inequality.
 Language inequality has linguistic or limited language deficits on written and speech discourse. Meanwhile, the text sublimates the individual skills of writing, brainstorming, text planning, linguistic coherence and cohesion, according to an elaborate linguistic code. Furthermore, we see that language inequality is relative, because everyone who writes or speaks, under certain conditions, has his / her linguistic competence and individuality. In my research on students` texts are noticed some elements dealing with linguistic inequality and use standard language.
 Key words: Language Competence, Standard Language, Language Inequality, Language Deficit, Restricted Code, Elaborated Code.

Tamil Nadu’s language policies are of particular interest to language policy researchers because, to a large extent, it was Tamil Nadu’s strong opposition that made the Indian government abandon its initial plan to adopt Hindi as the only official language of India. Due to a (scientifically unproven) Aryan invasion theory propagated by Christian missionaries in the nineteenth century, Hindi was associated with ‘Aryans’ who ‘invaded and subjugated’ the indigenous people of India (Dravidians, including Tamils). Moreover, Hindi was associated with Brahmins, the dominant caste in Hindu society. As a result of the intertwining of language with race and caste, Tamil Nadu’s language policy has been shaped by binaries of ‘Aryan vs. Dravidian’, ‘Hindi vs Tamil’, ‘North vs. South’, ‘Brahmins vs. Non-Brahmins’ and strongly focused on the promotion of Tamil, the official language of the state. However, Tamil Nadu is also home to 17 minority languages. This chapter examines legislation concerning the use of minority languages and finds that macro-level power has largely remained focused on promoting Tamil, but makes room for the use of languages other than Tamil in the domain of social welfare.KeywordsTamil NaduLanguage policiesRaceCasteBinaryAryanDravidian

Nowadays, digital language use such as reading and writing e-mails, chats, messages, weblogs and comments on websites and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter has increased the amount of written language production for most of the users. Thus, it is primarily important for speakers of minority languages to have the possibility of using their own languages in the digital world too. The FinUgRevita project aims at providing computational language tools for endangered indigenous Finno-Ugric languages in Russia, assisting the speakers of these languages in using the indigenous languages in the digital space. Currently, we are working on two Finno-Ugric minority languages, namely, Udmurt and Mansi. In the project, we have been developing electronic dictionaries for both languages, besides, we have been creating corpora with a substantial number of texts collected, among other sources like literature, newspaper articles and social media. We have been also implementing morphological analyzers for both languages, exploiting the lexical entries of our dictionaries. We believe that the results achieved by the FinUgRevita project will contribute to the revitalization of Udmurt and Mansi and the tools to be developed will help these languages establish their existence in the digital space as well.

Aims and objectives: This paper aims to examine the acquisition of phonetics and phonology in the context of Scottish Gaelic immersion schooling. I explore the effect of differing home language backgrounds among primary school children on the production of laterals and stop consonants. Design/methodology/approach: Acoustic analysis was performed on Gaelic and English speech data collected from children in Gaelic Medium Education in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Data and analysis: Word list data were collected from 18 children aged 7–11 and analyzed using measurements of formants and duration of stop phases. Half of the sample had little or no exposure to Gaelic in the home, while the other half had differing degrees of family input. Statistical analysis was conducted using Conditional Inference Trees. Findings and conclusions: This study finds that any initial differences between children who enter Gaelic Medium Education as fluent speakers and those who do not are leveled out by late primary school, at least in terms of pronunciation. I suggest that leveled varieties of minority languages can develop in pre-adolescence in peer group settings such as minority language education. Originality: This study is the first to examine phonetic and phonological acquisition in Gaelic-English bilingual children. It is one of a small number of studies to examine bilingual phonological acquisition in immersion schooling. The study supports recent research exploring the development of peer group varieties among young minority language speakers. Significance and implications: This research aims to expand traditional models that consider the extent of exposure to two languages as key in predicting phonetic and phonological production. I suggest that the impact of the peer group and the context of language use are also significant factors. Results suggest potential development of education varieties of Gaelic. These findings have implications for future revitalization strategies for minority languages across the world.

This study explored the long-term effects of limited input on bilingual teenagers’ acquisition of complex morphology in Welsh. Study 1 assessed 168 12–13 and 16–17-year-old teenagers, across three bilingual groups: those whose first language was Welsh (L1 Welsh), those who learned Welsh and English simultaneously (L1 Welsh–English), and those who learned Welsh as a second language (L2 Welsh), on their receptive knowledge of grammatical gender. Study 2 assessed the same participants on their production of plural morphology. While the results of Study 1 revealed continuous progression toward adult norms among L1 Welsh-speaking bilinguals, with the simultaneous bilinguals progressing at a slower rate, the results of Study 2 revealed performances on plural morphology that were comparable to adult norms among the 16–17-year-old L1 Welsh-speaking bilinguals, and some progression among the simultaneous bilinguals. In contrast, delayed progression was seen among the L2 Welsh-speaking bilinguals across the board, with 16–17-year-old L2 participants lagging behind their L1 peers on both grammatical gender and plural morphology. The implications of these findings for our understanding of the long-term outcomes for bilinguals learning complex structures under minority language conditions are discussed.

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the role of language exposure in vocabulary acquisition in Irish, a threatened minority language in Ireland which is usually acquired with English in a bilingual context. Using a bilingual Irish–English adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories) [Fenson, L., V. A. Marchman, D. J. Thal, P. S. Dale, J. S. Reznick, and E. Bates. 2007. The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Brookes], longitudinal parent report data were collected from 34 children (19 girls and 15 boys) at 4-monthly intervals, resulting in 61 data points between the ages of 17–36 months. Language exposure estimates indicated that while the caregivers ‘always’ spoke Irish to the children, both languages were used in most households, with/among siblings and extended family. The children’s vocabulary indicated that they were Irish-dominant in this age range, with more Irish words than English for all vocabulary categories. The analysis also showed no difference in Irish vocabulary scores between children who were ‘usually’ exposed to Irish compared to those with lower exposure rates to Irish. However, there was a significant effect for caregivers’ reported use of English on children’s English scores. The results are discussed in terms of the language input needed to maintain an endangered language and factors to take into account for establishing good estimates of language exposure in a minority language context.

Target varieties for language learning are contentious in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. Debates centre on the nature and utility of alternative norms. Approximation to ‘native speaker’ practices is the hallmark of language education. Thus, policy and pedagogy frequently orient toward achieving native‐like production. While many language learning stakeholders are committed to this model, it is also contested. Opponents point to the ideological assumptions about ‘native’ and ‘nonnative’ speech inherent in the model, and to the unrealistic aims it presents to teachers and learners. While much research focuses on learner preferences, little work exists on teacher attitudes. This article aims to address this dearth in the target variety debate. By focusing on Irish as a minority language, the article supplements the literature on classroom targets for English and other major languages. A thematic analysis of interviews with Irish language pedagogues is presented and reveals their engagement with target varieties for the language.

This paper investigates the online presence of Low German, a minority language spoken in northern Germany, as well as several other European regional and minority languages. In particular, this article presents the results of two experiments, one involving Wikipedia and one involving Twitter, that assess whether and to which extent minority languages are used on these websites. The article argues that minority and regional languages are not only underrepresented online due to a combination of historical, linguistic, sociological, and demographic reasons, but that the overall architecture of the World Wide Web and its most visited websites is such that smaller languages do not stand a chance to gain a meaningful online presence.