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Multilingualism is a crucial if often unrecognized marker of new European identities. In this collection of essays, we observe how a plurilinguist and pluricultural political entity practices and theorizes multilingualism. We ask which types of multilingualism are defined, encouraged or discouraged at the level of official policies, but also at the level of communities. We look at speakers of hegemonic or minority languages, at travellers and long-term migrants or their children, and analyse how their conversations are represented in official documents, visual art, cinema, literature and popular culture. The volume is divided into two parts that focus respectively on “Multilingual Europeâ€...
This edited collection explores the processes of second language learning and teaching from a psycholinguistic perspective. Authored by leading experts in the field, the book includes studies focusing on theoretical, empirical and practical aspects of second and foreign language education. Part One offers contributions devoted to a range of learner-related factors, dealing with affective and cognitive variables, the process of reading and the acquisition of lexis. Part Two brings together papers related to teacher awareness of second language instruction that focus on conversational styles, fostering intercultural pragmatics, teacher job satisfaction, the development of instructional materials and challenges of teacher training in different contexts. It is of interest to researchers as well as graduate and postgraduate students seeking fresh inspirations for their own empirical investigations of the ways in which second and foreign languages are taught and learned.
This book presents a selection of empirical papers dealing with second and multiple language acquisition, in which qualitative research methodology is employed. Each of the studies reported in individual chapters is based on a solid theoretical background and an overview of studies in a given area. Although the main focus is on qualitative methods, some of the papers demonstrate the complementarity of quantitative and qualitative approaches in studying language acquisition.
Is it possible to make a case that the Gospel of Mark was not composed by a single man from scattered accounts but in a process of people's telling Jesus' story over several decades? And what can we say about the tellers who were shaping this story for changing audiences? After an introduction showing the groundwork already laid in oral tradition research, the case begins by tracing the Mark we know back to several quite different early manuscripts which continue the flexibility of their oral ancestors. The focus then turns to three aspects of Mark, its language, which is characterized as speech with special phrases and rhythms, its episodes characterized by traditional forms, and its overall story pattern that is common in oral reports of the time. Finally several soundings are taken in Mark to test the thesis of performance composition, two scenarios are projected of possible early tellers of this tradition, and a conclusion summarizes major findings in the case. Mark's writer turns out to be the one who transcribes the tradition, probably adhering closely to it in order to legitimate the new medium of writing.
The mainstream media in Brazil portrays favelas (unregulated low-income neighbourhoods) in a negative light. This has been the case since their emergence over a century ago. Voices from the Favelas navigates through the contemporary representation of the favelas in the established media, discussing how this partial representation impacts issues of identity and social segregation, the legitimation of structural violence in those sites, and providing an account of the recent emergence of digital social networks as “counterpublics”. In order to understand the struggle against the characterisation of the favela as a site dominated by violence (a framework which has been disseminated on a global scale and accepted as the norm), this book will take its readers inside the mindset of the favela media activists, examining the production of information and the organisation of the residents as they resist and challenge the status quo. Are the activists able to counteract the official narrative in the struggles against misrepresentation and social invisibility, or is the mainstream version of the favela still strong enough to help in the legitimation of the institutionalised violence?
This book, which emerges in the context of the European research network LINEE (Languages in a Network of European Excellence), is concerned with European multilingualism both as a political concept and as a social reality. It features cutting-edge studies by linguists and anthropologists who perceive multilingualism as a discursive phenomenon which can be revealed and analyzed through empirical fieldwork. The book presents a fresh perspective of European multilingualism as it takes the reader through key themes of social consciousness – identity, policy, education, economy – and relevant societal levels of organization (European, national, regional). With its distinct focus on post-national society caught in unifying as well as diversifying socio-political currents, the volume problematizes emerging contradictions inherent in the idea of a Europe beyond the nation state –between speech minorities and majorities, economic realities, or socio-political ideologies.
Childhood multilingualism has become a norm rather than an exception. This is the first handbook to survey state-of-the-art research on the uniqueness of early multilingual development in children growing up with more than two languages in contact. It provides in-depth accounts of the complexity and dynamics of early multilingualism by internationally renowned scholars who have researched typologically different languages in different continents. Chapters are divided into six thematic areas, following the trajectory, environment and conditions underlying the incipient and early stages of multilingual children's language development. The many facets of childhood multilingualism are approached from a range of perspectives, showcasing not only the challenges of multilingual education and child-rearing but also the richness in linguistic and cognitive development of these children from infancy to early schooling. It is essential reading for anyone interested in deepening their understanding of the multiple aspects of multilingualism, seen through the unique prism of children.
This volume brings together articles written by experts in the thriving field of language teacher education from a variety of geographical and institutional contexts, with a particular focus on EFL.
The Department of Finno-Ugric Studies at the University of Vienna is the only university institute in Austria where Hungarology is taught and the only institution outside the Hungarian-speaking area where teachers of Hungarian are educated. The problems of teaching Hungarian in Vienna, however, are not unique; for this reason, this collection of symposium proceedings includes contributions not only by experts of Hungarian language teaching but also by other professionals of applied linguistics, non-Indo-European and minority languages.
This volume brings together the latest findings from research on multilingual language learning and use in multilingual communities. Suzanne Flynn, HĂĄkan Ringbom and Larissa Aronin are some of the prestigious scholars who have contributed to this book. As argued by this last author in her chapter, although multilingualism has always existed, the important changes that research on this phenomenon has recently undergone, like that of adopting a multilingual perspective in its studies, should always be borne in mind. This volume considers the languages of multilingual communities, as well as the interaction among them. As such, the chapters adopt a multilingual approach that guides the analysi...