This article looks at how four British-based poets born in the Caribbean exploit the rich language repertoire available to them in their work for children and young people. Following initial consideration of questions of definition and terminology, poetry collections by James Berry, John Agard, Grace Nichols and Valerie Bloom are discussed, with a…

Using Jamaica, a former British colony where Jamaican Creole (JC) is the mass vernacular but Standard Jamaican English is the official language, as an illustrative case, this critical ethnographic study in three Jamaican schools examines the theoretical and practical challenges of language education policy (LEP) development and implementation in…

The present study was carried out in the context of the recent (2012) introduction of Kreol in the primary school curriculum in Mauritius. The time-tabling of Kreol as an optional subject offered at the same time as the other existing ancestral languages, institutionalised Kreol as an ancestral language, despite its status as a national language.…

The paper, "Languages as Socio-Cultural Capital in the Context of Contemporary Linguistic Reality of Jamaica." examines how the narratives of students can offer useful understanding and insights into their attitudes and achievements in second language acquisition. These situations are specific to Creole-speaking learning environments in Jamaica…

In 1975 (Vol. 8.4, 201-218), S. P. Corder, during the course of his state-of-the-art review "Error analysis, interlanguage and second language acquisition," focused on the recent literature on simplified linguistic systems and suggested that research had shown that interlanguage systems often resemble other simple codes such as pidgins…

This paper argues that Dev Virahsawmy, an author who manipulates literary translation for the purposes of linguistic prestige formation and re-negotiation, is a critical language-policy practitioner, as his work fills an important gap in language planning scholarship. A micro-analysis of the translation of a Shakespearean sonnet into Mauritian…

It is generally accepted that second language (L2) acquisition becomes more difficult as one grows older and that success in adult L2 acquisition is highly variable. Nevertheless, humans in language contact situations have to cope with intergroup communication. This article examines the ways society has responded to this challenge. It describes…

This study describes how in-service teachers in the pre-vocational sector in Mauritius adopted specific strategies to overcome the language barrier in the learning of science (Van Driel, Verloop & de Vos, 1998). Students of form III were taught few basic ideas related to "Earth & Space" through the use of role play and ICT. The…

Education policy always appears to be controversial, especially in post-colonial nations. In Vanuatu, the dual educative system inherited from the period of colonization has raised many debates. The government of Vanuatu is certainly aware of national educational issues in the school system such as the poor literacy rate and high school fees but…

The increased status that Creole has enjoyed in Reunion over the last decade, coupled with more positive attitudes towards the language, has led to suggestions that diglossia may be giving way to a more balanced French-Creole bilingualism. Building on recent research indicating that the new-found status may be largely symbolic, the present article…

Pieter Muysken's keynote paper, "Language contact outcomes as a result of bilingual optimization strategies", undertakes an ambitious project to theoretically unify different empirical outcomes of language contact, for instance, SLA, pidgins and Creoles, and code-switching. Muysken has dedicated a life-time to researching, rather…

This paper sketches a comprehensive framework for modeling and interpreting language contact phenomena, with speakers' bilingual strategies in specific scenarios of language contact as its point of departure. Bilingual strategies are conditioned by social factors, processing constraints of speakers' bilingual competence, and perceived…

Texts in Aboriginal English (AE) and creole varieties have been created by Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers for a range of purposes. In this paper, we focus on materials created in and for five educational contexts, and investigate the orthographic or spelling systems developed in each setting. Choices about orthography are guided by…

Aboriginal English has been documented in widely separated parts of Australia and, despite some stylistic and regional variation, is remarkably consistent across the continent, and provides a vehicle for the common expression of Aboriginal identity. There is, however, some indeterminacy in the way in which the term is used in much academic and…

Speech pathology assessment within cross-cultural contexts, where the assessor and client differ in their cultural backgrounds, can create many challenges for assessment usage and implementation. With Australia being home to people from many cultures, this is a particular challenge for speech pathologists working in this country. This paper…