Language practices and attitudes among young minority language speakers in Thailand, focusing on the Kui language, are examined. Sociolinguistic data obtained from three months of fieldwork in the northeastern provinces of Surin, Sisaket and Ubon Ratchathani and in Bangkok provide insights into the language competence, language attitudes and…

The widespread marginalisation of heritage languages in public and political discourse coupled with the association of proficiency in host languages with personal and professional gain have led many diasporic communities to shy away from transmitting their heritage languages at home (Curdt-Christiansen 2016): a context considered to be optimal for…

The present paper describes and analyses multilingualism and language use in urban Vellore. In the situation of urban Vellore, together with multilingual immigrants, multilingualism is stimulated with the business motive, to earn livelihood and for social integration. Interviews are conducted with 31 respondents who are skilled in employing at…

Although Singapore, a linguistically and ethnically diverse city-state, uses four official languages, namely Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, and English, which are supposed to enjoy equal status, there appears to be a pecking order to these languages. English seems to be the dominant language when taking into consideration the bilingual education policy,…

Linguistic landscapes have proven to be intriguing foci of sociolinguistic research in and of themselves, given language in public spaces indexes broader sociolinguistic processes, struggles, and policies. This paper, however, trials linguistic landscape as a methodological tool for research that solicits and analyses metalinguistic talk --…

Though the two languages most frequently used in the homes of Chinese Singaporeans are English and Mandarin Chinese, there is not much information on how the home language can influence language use and attitudes toward these two languages. This study investigates the family language ecology in bilingual homes and aims to compare attitudes toward…

This study explores the current status of language maintenance (LM) and language shift (LS) among Keralites, popularly known as 'Malayalees,' living in Oman. It analyses the leading factors that affect language maintenance and language shift: a particular focus is given to identifying the various domains in which language maintenance is…

Informed by family language policy (FLP) as the theoretical framework, I illustrate in this paper how language ideologies can be incongruous and language policies can be conflicting through three multilingual families in Singapore representing three major ethnic groups--Chinese, Malay and Indian. By studying their family language audits, observing…

Many nations have attempted to create different language-in-education policies that would cater not only to the needs of learners but also to the demands of preserving a country's native languages. The emergence of multilingual education has led to a proliferation of research that shows the benefits of using a learner's first language. These…

This article discusses the relationship between values expressed by "Hindu children" in Norway and hegemonic "Norwegian values". The discussion is based on interviews with children from the Indian Punjabi and the Sri Lankan Tamil traditions and on observations in religious education (RE) lessons. The children emphasise the…

The purpose of this paper is to find out whether there is any change in the attitude of students towards English Language Learning (ELL) when they come for college education after completing the school education. The transformation in the attitude of students from school to college was examined in terms of marks, interest towards English language,…

The unavoidability of language makes it critical that language policies appeal to some notion of language neutrality as part of their rationale, in order to assuage concerns that the policies might otherwise be unduly discriminatory. However, the idea of language neutrality is deeply ideological in nature, since it is not only an attempt to treat…

This article explores the rhetoric of the four official languages (English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil) in Singapore and the domestic aversion towards Chinese "dialects" and colloquial "Singlish". The "Speak Mandarin Campaign" alongside the "Speak Good English Movement" represent a display of intercultural…

This study aims to determine the attitudes toward Standard Spoken Tamil (SST) and Literary Tamil (LT) of 46 Tamil teachers in Singapore. The teachers' attitudes were used as an indicator of the acceptance or nonacceptance of SST as a viable option in the teaching of Tamil in the classroom, in which the focus has been largely on LT. The…

This article develops the interface between language policy and planning and equal educational opportunity (EEO). Tracing the trajectory of the development "equal educational opportunity" as a normative ideal, this study argues that language policy must serve to promote "actualist" conceptions of EEO. To do this, acquisition…