Volume 5, Issue 1

On the social level languages contact usually implies hierarchies, reflecting historical processes of adaptation and power relations between groups of speakers. This paper considers language contact in the written mode from the point of view of choice, that is, choice of language and choice of writing system. A wider range of factors that have a bearing on choice in contact situations of languages and their writing systems must be taken into consideration: political, social, linguistic and ideological. Examples of each kind from the Eurocentric and Sinocentric worlds are discussed and compared with each other. Particular attention is paid to the relationship bilingual writers create between the units of two languages and two writing systems which, from a sociolinguistic point of view, is seen as indicative of the status and function of the languages involved.

Work on globalization has been concentrated on typical sites where features and phenomena are abundantly available: the huge contemporary metropolis with its explosive and conspicuous diversity in people and languages, its hyper-mobility and constant flux. Less typical places – peri-urban and rural areas, peripheral areas of countries, peripheral zones of the world, peripheral institutional zones where minorities are relegated – have been less quickly absorbed into current scholarship. Yet, upon closer inspection, there is no reason to exclude these `margins' from analyses of globalization processes and of their sociolinguistic implications. Globalization is a transformation of the entire world system, and it does not only affect the metropolitan centers of the world but also its most remote margins. Thus, we are bound to encounter globalization effects, also in highly unexpected places. A survey of these reifications of globalization at the margins will be the topic of this paper. We shall suggest a specific angle from which such forms of globalization in the margin can be most usefully addressed and we do so by drawing from examples taken from new media and communication technologies, from new forms of economic activity and, last but not least, from the perspective of legitimacy in the contentious struggle between commodification of language and the semiotic construction of authenticity.

This paper, as part of a growing body of studies that investigate translingual communicative practices, introduces a microanalysis of doctor-patient interactions that took place in urban Japan, a country that has been identified as belong to the expanding circle of world Englishes (Kachru 1986). Through the examination of two cases of primary care visits, one conducted in lingua franca English and another in a hybrid of Japanese and English, the study demonstrates how a Japanese doctor and two migrant patients from Ghana skillfully deploy a variety of semiotic resources to achieve the problem presentation stage of their encounters. More specifically, it investigates how concerns expressed by the patients become constructed into ``doctorable'' (Heritage and Robinson 2006) medical conditions through their subsequent interaction. The turn-by-turn examination of interactions reveals how the doctor's biomedical knowledge, embodied in his interactional practices, together with his cooperative disposition (Canagarajah 2013) to the interactional uncertainty inherent in multilingual and multicultural encounters, serve as a critical vehicle for making both the doctor's and the patients' seemingly ``truncated multilingual repertoires'' (Blommaert 2010) work in this particular institutional context.

As part of a larger longitudinal study, this paper examines the development of Chinese students' EFL learning motivation throughout university undergraduate study, in an increasingly globalized local context. The study adopted a social constructivist perspective of language learning and combined research methods; the participants were over 1,000 undergraduates from 5 universities. The quantitative data were collected through a questionnaire (based on Gao et al. 2004) including motivational intensity and motivation types – instrumental, cultural, and situational, implemented annually from university entrance to graduation. The qualitative data consisted of individual and group interviews, student journals, and observations. Integrated data analysis revealed that sustained high-level long-term instrumental motivations coexisted with an increase of L2- oriented cultural motivations and situational motivation, particularly in the first and fourth year. The increased L2-oriented cultural motivations indicated neither ``ntegrativeness'' in the sense of becoming a member of the native English speaker community, nor a culturally neutral ``global identity.'' The increase of such L2- oriented cultural motivations was also accompanied by a sustained ``social responsibility'' motivation oriented to learners' home culture. Such complexities of motivational development call for further investigation in increasingly globalized EFL contexts.

Despite the push for fostering reflective practices in teacher education in the last twenty years, true reflection remains a rare commodity (Farr, 2010). By placing four video-recorded mentor-teacher meetings under the conversation analytic (CA) microscope, I show how specific mentor practices work in stimulating reflection to various degrees of success. Findings of this study illuminate the complexities of inviting and offering reflection, and in so doing, contribute to a growing understanding of teacher learning as well as the practices for fostering such learning (Johnson, 2009).

The paper proposes, under the roof-concept of a method abbreviated PILaD, a combination of quantitative and qualitative procedures aiming to clarify the relationship of ``closely related languages'' (Voegelin and Harris 1951). The method is based on the functional-pragmatic theory of `Communicative Apparatus', a cross-linguistically operating interactive structure, which is modified by Lingua Receptiva communication. The data consist of 4 Russian-Ukrainian, 4 Polish-Ukrainian and 4 Polish-Russian conversations which were recorded with a digital camera and transcribed in a HIAT transcription format under the multiparty data program EXMARaLDA. Cases of `problematic understanding' defined in terms of problematic utterances are related to the total number of utterances in a discourse. The communicative success is compared across the three language constellations and refined down to every participant. Statistical analysis gives an overall picture of how receptive multilingualism works in the three language constellations. The findings reveal that receptive multilingual communication between Polish, Russian and Ukrainian interactants is generally successful, yet, not symmetric, but depends itself on the direction of intelligibility . A summary of the PILaD method and the data base are attached.

In most universities, English as a lingua franca (ELF) is used for international courses. To promote linguistic diversity and facilitate first language education, some universities have experimented with lingua receptiva (LaRa). However, it is not clear yet which mode is most effective. This study compared the effectiveness of LaRa and ELF in conversations between Dutch and German students. Eight pairs of students, each consisting of one native Dutch and one native German, solved four maze puzzles: two using ELF and two using LaRa. Conversations were videotaped and compared quantitatively and qualitatively, and participants completed a questionnaire about their proficiency in and attitude towards the languages used. Problem-solving effectiveness was significantly higher using ELF than using LaRa. However, participants were also more proficient in English than in the native language of their conversation partner. Analysis showed that it was this difference in proficiency and not the language mode that explained the higher effectiveness of ELF. Language attitude and previous exposure did not have a significant effect on effectiveness. The study shows that linguistic prior-knowledge is an important factor to take into account when choosing a multilingual communication constellation.

This study examines a case of receptive multilingual communication in academic counseling sessions with participants of Turkish and Turkmen languages. In particular, the study aims to explore the contribution of linguistic and extralinguistic factors that might facilitate and/or constraint interlocutors' understanding in receptive multilingual communications. To this end, elicited conversations of a Turkish academic advisor and a Turkmen university student were video recorded and analyzed. The analysis shows that linguistic factors such as morpho-syntactic and lexical similarities between these languages do not guarantee but facilitate understanding. As for the extralinguistic factors, the study confirms that the use of institutional keywords in academic counseling sessions activates interlocutors' common institutional knowledge and, thereupon, the interlocutors' understanding is facilitated.

Finnish and Estonian are relatively closely related languages, which, however, are not considered unconditionally mutually intelligible. The present article discusses the mutual intelligibility of Finnish and Estonian and explores the means by which mutual understanding is created in actual Finnish-Estonian multilingual communication. The data consist of video-recorded informal conversations between Finns and Estonians belonging to a social network in which using both languages (Finnish and Estonian) is a common way of communication. The data are analyzed within the framework of conversation analysis using the concept of participation framework. An overview of informal Finnish- Estonian receptive multilingualism is provided and the language choices are discussed. It is demonstrated that participating in either language does not necessarily cause problems in interaction, and that the shared elements of the languages constitute one resource in creating mutual understanding. However, the participation is also actively facilitated for the participants not competent in both the languages. Receptive multilingualism is shown to be a group phenomenon in the studied data.

Previous investigations of inter-Scandinavian intelligibility have shown that, in general, Norwegians are better at understanding the closely related languages Danish and Swedish than Danes and Swedes are at understanding Norwegian. This asymmetry is often explained by the strong position that dialects hold in Norway as opposed to in Denmark and Sweden. In Norway, the general public is more exposed to language variation than in Sweden and Denmark. Due to this exposure Norwegians are assumed to have higher language awareness and more possibilities for linguistic transfer than Swedes and Danes. This could make it easier for them to understand closely related language varieties. The aim of the present investigation is to get an answer to the question whether Norwegians are better at understanding Nordic varieties relative to linguistic distances than Danes. If it is indeed the case that Norwegians have more language awareness, we would expect them to be better than Danes at understanding varieties with the same linguistic distance to their native variety. Our results show that Norwegians are generally better at understanding Nordic language varieties than Danes are. However, this can be explained by linguistic distances and knowledge of the language varieties in the test. No evidence was found for more general language awareness among Norwegians than among Danes.

This article addresses the conceptual differences and commonalities between two modes of intercultural communication: English as a lingua franca (ELF) and Lingua Receptiva (LaRa). While the former is more frequent and wide- spread but disputed for reasons of monolingual dominance, the latter is lesser known und contextually restricted but praised for preserving linguistic diversity. The article takes such common presumptions as a starting point for a detailed comparative investigation of the concepts ELF and LaRa. The first section is dedicated to the overall language frameworks of the two modes. It thus points to their constellational specificities and the notions of locality and context involved in them. The second part takes a closer look at the speaker/hearer perspectives assumed in ELF and LaRa as well as at the different manifestations of linguistic variability and accommodation emerging from them. The third part is then concerned with the assumedly most prominent dividing points between lingua franca and lingua receptiva, namely issues of range, linguistic diversity and eventually the relative degree of plurilinguality exhibited in the two modes. In a final comparative summary of the points raised, the article ultimately comes to the conclusion that ELF and LaRa are not at all mutually exclusive but overlapping communicative modes. It thus argues that intercultural speakers could profit from using them in a complementary fashion.