Commodifying Language

2021 ◽  
pp. 94-118
Author(s):  
Eric S. Henry
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Human Resources ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Social Value ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Corporate Management ◽  
Vast Number ◽  
Innovative Strategies ◽  
Almost All

This chapter assesses the commerce of foreign languages in contemporary Shenyang. It focuses on the production of language as a commodity, the means by which certain forms of language are imbued with social value through the practices of marketing them to consumers. In the scramble to develop Shenyang's foreign language marketplace, school owners developed innovative strategies to build and maintain their businesses, strategies that themselves were crucial in reconfiguring the nature of language itself from something that is learned to something that is sold. The commodity logic of English extends far beyond their reach through uptake into almost all aspects of foreign language use in China, from public schools to testing to corporate management of linguistic (human) resources. It is no longer a stretch to say that English speakers in China are manufactured in much the same way as the vast number of goods bound from Chinese factories to Western marketplaces.

scholarly journals The university as a terrain for hidden language conflicts? German, English and the silence beyond them

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-154
Author(s):  
Monika Dannerer
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Administrative Staff ◽  
Higher Education Administrators ◽  
Language Management ◽  
Institutional Level ◽  
Internationalisation At Home ◽  
Education Administrators ◽  
The University ◽  
Linguistic Backgrounds

AbstractIn this paper, language policy (LP) at the University of Salzburg (Austria), a mid-size seemingly monolingual university, serves as an example to analyse (potential) language conflicts at the institutional level considering the roles played by German, English and ‘immigrant’ languages at the university. Language management, beliefs, and (reported) language use by different stakeholders in higher education (administrators, academic and administrative staff and students) are contrasted, also taking into consideration different linguistic backgrounds (German as L1, German as L2 and German as a foreign language). This offers an overall perspective on institutional LP that is still group sensitive, one that reveals two different hidden language conflicts: the non-addressed conflict between the two most important and visible languages at the university by far, German and English, as well as the neglected and negated conflict between German and the hidden “immigrant” languages. A consistent ‘internationalisation at home’ strategy would address these hidden conflicts and show backwash effects on ideas of language use in education as well as in society in general.

scholarly journals Sprachnormbezogene Akkommodation in der Hochschullehre

2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-62
Author(s):  
Philip C. Vergeiner
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Sociocultural Context ◽  
Standard Variety ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Rule Analysis ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper examines the relationship between accommodation processes and social norms in varietal choice within tertiary education in Austria. The investigation consists of (a) a content analysis of metalinguistic statements in semi-structured interviews and (b) a variable rule analysis of actual language variation in university lectures.The findings show that there are norms prescribing that listeners must have at least be able to comprehend a particular variety, whereas accommodation to actual language use does not appear to be required to the same extent. However, the norms depend strongly on group membership: while there is a norm prescribing the use of the standard variety in the presence of speakers of German as a foreign language, there is no such norm for Austrians vis-à-vis people from Germany, although speakers from both groups may lack the ability to understand the respective nonstandard varieties. This difference can be explained by the sociocultural context and differing language attitudes.

A Concept of a “Virtual Production Line” Produced by Integrating Databases and Models of Materials

MRS Bulletin ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 29-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuichi Iwata
Keyword(s):  
Production Line ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Intelligent System ◽  
Processing Parameters ◽  
Alloy Development ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Vast Number ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Virtual Production ◽  
Almost All

One of the requirements for an intelligent system is to construct a virtual reality in the computer. For materials development, the “reality” is a laboratory or a production line used to improve some aspect of a material by changing its composition, processing parameters, service conditions, etc. In the case of information in libraries, the reality is a search that uses a thesaurus and bibliographic (fact) databases. The greatest barrier faced by users of materials information is that of accessing necessary information through both a librarian's view and a scientific/technological expert's view. One of the objectives of a virtual production line is to reduce this barrier through user-friendly interfaces.In designing materials, two typical approaches are combined to solve a given problem. The first is a top-down approach, in which a number of requirements are resolved to a set of possible and practical solutions for satisfying these requirements to a certain level. Almost all alloy development has followed such an approach. The second approach is a bottom-up approach, where different materials properties are described on the basis of underlying theories, preferably using first principles and fundamental data. But the vast number of possible materials makes the bottom-up approach unrealistic on its own. Instead, semi-empirical approaches are needed to bridge the gap between ad hoc data sets for practical applications and results produced by the bottom-up approach using fundamental data and first-principle calculations.

scholarly journals Evidence for a bimodal bilingual disadvantage in letter fluency

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCEL R. GIEZEN ◽  
KAREN EMMOREY
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Fluency Task

Many bimodal bilinguals are immersed in a spoken language-dominant environment from an early age and, unlike unimodal bilinguals, do not necessarily divide their language use between languages. Nonetheless, early ASL–English bilinguals retrieved fewer words in a letter fluency task in their dominant language compared to monolingual English speakers with equal vocabulary level. This finding demonstrates that reduced vocabulary size and/or frequency of use cannot completely account for bilingual disadvantages in verbal fluency. Instead, retrieval difficulties likely reflect between-language interference. Furthermore, it suggests that the two languages of bilinguals compete for selection even when they are expressed with distinct articulators.

Factors predicting classroom WTC in English and French as foreign languages among adult learners in Spain

2021 ◽  
pp. 136216882110540
Author(s):  
Elvira Barrios ◽  
Irene Acosta-Manzano
Keyword(s):  
Adult Learners ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Willingness To Communicate ◽  
French Language ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Relative Standing

This study aimed to identify associations and predictors of willingness to communicate (WTC) of adult foreign language (FL) learners and whether they are contingent upon the FL being learned. To this end, our research investigated learner variables associated with WTC in adult FL learners of English and of French in an under-researched field of WTC studies in Spain. More specifically, the following variables were studied: gender, age, level of multilingualism, perceived relative standing in the class, language proficiency, teacher’s use of the FL in class, out-of-class foreign language use (OCFLU) and the two emotions of foreign language enjoyment (FLE) and foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA). Of the 9 independent variables examined, FLCA and language proficiency were found to be predictors of the WTC of both English and French language learners; additionally, enjoyment was found to be a predictor of WTC of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and OCFLU, of learners of French as a foreign language (FFL). Our findings indicate that the construct of WTC needs to be further studied as research may produce dissimilar results depending on the instructional setting, population and foreign language. Pedagogical implications for language teaching practices seeking to enhance adult FL learners’ WTC were also drawn from the study results.

Practices of Teachers' in Implementing Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluationan Exploratory Study

2021 ◽  
pp. 16-32
Author(s):  
Vanita Chopra ◽  
Ranjana Bhatia
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Education ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Secondary School Teachers ◽  
Comprehensive Evaluation ◽  
Gifted Students ◽  
Innovative Strategies ◽  
Teacher's Manual ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Tools And Techniques ◽  
Central Board

The present study reports on the practices adopted by the secondary school teachers of English in implementing the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) scheme of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), India which has to be implemented as part of its national assessment policy. The study is delimited to observing the formative assessment practices adopted by the English teachers in enhancing the four language skills along with using variety of tools and techniques as directed by Central Board of Secondary Education in the Teacher's Manual. This study was conducted on a group of twenty teachers chosen purposively from twenty schools (ten central government and ten private). The major findings reveal that almost all teachers use multiple activities for assessing the listening, speaking and writing skills of the students. Reading still remains a neglected skill in the classroom owing to lack of awareness among teachers to use innovative strategies for enabling them to enhance their reading habit with comprehension. In addition, teachers also make use of multiple criteria to assess the above skills along with assessing sub-skills for the same. It was also found that teachers use multiple forms of record maintenance and assessment for assessing the gifted students in the class. With regard to remediation and enrichment for the students less than 50% of the teachers' prefer not to use multiple strategies for remediation and enrichment.

scholarly journals The relationship between phonotactic awareness and pronunciation in adult second language learners

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-214
Author(s):  
Hanna Kivistö-de Souza
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
L1 English ◽  
L2 Pronunciation

Abstract: This study examined to what extent L1 Brazilian Portuguese (BP) EFL learners are aware of L2 phonotactics and whether there would be a relationship between L2 phonotactic awareness and L2 pronunciation accuracy. The language learners were tested regarding their awareness of L2 onset consonant clusters with a lexical decision task presenting nonword stimuli with legal and illegal onset clusters. L2 pronunciation was measured with a Foreign Accent Rating Task. The results showed that L1 BP participants showed a high awareness concerning L2 phonotactics, not differing from L1 English speakers, t(86)=.20, p =.83. Furthermore, high phonotactic awareness was found to be related to higher accuracy in L2 pronunciation (r= -.46, p <.001). The results suggest that phonotactics should be taught in foreign language classrooms since increasing learners’ awareness might be beneficial for the accuracy of their L2 pronunciation.

Languages of borderlands, borders of languages: Native and foreign language use in intergroup contact between Czechs and their neighbours

Human Affairs ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magda Petrjánošová ◽  
Alicja Leix
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Intergroup Contact ◽  
International Project ◽  
Intergroup Attitudes ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Central European

AbstractIn this article we present a qualitative analysis of empirical findings from an international project on intergroup attitudes and contact in five Central European countries specifically concerning language use. The project concentrated on the interplay of intergroup contact and perception between the members of national groups in the borderlands between the Czech Republic and Austria, Germany, Poland and Slovakia. The open statements analysed here about the contact situations and the ensuing evaluation of the Others were collected as part of an online questionnaire (N=1959). After a short theoretical introduction we reveal the intertwined nature of construing language use: first in each specific borderland, then in the triads speaking together either in the native language of one of the groups (Czechs with Austrians and Germans) or with each speaking their own native languages (Czechs with Poles and Slovaks). Finally we highlight several effects we have observed as a result of being able to compare the situation in more than one neighbourhood, for instance, the effect of the different statuses of the languages involved, or the connection between the language used in contact and a feeling of proximity.

scholarly journals EFL Students’ Writing Strategies in Saudi Arabian ESP Writing Classes: Perspectives on Learning Strategies in Self-access Language Learning

2012 ◽  
pp. 407-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Alnufaie ◽  
Michael Grenfell
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Writing Strategies ◽  
Writing Classes ◽  
Student Writers ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Process Oriented ◽  
Almost All

This study was part of a PhD research to explore the writing strategies of 121 second-year undergraduate Saudi student writers who are studying English as a foreign language and for specific purposes in one of the Saudi industrial colleges: Jubail Industrial College (JIC). The writing strategies under investigation had been classified into two categories (process-oriented writing strategies and product-oriented writing strategies) based on their instructional philosophies. A strategy questionnaire was designed to collect data. Although JIC writing classes were assumed to be product-oriented as reported by the majority of the participants’ description of their teachers’ writing approach, the results showed that almost all of the participants (95.9%) were mixing the two kinds of strategies. More surprisingly, the top five writing strategies used by the participants were process-oriented.

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