Multilingualism and Language Choice in Domains

Experts know that multilingualism is not the so-called minority phenomenon as many people think it to be. Although it is difficult to provide the exact statistical data on the multilingual speakers and distribution of multilingualism in the world, sociolinguists and linguists estimate that there are roughly around 6000 languages in the world. The focus of this book chapter is to succinctly present the sociolinguistic aspects of language choice and use of multilingual speakers in various domains. Besides, concepts such as bilingualism and multilingualism and their dynamics in the field of sociolinguistics have been critically been reviewed and presented from the theoretical and empirical perspectives. Further, some of the relevant issues related to language choice and use in multilingual speech communities in different parts of the globe are reviewed and included. Furthermore, factors inducing multilingualism among different speech communities and individuals have been reviewed and finally, recent developments and dynamics toward the spread of multilingualism in various parts of the world are also presented in the chapter.

Translators’ Personality in the Translations of D.O. Fagunwa’s Igbó Olódùmarè

The concept “Translation” has been examined by many scholars from different perspectives, but little attention has been devoted to the personalities of the translators in their translation works. The concern of this essay is to consider the personalities of the translators of D.O. Fagunwa’s novel, Igbó Olódùmarè in line with the theories of Natural and Directional equivalence to foreground the idea that translation is heavily dependent on the translators’ personality. It was found that translators’ motive, purpose, language choice, and religious background have an immense influence on their approach to translation.

Requiem – Alàgbà, Dr., Prince, Mosọbalájé Ajíbádé Àkàndé Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí, OON, DLitt., FNAL, JP, a.k.a ‘Pa Fálétí’ to Some; ‘Bàbá Fálétí’ to all and Sundry.

What is in a name? It is a testament to everything relational, from the ceremonial to the conventional to the familial! The progression from ‘Knowing of a person’ (mímọ ẹnì kan); ‘knowing something about that person’ (mímọ nǹkan nípa ẹni náà, mímọ ẹni náà); to ‘knowing that person well, personally’ (mímọ ènìyàn náà dáadáa) describes the various levels and depths of measuring knowledge of and/or familiarity with that person. It determines and builds the foundation of relationships. Thus, the trajectory of relationships run the gamut from having heard once of or about the person’s name mo ti gbọ or ́ úkọ yẹn rí (I have heard of that name before); to knowing a smattering bit of information associated with that name, bẹ́ẹ̀ ni, mo mọ ǹkan díẹ̀ nípa orúkọ yẹn (yes, I know a little about that name/person); to having a good knowledge of the person through study of his/her published works, mo ti ka àwọn ìwé wọn; mo mọ iṣẹ́ wọn dáadáa (I have read his/her works; I am quite familiar with them); to intimate, first-hand knowledge of and familiarity with the person, works and all, the Mo mọ wọ ̀ n dáadáa ́ (I know him/her very well, personally), indeed, at the formal and familial levels of relationships. 2 Pamela J. Olubunmi Smith Thanks to the immense, providential endowment trumpeted on the airwaves, and flashed on screen, and showcased on makeshift stages from hamlet, to village, to town squares and city halls, and planted in almost every household so the gen-X and gen-Y Yorùbá can, in varying degrees, claim knowledge of and familiarity with Bàbá Fálétí, the man, the artist, the actor, the prodigious poet, indeed, the half-sung, consummate bard, the cultural icon, beloved son of Yorùbáland. With even greater gratitude to the dear friend who, as the story goes, having read, at Fálétí’s request, a lengthy poem Fálétí had penned in English, advised his B.A. honors-in-English friend to start writing in Yorùbá. Thankfully, Fálétí heeded his friend’s daring, but honest friendly advice, switching his language choice to Yorùbá, and thus making us all heirs to a lasting legacy undoubtedly steeped in and shaped by quintessential Yorùbá traditions.

Language choice and language contact in print advertisements for Russian-speaking immigrants in Germany

This study aims to analyze linguistic contact in a written language on a sample of advertisements for Russian-speaking immigrants in the German city of Nuremberg, where there is a well-developed infrastructure for Russian-speaking immigrants, including the availability of periodicals. The study has the following research questions: What functions do Russian and German, as well as other languages, perform in advertisements in periodicals for Russian-speaking immigrants? Is there a correlation between the subject matter of the ads and the language or languages used? What phenomena of language contact found in the spoken language of Russian-speaking immigrants are characteristic of advertisements? A corpus consisting of 443 advertisements, obtained through continuous sampling from periodicals, was collected for the study. The analysis revealed that Russian, German, English, Ukrainian, and Latin fulfil specific functions in the advertisements. It was found that, depending on the subject matter, advertisers choose a particular language or language combination for their ads. At the lexical and morphosyntactic levels were identified borrowings from German and English, entirely or partially grammatically integrated into Russian, and cases of code-switching between Russian and German. Thereby, the study highlights one aspect of the linguistic situation of the Russian-speaking community in Germany and may implicitly serve to assess the vitality of the Russian language in Germany.

Semantics

George Winter discusses the use of jargon and euphemisms in the medical profession, and examines how obfuscation through language choice can affect communication with patients

New limits on the right to freedom of expression from Hamzy v Commissioner of Corrective Services

This article examines a 2020 NSW Supreme Court judgment upholding the legality of English-only rules for communications by ‘extreme high risk restricted’ prison inmates. The article focuses on the reasoning regarding claims to human rights to freedom of expression and from racial discrimination. It explains that the decision provides a rare insight into problematic Australian judicial thinking about language choice in expression, the intersection of racial and linguistic discrimination and the characterisation of English as Australia’s ‘official’ or ‘de facto’ national language.

‘I’m not a tech person’

This study contributes to existing research on polymedia by probing into what we call academic polymedia, investigating the constant availability of interpersonal, professional, and social media for constructing scholarly personas. Drawing on the technobiographical narratives of a group of Hong Kong bilingual academics, we analyze academics’ perceptions of their media choices as situated in their professional polymedia environments. In particular, we examine how choices between public and private media shape academic persona development, and the way polymedia engagement impacts the participants’ language choice for academic purposes. This study sheds light on existing research on workplace discourse and identity in sociolinguistics by offering a polymedia dimension that draws on people’s media ideology in developing their professional identities.