Spiaking Singlish: The politics of ludic English in Singapore

This article is a case study on how Singaporean intellectuals articulate resistant language ideologies by enregistering the local vernacular, Singlish. The case in point is Gwee Li Sui's 2018 companion Spiaking Singlish, lauded as the first book to be written in Singlish about Singlish. It is argued that in tactically leveraging Singlish in a folk-lexicographical project, Gwee takes the vernacular to the third indexical order; and in so doing, he performs a ludic and extreme form of Singlish through which an everyday tongue turns into a fetish object. Contextualising Gwee's polemics within his tension with the language establishment in Singapore, the article highlights the ethical dilemma implicit in the celebration of languages speaking to an egalitarian ethos, suggesting that in enunciating a vernacular on the order of reflexive performance, intellectuals may inadvertently fashion it into a more elitist language than that which is spoken on the streets. (Singlish, Singapore, enregisterment, performativity, indexicality)

The Role of Language Ideologies in the Self-Efficacy of Pre-Service Bilingual Education Teachers

This chapter examines how language inequities within education are associated with perceptions of Spanish language self-efficacy in pre-service bilingual education teachers. The chapter delves into how language ideologies play a role in shaping disparities amongst bilingual education programs. The teacher shortages which exist within the field of bilingual education have assisted in the increased demands placed on bilingual pre- and in-service teachers. The programs created to instruct bilingual teachers have had to modify their design in order to meet the needs of future teachers. The needs are determined by the perceptions of each bilingual. Additionally, each bilingual chooses what skills are needed in order to use Spanish as a medium of instruction and, in some cases, to teach Spanish as a foreign language. Using a grounded theory, this study analyzed the cycle of language ideologies, self-efficacy, and language inequities. The results show that language ideologies have impacted the bilinguals' self-efficacy. Finally, it was determined that language inequality has played a key role in shaping language ideologies.

Language Ideologies and Multilingual Practices of Post-Soviet Migrants in Western Europe from a Translanguaging Perspective

The main point of this paper is to describe, discuss and analyse multilingual practices of non-Russian migrants from the former Soviet Union from a translanguaging perspective uncovering language ideologies underpinning these practices. Using data collected through a 3-month linguistic ethnography supplemented by linguistic analysis of informal online communication, the Author found that fluid, translingual practices are generally not characteristic for the majority of well-educated post-Soviet migrants. Instead, we observe in the normative linguistic behaviour a lack of need or unwillingness to cross language boundaries and create hybrid linguistic forms.

Family language policy in Russian-Estonian and Russian-Spanish multilingual settings

This paper primarily focuses on the family language policy of bilingual Russian-Estonian and Russian-Spanish families in relation to the maintenance of Russian as a heritage language. Its main objective is to identify social factors that either help or hinder this process. In doing so, this paper searches for commonalities and specificities of the mainstream attitudes towards Russian as a heritage language in Estonia and Spain, by analysing the sociolinguistic situation of Russian in both countries and by examining the factors conditioning the maintenance of Russian as a heritage language in family settings. Our research is based on an in-depth analysis of a variety of sources, mainly quantitative statistical and demographic data on self-reported language behaviour and language ideologies in mixed families from Estonia (n = 40) and Spain (n = 40). The main results of our comparative study confirm the general positive attitude towards Russian as a heritage language, but they also highlight an important variability of these attitudes both between countries and within each community. We show that these attitudes directly determine the principles of family language policy, the parents strategies to transmit Russian as a heritage language, and the level of proficiency in Russian as a heritage language in the second generation. These results allow us to conclude that, as a heritage language, Russian relies on strong attitudinal support in even small communities, like Estonian or Spanish, but also that its confident transmission should rely on external subsidy.