“What I want to do I do not do”: on bi- and multilingual repertoires and linguistic dislocation in a border town

Language problems and language barriers are challenges facing not only immigrants but also minorities and people in rural/semirural areas. This study examines individuals’ bi- and multilingual repertoires, language practices and attitudes in a Hokkien-speaking community in Kangar, a semirural town of northern Malaysia bordering Thailand. Through questionnaire surveys and interviews, we investigate how these notions can be used as a means to understand/reflect bilingualism and multilingualism and, more importantly, the potential disparity between what people want to do/say and what people eventually manage to do/say. While there is a shift in language practice from a local- and ancestral origin-induced pattern towards a more “global” and “pan-Chinese” paradigm, the findings also reveal the linguistic “dislocations” of the Hokkien-speaking community across ALL generations regardless of ethnicity. The language issues in the community reflect—and are likely to be reflections of—society at large. The vast contrast between individual/societal linguistic aspirations and the actual linguistic repertoire/communicative competence among the locals indicates the need to redress an absence of major efforts to close urban-rural/city-town/dominant-dominated social divides across the (language) education landscape at the national level.

Improving Reading Skills of Saudi English Learners

This study aimed at investigating the underlying reasons that can cause Saudi EFL learners to have lower English performance. This study follows a qualitative method through interviewing three college students at Jouf University and one professor. The self-constructed interviews were basically targeted four items; 1) students’ related issues, 2) teachers’ related issues, 3) curricula- related issues, and 4) assessment related issues. The finding of this study have indicated that the primary reasons of Saudi EFL learners were due to their lower internal and intrinsic motivation. The conceptualized learning English as an academic course to pass, and not an actual language communication. The recommendations suggested by this study were trimmed into the following: increasing English language practice, learning authentic communicative language.

Analysis of Underlying Reasons for Low Saudi EFL Performance

This study aimed at investigating the underlying reasons of challenges that can cause Saudi EFL learners to have lower English performance. This study follows a qualitative method through interviewing three college students at Jouf University and one professor. The self-constructed interviews were basically targeted four items; 1) students’ related issues, 2) teachers’ related issues, 3) curricula- related issues, and 4) assessment related issues. The finding of this study have indicated that the primary challenges of Saudi EFL learners were due to their lower internal and intrinsic motivation. The conceptualized learning English as an academic course to pass, and not an actual language communication. The recommendations suggested by this study were trimmed into the following: increasing English language practice, shifting the focus from being examination- driven focus onto learning authentic communicative language.

Translating Obligations: Tamassuk and Fārigh-khaṭṭī in the Indo-Persian World

A necessarily widespread feature of language practice in the Persianate world was the need for translation of speech and text, with a range of lexical and semantic challenges involved in taking meaning from one language to another. This article focusses on legal translation, with its highly functional aims, by following the career of a pair of Indo-Persian legal forms known as tamassuk and fārigh-khaṭṭī, used for recording obligation and requital respectively. Tracing their reincarnations from Persian into Marathi, Hindi and Bengali, this article reveals several forms of boundary-crossing: doctrinal, jurisdictional, political and linguistic. In doing so, it explores the legal mindscapes in the early modern Indo-Persian world, spilling from the late Mughal into the colonial, and shows how multilingualism functioned within specific parts of the Persianate cosmopolis.

A Little Word That Means A Lot: A Reassessment of Singular They in a New Era of Gender Politics

Singular they has emerged as a key term in contemporary gender politics, reflecting growing usage of they/them as nonbinary personal pronouns. Drawing on interviews with 54 progressive gender activists, we consider how singular they can be used to resist and redo aspects of the prevailing gender structure. We identify three distinct usages of singular they: (1) as a nonbinary personal pronoun, (2) as a universal gender-neutral pronoun, and (3) as an indefinite pronoun when a person’s self-identified gender is unknown. While previous research on singular they as a gender-inclusive language practice has focused primarily on its usage as a nonbinary personal pronoun, our findings point to the relevance for gender politics of all three usages. Our analysis offers new insight into how nonbinary they challenges dominant gender norms and practices beyond incorporating additional gender categories. Given our findings, we propose further investigation of how using gender-neutral pronouns for everyone in specific contexts can advance progressive activists’ goals. Finally, we argue that the longstanding usage of singular they as an indefinite pronoun has new importance today in affirming gender as a self-determined identity.

An ambivalent picture

In France, English has a hegemonic position in many domains, including education, despite European policy promoting linguistic and cultural diversity to better integrate citizens in democratic processes. In 2013, the Fioraso law modified the Toubon law by allowing French universities to teach in a foreign language. Under the law, the choice of English at the expense of any other foreign language seems to have become practice. However, this practice clashes with long-standing criticism of Englishization in France. In this chapter an ambivalent picture of Englishization in French higher education arises, revealing tensions between criticism and official language policy on the one hand and language practice on the other. Translingual practices in France generate a different view of Englishization in higher education