Valuing the local within the global: A discourse analysis of professional development in a U.S.-Kurdish transnational university partnership

In an effort to support higher education in developing countries, partnerships between U.S. and international universities have surged, raising questions concerning the social equity of such linkages. Using a New Literacy Studies approach to discourse analysis, online transcripts from one such university partnership were analyzed to determine how language was used to negotiate a more equitable partnership through the adaptation of the social context of professional development activities. Discourse analysis of three relevant linguistic markers in the data suggests that cultural perspectives on professional development influenced the language choices made by university partners, reshaping the power structure toward greater social equity, and aiding in the completion of joint professional development goals. Findings underscore the importance of drawing on local knowledges in planning for and conducting transnational university partnerships.

Chatbots Language Design: The Influence of Language Variation on User Experience with Tourist Assistant Chatbots

Chatbots are often designed to mimic social roles attributed to humans. However, little is known about the impact of using language that fails to conform to the associated social role. Our research draws on sociolinguistic to investigate how a chatbot’s language choices can adhere to the expected social role the agent performs within a context. We seek to understand whether chatbots design should account for linguistic register. This research analyzes how register differences play a role in shaping the user’s perception of the human-chatbot interaction. We produced parallel corpora of conversations in the tourism domain with similar content and varying register characteristics and evaluated users’ preferences of chatbot’s linguistic choices in terms of appropriateness, credibility, and user experience. Our results show that register characteristics are strong predictors of user’s preferences, which points to the needs of designing chatbots with register-appropriate language to improve acceptance and users’ perceptions of chatbot interactions.

Multilingual Ability Among Deaf Students in Multicultural Education Contexts

The chapter intends to provide a conceptual basis for bilingual educators who filter their understanding of deafness through the socio-cultural lens of deafness. To do this, various types of simultaneous and sequential bilingualism en route to bilingual education for young deaf children are explored in relation to the language choices of their parents and educators. In light of these varied routes, the chapter discusses a typology of bilingual education ranging from weak forms aimed at assimilating signing deaf children into majority language and culture to strong forms focussing on development and maintenance of sign language and cultural pluralism.

Ìgbélárugẹ Èdè: Akinwumi Isola’s Model for Promoting African Languages

The ever-popular discussion in African literary circles is critically about language choices that African writers make in their creative endeavors. This is part of this write-up’s focus plus the plight of African languages with attention to the benefit and challenges for their empowerment. We set out to achieve two goals in this essay; first contributing to the ongoing discussions on African mother tongues, their vital roles in African literatures while characterizing pointers on proficiency and performance. Second, considering the use of Yoruba language in creative works of late Akínwùmí Oròjídé Iṣọ̀lá. Expectedly, the latter goal will exemplify the importance of indigenous languages to African writers. In pursuance of these dual goals, it is critical to highlight areas in which African writers, especially those writing in their native African languages, have endured to play crucial roles in promotion of African languages. These highlighted areas go beyond now fashionable and expressed goal of focusing on literature in African languages (splendor in African languages) onto push for fairness for languages and their speakers (linguistic justice).

Translanguaging space and translanguaging practices in multilingual Russian-speaking families

Translanguaging is seen both as a threat and as an opportunity for minority language development and transmission. While the theme of translanguaging has been explored especially in a context of migration, the novelty of this study lies in its investigation of the multiple contexts in which translanguaging is examined. In order to understand the nature of translanguaging, we adopt a novel interdisciplinary approach and view it in all its complexity, including liminal spaces of linguistic landscape. Family language policy affects the home linguistic environment. Our purpose is to investigate language choices by multilingual Russian-speakers in Cyprus, Sweden and Estonia, immigrant and minority settings, and try to understand how they are reflected in the multilingual interaction of the families. Using ethnographic participant observations and oral spontaneous multilingual production, our study attempts to describe how communication is managed through translanguaging practices among multilingual Russian-speaking families members in the cultural and linguistic environments of the three countries. By looking closely at the complexities of translanguaging space, it is our ambition to gain new insights about how it is organised and how translanguaging becomes a valuable linguistic resource in multilingual families. Our results indicate that translanguaging practices can be used in family conversational contexts and contribute to the creation of a rich and positive family repertoire. A new norm of Russian has been developed in all the three settings. A language shift can happen more quickly than expected, and, thus, it is important for parents to provide many opportunities for practising Russian as the L1.

EFL learners and English email writing: developing a computerised diagnostic language assessment

Email remains a key mode of communication between faculty and students in higher education institutions. Composing appropriate email texts is an important skill for learners; however, little technological support is available for the pragmatic aspect of email communication – the ways in which social context influences language choices. Furthermore, pragmatics can be undertaught in the language classroom. One approach to providing support for learners while also addressing the issue of giving instruction to large class sizes is via computerisation. In this ongoing research project, we describe the development of a Computerised Diagnostic Language Assessment (C-DLA) of L2 English email writing for Japanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in Japanese higher education. The C-DLA provides automated feedback to learners on the pragmatic aspects of their draft email texts, with feedback adapting to learners’ success in resolving identified issues. We report on the development phases of the project, challenges encountered, and implications for further research.

Doing Business in the ‘New Normal’: COVID-19 School Leaders’ Language Manners

As the not-so-new-now coronavirus pandemic has affected all walks of life, education has not been an exemption; what is more, it is one of the most severely hit sectors. The unknown crisis created unprecedented circumstances for all participants in the education process, and school leaders have had a double job: to navigate their institutions and to look after their employees. The latter is a pretty delicate task - they have had to keep doing business and running their companies while minding the language since physical distancing necessitated the use of electronic communication, thus making room for vagueness and even misinterpretations. Ten education leaders of primary and secondary schools in North Macedonia have been video-interviewed on everyday COVID-19-related situations from their workplace context. Discourse completion tasks (DCTs) have been employed as a data elicitation method. Being given the open-ended, only topically specified scenarios, the respondents are asked to recreate their language reaction to situations that have happened in their newest pandemic work life. The interviews have been transcribed, and the leaders’ language choices have been analyzed. The findings show that, luckily, the leaders have been mindful about their words and have mostly chosen to use positive, calm, and encouraging language. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Speak Global, Sell Local? Digital Linguistic Landscape of Local Small Businesses in the Social Media

This paper focuses on the online presence of languages and linguistic patterns of local small businesses in a bilingual, Hungarian-Romanian ethnic community in Romania. By capturing linguistic diversity and creativity via netnographic research, patterns of linguistic landscape elements in the social media, such as marketing strategy of local small businesses, can be analysed. The findings suggest that despite the need to advertise by using the state language, Romanian, in order to maximize the target audience, the concentration of Hungarian landscape elements is the highest. Businesses construct their linguistic identity by their language choices and practices, aligned with the collective linguistic identity of a bilingual community and the need for a global representation, in order to secure a place in the local market.