Language Problems and Language Planning - Volume 42, Issue 1, 2018

Motility (sometimes referred to as ‘mobility capital’ or ‘mobility potential’) is a still understudied and underutilised concept in both migration and sociolinguistic literature. Perhaps even more than actual mobility, it can shed an important light on the possible connection between language and migration. In this theoretical article, it will be argued that motility can both be a potential catalyst for language shift, but can in other instances also contribute to language maintenance. Inspired by Fishman’s Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS) and Simon and Lewis’ Expanded Graded Intergenerational Scale (EGIDS), it is assumed that the most important factor in processes of language shift is the attitude of parents, in particular their willingness to transmit their heritage language to their children. This willingness is connected with the perception of the value of the heritage language, which might be, in addition to other factors, influenced by the mobility capital the heritage language might give future generations. The interplay between migrant networks in different countries and the country of origin is key in understanding the parents’ decision-making process. Furthermore, the three main features of motility (access, competence and appropriation) fit quite logically in the already existing EGIDS scale. This article thus argues that motility is a valuable and necessary concept for sociolinguistic research and migration scholars alike.

This article, a case study in one group of communities of Nepal, considers minority language education in the face of increasing encroachment of the dominant and national language Nepali. Our over-arching research question asks, in the context of local education, what we can observe about the perceived value, use of, and competition between two local languages (Gurung, Gyalsumdo) and also between these languages and Nepali (the national language of Nepal) in the Manang District. We find persistent divisions amongst residents and educators about the current and future role of local languages.

Multilingualism represents a global challenge and a goal of education in European states. This meta-analysis examines how research studies on multilingual educational policy documents on a macro-level (national/regional) in Sweden and Switzerland differ in terms of foci and how the discourses in the articles represent different treatments of multilingual educational language policies. These countries were selected because of their similarities regarding the societal context, but they are different in regard to language policy issues and political formation. The articles were systematically identified via two databases, ERIC and LLBA, and in order to examine the latest developments after the introduction of a new language act in Sweden and the harmonization of public education in Switzerland in 2009, only research articles published between 2009 and 2016 were included. The results of the study suggest that a monolingual habitus exists in the Swedish nation state context compared to a more pluralistic approach in Switzerland. The most noteworthy result is the diverging definitions of multilingualism and plurilingual students and how this understanding influences the treatment of educational policies in these two linguistically and culturally superdiverse European countries.

In 1999, the Italian Republic acknowledged the status of Sardinian as a minority language. Since then the Autonomous Region of Sardinia has been committed to the development of language policies for Sardinian. A regional law approved in 1997 adopted the aim of promoting the different varieties of the languages spoken in Sardinia. The goals changed substantially when the Region adopted for its language planning activities the ideas of a cultural-political movement known as Movimentu Linguisticu Sardu, and appointed an activist Director of the Bureau of the Sardinian Language. This article presents and discusses the key steps in the last decade of language planning: the proposals, their development and consequences.

Previous work has examined the potential of Esperanto as a pedagogical tool in classroom foreign language learning in England, where limited language input of sometimes as little as one hour per week is the norm. The work reviewed here focuses on child learners aged 6 to 12 and was carried out between 2006 and 2016. Two Esperanto-based language awareness programmes have provided primarily descriptive insights, suggesting that learning Esperanto may result in greater metalinguistic awareness and more positive attitudes to other languages and cultures. However, the language awareness programmes were implemented without matched comparison groups and therefore could not reveal whether the learning of Esperanto would lead to different results than the learning of other languages. Classroom-based research that included matched comparison groups has sought to address this issue. Specifically, three studies investigated the questions of whether learning Esperanto as opposed to learning other languages would help enhance children’s metalinguistic awareness and thus contribute in turn to more successful learning in a limited-input classroom context. On the one hand, results indicate that for novice child learners, Esperanto was easier to learn than French, and that learning Esperanto may have a levelling effect that compensates for individual differences between children. On the other hand, the findings also show that these apparent advantages of Esperanto did not translate into measurably greater benefits for the development of metalinguistic awareness, or greater subsequent success in learning another foreign language. Moreover, learning Esperanto could not compensate for low language learning aptitude. In view of these sobering results, a number of proposals are made on how to take forward the research agenda. These proposals include further research into the potential benefits of using form-focused instruction (based on any language) with children as well as the effects of learning Esperanto in novice adult learners.