ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics - Volume 65, Issue 1, 1984

In this paper we will support the basic Saussurian view that every language is an individual and independent system which is exploited in a unique, creative and specific way by speakers of that language, in order to communicate what may be termed as 'language-specific' messages, which may very well be 'untranslatable' from one language to another. Examples from Modern Hebrew will be provided on the word-formation, word, structure and discourse levels of language to illustrate that the process of translation may not necessarily be an automatic 'mapping' of LI linguistic forms and structures to their most accurate, equivalent and fluent L2 counterparts in order to convey the same (or as similar as possible) communicative messages. We will contend that this 'untranslatability' existing between languages, which may be systematically discovered through theoretical linguistic and stylistic analyses, should be applied to teaching foreign language students the unique system of the language they are studying.

The study focuses on factors which influence the attitudes of children toward standard and nonstandard language varieties. In a multicultural rural community in Hawaii where communicative competence includes to varying degrees a knowledge of both standard English and Hawaii Creole English, data were collected to measure the following :

language attitudes of 68 kindergarten and first grade children,

the fluency of these children in standard English and Hawaii Creole English, and

language attitudes of the parents of the children.

Multiple regression analyses of the data indicate the following : no significant effect of parent attitudes on those of a child; the relaÂtive importance of ethnic background and length of residence in the speech community; sex as an important variable in determining language perceptions; a tendency to greater preference for a dialect as profiÂciency in it increases.