Literacy and Language-in-Education Policy in Bidialectal Settings

Abstract

The acquisition, fostering and further development of literacy in bilingual situations has been widely studied but similar issues in bidialectal settings where nonstandard and standard languages coexist have not attracted sufficient attention. This is the second of a series of studies investigating the use of nonstandard languages or dialects in the Cyprus educational setting. The first paper (Pavlou & Papapavlou, 2004) examined teachers’ attitudes towards the use of the Greek Cypriot dialect (GCD) in primary education and their own linguistic behaviour inside and outside class. The present paper reviews the current language policy in Cyprus in relation to literacy acquisition and development and (1) investigates primary teachers’ views on the use of GCD and how this usage affects students’ literacy acquisition (i.e. linguistic performance, educational attainment, and psychological welfare), (2) examines how teachers view the adequacy of GCD as a linguistic system, (3) delineates those factors that shaped teachers’ attitudes towards GCD, (4) discusses the relation between dialect use and ethnic identity, and (5) explores teachers’ stance on language policy matters.