Language Use In Relation Research Articles

Minority Language Learning in the Administration: Data from the Basque Country

This paper aims at providing some data on the acquisition of Basque in the Basque Autonomous Community (Spain). First, it reports recent data and results of research studies on bilingual education and the use of Basque. Then, it focuses on one of the language plans developed by the Basque Government: the Basquisation' of civil servants. The article presents the general characteristics of the first stage of the plan and it describes the process of learning Basque by civil servants. Next, it analyses the results of the plan and reports research studies on learners' attitudes. Finally, it relates language acquisition to language use in relation to the minority status of the Basque language.

What no bedtime story means: Narrative skills at home and school

AbstractAbstract “Ways of taking” from books are a part of culture and as such are more varied than current dichotomies between oral and literate traditions and relational and analytic cognitive styles would suggest. Patterns of language use related to books are studied in three literate communities in the Southeastern United States, focusing on such “literacy events” as bedtime story reading. One community, Maintown, represents mainstream, middle-class school-oriented culture; Roadville is a white mill community of Appalachian origin; the third, Trackton, is a black mill community of recent rural origin. The three communities differ strikingly in their patterns of language use and in the paths of language socialization of their children. Trackton and Roadville are as different from each other as either is from Maintown, and the differences in preschoolers' language use are reflected in three different patterns of adjustment to school. This comparative study shows the inadequacy of the prevalent dichotomy between oral and literate traditions, and points also to the inadequacy of unilinear models of child language development and dichotomies between types of cognitive styles. Study of the development of language use in relation to written materials in home and community requires a broad framework of sociocultural analysis. (Crosscultural analysis, ethnography of communication, language development, literacy, narratives.)

Social status and language comprehension

Abstract.— Previous research on differences in language use in relation to social status have dealt almost exclusively with language production. The present study investigated the comprehension of connected discourse by 116 adult Danes from two different socio‐economic status groups, high status (HSES) and low status (LSES). On a task at the lexical level of comprehension (choosing between alternatives to two words in each of four texts) there appeared no differences between HSES and LSES subjects. At the structural level a difference (p<0.05) was found in drawing conclusions from the texts, but the groups nevertheless agreed completely (p<0.05) in underlining important segments of the texts. Thus the symmetry between production and comprehension hypothesized by Bernstein did not appear. The results are interpreted in accordance with a general model of language processing. It is suggested that in the future more attention should be paid to variables other than the purely sociological variable of social status or social class.

Language Use in Relation to the Growth of Towns in West Africa a Survey

It is my aim in this paper to survey the published information available to me on language use in relation to the growth of towns in West Africa. The average annual increase of population in Africa is about 2.5% but the increase of population in towns has been far more rapid especially since World War II. The relative rate of increase in towns being far higher than that due to natural increase caused by the birth-rate urban immigration is seen to be an important factor. Basic information in relation to this as to most other aspects of development in Africa is hard to come by being not only scarce but spread out over a great number of publications. (excerpt)

Language Use in Relation to the Growth of Towns in West Africa-A Survey

Language Use in Relation to the Growth of Towns in West Africa-A Survey