Multilingual Contexts Research Articles

Bilingual education in postcolonial Mozambique as a site for creation of ethical spaces of otherwise

Abstract Using a broad decolonial approach and taking the bilingual education field as reference, in this article I analyse the intersection of language ideology, education and social order in Mozambique. More, specifically, I combine transformative notions of “Linguistic Citizenship” and “spaces of otherwise” to uncover “coloniality of language” in education and in other fields, and to understand how spaces of possibility are being created and maintained. The combination of these notions allows us to understand the politics of language in diverse multilingual contexts and how alternative modes of languaging, thinking and being may emerge and endure over time or be silenced. I argue that, in addition to the current “enabling” legislative and policy framework in Mozambique, there is a need to transform institutional structures as well as the positionality of the vulnerable and marginalised citizens, as these are necessary conditions for fostering “diversity of voice” and “mutuality and reciprocity” of engagement across difference. In this regard, I discuss how agency and transformation within bilingual education have the potential to trigger ethical transformations in other societal fields.

The politics of distraction in planning English-medium education policy in schools

ABSTRACT This article presents the findings of a critical ethnography focused on the English-medium instruction (EMI) policy in Nepal’s public schools. Through the analysis of policy documents and interviews with policymakers, the study reveals that policymakers view the EMI policy as a solution to the crisis in public schools by enhancing their competitiveness with private English-medium schools. However, this approach is identified as a ‘politics of distraction’, as it diverts attention from broader issues such as implicit privatization, funding cuts, and accountability deficits for implementing multilingual education policy. By framing EMI as a public policy doctrine using discursive strategies (e.g. neoliberal rationalization and justification) and suggesting that the crisis can be resolved through school privatization, which in turn promotes commodified languages like English and the national dominant language, Nepali, over local/Indigenous languages, policymakers largely disregard inequalities, structural conditions, and reinforce the existing unequal power relations. By diverting attention from critical issues, policymakers perpetuate historical marginalization, colonial agendas and ideologies, and unequal power asymmetries, failing to address systemic challenges. The research underscores the necessity of scrutinizing the motivations and agendas underlying the promotion of EMI in mainstream schools in multilingual contexts.

Phonemic verbal fluency in non-WEIRD populations: Demographic differences in performance in the Controlled Oral Word Association Test-FAS

This study aimed to investigate whether age, level of education, gender, number of spoken languages, and the self-reported position of language within this multilingual experience predicted performance on the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT-FAS). Using a cross-sectional research design, the phonemic verbal fluency of a sample (n = 156) of healthy adults (ages 18–60 years) with different linguistic and educational backgrounds from a non-WEIRD (western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic) context was assessed using the COWAT-FAS (including the F, A, S, total correct, repetition, incorrect, and total errors). Pearson’s correlations showed significant negative associations between age and most of the COWAT scores, including the total (r = –0.47; p 0.01) and significant positive associations between years of education and all of the COWAT scores, including the total (r = 0.49; p 0.01). The number of languages spoken was not significantly correlated with any of the COWAT scores, but multilinguals who identified English as a first language performed significantly better than those who identified English as a secondary language for several COWAT scores, including the total (t154 = 3.85; p 0.001; d = 0.79). Age (B = –0.32; p 0.001), years of education (B = 0.35; p 0.001), and language position (B = –0.20; p 0.01) also significantly predicted the COWAT total score (r2 = 0.38; F = 18.34; p 0.001; f2 = 0.61). The implications of these findings for use of the COWAT-FAS in multilingual and non-WEIRD contexts are discussed.Contribution: This article supports the importance of understanding the role demographic variables play in cognitive performance and how they represent a source of bias in cognitive testing, particularly in the COWAT-FAS. It highlights how age, level of education, and the correspondence, or lack thereof, between first language and language of assessment, impacts phonemic fluency tasks. This knowledge may help to manage biases when conducting verbal fluency assessments with multilingual individuals and in non-WEIRD contexts.

Ukrainian–Russian bilingualism in the war-affected migrant and refugee communities in Austria and Germany: a survey-based study on language attitudes

IntroductionThis paper provides an initial exploration of Ukrainian–Russian bilingualism in the context of the war-affected migration from Ukraine to Austria and Germany. While extensive research exists on various aspects of Ukrainian– Russian bilingualism in relation to Ukraine itself, thus far no studies have been conducted on this bilingualism in the diasporic context, i.e., as a language of the first and subsequential generations with a migrant background in Austria and Germany.MethodsTo address this research gap, our paper examines the language attitudes of two respondent groups with a Ukrainian background in the two countries: migrants and refugees who left Ukraine after 2014 and those who left after Russia’s invasion in February 2022. In the framework of a sociolinguistic survey, we describe their current attitudes regarding the use of Ukrainian and Russian, among others, in relation to the actual and intended use of the language(s) in the multilingual context of migration. The survey eliciting information on demographic information, language proficiency, language attitudes and language use was conducted on 406 Ukrainians in two host countries (Austria: n = 103; Germany: n = 306). First, we compared self-rated proficiency in Ukrainian and Russian as well as attitudes and use of these languages. Second, we applied a network modelling analysis to determine the nature of relationships between these variables.Results and discussionThe results indicated that proficiency in Ukrainian and in Russian were the strongest nodes in the model affecting language use and language attitudes toward the respective languages. Our data analysis focused on the pragmatic and symbolic value of Russian and Ukrainian playing a crucial role in the language vitality in multilingual settings. The paper discusses the imbalanced correlation of the symbolic and pragmatic value of Ukrainian and Russian in the diasporic Ukrainian communities. While Ukrainian has gained a higher symbolic status, Russian maintains a better pragmatic one, despite its negative symbolic status. However, we anticipate that the increasing symbolic value of Ukrainian and the diminishing value of Russian will lead to an increase in the use of Ukrainian also in Russian-dominant bilingual groups of Ukrainian migrants and refugees, even as an insider-code in hermetic minority groups.

Towards Media Monitoring: Detecting Known and Emerging Topics through Multilingual and Crosslingual Text Classification

This study aims to address challenges in media monitoring by enhancing closed-set topic classification in multilingual contexts (where both training and testing occur in several languages) and crosslingual contexts (where training is in English and testing spans all languages). To achieve this goal, we utilized a dataset from the European Media Monitoring webpage, which includes approximately 15,000 article titles across 18 topics in 58 different languages spanning a period of nine months from May 2022 to March 2023. Our research conducted comprehensive comparative analyses of nine approaches, encompassing a spectrum of embedding techniques (word, sentence, and contextual representations) and classifiers (trainable/fine-tunable, memory-based, and generative). Our findings reveal that the LaBSE+FFNN approach achieved the best performance, reaching macro-averaged F1-scores of 0.944 ± 0.015 and 0.946 ± 0.019 in both multilingual and crosslingual scenarios. LaBSE+FFNN’s similar performance in multilingual and crosslingual scenarios eliminates the need for machine translation into English. We also tackled the open-set topic classification problem by training a binary classifier capable of distinguishing between known and new topics with the average loss of ∼0.0017 ± 0.0002. Various feature types were investigated, reaffirming the robustness of LaBSE vectorization. The experiments demonstrate that, depending on the topic, new topics can be identified with accuracies above ∼0.796 and of ∼0.9 on average. Both closed-set and open-set topic classification modules, along with additional mechanisms for clustering new topics to organize and label them, are integrated into our media monitoring system, which is now used by our real client.

Juxtaposition of English and Japanese native-speakerism: through the concept of the international university being a heterotopia

ABSTRACT Research on the native-speakerism ideology of different languages has demonstrated the unbalanced power relation created between those who are labeled as native speaker (NS) and as non-native speaker (NNS). While the research on native-speakerism has expanded beyond the English language, the juxtaposition of native-speakerism of different languages is under-explored. This study applies Foucault’s concept of heterotopia to investigate how international universities in Japan, as a heterotopia, create spatial distinguishments of English and Japanese native-speakerism and how migrant students construct native-speakerist discourses while shuffling among different spaces. The interview result demonstrates that the international university led a Vietnamese migrant to reinforce native-speakerist discourses while providing space for counter-native-speakerist discourse to occur. It also shows that counter-native-speakerist discourses emerge in spaces where native-speakerism decoupled from the neoliberal market. Unveiling the multiplicated function of the juxtaposition of different native-speakerism, this result provides clues for tackling native-speakerism in Asian multilingual contexts.

Code Mixing in Ali and Ratu Ratu Queens (2021): Sociolinguistics Study

The research aims to identify the types of code-mixing and the factors that affect the use of code-mixing in the movie Ali and Ratu Ratu Queens (2021) by analyzing the characters' dialogues. The research uses qualitative analysis to determine the types and factors of code mixing contained in the dialogues of the characters in the film. The findings of this study indicate types of code mixing according to Hoffman's theory–such as intra-lexical code-mixing, intra-sentential code-mixing, and involving a change of pronunciation–have appeared several times in the movie. In conclusion, the research underscores the complexity of code mixing in multilingual contexts portrayed in the movie, providing insights for further sociolinguistic studies. Keywords: Bilingualism, Code Mixing, Movie, Sociolinguistics

Understanding “Love” in the English Lyrics of the Original Songs by the Multilingual New Creation Church Singapore

Understanding “Love” in the English Lyrics of the Original Songs by the Multilingual New Creation Church Singapore

CLIL teacher online professional development in translanguaging and trans-semiotizing: a pedagogy of multiliteracies

ABSTRACT Theories of translanguaging and trans-semiotizing have gained relevance in the design of learning in CLIL classrooms. However, while many studies have shown the benefits of these pedagogies, scarce research has explored CLIL teacher professional development (PD) in this field. In this paper, I intend to measure the effectiveness of an online pedagogy of multiliteracies, which embraces translanguaging and trans-semiotizing, to enhance CLIL teachers’ semiotic awareness to design learning experiences that improve students’ comprehension. The study was conducted on a multicultural group of 200 CLIL teachers from Spain, Colombia and Ecuador. They worked with primary and secondary students in multilingual contexts where a Spanish dialect, or a co-official, an indigenous or a Creole language was the L1, and English the L2. The data were collected from two sources, an initial survey and a final essay. The content analysis of the dataset revealed that the learning intervention positively influenced teachers’ pre-existing beliefs and PD. They showed a more accurate conceptualisation of translanguaging and trans-semiotizing, were more aware of their multimodal literacy practices to make new content comprehensible in CLIL classrooms, and identified potential improvements in their communication processes related to the two concepts.

Insights into multilingualism in school settings: Unveiling teachers’ language attitudes and beliefs

Abstract (Prospective) German teachers for primary schools often find themselves overwhelmed in multilingual contexts within the school framework. This can lead to challenges in managing linguistic diversity, including instances of language-related discrimination and other manifestations of language ideologies influenced by teachers’ attitudes and beliefs. This article delves into specific instances of discriminatory actions within the educational setting. By employing frame analysis and involving passive qualitative classroom observation with field notes, the study aims to provide a detailed description and interpretation of linguistic actions in the communication process. Additionally, the analysis facilitates the modeling of classroom communication, offering practical insights for teacher training programs to address linguistic diversity effectively and prevent instances of linguistic discrimination. As an observational tool, frame analysis should prompt (prospective) teachers to engage in critical reflection on the origins of their own attitudes and beliefs, encouraging them to reconsider and revise their perspectives.

Creation of a diverse mixed-lingual emotional speech corpus with a framework for enhanced emotion detection

Speech Emotion Recognition (SER) has advanced considerably during the past 20 years. Till date, various SER systems have been developed for monolingual, multilingual and cross corpus contexts. However, in a country like India where numerous languages are spoken and often humans converse in more than one language, a dedicated SER system for mixed-lingual scenario is more crucial to be established which is the focus of this work. A self-recorded database that includes speech emotion samples with 11 diverse Indian languages has been developed. In parallel, a mixed-lingual database is formed with three popular standard databases of Berlin, Baum and SAVEE to represent mixed-lingual environment for western background. A detailed investigation of GeMAPS (Geneva Minimalistic Acoustic Parameter Set) feature set for mixed-lingual SER is performed. A distinct set of MFCC (Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients) coefficients derived from sine and cosine-based filter banks enriches the GeMAPS feature set and are proven to be robust for mixed-lingual emotion recognition. Various Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) algorithms have been applied for emotion recognition. The experimental results demonstrate GeMAPS features classified from ML has been quite robust for recognizing all the emotions across the mixed-lingual database of the western languages. However, with diverse recording conditions and languages of the Indian self-recorded database the GeMAPS with enriched features and classified using DL are proven to be significant for mixed-lingual emotion recognition.

Family Language Policy

This commentary outlines the key contributions of the issue. Addressing various language attitudes and ideologies held by family members, the commentary highlights the major themes of the collected articles, addressing important issues in the maintenance of home languages and development of minoritised languages as well as interactions between families and the wider society. In particular, it looks into why heritage and minoritised languages are difficult to maintain and develop in multilingual contexts. The commentary emphasises how families constantly interact with broader sociocultural, sociohistorical, and sociopolitical contexts and outlines the agentive role of family members in accommodating or resisting language change. It highlights the key topics, theoretical contributions, and methodological issues in this issue.

Innovative Approaches to English Language Teaching in Indonesian Public Islamic Schools: Insights and Challenges

Background: In Indonesia's public Islamic secondary schools, English Language Policy and Planning (ELPP) faces challenges such as resource limitations, a lack of qualified educators, and a non-standardized curriculum. However, despite these challenges, compared to ASEAN peers like the Philippines, Indonesia's approach lacks focus on student-centered learning, underscoring the need for enhanced ELPP strategies. Methodology: Four English language teachers and one headmaster participated as respondents in this research to provide comprehensive data findings. Data were collected through interviews conducted over the course of one month, employing guided questions. Subsequently, descriptive analysis was utilized to analyze the data. Findings: English's mandatory integration in secondary education, especially in Madrasah Tsanawiyah, highlights its crucial academic role. Analyzing educational policies and curricular shifts, from competency-based to the Merdeka curriculum, showcases Indonesia's deliberate push for English proficiency. Interviews stress the Merdeka Curriculum's CEFR alignment, prioritizing student empowerment through learner-centered methods and technology. Despite efforts, challenges remain in public Islamic schools, with teachers advocating for supportive environments due to limited exposure and resources. Conclusion: The complex nature of these challenges necessitates the cooperation of politicians, educators, and administrators to establish an atmosphere that promotes successful English language acquisition while also honoring Indonesia's distinct cultural and linguistic diversity. Originality: This study uniquely explores ELPP in Indonesia's public Islamic secondary schools, highlighting the balance between English proficiency and cultural preservation, offering fresh insights into the ELPP discourse in a multicultural and multilingual context.

Translanguaging in Academic Writing Classroom: A Case Study of EFL Pre-Service Teachers's Perception

This case study explores the perceptions of translanguaging in the academic writing process of pre-service teachers. Drawing upon the theories of forms translanguaging (Baynham & Lee, 2019; Garcia & Lin, 2016; Hua & Wei, 2022) and the stages of writing proposed by Hyland (2003), this research delves into how pre-service teachers perceive and utilize translanguaging in their writing. The study integrates observations, interviews, and artifact analysis involving pre-service teachers to understand their engagement with translanguaging as both a communicative and pedagogical strategy. The findings show that pre-service teachers not only view translanguaging as a method for effective communication but also as a crucial tool for enhancing their engagement with academic content, particularly in the stages of topic selection, pre-writing, writing, and feedback. In addition, the significant use of translation, code-mixing, and code-switching underscores their linguistic adaptability in a multilingual academic context. This research contributes to the academic discourse by providing insights into the role of translanguaging in the academic writing process and its implications for future teaching practices.

Examining /l/ variation in Singaporean bilingual child-directed speech for sociophonetic insights

Language is integrated into multiple dimensions of human behavior, and social work is essentially a language-centered activity. Although language plays a key role in many social work activities, few studies have explored its significance from the perspective of differences. This paper introduces the process of language conceptualization in social work and points out the limitations of some existing conceptual perspectives in the multilingual context in which language and social work are viewed. In English language variation, language variation mainly includes dialect, stress, register and variation. Dialects are the starting point of the study of language variation, so this paper takes dialects as a representative to study this field. First, the definition of language variation and its related factors are introduced and discussed, and how to define and study language variation is further discussed. Second, dialects are taken as a representative area to delve deeper into language variation. The different types and features of dialects are analyzed. Finally, the influence of dialects and language variation on education, society and other aspects is reviewed, highlighting some of the important effects observed in previous research.

Language Processing Abilities in a Multilingual Context: The Role of Linguistic Background among Students in Amman, Jordan

Aim. This quantitative experimental study aims to examine the impact of linguistic background on language processing abilities among learners at a language academy in Amman, Jordan. The purpose of the study is to investigate how different linguistic backgrounds influence language processing skills specifically in the areas of grammar, syntax, and semantics. 
 Participants. The participants consist of 100 learners aged 18-25 with Arabic, English, or German as their native or primary language.
 Methods. The study utilizes the Pinker Test as a measurement tool for assessing language processing abilities and collects data through a background questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses are conducted to analyze the data.
 Results. The results of the study indicate that linguistic background significantly affects language processing abilities (F(2, 97) = 4.72, p < 0.05). Post-hoc analyses reveal significant differences in grammar task performance between English-speaking individuals and Arabic-speaking participants (p < 0.05), while English and German speakers show similar scores. In the syntax task, English-speaking individuals outperform Arabic speakers (p < 0.05), with no significant difference between English and German speakers. In the semantics task, English speakers outperform both Arabic and German speakers (p < 0.05), while Arabic and German speakers differ significantly (p < 0.05). 
 Conclusions. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that linguistic background plays a significant role in language processing abilities, specifically in the areas of grammar, syntax, and semantics. These results support previous research and highlight the influence of language transfer effects and cognitive processing abilities influenced by linguistic background. The implications of this study's findings include the need for tailored teaching techniques that consider learners' linguistic backgrounds to enhance language instruction.

Language choice and code-switching in bilingual children’s interaction under multilingual contexts: evidence from Mandarin-English bilingual preschoolers

ABSTRACT Language choice and code-switching are commonplaces for peer interaction among bilingual children from various language backgrounds in Hong Kong. However, few studies concern these linguistic practices of immigrant children proficient in Mandarin and English. This study adopted a qualitative research approach to investigate three Mandarin-English preschoolers’ language choice and code-switching by analyzing their conversations in interaction with a Cantonese–English bilingual peer under the framework of translanguaging. The findings reveal that these Mandarin-English preschoolers’ priority language for interaction is English, indicating that choosing a shared language is an essential communicative strategy for integrating with their Cantonese–English peers. The factors for those language choices include social environment, interlocutor’s ability, and sense of identity and belonging. Both inter-sentential and intra-sentential code-switching are adopted in verbal interaction. However, intra-sentential code-switching occurs more frequently and with greater diversity in Mandarin-based sentences, where nouns are the most easily switched component, followed by verbs and adjectives. This study enriches the study of bilingual children in Hong Kong, extends the application of translanguaging to peer interaction outside the classroom in multilingual contexts, and provides pedagogic implications.

Utilizing Machine Learning Techniques for Classifying Translated and Non-Translated Corporate Annual Reports

ABSTRACT Globalization has led to the widespread adoption of translated corporate annual reports in international markets. Nonetheless, it remains largely unexplored whether these translated documents fulfill the same function and communicate as effectively to international investors as their non-translated counterparts. Considering their significance to stakeholders, differentiating between these two types of reports is essential, yet research in this area is insufficient. This study seeks to bridge this gap by leveraging machine learning algorithms to classify corporate annual reports based on their translation status. By constructing corpora of comparable texts and employing thirteen syntactic complexity indices as features, we analyzed the reports using eight different algorithms: Naïve Bayes, Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine, k-Nearest Neighbors, Neural Network, Random Forest, Gradient Boosting and Deep Learning. Additionally, ensemble models were created by combining the three most effective algorithms. The best-performing model in our study achieved an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 99.3%. This innovative approach demonstrates the effectiveness of syntactic complexity indices in machine learning for classifying translational language in corporate reporting, contributing valuable insights to text classification and translational language research. Our findings offer critical implications for stakeholders in multilingual contexts, highlighting the need for further research in this field.

An Investigation of University Engineering Students’ Attitudes and Motivation in Correlation to Their Identity Formation in the Learning of EFL in a Multilingual and Multicultural Context

The study investigated engineering students’ attitudes and motivation in relation to their identity formation during the learning of EFL in a multilingual and multicultural context. It adopted a Motivational Factors Questionnaire (MFQ) based on Dörnyei’s L2 Motivational System framework. In this study, a mixed-methods approach was applied, with an ordered logistic regression technique for the quantitative part and content analysis for the qualitative part. The study revealed that engineering students’ characteristics such as gender, age, learners’ attitudes toward the L2 community, and nationality were influential factors in constructing their identity in a multilingual and multicultural context. In addition, they were found to be motivated to learn EFL for some pragmatic benefits, leading to positive attitudes toward EFL learning in such a context. They easily construct their identity because of their linguistic and cultural exposure. It is recommended that EFL be taught to all university students irrespective of their course of study, to fit perfectly into the globally diverse labor market of society.

Censorship and Taboo Maintenance in L1 and LX Swearing

In this paper, we consider the censorship of public swear word usage as a function of, and continued maintenance of, taboo with a focus on L1 and LX swearing and its management. In research with multilingual speakers, first-language swear words are consistently perceived as more taboo, and thus more emotional/powerful than equivalent words from a second or third language. While the public use of English-language swear words may be subject to censorship in Anglophone contexts, it is not censored to the same extent in LX contexts. On the other hand, L1 swear words are censored. Such perceptions of differences in strength between one’s L1 and LX languages also seem to affect the work of language professionals: translators’ tendency to self-censor may at least in part be explained by this bias. The existence of a two-tier system of swearing and censorship serves to reinvigorate L1 swear words, while diminishing the power of English swear words. We thus examine how censorship works as a means of maintaining and/or attenuating taboo, potentially moderating the power of swearing itself in cross-linguistic and multilingual contexts.