This collection of essays deals with the interplay of language and social change, asking the question: How can language and society be made gender equal? The contributors examine the critical role of language in the lives of white women and women of color in the United States. Since language pervades many dimensions of women’s lives, this study takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the issues considered. The volume is divided into three sections. The first, “Liberating Language,” focuses on the active role women had in altering the extent of linguistic sexism in English during the 1970s. A second section, “Identity Creation,” deals with the alteration of that portion of language which serves to name women and their experiences. The final section, “Women of Color,” offers a rare and timely look at the particular problems confronted by minority women. It argues that women of color have different problems and different links to language than white middle-class women.

This title considers the nature of pre and proto-linguistic communication, the internal and external triggers that led to its transformation into language, and whether and how language may be considered to have evolved after its inception.

In this important volume, Lois Bloom brings together the theoretical and empirical work she has carried out on early lexical development. Its focus is on the expressive power children acquire as they begin to talk and, in particular, on contributions from cognitive development, affect expression, and the social context for making the transition from prelinguistic expression to the expression of contents of mind. The first half of the book reviews the developments in infancy that enable the emergence of language and presents the theoretical perspective required for an understanding of the longitudinal study described in the second half. The book's main thesis is that language is acquired for expressing contents of mind and that its usefulness as a 'tool' is of only secondary importance. The Transition from Infancy to Language makes a major contribution to our knowledge of early lexical development, providing a persuasive theoretical model for researchers and students.

This book examines language choice in contemporary Cambodia. It uses the spread of English, and French attempts at thwarting it in favor of their own language, to study and evaluate competing explanations for the spread of English globally. The book focuses on language choice and policy, and will appeal to scholars in comparative education where language and language policy studies represent a growing area of research interest.

The author proves that by beginning with the literacy knowledge students bring from their native language and putting writing at the center of the curriculum, we can help them make a smoother transition to English while we support their academic literacy. With Writing Between Languages, you'll learn to: understand the crucial and helpful role native literacy plays in building written English fluency; assess where English learners--including beginners--are in their development as writers; use code-switching and movement between languages to scaffold transitional writing--no matter whether you know a student's home language; implement instructional strategies to support development in writing and other literacy and language skills in meaningful contexts.

This book explores the experiences of Indigenous children and young adults around the world as they navigate the formal education system and wider society. Profiling a range of different communities and sociolinguistic contexts, this book examines the language ecologies of their local communities, schools and wider society and the approaches taken by these communities to maintain children’s home languages. The authors examine such complex themes as curriculum, translanguaging, contact languages and language use as cultural practice. In doing so, this edited collection acts as a first step towards developing solutions which address the complexity of the issues facing these children and young people. It will appeal to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and community development, as well as language professionals including teachers, curriculum developers, language planners and educators.

This edited collection examines the role that language has played in forming modern European nations. With language an omnipresent issue within the European Union, the importance languages have played within the histories and present situations of member nations is a crucial topic. Drawing on an international cast of contributors, the book explores the issues of monolingualism vs. plurilingualism within individual nations, the revival of languages in nations such as former soviet republics, and concludes with a look at language in the electronic age.

This comprehensive collection of current research in the development of speech perception and perceptual learning documents the striking changes that take place both in early childhood and throughout life and speculates about the mechanisms responsible for those changes. The findings reported from this rich and active field address the role of growing linguistic knowledge and experience and demonstrate that speech perception develops in a bidirectional interplay with several levels of linguistic structure and cognitive processes. Examining transitions in the perceptual processing of speech from infancy to adulthood as well as what causes these transitions, the contributors take up a broad range of issues that are central to constructing a theory of speech perception and to understanding the development of this ability. These include the nature of infants' early sensory proficiencies, how these skills come to support the recognition of linguistic units, developmental differences in the representation and processing of linguistic units, the acquisition of early word patterns and a phonological system, and the mechanisms behind perceptual learning. The Development of Speech Perception is unique in attempting to integrate research involving infants, young children, and adults and in its thorough treatment of developmental issues in speech perception. It systematically explores how adult perceptual abilities begin to develop from early infant capabilities, and in doing so addresses several levels of linguistic processing.

How can we prepare the work-force of tomorrow for the increasing writing demands of the Information Age? Anne Beaufort provides a multidimensional response to this critical question. Offering a vital view of the developmental process entailed in attaining writing fluency in school and beyond, and the conditions that contribute to acquiring such expertise, Beaufort illuminates what it takes to foster the versatility writers must possess in the workplace of the twenty-first century.