Group items tagged

A film on OhioLINK. "The world is a mosaic of visions, and each vision is encapsulated by a language." Yet every two weeks, one of the world's approximately 6,500 languages dies out. What is the significance of this loss to those who speak the language as well as for the rest of humankind? Why do some languages become global while others disappear? And how are language and identity connected? In this program, linguists David Crystal, Peter Austin, and Jørgen Rischel search for the answers to those and other pressing questions as they investigate the state-and fate-of Livonian, in Latvia; Dogon, in Mali; Mlabri, in Thailand; Changsha Hua and Naqxi, in China; Pitjantjatjara and Pintupi, in Australia; and Tutunaku, in Mexico. Portions are in other languages with English subtitles. (60 minutes)

Over the last seven years, Jessie Little Doe Fermino, a member of the Mashpee tribe on Cape Cod, has been on a single-minded mission to revive the language of her ancestors, Wampanoag, the one that greeted the Pilgrims when they landed at Plymouth Rock and that gave the state of Massachusetts its name. But when she applied to the National Endowment of the Humanities for a grant to create a Wampanoag dictionary, she was turned down. The apparent reasons: the Wampanoag language has not been used in about 100 years, the known descendants of the original speakers number only 2,500 and Ms. Fermino is trying to make a spoken language out of a language that until recently existed only in documents, many of them from the 17th century.

Li explains through this article the importance of parents helping their children when they are part of a language minority. Studies have shown that if children are trying to learn a second language, it is much easier to do so when their parents are using that language as well. This study was done by the author, Xiaoxia Li, on her daughter, Amy who had come to Li from Mainland China when she was twelve knowing little Enlglish. The article describes the study and the details of how Amy started learning English. Li does a very good job in this article by making everything very understandable and it makes a very good resource for parents that are trying to use two languages in the household.

A film on OhioLINK. Could be helpful for students researching bilingualism. This menu-powered DVD explores how America's rise as an economic power made it the driving force behind the spread of English in the 20th century. A world tour illustrates how English has mixed with other languages from "Franglais" in France to "Singlish" in Singapore and how the dollar's power, coupled with the lure of consumerism, has made English the international trade language. Bringing it full circle, host Melvyn Bragg returns to the British Isles to survey English as it is spoken there now, measuring the influence of American slang and vocabulary from other languages. Can be viewed using a DVD player or computer DVD-ROM drive. (50 minutes, color)

An OhioLINK film from the series "Childhood Development: A Cognitive Approach to Developmental Psychology." Starting right from infancy, this program charts the development of language during childhood. Basic language acquisition, learned from rudimentary and higher-level child/caregiver interactions, is described. Aspects of competence that go beyond the purpose of simple communication are also considered, including the skill of using conversation for establishing and furthering social relationships, the ability to employ language as a part of games, the capacity to understand jokes, and the awareness of what other people know and understand at various stages of maturation. (25 minutes)

This document tells of the many reasons to study the Biblical Hebrew language to help understand the use of language in everyday life. This document also states that the origin of language is always important in the study of any documentation.

This essay will evaluate the factors that have contributed to the increase in the usage and status of the English language in Mongolia since the country's democratic revolution in 1990. The issue of language spread will first be addressed through a description of the economic, social and educational influences that other foreign languages, particularly Russian, have had in Mongolia in the twentieth century. The reasons for the spread of English will then be displayed by discussing the effects of globalism in the mid-1990s and by analyzing a study on the importance of learning English conducted among university students. The various functions that English now serves among the general population will then be categorized according to Kachru's framework of four linguistic functions (instrumental, regulative, interpersonal, imaginative). Lastly, the issue of nativization will be addressed through a brief examination of the lexical and syntactical modifications propagated by Mongolian English users.

During the 2008 Election, presidential candidates are using social networking sites to reach out to the youth. Demographers are saying this is the year that the "millennials" could determine the election with their huge numbers of registered voters. The candidates are listening and are doing whatever it takes to get the youth vote. The presidential nominees are using the new technology such as Facebook, Myspace, and YouTube to reach out to young adults. This article tells how the candidates are using different forms of technology to reach out to youth voters.

This article by Joanne Jacobs speaks about how students that speak English as a second language are their best students, and their worst students. Some of these work very hard to learn language proficiently and go on to test very highly and be very bright, others are very average and do not pass as proficient in the English language. Jacobs speaks of teachers being horrified by the numbers of students that are not proficient that have been in English speaking school systems since kindergarten. Jacobs has an interesting article and someone looking for a few good statistics would be smart by looking into this article.

Oladejo writes this article speaking about foreign language education in Taiwan. It describes that the government is very appalling when it comes to getting input from the public that's concerns determining the language education in Taiwan. The process they use many a times has had complaints, and the public hopes for it to be better. There are many charts that Oladejo adds to his article with results of questionaires sent out to parents. Questionaires conclude many answers that parents have regarding when English should start being taught. The author also uses many other charts to show details in his work, and his article is very well put together.

A film on OhioLINK. Could be helpful for those students studying Biblical literacy. In late-medieval England, English quietly ousted French in law and government but the move to make it God's language meant bloodshed. This enhanced DVD looks at the battle for a Bible in English, a struggle with huge impact on the language itself. Dramatic readings from successive English Bibles show the language's evolution. Location footage and original manuscripts illustrate key figures and events, such as John Wycliffe, the Lollards, and the first English Bible; William Langland's Piers Plowman; Henry V's official correspondence; the role of the Chancery or English civil service; William Caxton's printing press; William Tyndale's translation; and the King James Bible. Can be viewed using a DVD player or computer DVD-ROM drive. (50 minutes, color) Part of the "Adventures of English" series.

The resurgence of a language once rejected as outdated and irrelevant is reflected across the country as Latin is embraced by a new generation of students

Ghislain Savoie speaks about how knowing two languages can give you discipline. He also tells us how knowing a second language can give us the upper hand in getting a job, and also how you get get a job faster, or switch faster if needed.

In Hutson's article he uses an image to portray his facts. The article explains psychological characteristics in bilingualism and children. It mainly speaks about children and how they can pick up on different languages, how different languages produce more achievement, and how being bilingual can immensely help someone in the future. Hutson's article describes many facts that are very straight forward and intriguing to the mind.

A film on OhioLINK. Could be helpful for students researching bilingualism. When Massasoit hailed the Plymouth settlers in their own language, they might have taken it for a sign that English would dominate the New World. Packed with surprising etymologies and intriguing stories, this enhanced DVD traces the dynamic relationship between English and America, exploring the linguistic influence of westward expansion, cowboy culture, slave culture, and encounters with the French and Spanish languages. Key works examined include The New England Primer and Webster's The American Spelling Book. Can be viewed using a DVD player or computer DVD-ROM drive. (50 minutes, color)\nPart of the "Adventure of English" series.

This essay is an overview of the theoretical, methodological, pedagogical, ideological, and power-related issues of world Englishes: varieties of English used in diverse sociolinguistic contexts. The scholars in this field have critically examined theoretical and methodological frameworks of language use based on western, essentially monolingual and monocultural, frameworks of linguistic science and replaced them with frameworks that are faithful to multilingualism and language variation. This conceptual shift affords a "pluricentric" view of English, which represents diverse sociolinguistic histories, multicultural identities, multiple norms of use and acquisition, and distinct contexts of function. The implications of this shift for learning and teaching world Englishes are critically reviewed in the final sections of this essay.

In this article Pam McCollum discusses two-way bilingual programs and students who study together in two languages. It directly examines how middle school Mexican students that are enrolled in two-way bilingual programs do better in school, and usually use English over their native language of Spanish. The article shows that they analyzed these students very carefully not only in their work, but in informal settings as well. McCollum's article is, at times, a little bit hard to understand, but if read carefully a useful one.

A film on OhioLINK. Could be helpful for students researching bilingualism. "Amok," "boomerang," "bungalow," "bangle," "dumdum," "plonk," "assassin"?these are some of the many words that have entered English by way of colonial expansion. This enhanced DVD explores how the British Empire in its heyday exported its language around the globe and how different forms of speech and vocabulary, as well as different attitudes to English, developed out of that colonial expansion. Rich variations of dialect, accent, and slang are heard in many samples from India, the Caribbean, and Australia. Can be viewed using a DVD player or computer DVD-ROM drive. (50 minutes, color)

A film on OhioLINK. The development of language in babies and young children.

A film on OhioLINK. Why do girls demonstrate greater reading and writing ability than boys? Is the female brain hardwired for faster verbal development? Should men let women do the talking? This program studies language differences between the sexes and explores the possibility that many communication skills are gender-specific. Following two teams of well-educated adults as they undergo a crash course in broadcast journalism, the program documents wide variations between male and female abilities to verbally multitask, and examines distinctions in physical interaction, eye contact, and other behavioral factors. Clinical evidence regarding the significance of testosterone levels is also explored. (45 minutes)

A film on OhioLINK. Could be useful background information for those researching bilingualism. Melvyn Bragg begins the story of English in Holland, finding ancestral echoes in the Frisian dialect. What follows is a chapter on survival as the English language weathers Viking and Norman invasions, vying with and eventually absorbing rival tongues. Lively settings such as village pubs and markets bring home the lasting influence of Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Old French. The connection between Christianity, Latin, and an alphabet is explored, as well as the role of the language's first champion, King Alfred the Great. Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney reads from and discusses the first epic in English, Beowulf. This menu-driven disc can be viewed using a DVD player or computer DVD-ROM drive. (50 minutes, color) Part of the "Adventures in English" series.