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Social media platforms such as Twitter is constantly transforming the usage of lexical items among global Internet users, including in Malaysia. Interestingly, despite adopting British English in the national education system, American English is gaining prominence among Malaysians due to the widespread dissemination of American English through the media. American English has been classified as a hyper-central language, serving as the hub for global English in Mair's theory of The World System of Englishes. Despite of the magnitude of American English as a global language, there is a dearth of research on how American English is affecting other varieties of English, especially Malaysian English. There is a need to examine the role of American English in leading global language variation and change. Thus, this conceptual paper proposes how the influence of American English on Malaysian English, in terms of lexical items can be investigated on Twitter. This paper demonstrates how two emerging American lexical items lit and on fleek can be investigated in terms of its trend of frequency and patterns of usage in Malaysian Twitter through a number of tools and methods. Results from such a study may be able to reveal the extent to which Malaysian English is influenced by American English in terms of lexical units on Twitter, shedding light on the global transformation of the English language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the traditional four-element theory and the discussion of social platform duty, this paper analyzes the source of the obligation of recommending matching social platforms involved in telecommunication network fraud. Through case analysis, this paper analyzes whether the subjective fault and objective measures of social platform cases fully fulfill the duty of care. On the negation of the reasonable duty of care on the crime of refusing to fulfill the management obligation, subjective and objective methods are used to discuss whether the platform constitutes the crime of refusing to fulfill the management obligation. The result of the study has revealed the reasonable obligation of care involved in telecommunication network fraud involving recommending matching social platforms so as to urge the relevant departments to strictly supervise such platform cases and the platform to fully fulfill the duty of care in form and substance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In sociolinguistic contexts where standardized languages coexist with regional dialects, the study of differential item functioning is a valuable tool for examining certain linguistic uses or varieties as threats to score validity. From an ecological perspective, this paper describes three stages in the study of differential item functioning (DIF): detection, comprehension and evaluation of its consequences. The research focuses on a reading comprehension test in Basque with 1,943 respondents representing two regional dialects. After assessing the dimensionality of the data fitting unidimensional and bifactor models, we start with a multi-method approach (Item Response Theory, Mantel-Haenszel, Standardization) to detect DIF. In a second step, we study the causes of DIF based on a qualitative methodology approach built on the focus group technique. Finally, the impact of DIF on the test level is evaluated through indicators of differential test functioning (DTF) derived from the IRT, and comparisons between situations that consider the presence/absence of DIF. The paper stresses the importance of the comprehensive study of DIF in language accreditation tests as a tool for improving score validity.

This paper outlines the different aspects of language contact in Newar, the ethnic indigenous language community of the Kathmandu valley, focusing on language use and attitudes. The data were collected in 2016-2017 with the help of survey questionnaire, key informant interviews, informal interviews, and various observations based on the socio-ethnographic research on language contact situations in different domains, namely social, cultural, economic, and official as well as media-related activities where the informants were asked to use different languages along with the use of their own mother tongue, i.e. Newar. The findings mainly include various traits of language use and attitudes of the Newar-speaking people living in the capital city in which the people are shifting towards Nepali, English, and Hindi languages because of media, migration, globalisation, education, and other factors. The paper concludes by providing some clues to preserve and revitalise minority languages that have been shifting, changing, and dying because of various socio-political reasons in the multilingual cities like Kathmandu where language policies have been dramatically changed and get the attention of public discourses to understand the dynamic nature of language contact.

This paper aims at identifying and explaining the correlation between the Covid-19 and multi-lingualism through cross-country research, drawing on three datasets: WHO data on the expanse of the pandemic, UNESCO data on endangered languages, and the LDI (Linguistic Diversity Index). Results establishing a direct correlation between the pandemic and multi-lingualism vary across the countries, except the USA, India, and Brazil. The three countries experiencing the highest global pandemic caseload occupy the top positions in the number of endangered languages and are among the top ten linguistically diverse countries. Drawing from the research findings, the paper addresses the criticality of investing in multi-lingualism and calls for a shift of perspective among policymakers driven by neoliberal rationale towards greater recognition and higher funding for multi-lingual education.

This paper analyzes data from Native American students' attainment in a first-semester Spanish language course at an indigenous-serving institution before, during, and after the pandemic. The gap between Native American and non-Native American students increased during the first post-pandemic semester to the point that just one out of 11 Native Americans passed the course in the fall of 2021. After that, the gap between Native American and non-Native American students gradually narrowed until reaching the lowest failing grades of 23% in the spring 2023. In my teaching, Native American students benefit from a classic teaching style involving longer lecture time, monitored note-taking, consistent attendance requirements, in-person communication, and clearly communicated differentiation strategies for grading. This may align with the cycle of learning outlined by Benally (1994): Nitsáhákees (Thinking), Nahat'á (Planning), Iiná (Living) and Sihasin (Assuring).

Code-switching is especially common within the Southeast Asian region which is home to a large number of bilinguals and multilinguals. Over the years, code-switching has been studied extensively, both in and out of Asia, via sociolinguistics, structural linguistics, and psycholinguistics. From the psycholinguistic perspective, code-switching is said to be the result of the co-activation of languages during the process of speech production for bilinguals. Grosjean's Language Mode and Green's Control Process Model are two psycholinguistic frameworks focusing on the psycholinguistic as well as interactional factors behind code-switching. However, past studies in this area were mostly experimental in nature. It is necessary to consider authentic production data to develop a greater understanding of the code-switching phenomenon especially within the Southeast Asian context due to its bilingual and multilingual communities. This conceptual paper aims to demonstrate how the interactional and psycholinguistic factors behind code-switching can be examined using authentic production data. In particular, a review of the literature pointed to the Conversation Analysis (CA) approach to code-switching as well as the concepts of triggered code-switching and primed code-switching as being relevant. Accordingly, this paper describes each construct in detail and provides suggestions on how they can be brought together in a single study on code-switching based on authentic production data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on findings from a variety of research, Shin and Miller (2022) propose a 4-step process that children go through as they learn sociolinguistic variation. Their proposal raises many interesting questions that should inspire future research. Here, I discuss their Step 1 -- the stage in which, according to their proposal, children produce only a single variant, and so appear to be (temporarily) regularizing -- and suggest this may not be the right characterization for all children.

The research question of the present paper is the following: to what degree (if any) is gender relevant as an explanatory factor in, firstly, the process of assimilation and later, the process of (re)vitalisation of indigenous and minority languages in northern Fenno-Scandia (the North Calotte)? The assimilation of the ethnic groups in question was a process initiated and lead by the authorities in the three different countries. Finland, Sweden and Norway. Nevertheless, members of the indigenous and minority groups also took part in practicing, though, not necessarily promoting, the official assimilation politics, for different reasons. (Re)vitalisation, on the other hand, was initially -- and still is -- mostly a process stemming from the minority groups themselves, though the authorities to a certain extent have embraced it. The paper thus addresses the question of whether gender played a role in the two different processes, assimilation and (re)vitalisation, and if that was the case, how and why.

The paper represents a fragment of a multi-year project focused on everyday speech interaction and, particularly, on verbal mechanisms of granting speech efficiency and effectiveness. The introductory statement of the research is more precise the speaker organizes his/her message verbally, the easier it is understood by the listener. Special attention is paid to the methodological approach to verbal identification of literary characters' social strata. The paper also elicits how Gestalt analysis can be successfully applied to different practical linguistic tasks. Hence, the article deals with the advantages of Gestalt, used for unmasking the virtual speaker's social identity and his social status. Besides, a close study of speech situations has revealed some cases when the speaker tries to play a verbal trick on the audience, thus consciously or unconsciously imposing a false image and hiding his/her true identity. The phenomenon of speech imposters, discovered in literary dialogues termed "speech, or verbal mimicry," while the speakers who use such verbal masks are called "mimics." In the presented research, two types of mimicry are distinguished: progressive and regressive speech mimicry. Hence, the characters' speech was analyzed through the prism of his/her actual or imposed social status, which allowed to single out sufficiently reliable syntactic indicators of the speaker's real social profile.

At an overarching level this paper attempts to draw attention to emerging trends in the humanities where alternative ways of doing science reconfigure epistemological traditions and research methodologies, the role of intellectuals and their engagement with current conditions of the world, including ways in which scholars gazes are constituted. Drawing on what we call a Second Wave of Southern Perspectives (SWaSP), that sees the entanglements of two clusters -- the first of which comprises contemporary ways of reading anticolonial, postcolonial and decolonial thinkers with offerings of Southern perspectives, and a second where contemporary theories about language and communication that considers their cultural and social dimensions, this paper calls for a mobile global-centric gazing. More specifically this paper actualises ontoepistemological trajectories that feed into the scholarship about multilingualism, looking at its different possible beings and becomings that enable a variety of ways of conceptualising multilingual practices. We do this by first presenting a brief review about recent discussions related to the concept of repertoires in the field of multilingualism and pathways that can move these debates in different directions. After this, we present possible ways to go beyond the sociolinguistics of multilingualism, by considering contemporary challenges in the knowledge production enterprise.

This paper forwards the notion that languages are an important resource for sustainable development for modern societies. Informed by theories from both sociolinguistics and language economics on the value of language skills, it is suggested that language(s) have different kinds of value in multilingual societies. Sociolinguists often emphasize the value languages have to their speakers and highlight the importance of social justice and equality between languages. Language economists argue that proficiencies in languages other than the dominant language are a form of human capital that can have a range of direct or indirect benefits. In language economics this is captured by the concepts of non-market and market value. Based on the example of the situation of languages in Australia, this paper argues that migration-induced multilingualism deserves more substantial support from both perspectives. Employing a theory-generating approach, this paper argues that multilingualism forms an important addition to Australia's human capital. For sustainable development, both on economic and social levels, it appears necessary to maintain and support languages in order to enable the country to cater for present and future linguistic needs. These linguistic needs include job market demands, but extend to other aspects of social participation and cohesion.

Drawing on the ethico-political framework of hospitality, this paper investigates the communicative practices of three administrative support staff as they attempt to manage the twin challenges of working in adherence to state and institutional language policies while communicating ethically in an internationalising workplace. Academic administrative staff rarely feature in studies on internationalisation yet are crucial to understanding the complex day-to-day realities of contemporary university life. Empirically, this study reports on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork, including observations, interviews, and email records. The data demonstrate language work being carried out on an ethical basis, before the consideration of any particular languages, beyond the participants' political obligations, and in excess of institutional support. The current national and institutional responses to the multilingual realities of Swedish university life, I argue, are failing to do justice to and facilitate the ethically grounded, bottom-up language policy-making as practised by this study's participants. This paper thus promises to open up debate on hospitality within language policy and planning for internationalising Higher Education, and, in its re-evaluation of the ethical and political dimensions of hospitality, it emphasises the framework's critical potential within sociolinguistic research, more generally.

One of the products of globalization in sociolinguistics is the emergence of transnational regimes in language policy, in which power is exercised across boundaries of traditional nation states. This paper engages with audit culture, a transnational policy mechanism which involves the continuous evaluation of nation states' performance through the use of purportedly neutral, typically quantitative instruments. As achieving broader visibility in public discourse is a key part of how such evaluations enforce language policy regimes, the paper presents an analysis of how an audit instrument, the Education First English Proficiency Index, was recontextualized in media discourse in Thailand over a 6-year period. The findings highlight an apparent discontinuity, as much of the neoliberal rhetoric in the audit instrument was not taken up in Thai media. Rather, the recontextualization was selective, with elements of the audit texts being integrated into an already established language policy regime in Thailand, built on nationalism and developmentalism. These findings point to the need to consider how language policy mechanisms like audit culture can facilitate synergies between hegemonic ideologies, particularly when they are recontextualized across different scales.

With the expanding use of English around the world, it is important to understand various stakeholders' attitudes towards it from a Global Englishes (GE) perspective. The GE perspective has challenged native speakerism and recognized the multilingual nature of the English language. In particular, a GE perspective leads to the sustainable development of a language from both sociolinguistic and ecolinguistic perspectives. Echoing the diversity and complexity of the English language use and teaching, this paper investigates senior high school students' attitudes towards the local variety of English in China, and unpacks their negotiation and construction of identity through their English-language learning journey. Through a series of interviews, this study found that the students still perceive English as a school subject, and see themselves as perennial learners of English. As the GE perspective was not widely recognized, and that students have not developed their awareness of the global use of English, several implications of teaching English from the GE paradigm, from curriculum design and teaching materials, are provided to increase the awareness of the global use of English. This paper also highlights the importance of viewing the development of English from an ecolinguistic perspective for the sustainable development of the language.

Scholars have long critiqued points of view in which monolingual perspectives are seen as normative in research on multilingualism. In relation to this "monolingual orientation," however, in which monolingualism is perceived to be the implicit norm, less work has been dedicated to methodological challenges. As disciplinary perspectives on language in Linguistics and related fields move further towards the de-emphasizing and deconstructing of the boundaries between named linguistic varieties, this paper addresses some issues that come up in operationalizing this in our research. It does so through self-reflexivity, from a primarily Sociolinguistic and Applied Linguistic point of view, by addressing monolingual perspectives found in data on a project on multilingual practices in India. It focuses more narrowly on the ethnographic field notes from the research context. With discourse analysis, these are looked at through the lens of the monolingual orientation, with a particular focus on language ideologies and the compartmentalization of named-language varieties. Ideologies in the data are discussed in relation to their bearing on methodology in transcribing, coding, and the framing of research questions. This paper explores the tensions between evolving theoretical perspectives and on-the-ground research practice, concluding by proposing questions for reflection.

Linguistic plurality is a situation in which a speech community speaks more than one language. It is a complex sociolinguistic phenomenon that helps explain the complexity of human nature. Human beings cannot exist in isolation and are therefore inclined towards interaction and transaction. The need and desire to interact leads to language contact, where two or more languages co-exist and are constantly used by people who share definitive interests. Linguistic homogeneity is illusory, since there is hardly any linguistic community that is absolutely monolingual. Despite the complexity of linguistic diversity, the world has recorded tremendous developments in the arts, sciences, and technology. This highlights the strength that lies in diversity. The utilitarian nature of multilingualism can be explored for the growth and development of human society, as language is a key factor in development. Although multilingualism might pose a threat to nationalism, it is apparently the basis of nationhood in Nigeria, having existed even before colonization. The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of linguistic plurality for sustainable development. This study uses a descriptive and qualitative methodology, heavily relying on the nativist theory and the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) as its major underpinnings. Drawing from these frameworks, the paper observes that language acquisition occurs naturally with the presence of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD), and consequently, languages are used to perform functional roles. The scope of this work is limited to multilingualism and sustainable development in Africa, with particular emphasis on Nigeria.

The paper explores the "in situ" negotiation of in/exclusion in and through language in a multilingual professional setting, paying special attention to the relationship between language and space. We argue that multilingual practices and material space are co-constitutive; individuals enact group membership and professional roles spatiolinguistically and re/produce in/visible social and material boundaries. Despite the well-established literature on in/exclusion, the ways in which it is negotiated in asymmetrical, emplaced, workplace encounters is still underexplored. We introduce a "topographies of practice" framework and show how professional asymmetries are enacted in and through language choice and language use in the multilingual workplace. We take an Interactional Sociolinguistic approach and report on the analysis of 23 h of interactional data and 42 h of ethnographic observations from a professional, multilingual kitchen in Finland. We show patterns that are un/marked in the data and constitute the norms in this particular workplace. We argue that topographies of practice are topographies of in/exclusion enacted in and through situated encounters; we pay special attention to the role of employees who are legitimised to cross visible and invisible boundaries and we close the paper with recommendations for future research.

This paper examines how in-service teachers enrolled in an MA in TESOL program demonstrated critical language awareness (CLA) as they designed and implemented ethnographic action research projects anchored in funds of knowledge. The action research project aimed to introduce teachers to school-based ethnographic research and to provide an opportunity to incorporate community funds of knowledge into their unit plans. Drawing from program documents such as the in-service teachers' research proposals, papers, and unit plans, the study highlights how awareness of the intersections of language and local power dynamics in their schools informed their decision-making about their research and curricular designs. At each stage of the research process, the teachers narrated how they restructured their interactional roles within established classroom routines, school-playtime, community, and family-school events for purposes of inquiring about student and family funds of knowledge. By integrating theories of funds of knowledge and CLA, the analysis shows how teacher understandings of sociopolitical and sociolinguistic contexts shaped which, how, and whose knowledge became resources (or not) in their curricular plans. The study suggests the benefit of professional development that includes CLA for purposes of supporting teachers as they aim to incorporate and leverage funds of knowledge of students, families, and communities in their curricula.

This paper focuses on the linguistic evolution of the Tianjin speech community in Sabah, Malaysia. From the perspective of restructuring of speech community, the paper integrates both micro and macro levels of language change into the analysis. Several methods were adopted in this study. Interviews were conducted with community leaders and various families. Besides, an ethnographic approach is taken to observe language use in different activities within the community. In total, 17 Tianjiners were interviewed who were from four generations (G3, G4, G5, and G6) and several community activities were participated. Despite all the social changes within the community, the Tianjin people (also known as northern Chinese) still manifest a strong group identity which differentiate themselves from southern Chinese, such as Hakka in Sabah. The strong group identification goes well with its diversity, which is one of the characteristics of the Tianjin speech community.

This paper examines the impact of the local tea industry on the language ecology of the geographically remote Blang community in China. The paper takes an ecology perspective in language planning where all languages in the locality are given equal attention. These languages in the context of this paper include Blang, Putonghua, and English as the leading global lingua franca of international trade. The study used a qualitative approach and reports findings from semi-structured interviews collected in Yunnan Province. The discursive approach allows for the analysis of participants' attitudes and ideologies vis-à-vis the changing economic and linguistic ecology. The findings demonstrate that the local tea industry has increased the economic value of Putonghua and further marginalised Blang. Putonghua and English were ideated as capital in the domestic and global markets, while Blang was perceived as having no economic value. These findings point towards a weakening vitality of Blang and reflect the uneven power relations favouring Putonghua and English. While economic entrepreneurship was paired with linguistic entrepreneurship, this agentive behaviour was mainly directed towards learning the dominant languages by the Blang people, and it was related to the extent to which individuals themselves engaged with the tea business.

The paper reports on trends in language testing taking place over the years and aim at critical perspectives of testing and promoting inclusion, equity and justice. It begins with critical theories by Messick, Foucault and Bourdieu, leading to critical language testing (CLT) which focused on consequences and uses of tests. Given the power of tests and their detrimental effects questions were raised regarding the impact of language tests on individuals and society. Based on theories of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics it was realized that bi-multilingual students, especially immigrants in the first years of migration and beyond continue to use their first languages as resources for academic functioning, referring to it as their 'full language repertoire'. These languages are needed especially when processing academic school tests, presented in the new language which students have not yet acquired. The paper reports on studies where immigrant students are tested in multilingual tests and reach significantly high scores compared to those tested only in the new language. In experiments, using a variety of tools, students showed positive attitude to the procedure as they felt recognition and respect. Multilingual tests need to be practiced in schools to avoid language rights violations. Multimodal assessment methods are also proposed as additional ways for expanding the underpinnings of language construct. Lastly, it is recommended that language testing researchers and practitioners conduct research to identify cases of violate language rights and suggest new assessment models to overcome it, leading to increased social justice.

Although often seen as places of culture, cultivation and creativity, language courses borrow the language of creativity for test-centered practices. Research in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology has long recognized language courses as sites for the legitimation of neoliberal ideals that emphasize language as global, individual, and economic, human capital for the global market. Yet research in education often focuses on language education as building student identities, ignoring how it prepares students for participation in an affluent 'creative class.' This paper aims to bring a more critical lens on discourses of creativity in the classroom. It explores how neoliberal ideology is realized in teacher development literature on creative management, and it investigates how this commercial creativity affects the language curriculum and assessment in a New England High School, ending with a call to a more critical, communal creativity.

This paper explores the ways in which apology functions as a stance act at public speech events. Rather than focusing on speakers' intentions, in this study I pay attention to indexical meanings associated with apologies in a specific context. The study primarily analyses apology sequences that involve code-switching, which were drawn from ethnographic data gathered in a Korean university where English has been adopted as its official language (EOL). Data analysis shows that the use of apology allows speakers to take a stance towards their language choice and the institutional language policy. Both apology and speakers' metalinguistic articulations prior to code-switching reflect and reinforce the two language ideologies: (1) the language policy is intended to serve for international members of the university, and (2), Korean can be used when needed. A closer look at the way in which apology is used in specific contexts suggests that speakers' main purpose of apology is self-presentation in a public event. Apology functions to index speaker's defiance of an institution's language policy while avoiding their responsibility for the action. The sociolinguistic concept of stance allows us to better understand speakers' positioning with respect to norms and expectations informed by institutional language policy.

This paper addresses the necessary complementarity between a translanguaging and named language-perspective by critically examining risks of 'overshooting' when a translanguaging view is theoretically posited as the ultimately superior (sociolinguistic) theory of language use and learning in today's multilingual world.

The normative institutional practices of White, native English speakers have been explored in detail by CRT scholars in US academia, and these practices perpetuate a system which maintains White privilege to the detriment and systemic exclusion of the Other. Consequently, students of colour and non-native English speakers are inclined to face a number of forms of inequality, inequity, discrimination and harassment based on Whiteness and nativism including English speaker centrism, and this eventually serves to reproduce Whiteness and White racial domination. To better understand this institutional practices based on Whiteness in US academia, this paper explores how structural inequity based on linguistic racism and White privilege is reproduced by patterns in everyday institutional practice in US academia, and how intersectional structural inequity influences non-White, non-native speakers of American English such as international students from Asia by interviewing an Asian international ELL Ph.D. student, and exploring his counterstory in detail.

The Welsh Government's Welsh language strategy, Cymraeg: A million Welsh speakers [Welsh Government. 2017a. "Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers." Cardiff: Welsh Government], aims to increase the numbers of Welsh speakers to one million by 2050. The creation of new Welsh speakers and immersion education form an integral part of the Welsh Government's language revitalisation strategy and this study revisits new Welsh speakers from the Rhymney Valley, South Wales in 2016/2017 a decade on from the 2006 research study [Hodges, R. 2009. "Welsh Language Use Among Young People in the Rhymney Valley." "Contemporary Wales" 22: 16-35. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/uwp/cowa/2009/00000022/00000001/art00004]. This longitudinal research provides further insights into their continuing language journeys, and indicates there has been a sustained reduction in this group's use of Welsh by 2016/2017 due to factors relating to fluency, confidence and a lack of opportunities to use Welsh. However, the results indicate that new speakers play an important role in influencing family language transmission and in increasing language awareness within the workplace. This paper calls for further longitudinal research on new Welsh speakers' language journeys so that this group may be appropriately supported as they make a crucial contribution to language revitalisation in Wales.

This paper examines recent lexical expansion in New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) in the context of change in the status of the language and ongoing contact with other (spoken and signed) languages. We categorised 917 new signs documented in the past five years according to their source, semantic field, and sign formation mechanism(s), both language-internal and language-external (contact induced). Lexical expansion in NZSL uses known sign formation mechanisms with a high proportion of (iconic) depicting constructions but also a large number of contact-induced signs including loans, calques and bimodal loan-shifts. Differences were found between planned (curriculum-related) terminology and community generated neologisms both in semantic field and prevalence of sign formation mechanisms. Variation in neologisms and non-lexical paraphrases were common, suggesting that while the semiotic repertoires of signers are diversifying, acceptance and standardisation of neologisms are uncertain. Our findings indicate that lexical expansion reflects new contexts of NZSL use (including pressure to disseminate information through interpreting and translation, and use in education) and interaction with the culture of wider society.

On June 12, 2018, Dr. Hansun Zhang Waring's Language Socialization class at Teachers College, Columbia University had the great pleasure and honor of being joined by Dr. Bambi Schieffelin, Collegiate Professor at New York University. A co-founder (with Elinor Ochs) of the field of language socialization, Dr. Schieffelin has done extensive research on linguistic anthropology, language ideology, literacy, missionization, and much, much more. She is the author of the ethnography "The Give and Take of Everyday Life: Language Socialization of Kaluli Children," co-author of the classic chapter "Language Acquisition and Socialization: Three Developmental Stories and Their Implications," and co-author of the "Handbook of Language Socialization"--a foundational reference work for all language socialization scholars. In this interview, she shares her path to Language Socialization (LS), experiences from her groundbreaking LS work in Papua New Guinea, affordances, obstacles, and recent developments in LS research, and key takeaways for LS researchers.

This paper investigated the borrowing of lexical items into spoken Lukabaras due to the influence of Nandi language in a multilingual setting. The data was collected in Chepsaita Scheme in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. The scheme is that of a multilingual setting and presents a phenomenon in which the languages that come into contact apparently influence each other. The predominant language is Nandi, but other minority languages such as Lukabaras, Lutachooni, Luwanga, Lulogooli and Lubukusu are also spoken there. As a result, one of the outcomes of the contact is the transfer of linguistic features which occur at the lexical level. This paper therefore set out to identify and describe the lexical items that the speakers of Lukabaras borrow from the dominant Nandi language in the home and business domains of interaction. In this paper, the lexical items were collected through audio recording and analyzed descriptively. The findings of the study showed that lexical borrowing into spoken Lukabaras in Chepsaita was a communication strategy used by minority Lukabaras speakers to coexist with the dominant Nandi community. However, the borrowing constrained communication between Lukabaras speakers using the borrowed versions and the native Lukabaras speakers not residing in Chepsaita Scheme.

This paper attempts a pragmatic analysis of the interplay between social contexts of power and sociolinguistic device of aggravation strategies concerning dialogic discourses in Vikram Seth's novel "A Suitable Boy (ASB) (1993)." The paper attempts to validate that aggravation strategies have been an integral part of human discourse. It demonstrates how people use aggravation strategies to exercise power over others in different communicative contexts. It also exemplifies how power is vested in specific identities, and their role relationships in different power structures existing in the society based on their caste, age, sex, social standing, political or official identity, and how the power is exerted in the context of their social identities. The paper defines various aspects of aggravation, explains the dominant participatory identities, namely master identities, situated identities, and discourse identities and analyses how these social identities exercise power through aggravation strategies in the dialogic discourses in "ASB."

Considering the contradictions in the structured and static approaches to the nation and national identity observed world-wide and fluid "trans-" approaches to language in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, the paper explores how national identity is constructed and sustained nowadays, specifically in digital spaces both discursively and non-discursively. Based on the notion of 'practice' by Theodore Schatzki (2002), the paper focuses on the translingual practices in relation to national issues and events in Bangladesh drawn from digital spaces through a virtual ethnography. The findings in this paper show that translingual practices and national identity may apparently seem fluid in digital spaces. However, actors nurture beliefs, values, and ideologies in their translingual practices with reference to a territory-based notion of nation, religion, and national identity. Their discursive construction of nation and national identity also seems entangled with a non-discursive bundle of activities and symbolic and material artefacts within material arrangements of spaces. Verbal violence and terrorism accentuating nationalism get immediacy and are concretized in materially mediated semiotized spaces. With an immediate focus on spatial dynamics, while acknowledging the ethos of the post-structuralist approach to language, the paper, hence, indicates the necessity of transgressing the 'logocentrism' in language and identity research in applied linguistics and contributing to the recent development in the post-humanist applied linguistics.

Over the last 25 years, scholars have proposed several recommendations for including spoken grammar in second language classrooms. However, recent studies point to potential challenges in this endeavour: learners may feel inauthentic when using what they see as 'native-speaker' forms, and interlocutors may see these forms as less acceptable when used by non-native speakers. This paper examines current recommendations for teaching spoken grammar in light of these issues and proposes a functional teaching approach that presents spoken grammar as a communicative resource rather than a formal characteristic of native-speaker usage. It then reports on a pilot study exploring the feasibility and students' reception of such an approach. The paper concludes that it is possible to adapt spoken grammar pedagogy to be more socioculturally sensitive, and that teaching should aim towards a fuller understanding and appreciation of the affordances of spoken grammar.

This paper attempts to establish that there is a correlation between the sociolinguistic identities of high school students and their productive English-speaking abilities. The paper initially explains the basic concept of sociolinguistic identity and refers to various aspects of research into Japanese national identity to analyse how these may influence the learning of English in Japan. Secondly, the participants' specific context is detailed and reasoning for the relevance of the two tasks that are put to them is provided. Following on from this, the methods of data collection and analysis are described. Results posit that learners with a greater interest in English-speaking cultures are more likely to interact competently, and in turn, having stronger productive skills correlates positively with the rejection of an anti-English sentiment. The paper ends with a brief discussion on how cultural constraints in Japan affect English expression and the importance of emerging trends such as "international posture" (Yashima, 2002).