Sociolinguistics and Language Policy

Sociolinguistics takes such issues as language rights and language and nationalism into great consideration. Since there are different varieties of the same language within a country, people tend to favor one (usually standard) variety over the others.

K. David Harrison on Threatened Languages of the World

Informative conversation with K. David Harrison, assistant professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia and the author of the new book "When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge".

Standard Language Ideology

From Lippi-Green’s point of view, standard language ideology is a ‘bias toward an abstracted, ideal­ized, non-varying spoken language that is imposed and maintained by dominant institutions’.

Principle of Linguistic Inferiority

Principle of linguistic inferiority refers to the tendency of speakers of the socially dominant group in a society to interpret speech of a subordinate group as linguistically inferior to that of their own.

Proposition 227 in California

In 1998 referendum, voters in California passed Proposition 227 that eliminated bilingual education in California. ESL students were limited to one year to learn English through 'sheltered English immersion' programs.

Sociolinguistics and Education

The application of sociolinguistics to educational problems is absolutely essential as it can help us better understand the relationships between languages and schools, and help make necessary improvements in education through the development of a curriculum...

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