‘Neutral, native-like or authentic’ : Investigating attitudes and beliefs of expanding circle speakers of English

The status of English as the language of international communication is by now well-established. However, in the past 16 years, research has tried to emphasize the fact that the English spoken in international contact situations and between people with other first languages than English has different needs than the English spoken locally amongst native speakers, resulting in the emergence of English as a lingua franca (ELF) as a scholarly field. However, the impact of findings in ELF has so far only led to a moderate shift in English language teaching. Especially in expanding circle countries, where ELF should have the biggest impact, change is only gradually becoming palpable. Accent and pronunciation, as one of the biggest factors on both identity and mutual intelligibility (Jenkins 2000; 2007) are at the root of discussion. The scope of this study is therefore to examine accent choices and the extent to which native speaker ideology informs the preferences of ten speakers of ELF and 27 German natives with experience in international communication. Both ethnographical and sociolinguistic methods, as well as auditory analysis have been applied and conducted. The auditory analysis of six variables in the recorded speech production of the ten speakers suggests that there is no significant preference of one norm-giving variety over the other. Rather, speakers tend to mix-and-match General American- and Standard Southern British English-like features in their pronunciation. When reporting their accent ideals, the idea of a ‘neutral’ English accent is mentioned by four participants. Neutral accents seem to have been understood as ‘unmarked accents’. Expressed beliefs on their own English pronunciation show a comparatively high level of reflection on and confidence in their own production. Results from a rating task and a survey given to 27 German participants reveal attitudes that are more negatively stacked. While Germans reported openness towards NNS (non-native speaker) accents and showed awareness of the priority of intelligibility over accent choice in both their own and others’ pronunciation, they still largely reported NS accent preference. The ratings of the production from ten ELF speakers confirmed this and showed that ‘neutral’ is equated with native-like. In the light of these findings, issues are discussed that ultimately relate to the influence of NS Englishes, identity and the development of English as an international language.

Verbal negation in the inter-language of Arabic-speaking women acquiring English as a second language

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A Mathematical Apparatus for Domain Ontology Simulation. An Extendable Language of Applied Logic

* This paper was made according to the program of fundamental scientific research of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences «Mathematical simulation and intellectual systems», the project "Theoretical foundation of the intellectual systems based on ontologies for intellectual support of scientific researches".

Coastal groundwater discharge – an additional source of phosphorus for the oligotrophic wetlands of the Everglades

In this manuscript we define a new term we call coastal groundwater discharge (CGD), which is related to submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), but occurs when seawater intrudes inland to force brackish groundwater to discharge to the coastal wetlands. A hydrologic and geochemical investigation of both the groundwater and surface water in the southern Everglades was conducted to investigate the occurrence of CGD associated with seawater intrusion. During the wet season, the surface water chemistry remained fresh. Enhanced chloride, sodium, and calcium concentrations, indicative of brackish groundwater discharge, were observed in the surface water during the dry season. Brackish groundwaters of the southern Everglades contain 1–2.3μM concentrations of total phosphorus (TP). These concentrations exceed the expected values predicted by conservative mixing of local fresh groundwater and intruding seawater, which both have TPμM. The additional source of TP may be from seawater sediments or from the aquifer matrix as a result of water–rock interactions (such as carbonate mineral dissolution and ion exchange reactions) induced by mixing fresh groundwater with intruding seawater. We hypothesize that CGD maybe an additional source of phosphorus (a limiting nutrient) to the coastal wetlands of the southern Everglades.

Roadblocks to Teaching English as a Foreign Language in a Climate of Accelerated Curricular Change

This paper examines the global "English craze," in which non-Englishspeaking countries, especially in Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East, are engaged in a concerted push to get the language taught more widely and at increasingly lower grade levels. The goal of this paper is to document how this phenomenon has impacted teachers of English as a Foreign Language and how they can try to alleviate these problems.

English as a Lingua Franca in Namibia: : Teachers’ Attitudes Towards English as a Medium of Instruction in Classrooms

This study aims to investigate Namibian teachers’ attitudes towards English as a medium of instruction in Namibian classrooms. Regardless of the fact that English has no historical ties with Namibia, English still operates as the official language and the language of instruction in schools. This study briefly discusses the probable reasons for choosing English as an official language in Namibia, and as the medium of instruction in educational institutions. Furthermore, it discusses the attitudes that Namibian teachers have towards English as a medium of instruction in Namibian classrooms. A pilot electronic questionnaire, a revised questionnaire, and telephone interviews were used to acquire data for the study. The results indicate that English is a challenge for many learners and this poses a challenge to teachers as well. However, a majority of teachers from this study portray English as the language that is capable of uniting Namibian learners from different backgrounds, and a language that makes education possible in Namibia. In addition, teachers also reported that knowledge of English opens up educational opportunities for learners to study abroad.

Understanding the beliefs about culture that E.F.L. (english as a foreign language teachers) Hold at C.L.U.S. (Centro de Lenguas de La Universidad de La Salle)

Tesis (Licenciado en Lenguas Castellana, Inglés y Francés).--Universidad de La Salle. Facultad de Ciencias de La Educación. Licenciatura en Lengua Castellana, Inglés y Francés, 2014

Brúnkahk Tek: An Extinct Language

En Costa Rica hay seis lenguas indígenas reconocidas oficialmente. Cada una de ellas disfruta de una condición diferente en cuanto a sus tradiciones y números de hablantes, entre otras. A pesar de los esfuerzos del gobierno de Costa Rica y otros investigadores desde 1995, las lenguas han enfrentado dificultades a nivel interno y externo, las cuales han resultado en el debilitamiento o inclusive pérdida de las mismas. Esto nos lleva al caso de boruca, una de las lenguas de Costa Rica que puede ahora ser considerada una lengua extinta. Este artículo presenta una descripción general del pueblo boruca, sus tradiciones y sus principales características, y a la vez ofrece al lector una descripción tipológica general de la lengua en la cual se discuten brevemente los rasgos generales de su gramática.In Costa Rica there are six officially recognized indigenous languages. Each enjoys a different condition in terms of its traditions and number of speakers, among others. Despite efforts of the Costa Rican government and other researchers since 1995, the languages have met endogenous and exogenous difficulties that have resulted in the weakening and even loss of the languages. This leads us to what happened to Boruca, one of the indigenous languages of Costa Rica which can now be considered an extinct language. This article presents a general description of the Boruca people, their traditions and main characteristics, and it also introduces the reader to a general typological description of the language where the main features of its grammar are briefly discussed.

Mathematics education and democracy

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between mathematics education and the notions of education for all/democracy. In order to proceed with our analysis, we present Marx's concept of commodity and Jean Baudrillard's concept of sign value as a theoretical reference in the discussion of how knowledge has become a universal need in today's society and ideology. After, we engage in showing mathematics education's historical and epistemological grip to this ideology. We claim that mathematics education appears in the time period that English becomes an international language and the notion of international seems to be a key constructor in the constitution of that ideology. Here, we draw from Derrida's famous saying that there is nothing beyond the text. We conclude that a critique to modern society and education has been developed from an idealistic concept of democracy. © FIZ Karlsruhe 2009.