Trends in qualitative research in language teaching since 2000

This paper reviews developments in qualitative research in language teaching since the year 2000, focusing on its contributions to the field and identifying issues that emerge. Its aims are to identify those areas in language teaching where qualitative research has the greatest potential and indicate what needs to be done to further improve the quality of its contribution. The paper begins by highlighting current trends and debates in the general area of qualitative research and offering a working definition of the term. At its core is an overview of developments in the new millennium based on the analysis of papers published in 15 journals related to the field of language teaching and a more detailed description, drawn from a range of sources, of exemplary contributions during that period. Issues of quality are also considered, using illustrative cases to point to aspects of published research that deserve closer attention in future work, and key publications on qualitative research practice are reviewed

From sociolinguistic variation to socially strategic stylisation

This article investigates the indexical relation between language, interactional stance and social class. Quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of a linguistic variable (the first person possessive singular) is combined with micro-ethnographic analysis of the way one particular variant, possessive ‘me’ (e.g. Me pencil’s up me jumper), is used by speakers in interaction. The aim of this analysis is to explore: (1) how possessive ‘me’ is implicated in the construction and management of local identities and relationships, and (2) how macro-social categories, such as social class, relate to language choice. The data for this analysis comes from an ethnographic study of the language practices of 9- to 10-year-old children in two socially-differentiated primary schools in north-east England. A secondary aim of the article is to spotlight the sociolinguistic sophistication of these young children, in particular, the working-class participants, who challenge the notion that the speech of working-class children is in any way ‘impoverished’

On the predicaments of the English L1 language learner: a conceptual article

The unparalleled rise of English has led native speakers (L1) to becoming increasingly outnumbered by L2 speakers; English as global commodity has stimulated much research into the learning and teaching of English. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer L1 English speakers are choosing to learn languages; a phenomenon which has received less attention. This article investigates both phenomena in the light of two recent theoretical developments in Applied Linguistics and second language acquisition (SLA), namely dynamic system theory and the multilingual turn in SLA, scrutinising the effects of the re-positioning of L1 English language learners. The conclusion suggests a conceptualisation of this learner group alongside, and yet very different to, other linguistically disadvantaged group. Pedagogical pathways to best support this learner group are also discussed

'Cash me ousside': a citizen sociolinguistic analysis of online metalinguistic commentary

This study examines online metalinguistic commentary related to an Internet meme (i.e., “Cash me ousside/howbow dah”), in order to explore Internet users’ language ideologies. The meme, and its related YouTube metacommentary, places at its center a “non-standard” utterance produced by a young teenage girl on a U.S. television talk show, which went viral. Drawing on citizen sociolinguistics – a means to explore how everyday citizens make sense of the world of language around them – the study offers an analysis of metalinguistic evaluations made by YouTube commenters about this particular utterance and its speaker. Our findings reveal that the teenager’s sociolinguistically ambiguous manner of speaking is perceived as indexing multiple social categories including race, region, education, and class-linked imagined “spaces” (e.g., ghetto, hood, the streets) – and that these categories overlap in complex, and not always predictable, configurations. Our analysis also highlights how evaluations regarding the authenticity and intelligibility of the speaker’s performance interact with several of the aforementioned social categories

Sociolinguistics of Style and Social Class in Contemporary Athens

This ethnographic study deals with the ways people in Athens, Greece, use style to construct their social class identities. Including a rich dataset comprising ethnographic interviews with actual people who live in the stereotypically seen as leafy and posh northern suburbs and in the stereotypically treated as working class western suburbs of Athens coupled with data from popular literary novels, TV series and Greek hip hop music, it argues that the relationship between style and social class identity is mediated by complex social meanings encompassing features from and discourses relevant to both areas, which are structured across different orders of indexicality depending on the genre of speech in which they are created. As such, it will be of interest to scholars in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, anthropology, sociology, Modern Greek studies, and to everyone who is interested in how social class is constructed via language.Greek State Scholarships Foundation, Onassis Public Benefit Fund, Foundation for Education and European Cultur

Does psychological status influence clinical outcomes in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other chronic gastroenterological diseases: An observational cohort prospective study

Background: Whether there is a temporal relationship between psychological problems and clinical outcomes in patients with diseases of the digestive tract has not been widely researched. Thus, our aims were 1) To observe and compare prospectively clinical outcomes in relation to psychological co-morbidity in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and chronic hepatitis C (HCV) and, 2) To test the hypothesis that patients with psychological co-morbidities are less likely to have a satisfactory response to standard treatment at 12 months. Methods: Overall, 139 patients were enrolled in this observational cohort prospective study. Over the ensuing year, physical and psychological measures were made at baseline and after 12 months (HADS, SCL90, SF-12 and disease activity measures). A logistic regression was conducted to observe any relationship between baseline characteristics and patients' clinical outcomes after 12 months. Results: Overall, there was no relationship between psychological status and quality of life at baseline and relapse at 12 months (p > 0.05). However, patients with inactive disease at baseline were at lower risk of relapse after 12 months (OR = 0.046, CI: 0.012–0.178). No significant relationship was found between psychological problems such as depression/anxiety and a total number of relapses in the IBD group. However, interestingly, patients with an active disease at baseline tended to have a greater number of relapses (OR = 3.07, CI: 1.650–5.738) and CD participants were found at lower risk of relapse than UC participants (OR = 0.382, CI: 0.198–0.736). Conclusion: In contrast to previous investigations, this study suggests that there is no temporal relationship between psychological problems at baseline and clinical outcomes over time. Longer and larger prospective studies are needed to better understand this result.Antonina A Mikocka-Walus, Deborah A Turnbull, Nicole T Moulding, Ian G Wilson, Gerald J Holtmann and Jane M Andrew

The measurement of bilingual abilities: central challenges

In this handbook chapter I analyse the concept of bilingual abilities. Bilinguals vary widely in what they can do with their languages or in the ways in which they use their languages on a daily basis. This means that there is a great deal of variability in what the term covers. While many researchers subscribe to the holistic view of bilingualism, in the academic literature bilinguals are still often described in negative terms as having a "deficit" in one or another subsystem of their languages. The key aim of this chapter is to identify what makes individuals with bilingual abilities unique speaker-hearers in their own right, avoiding the fractional view of bilingualism, and how these abilities can be measured

Borders traversed, boundaries erected: Creating discursive identities and language communities in the Village of Tewa

Today the Village of Tewa, First Mesa of the Hopi Reservation in Northern Arizona experiences unprecedented linguistic diversity and change due to language shift to English. Despite a wide range of speaker fluency, the now emblematic Tewa language that their ancestors transported from the Rio Grande Valley almost 325 years ago, is widely valorized within the community. However Language factions have emerged andtheir debates and contestations focus on legitimate language learning and the proper maintenance of their emblematic language. Boundary creation and crossing are featuresof discourses that rationalize possible forms of language revitalization and construct communities across temporal barriers. The theoretical implications of these discourseson both local and theoretical notions of language/speech community are explored. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved