Abstract
The paper attempts to determine the place of standard and non-standard varieties of English in education. It examines how the study of language attitudes has a long history that has expanded across several decades and social scientific disciplines and how it recognises that language is a powerful social force that does more than convey intended referential information. The paper also looks at how a "standard" English has developed over the years and how it has been dictated by association with the social group with the highest degree of power, wealth and prestige.

From the Paper
"By the 16th century a specific form of English used mainly by the government, and among the most educated, had surfaced and the standardisation of its written form was later encouraged by the development of the printing press. Regional dialects which possessed their own distinctive grammar, vocabulary and accent, continued to be spoken by all classes of society until their rapid decline in the 19th century. The main reason for this decline was related to issues such as geographical mobility, the spread of education, and the mass-readership press. Meanwhile, a standard form of accent, now known as 'received pronunciation' (RP) had emerged and by around 1900 this form, or one very close to it and containing only a few small markers of one's local accent, had come to be widely recognised as the form indicative of 'educatedness' (Honey, 1983)."

Tags:dialect, linguistic, social, group, accent, pronunciation, grammer

Abstract
Second Language Acquisition is a field of inquiry that abounds in theories, while at the same time no single approach has adequately explained how language acquisition takes place. One reason for this might be that linguists interested in SLA have been trained in different disciplines, such as linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and neurolinguistics. The paper explains that, naturally, they have approached SLA from very different perspectives and treat all the variables involved in the learning process differently. The situation appears to be very confusing and frustrating. All the present theories, hypotheses, and models are all preliminary work done toward the ultimate goal of a true theory. The paper shows that in this sense, the different approaches taken by linguists and researchers are never worthless. They have uncovered bits and pieces of the whole complexity of language acquisition. Hopefully, the continuing and combined efforts made by linguists and researchers will lead to the ultimate success of establishing the true theory in language acquisition as well as in SLA.

From the Paper
"Linguistics is one of the newest fields of scientific inquiry. It was developed into an independent discipline of social science in the United Sates first "as an offshoot of anthropology" in the first half of the twentieth century in an attempt to investigate into the disappearing American indigenous languages (Lakoff, 2000, p. 2-3). Traditionally, it has been concerned with the analysis of language, namely its phonology, morphology and syntax. Following this tradition, Norm Chomsky in the 1950s put forward his milestone transformational generative grammar (TGG), which assumed "an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech-community" unaffected by any external factors in his exploration of the Universal Grammar (UG), the general rules of language (Chomsky, 1965, p.3). This is basically an asocial or theoretical view in linguistic studies as opposed to the social view which claims knowing a language also means "knowing how to use that language"(Wardhaugh, 2002, p.3) in social contexts. Adopting either or both of the two views, linguistics and researchers alike have postulated a multitude of theories, approaches, and models in the inquiry into the nature of language and language acquisition, which appear to be conflicting ones fighting against one another."

Tags:Noam, Chomsky, Universal, Grammar, TGG, Connectionism, CAH

Abstract
The paper shows that when we think about communication, we think about the spoken word and that our thoughts are always about the words people use and their fluency of speech. Yet, at the same time, we are also taking in information from nonlinguistic sources. The author notes that people's mannerisms, clothing, and appearance are also important, as well as their tone of voice. Researches have estimated that, in face-to-face communication, as much as 90 percent of the social meaning may be carried in the nonverbal message and that facial appearance and response may contribute more to our meaning of their message than all their words. The paper explores the importance of both types of communication and how they are put across.

From the Paper
"As popularly used, language refers to a system of words. This development is not surprising, since words distinguish human communication from that of lower animals. Words, as symbols, usually convey information in a quite deliberate, no instinctive way. For this reason, language is sometimes treated as a set of verbal symbols."

Tags:symbol, coding, culture, language

Abstract
Based on a substantial amount of empirical research conducted on second language acquisition, it has been theorized that learners are best able to achieve the critical skill of learning a second language at some point fairly early in their maturational development. This claim is known as the "critical period hypothesis," which postulates that there is some maturational period for language learning that maximizes one's degree of proficiency in the language beyond that of other maturational periods. This study examines whether the critical period during which children are best able to learn English as a second language is before six years or age. To this end, the study compares the English proficiency levels of two groups of eighth grade ESL learners, a group that had begun to learn English before they were six years of age and a group that had begun to learn English after six years of age. Because the nature of language required in school is complex, a fairly complex assessment was made of English proficiency, namely English proficiency was assessed using the Quick-Start in English Written Language Assessment (QSE). The study shows that there are higher proficiency levels for those children who learned English before six than for those children who learned it after six years of age.

Table of Contents:
The Problem
Background
Problem Statement
Significance
Limitations
Null Hypothesis
Review of the Literature
Introduction
Critical Period Hypothesis and the Best Age of Second
Language Learning: The Pertinent Research
Conclusions
Subjects, Materials and Methods
The Setting
Subjects
Materials
Methods
Methods Used To Obtain Permission To Conduct Research
Data Gathering Methods
The Findings
Conclusions and Recommendations
References
Appendix A
Letter Mailed From Researcher to Supervisor
Appendix B
Letter From Supervisor
Appendix C
Letter Sent to Mark's Middle School Principal
Appendix D
Letter received from Mark's Middle School Principal

From the Paper
"While many claims have been made as to what precise age/age group constitutes the critical period, some recent research conducted in Germany, Doll (1996) stated that this critical period takes place during kindergarten or first grade. In other words, the period occurs sometime before the child is six years of age. What is interesting about Doll's findings is that they are in conflict with the majority of the earlier research in the area; this research tending to show that the critical period for effectively learning a second language is between the ages of eight and ten years (Bialystok, 1997)."

Tags:cognitive, development, vocabulary

Abstract
This paper discusses two foreign sources which have had an influence upon changes in the English language. Firstly, it examines the influences of the Scandinavian language family, from the time of Donsk Tunga and the 9th century Viking invasions of the British Isles. Secondly, the paper discusses Latin influences on the English language, from the 14th century to the late 20th century. The paper provides examples from each source language and looks at how the source languages in question have influenced British English with regards to dialects, place names, surnames, prefixes and compounds.

From the Paper
"Before proceeding, however, it should be noted that up until the 9th Century, there was one Scandinavian language spoken throughout the countries now known as Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland. This was called Donsk Tunga (Danish Tongue). The Viking period led to differences between the East Scandinavian dialects, from which Danish and Swedish have evolved, and the West Scandinavian dialects, from which Norwegian and Icelandic have evolved. Today, Danish and Swedish remain extremely similar, and it is quite usual that literate Swedes, Danes (and Norwegians) can understand each others' languages without a great deal of difficulty. Icelandic, however, has diverged further so that it is mutually unintelligible with Swedish, Danish and Norwegian."

Tags:danish, dialect, scandinavian, swedish

Abstract
This paper attempts to briefly summarise the main points of Breen's paper and evaluate his metaphor of the classroom as an experimental laboratory in the light of the author's recent work with ELT programmes in government primary schools in S.E. Asia.

From the Paper
"Chinese culture deems the schoolteacher as all-important, the fountain of all knowledge & worthy of respect. School children stand when the teacher enters the classroom & bow when greeting them. Everything the teacher says is written down & chanting, drilling and dictation in EFL lessons are the order of the day. Large class sizes, (typically 38 - 45 students per class) conspire against inclusive learning or the teacher taking much notice of learning styles or attitudes."

Tags:efl, elt, psychologist, social, surrogate, teaching, tesol

Abstract
This essay looks at how literature speaks to us and why certain types of communication are called ?literature?. The essay takes its sources from modernist writers such as Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf as well as the novels "Waterland" and "Beloved".

Tags:modernity, morrison, pound

Abstract
This paper focuses on how the English tongue was derived from Germanic by examining the similarities between the structure and vocabulary of Old and Middle English and German. It looks at how Anglo-Saxon was an inflected language with a structure that is still retained by modern German speakers, coupled with word gender, past participle formation and the process of compounding. It explores through a literature review of works such as "Beowulf" and the Anglo-Saxon poem "The Seafarer" how the English that we speak today essentially evolved under the influence of many languages and how the Germanic tongue was perhaps one of the most instrumental in its formation.

From the Paper
"On perusal of an Anglo-Saxon text such as Beowulf it would seem that the modern English translation uses far more words. The Germanic influence on Old English meant that it was a synthetic language structured on the inflection of nouns and adjectives for four cases in the singular and four in the plural. Through the inflection of Old English one could distinguish the job a word did in a sentence by its ending, regardless of its position. For example, the difference between the Modern English sentences, (i) the woman saw the man, and (ii) the man saw the woman is a matter of word order."

Tags:beowulf, seafarer, anglo, saxon

Abstract
This paper explains that Anglicisms in the German language, which are words and other lexical items borrowed from English and assimilated into another language, dates back to the 5th century, when German settlers arrived in Britain. However, the use of Anglicism in the German language has expanded greatly in the last century with the introduction of new concepts and inventions. The paper specifically describes loanwords, loanblends and loanshifts, which are types of Anglicisms, and reviews the application of these Anglicisms into German in various fields. The paper also assesses the validity of several theories for this lexical borrowing.

From the Paper
"A loanblend is a partial substitution to create a hybrid word or phrase consisting of an English loanword and a German word. Examples include Rechenpower, Benimmtrainer, Scwimm-Star, Fein-Scan, Billigjobs, Selfmade-Architekt, and Wow-Effekt. We can see that nouns can be combined with other nouns, adjectives and verbs, and the position of the 'English' word varies as a determinant and determinatum. Phrasal compounds include terms such as Coming-of-age Geschichte, Happy-End-Roman, No-Risk-Garantiene, Small is Beautiful-Prinzip, Morning-After-Pille (which works well as a euphemism by being anglicized)."

Tags:nativization colloquial technical prestige, morphological changes

Abstract
This paper studies the critical period hypothesis which suggests that languages cannot be learned after the age of twelve. However, an evaluation of evidence from many different sources suggests that this is not accurate. It examines sources such as: Studies of second language learning methods, wild children studies and the theories of Noam Chomsky and Stephen Krashen. Factors which make it easier for children to learn language, such as parentheses, are also discussed.

From the Paper
"The "critical period" hypothesis cites a commonly observable phenomenon, the fact that children find language learning much easier than adults, and learn language remarkably quickly, to claim that language learning is more difficult, or impossible after puberty. The concept of "critical periods" was initially introduced in the study of animal behavior, where it was noticed that certain behavioral responses only emerged when stimulus was given within a particular time frame. This concept has been applied to many species, including humans, with regard to the development of specific emotional responses such as stress. In 1967 Lenneberg proposed that this concept also applied to human linguistic development, seeing language as a response, and exposure to language as the stimulus. There are two versions of this hypothesis: the "strong" version, which claims that no language acquisition is possible after puberty, and the "weak" version, which maintains that language learning will be much more difficult. A distinction is often made between "language acquisition", the way in which children unconsciously learn their native tongue, and "language learning" which implies formal instruction, and Lenneberg maintains this distinction himself."

Tags:chomsky, immersion, krashen, language, learning, linguistics, pinker, second, teaching