Language Culture And Social Connectedness

Diverse interest in language, pedagogy, identity and community has found expression through online interaction, networking and connectedness in the discourses captured in this book, Language, Culture and Social Connectedness. Issues surrounding language use in spoken, written and multimedia forms and in sociocultural responses, indigenous knowledges and ethnic perspectives are currently expanding, with consequential transnational implications for pedagogy in higher education. Language education is no longer oriented towards grammar, memorization and learning by rote, but rather using language and cultural knowledge as a means to communicate and connect to others around the globe. Geographical and physical boundaries are being transcended by technology as students learn to reach out to the world around them. This book explores the intricate relationships between language, culture and social connectedness in our diverse local and transnational communities. In a period of challenge in our history, there are tensions that connect and others that tend to disconnect endeavours across the social landscape. ‘Connectedness’ includes relationships both formal and informal and the benefits those relationships bring to the individual as well as to society. ‘Social connectedness’ describes the level of engagement and trust an individual has with others in their community and the roles they take on, their friendships and participation in different activities. People who feel socially connected also contribute towards building communities and society. They help to create social capital as networks that promote effective social functions.

This volume accentuates how ELT materials can be a mediation of capitalizing on moral and cultural values, which are more locally-grounded in respective Southeast Asia (SEA) countries. It features critical studies on locally-produced ELT materials (textbooks) situated in the following SEA countries: Timor-Leste, The Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand. The chapters, written by experts who know the ELT context of their respective SEA country, critically examine the design and use of ELT materials widely used in local and national contexts. Thus, the volume provides fresh insight into how values are uniquely manifested in language classroom materials. The present text also brings together empirical, conceptual and practical grounds for incorporating moral and cultural values into ELT materials development in such a way that it views morality and culture as a mutually complementing entity. This much-needed volume will be a valuable resource for those interested in the design and use of language materials in culturally and linguistically diverse contexts, such as in the Asia Pacific, America, Africa, and Europe.

This book provides a comprehensive critical account of tandem learning, charting it evolution from its origins in European educational settings to modern programs offering new perspectives on the approach’s role within higher education. Taking stock of the ways in which increased globalization has produced new linguistic and sociocultural realities, the volume begins by looking back at the development of tandem learning over the last several decades, growing out of a need to create more opportunities for L2 learners to communicate in their target language. The book then examines the different learning objectives and learning outcomes of tandem learning arrangements, moving toward a discussion of tandem learning’s potential role in shaping language policy and the unique challenges involved in implementing tandem programs at higher education institutions. The final section of the book brings the previous discussions together to consider new tools and technology and the ways in which they can better equip language educators to implement tandem learning in their own practice. Highlighting tandem learning’s potential to promote multilingual and multicultural learning on a global scale, this volume will be of particular interest to students and researchers in intercultural communication, language education, multilingualism, and applied linguistics.

The book presents a new theory of the relationship between language and culture in a transnational and global perspective. The fundamental view is that languages spread across cultures, and cultures spread across languages, or in other words, that linguistic and cultural practices flow through social networks in the world along partially different paths and across national structures and communities.

This edited book uses case studies to offer a comprehensive picture of the feedback practices and perceptions pertinent to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing in the Arab world. It highlights essential themes about feedback in L2 writing in eight Arab countries, and offers a detailed critical analysis of feedback practices and perceptions in six of these: Egypt, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates. The book will appeal to an international readership of academics, researchers and practitioners interested in EFL writing in the Arab world.

​This edited book explores stories of linguistic and spiritual identity in the urban and rural Australian landscape. It is an innovative mix of thirty six personal narratives and eleven research studies, which together offer accounts of the intersection of languages, religion and spirituality in people’s lives. Teachers of Indigenous languages speak of the critical connection between language revitalization, the spirituality of Country, and well-being. Both new and long-established diaspora individuals speak of the often complex but vital joint role of language and faith in belonging and heritage. The new dimension which the book brings to multilingualism is relevant to all complex global societies. Language and Spirit is ideal for both the general reader interested in community languages and interfaith issues, and academics in global intercultural studies and Applied Linguistics study wishing to gain a nuanced insight into the Language and Spirit intersection.

Applied Cross-Cultural Data Analysis for Social Work is a research guide for examining and interpreting data for the purpose of cultural group comparisons. This book aims to provide practical applications in statistical approaches of data analyses that are commonly used in cross-cultural research and evaluation. Readers are presented with step-by-step illustrations in the use of descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate statistics to compare cross-cultural population using large-scale, population-based survey data. These techniques have important applications in health, mental health, and social science research relevant to social work and other helping professions, especially in providing a framework of evidence to examine health disparities using population-health data. For each statistical approach discussed in this book, Thanh V. Tran and Keith T. Chan explain the underlying purpose, basic assumptions, types of variables, application of the Stata statistical package, the presentation of statistical findings, and the interpretation of results. Unlike previous guides on statistical approaches and data analysis in social work, this book explains and demonstrates the strategies of cross-cultural data analysis using descriptive and bivariate analysis, multiple regression, additive and multiplicative interaction, mediation, SEM and HLM for subgroup analysis and cross-cultural comparisons. This book also includes sample syntax from Stata for social work researchers to conduct cross-cultural analysis with their own research.

Language, our primary tool of thought and perception, is at the heart of who we are as individuals. Languages are constantly changing, sometimes into entirely new varieties of speech, leading to subtle differences in how we present ourselves to others. This revealing account brings together eleven leading specialists from the fields of linguistics, anthropology, philosophy and psychology, to explore the fascinating relationship between language, culture, and social interaction. A range of major questions are discussed: How does language influence our perception of the world? How do new languages emerge? How do children learn to use language appropriately? What factors determine language choice in bi- and multilingual communities? How far does language contribute to the formation of our personalities? And finally, in what ways does language make us human? Language, Culture and Society will be essential reading for all those interested in language and its crucial role in our social lives.