This monograph is about the chains of verbs commonly found in Creole Languages, West African languages, in particular the Kwa sub-group of Niger-Congo, Chinese and certain other languages and have acquired the name of 'serial verbs' in the literature. As a case study, the serial constructions of… read more
This paper discusses multilingualism in three publications aimed at bilingual communities in Britain: speakers of Russian, Greek and Tagalog. Despite the fact that the editorial content in such publications is almost completely monolingual, they are sites rich in multilingual written practices.… read more
The 2011 UK Census was the first ever to ask a question about language in England. The period during which the census was planned coincided with a period of intense politicisation of the language issue, which had previously not been a major point of controversy. The census results showed that… read more
This paper discusses three processes relating to the social meaning of scripts and orthographies, all of which are potentially mediated by the role of script-as-image. One of these processes, iconisation, was introduced to the field by Irvine and Gal (2000) and is widely known. Attribution is a… read more
This paper analyses the way in which the text displayed on bilingual and multilingual currency (banknotes and coins) and stamps constructs and reproduces linguistic hierarchies, reflecting the relative status of the languages within the issuing country. The paper briefly discusses the selection of… read more
This chapter draws on ethnographic research among adolescents in an inner-city area of Manchester, England, which has traditionally been seen as the centre of a ‘Caribbean community.’ We describe how young people in this area from a variety of ethnic backgrounds are using Creole language forms, and… read more
In 2002 the Russian parliament passed a law requiring all official languages within the Russian Federation to use the Cyrillic alphabet. The legislation caused great controversy and anger in some quarters, especially in Tatarstan, the Russian republic whose attempt to romanise the script for the… read more
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Wo Phonologie und Ideologie einander treffen: die Bedeutung onthographischer Konventionen im Britischen Kreol Dieses Artikel behandelt die Orthographie einer unstandardisierten schriftlichen Sprachvarietät, des Kreol, mit primär Englischem Lexikon, das von Britishen Schriftstellern… read more
Some linguists regard predicate adjectives in Sranan and other creole languages as stative verbs, one argument being the absence of a copula before such adjectives. An analysis by Seuren, on the other hand, treats predicate adjectives as true adjectives in Sranan: an underlying copula fails to… read more
