Reading Room
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The reading room is updated regularly so you have access to the latest journal articles, chapters taken from Cambridge's most recent publications and articles specially written for this site.
Journal articles
The following articles are provided from Cambridge Journals Online.
'The Relationship Between L1 Fluency And L2 Fluency Development' (PDF)
Tracey M. Derwing, Murray J. Munro, Ronald I. Thomson and Marian J. Rossiter
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Volume 31, Issue 04, Dec 2009, pp533–557
A fundamental question in the study of second language (L2) fluency is the extent to which temporal characteristics of speakers' first language (L1) productions predict the same characteristics in the L2. A close relationship between a speaker's L1 and L2 temporal characteristics would suggest that fluency is governed by an underlying trait. This longitudinal investigation compared L1 and L2 English fluency at three times over 2 years in Russian- and Ukrainian- (which we will refer to here as Slavic) and Mandarin-speaking adult immigrants to Canada. Fluency ratings of narratives by trained judges indicated a relationship between the L1 and the L2 in the initial stages of L2 exposure, although this relationship was found to be stronger in the Slavic than in the Mandarin learners. Pauses per second, speech rate, and pruned syllables per second were all related to the listeners' judgments in both languages, although vowel durations were not. Between-group differences may reflect differential exposure to spoken English and a closer relationship between Slavic languages and English than between Mandarin and English. Suggestions for pedagogical interventions and further research are also proposed.
'Speaking beauties: Linguistic posturing, language inequality and the construction of a Tanzanian beauty queen' (PDF)
Sabrina Billings
Language in Society, , Volume 38, Issue 05, Nov 2009, pp 581–606
This article considers language use in Tanzanian beauty pageants, where contestants’ onstage speech is the focus of explicit and implicit critique. In particular, contestants who speak English are far more likely to win than are their Swahili-speaking counterparts. But because English has limited circulation and is restricted to the educated elite, speaking English is, for most contestants, possible only through memorization. Local ideologies that give preference to purity over standardness mean that, while contestants' speeches are often full of grammatical oddities, their linguistic posturing is typically well received. Yet once a contestant reaches the pinnacle of competition, expectations for language use rise, and once-successful contestants find themselves at a glass ceiling. Findings presented here point to the local and hierarchical nature of language ideologies, and to the need to account for the common practice in multilingual communities of successfully employing "incomplete" linguistic knowledge for indexical and referential effect.
'Interview with Tom McArthur' (PDF)
David Graddol
English Today, Volume 25, Issue 04, December 2009, pp 18–21
A few years ago, David Graddol interviewed Tom McArthur about his early background, and about a range of issues concerning the spread of English as a global language. This interview is reprinted here.
Book chapters
TLA and the teaching of language (PDF)
Stephen Andrews
(Chapter 2 of Teacher Language Awareness, 2007)
'The chapter begins by asking What is Teacher Language Awareness? … The chapter then goes on to ask whether TLA is important for all L2 teachers and why … This is followed by discussion of how TLA can affect teacher behaviour, particularly through its impact on the ways in which target language input is made available to learners in the L2 classroom …'
Articles
Careers for Linguists (PDF)
Sarah Atkins, John Bellamy, Loretta Fung and Anna Linthe
In this article, four people who studied linguistics and applied linguistics at university talk about their backgrounds and careers.