Introduction

Extract

The sixth volume of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (ARAL) concerns itself with international bilingual communities, and specifically with the linguistic and educational issues associated with such communities. The objective of this collection of articles is to identify multilingual communities by profile and to deal with such issues as the functional allocation of linguistic repertoires, the implications for education of the existence of multilingual communities, and the implications for the professions resulting from the allocation of linguistic repertoires. The volume aims to survey both field research and linguistic description and to cover as much of the world as it is possible to do in such a limited volume. In fact, contributions covering Australia, Canada, Ghana, Great Britain, the Philippines, South Asia, and Southeast Asia were received, while a number of other areas which had been solicited were not completed in time for publication. In addition, the material covers such concerns as the bilingual's creativity, cognitive development, education, and the media. The several studies raise a number of important questions in addition to supplying extensive annotated and unannotated bibliographies.