Jacqueline Lam Kam-Mei interviews Michael A. K. Halliday on language and linguistics, English and Chinese, Singaporean and Hong Kong English, and machine translation.

A description and discussion of the vast linguistic diversity in the capital of the United Kingdom.

LONDON today is an enormous Tower of Babel, where in addition to the common language, English, many other languages are spoken. On Tuesday 13 March 2001, as part of the Lunch Hour Lecture Series at University College London, Professor Reinier Salverda discussed the linguistic diversity of contemporary London, presenting recent data on the other languages spoken there, as well as focussing on the social aspects of this linguistic diversity, in particular issues of language policy and language management. The following is a slightly adapted version of that presentation.

A comparison between Black English usage in South Africa and the United States

There has been a long tradition of resistance in South African politics, as there has been for African-Americans in the United States. The historical links between African Americans and their counterparts on the African continent prompt one to draw a comparison between the groups in terms of linguistic and social status. This comparison demonstrates that Black South African English (BSAfE) is a distinctive form with its own stable conventions, as representative in its own context as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is in the United States.

A novel and dynamic approach to teaching English by starting in Chinese.

In China, many schools start teaching EFL to their first graders, aged 6–7. Children have to repeat words and sentences that are meaningless to them. They learn to read EFL not by reading but by going through mechanical drills in letters, words and phonic skills. F. Smith asserts that ‘children learn to read only by reading’. But there is a Catch-22 situation here: to learn to read, you have to read, but you cannot read if you have not learned to read. This situation is, however, being tackled by a new experimental approach over the past five years – a ‘sandwich story’ methodology.

An account of the use and teaching of English in one of the world's most isolated and reclusive states.

An introduction, and a brief history of English in Korea before independence from Japan in 1945, then in post–1945 North Korea, followed by a discussion first of how North Korea's ideological and political imperatives gave rise to the elimination of English from the school curriculum, then of the subsequent reinstatement and promotion of the language. In North Korea English is taught not so much as the global lingua franca but as a means of idolizing Kim Il Sung and to promote his brand of Communist ideology. The article closes with brief comments on the future of English in North Korea.

A response to the prescriptivist/descriptivist skirmishes between Bryan Garner on the one side and Tom McArthur and Richard Bailey on the other.

Whenever describers and prescribers of the English language meet, they don't exchange views in balanced and civil discussion. They fight.

A review of David Crystal's book, Language and the Internet, Cambridge University Press, 2001, hardback, ISBN 0 521 802121, pp.272, £13.95

Regular Features. Comment: ‘September 11, ET, and ETe’; Usage 1: English and ‘the war on terror’: Tom McArthur; Follow-up; From Our Files; Verbal fallout; Usage 2: The position of the adverb: Solveig Granath; Varieties: Englishes, attitudes, education: Shondel J. Nero; Post & (E)Mail