IN RECENT years an increasing amount of literature has become available regarding the learning and use of English in a wide range of contexts, notably including continental Europe: cf. Berns 1995; Cenoz & Jessner 2000; Dushku 1998; Fonzari 1999; McCallen 1991; O'Reilly 1998; Petzold & Berns 2000; Phillipson & Skutnab-Kangas 1997; Schleppegrell 1991; and Van Essen 1997. However, little recent published work has explored the role of the language in Spain. The information provided here is based on on-site investigation, interviews with English teachers and other language specialists in Spain, and an examination of relevant curricular documents and other published sources. The aim of the article is to cover three areas in particular: the history of English in Spain; its current status in the nation's multilingual context; and the learning and teaching of the language nationwide of proficiency.

The Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech (SCOTS for short) has been available online since November 2004. It currently contains over 2.3 million words of texts in varieties of Broad Scots and Scottish English. Regular additions are made to the textual content of the corpus and the integrated search and analysis software is continually undergoing improvement. Over the next year, the corpus will grow to around 4 million words, 20% of which will comprise spoken language in the form of conversations and interviews.

WHILE recent articles and research studies on Singapore Colloquial English (SCE, or simply ‘Singlish’) have so far tended to focus on the structure, grammar and the functional roles of Singlish in Singapore, this paper presents an insider's viewpoint of this local variety from a perspective that incorporates both linguistic ideology and cultural politics. Focusing on the spoken version at the basilectal end of the English speech continuum, the article attempts to explore Singlish from a cultural-political viewpoint and challenges popular belief that Singlish encapsulates an established Singapore identity. In the process, it throws up some insights about language, identity and culture. Based on two significant contributing factors to the unmarked use of Singlish in Singapore, the paper argues that – more than just a language used for wider intra-communication in this tiny republic and city state – this variety, with its odd mix of English and local ethnic languages, mirrors a people who find themselves struggling with a myriad conflicting and contrasting cultures, a people in cultural and linguistic flux, who are still searching – desperately – for an identity, and a language they can call their own.

This paper attempts to show the important role that ideology (‘meaning in the service of power’) plays in the nurturing and proliferation of metaphors and metaphoric themes, a psychological and linguistic role that is just as important as bodily experience. It discusses such themes as power is high, sex is violence, disease is invasion, and race is colour, attempting to show how they drive social practices. It also explores how the themes activity is game and quality is quantity (along with such subthemes as time is money and human quality is wealth) have been implicated in the emergence of both capitalist economic philosophy and the Darwinism and neo-Darwinism which developed from it (as represented successively in Hobbes, Smith, Hume, Malthus and Darwin himself).

IN RECENT years, the ‘Information Age’ has often been compared to the period when printing first developed (cf. Dewar 1998). During both the printing revolution (15th century) and the electronic revolution (later 20th century on), technological developments have been at the forefront of a transformation in the spread and availability of information. The introduction then widespread use of print six centuries ago led to changes not only in society's management of information but also in language itself. Comparably, present-day information technology has made for easy and rapid access to enormous amounts of information, with hotly debated consequences regarding copyright, censorship, and the communication of information.

In ET58 (Apr 99), there appeared an article entitled ‘English everywhere in China’, in which Kang Jianxiu has not only cited many examples to show that English is extensively used in China, but also lists several reasons for using the language and predicts that the phenomenon is unstoppable. From the date of its publication to the present time, more than six years have passed. What has happened in China during those years concerning the use of English? Has Kang's predication been proved right? We have been following the phenomenon, and would like to discuss these questions.

A study in current technical commercial usage, 2006: 2-Track Global, Inc. Ticker – TOTG Rating – 10 out of 10

IN RECENT years, a married couple in the United States developed a pidgin-like patois (for their own use) out of three languages that one or the other knew well but both did not share. The following account, while telling something of their story, looks at how such a private ‘language’ can impact negatively on second-language acquisition. The study seeks also to gauge the effect of this personal ‘pidgin’ on Pierre, a native speaker of Wolof, and on his acquisition of English, a language he needs to know. In one sense their private language is a success, but in another it is a problem, because Pierre needs to become fluent in the language of his new home. He and Mary have created a language style that suits their daily needs, but their very success and originality may be preventing Pierre from moving on into conventional English.

THE TEACHING of traditional grammar has been on the wane in education for the last 25 to 50 years, in the face of more interactive classrooms, more exotic developments in transformational grammar, and research suggesting that it may not play an effective role in improving student's writing. Recently, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in teaching at least some of its fundamental concepts. This new interest has taken on a more imperative bent as secondary schools and to some extent primary schools have been feeling pressure to teach basic grammatical concepts in order to prepare students for the 45 multiple-choice questions on grammar and usage in the new SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test). Teachers and schools that have not done well enough in this area will be held to account by parents and politicians, both of whom tend to believe that instruction in traditional formal grammar is the best means to this end. Teachers who send students off, without this training, to undergo the new SAT will have some serious questions to answer if those students scores are too low.