Bernard Spolsky
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 139288 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Bernard Spolsky |
| PRENOMES | Bernard |
| SOBRENOME | Spolsky |
| ASSINATURA | SPOLSKY B |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Bar-Ilan University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2990-5490 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 85 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 243 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 84 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1965 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
Revernacularization and Revitalization of the Hebrew Language
Like other “revived” languages such as Welsh and Breton (Jones, 1998), the modern variety of Hebrew is sufficiently different from earlier versions to lead Zuckerman (2006) to suggest it be renamed Israeli .
Do we need critical educational linguistics
Over the past 30 years, the term “criticality” has become increasingly common in studies of educational and applied linguistics. Derived originally from the work of the Frankfurt School and widened by the linguistic turn in the writing of Habermas, the first linguistic sub-field was Critical Discourse Analysis, proposed by British scholars. In 1990, Alastair Pennycook called for critical applied linguistics, and in 2021 traced its expansion over …
Individual language advocates and managers
Linguistic landscape
The paper starts with signs that Cooper and I found in the Old City of Jerusalem. It describes how the term Linguistic Landscape was applied to the recollections of francophone high school students of the signs they had seen. It traces the many collections of photos employing digital cameras and cell-phones, and research that was derived from these collections, including published papers and books, a journal, and an annual workshop. The paper reg…
Religion and Education in the Preservation of Hebrew and Other Jewish Language Varieties
A modified and enriched theory of language policy (and management)
Language policy in French colonies and after independence
French colonies were created for the benefit not of the indigenous conquered peoples but of the home country. Their borders were set for political convenience and produced a jumble of ethnicities, languages, and cultures. Exploitation came first, and there was generally no attempt to find a workable educational solution to the local diversity. During French rule, a small elite was “assimilated,” educated in French and convinced of its value. Loca…
Language policy in Portuguese colonies and successor states
In studying language policy, it is not enough to look at central government management, but also at the influence of managers at levels ranging from the family to international organizations. Actual cases reveal that there are also non-linguistic forces such as demography, war, civil strife, and economic breakdowns which have major effects. This paper summarizes a study of the Portuguese empire and its aftermath. The empire enforced the hegemony …
"Shikl, what did you do for Yiddish today?" An appreciation of activist scholarship
Academic biographies seldom go into details about motivation, but in the case of Joshua Fishman, we have his statement that much of his career was directed by the question posed to him by his father, "What did you do for Yiddish today?" Answering this question did not just lead to his personal decision to speak Yiddish with his wife and children, but also to make sure that his grandchildren would be fluent speakers. But as he explains, his pionee…
The Languages of Diaspora and Return
Until quite recently, the term Diaspora (usually with the capital) meant the dispersion of the Jews in many parts of the world. Now, it is recognized that many other groups have built communities distant from their homeland, such as Overseas Chinese, South Asians, Romani, Armenians, Syrian and Palestinian Arabs. To explore the effect of exile of language repertoires, the article traces the sociolinguistic development of the many Jewish Diasporas,…
The Languages of the Jews
Historical sociolinguistics is a comparatively new area of research, investigating difficult questions about language varieties and choices in speech and writing. Jewish historical sociolinguistics is rich in unanswered questions: when does a language become 'Jewish'? What was the origin of Yiddish? How much Hebrew did the average Jew know over the centuries? How was Hebrew re-established as a vernacular and a dominant language? This book explore…
Languages of the Jews
Language management in the People's Republic of China
Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, language management has been a central activity of the party and government, interrupted during the years of the Cultural Revolution. It has focused on the spread of Putonghua as a national language, the simplification of the script, and the auxiliary use of Pinyin. Associated has been a policy of modernization and terminological development. There have been studies of bilingualis…
The Cambridge Handbook of Language Policy
Over the last 50 years, language policy has developed into a major discipline, drawing on research and practice in many nations and at many levels. This is the first Handbook to deal with language policy as a whole and is a complete 'state-of-the-field' survey, covering language practices, beliefs about language varieties, and methods and agencies for language management. It provides a historical background which traces the development of classic…
Obituary
Family language policy – the critical domain
Introducing a pioneering series of studies of family language policy and management, this paper points out that classic language policy dealt almost entirely with the nation-state, although it did recognise the critical role of the family in determining natural intergenerational transmission of a variety. After arguing for the need to look at each of the levels, or, rather, domains making up a speech or political community, it shows how these stu…
Language academies and␣other language management agencies
Jewish Religious Multilingualism
The boundaries between sacred and profane language are not fixed. One of the most famous international language management actions of recent years was the decision of Vatican II to permit conducting the mass in the vernacular rather than in the traditional Latin, thus moving a large number of modern languages into the sacred category. Fishman (2002) demonstrates that even without adding specific religious functions, Yiddish in the twentieth centu…
Forthcoming in Language Teaching
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Tomasz Kamusella
Research in English language teaching and learning in Israel (2004–2009)
The goal of this article is to make research on English language teaching and learning published locally in Israel more widely available. Given that so many Israeli researchers are internationally trained and maintain wide connections, it necessarily omits much important work that appears in European and US journals. It focuses on shorter studies, commonly unfunded, that university teachers in EFL programs or in teacher training programs at small…
When Languages Die
Book Review| April 01 2010 When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge K. David Harrison, When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 292 pp. Bernard Spolsky Bernard Spolsky Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2010) 16 (2): 296. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-2009…
Language Management
Language policy is all about choices. If you are bilingual or plurilingual, you have to choose which language to use. Even if you speak only one language, you have choices of dialects and styles. Some of these choices are the result of management, reflecting conscious and explicit efforts by language managers to control the choices. This book presents a specific theory of language management. Bernard Spolsky reviews research on the family, religi…
Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?
This volume offers a close look at four cases of indigenous language revitalization: Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Saami in Scandinavia, Hñähñö in Mexico and Quechua and other indigenous languages in
Language policy
Family language policy – the critical domain
Introducing a pioneering series of studies of family language policy and management, this paper points out that classic language policy dealt almost entirely with the nation-state, although it did recognise the critical role of the family in determining natural intergenerational transmission of a variety. After arguing for the need to look at each of the levels, or, rather, domains making up a speech or political community, it shows how these stu…
Attitudinal Aspects of Second Language Learning
A major difference between first and second language acquisition is in the degree of variation in the levels of proficiency attained by learners. Among the factors proposed to account for this variation are method, age, aptitude and attitude. In a typical language learning situation, there are a number of people whose attitude to each other can be significant: the learner, the teacher, the learner's peers and parents, and the speakers of the lang…
A modified and enriched theory of language policy (and management)
Language management in the People's Republic of China
Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, language management has been a central activity of the party and government, interrupted during the years of the Cultural Revolution. It has focused on the spread of Putonghua as a national language, the simplification of the script, and the auxiliary use of Pinyin. Associated has been a policy of modernization and terminological development. There have been studies of bilingualis…
Prospects for the Survival of the Navajo Language
What is the role of schools in the loss of indigenous languages? A study 25 years ago of prospects for the survival of Navajo placed most of the blame for the spread of English on increasing access to schools. Reconsidering that evidence and recent developments, the central role of the introduction of Western schooling is seen still to be highly relevant. But other factors have worked through the school, the major effect of which has been the ide…
Maori bilingual education and language revitalisation
The attempts at Maori language revival started in the 1970s, at a stage when there were few children still growing up speaking the language. The most important innovation has been the development of pre‐school language nests; several thousand children now come to elementary school after a pre‐school programme taught entirely or mainly in Maori. There are some bilingual schools; a growing number of elementary schools with Maori immersion in the fi…
Preliminary Studies in the Development of Techniques for Testing Overall Second Language Proficiency1
Reassessing Māori regeneration
After nearly two centuries of contact with Europeans, the Māori language of New Zealand was, by the 1960s, threatened with extinction. Accompanying a movement for ethnic revival, a series of grassroots regeneration efforts that established adult, preschool, and autonomous school immersion programs has over the past two decades increased substantially the number of Māori who know and use their language, but this has not yet led to the reestablishm…
Language policy in French colonies and after independence
French colonies were created for the benefit not of the indigenous conquered peoples but of the home country. Their borders were set for political convenience and produced a jumble of ethnicities, languages, and cultures. Exploitation came first, and there was generally no attempt to find a workable educational solution to the local diversity. During French rule, a small elite was “assimilated,” educated in French and convinced of its value. Loca…
Language policy in Portuguese colonies and successor states
In studying language policy, it is not enough to look at central government management, but also at the influence of managers at levels ranging from the family to international organizations. Actual cases reveal that there are also non-linguistic forces such as demography, war, civil strife, and economic breakdowns which have major effects. This paper summarizes a study of the Portuguese empire and its aftermath. The empire enforced the hegemony …
Testing across cultures
While there have been minor but bitterly debated issues connected with variety choice in international teaching and testing of English, an equally pervasive cultural clash has been initiated through the encounter between the traditional and modern approaches to testing. The classical colonial diffusion of the British examination system (with its notion of prescribed curriculum and the judgement by examiners of written or spoken performance) has c…
Jewish styles of worship
Religious, political and educational factors in the development of Biliteracy in the kingdom of tonga
The Kingdom of Tonga is unusual not only in its high level of literacy but also in the fact that the literacy is in large measure in the vernacular language. Written Tongan is used for religious, governmental, informational, commercial, and personal functions: written English for external relations, higher level administration, and education. While the educational system is encouraging the learning of English, it is maintaining emphasis on the To…
Speech Communities and Schools
A sound language education policy must be based on an understanding of the speech community in which the school exists. Sociolinguists define speech communities according to various criteria, but for educational purposes it is necessary always to start with the individual school and the community it serves. This becomes clear when one looks at the case of Navajo speaking children on or near the Navajo Reservation. Studies of the language used by …
Bilingual Education of Children
Research in English language teaching and learning in Israel (2004–2009)
The goal of this article is to make research on English language teaching and learning published locally in Israel more widely available. Given that so many Israeli researchers are internationally trained and maintain wide connections, it necessarily omits much important work that appears in European and US journals. It focuses on shorter studies, commonly unfunded, that university teachers in EFL programs or in teacher training programs at small…
Language policy
Language in Israeli society and education
Depending on their language ideologies, countries are likely to develop different concerns for language-education policy. Countries with a monolingual ideology, which may ignore the multilingual reality, will be concerned with correctness and normativism. A country that recognizes two or three languages as equally important, or countries that recognize multilingual complexity, will need first to determine the status of each. While Israel is histo…
Sociolinguistics of Literacy, Bilingual Education, and Tesol
Recent sociolinguistic studies suggest a method for understanding more clearly the many complex relations between literacy and language education in general. Three cases are described to demonstrate this. In the history of Jewish education, the change in attitude to literacy, involving the acceptance of literacy for recording and learning the Oral Law as well as the Written Law may be seen as one of the factors that kept Hebrew alive even after i…
Linguistics in practice
tional problems posed by the widespread lack of congruence between the language of the home and the language the schools are expected to teach (Spolsky 1974a), the field of applied, or, as I prefer to call it, educational linguistics would never have maintained its prominence. The scope of the field of educational linguistics is defined by the interaction of language and formal instruction; it thus encompasses first and second language teaching a…
Language academies and␣other language management agencies
Language in its social context
The study of language in its social environment has grown significantly over the past forty years, and now covers most languages and areas of the world. Sociolinguistics examines the relation between language and society, between the uses of language and the social structures in which the users of language live. Sociolinguists employ a variety of different approaches in collecting their data, but all try to answer some part of the fundamental que…
Introduction to a Colloquium
This paper introduces a colloquium on the scope and form of a theory of second language learning. It argues for the value of a general theory, considers the relation of theory to practice, and argues that the papers that follow-by McLaughlin; Bialystok; Long; Schumann; Sokolik; and Hatch, Shirai, and Fantuzzi;-point to a field where new and competing paradigms are being explored. The history of language teaching is sometimes written as though it …
Three Functional Tests of Oral Proficiency
This paper is a description of three experimental tests that attempt to measure communicative competence. The Spanish-English Dominance Assessment Test was developed to permit assignment of sixand sevenyear-old children to appropriate streams in a New Mexico school with a bilingual education program. The Navajo-English Dominance Interview, also intended to be used with six-year-olds beginning school, was used to validate teacher ratings in a stud…
When Languages Die
Book Review| April 01 2010 When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge K. David Harrison, When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 292 pp. Bernard Spolsky Bernard Spolsky Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2010) 16 (2): 296. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-2009…
Computer-based Instruction and the Criteria for Pedagogical Grammars1
Recent Research in Tesol
At one of its first meetings, the members of the TESOL Research Committee discussed ways of communicating the results of research to members of the organization. One suggestion was to make use of the ERIC system, and to publish in TESOL Quarterly resumes of reports processed through the ERIC Clearinghouse on Linguistics. The first of these resumes appeared in the last issue. We felt however that this was not enough, and proposed also to prepare a…
Language Testing
Foreign-language tests fall naturally into two classes according to the purposes for which they are used. In the first class are tests used for the control of instruction. They are the concern of the classroom teacher who wishes to find out how effective his teaching and the students' learning have been or to discover what needs to be taught. The second class are tests used in the control of a person's career. Used by administrators or counsellor…
Preliminary Studies in the Development of Techniques for Testing Overall Second Language Proficiency1
Teachers of English as a Second Language
Recent Research in Tesol
Recent Research in Tesol
Attitudinal Aspects of Second Language Learning
A major difference between first and second language acquisition is in the degree of variation in the levels of proficiency attained by learners. Among the factors proposed to account for this variation are method, age, aptitude and attitude. In a typical language learning situation, there are a number of people whose attitude to each other can be significant: the learner, the teacher, the learner's peers and parents, and the speakers of the lang…
Three Functional Tests of Oral Proficiency
This paper is a description of three experimental tests that attempt to measure communicative competence. The Spanish-English Dominance Assessment Test was developed to permit assignment of sixand sevenyear-old children to appropriate streams in a New Mexico school with a bilingual education program. The Navajo-English Dominance Interview, also intended to be used with six-year-olds beginning school, was used to validate teacher ratings in a stud…
Linguistics
Language Structures in Contrast
Bilingual Education of Children
Speech Communities and Schools
A sound language education policy must be based on an understanding of the speech community in which the school exists. Sociolinguists define speech communities according to various criteria, but for educational purposes it is necessary always to start with the individual school and the community it serves. This becomes clear when one looks at the case of Navajo speaking children on or near the Navajo Reservation. Studies of the language used by …
Apachean Language Maintenance
Teaching Culture
Linguistics in practice
tional problems posed by the widespread lack of congruence between the language of the home and the language the schools are expected to teach (Spolsky 1974a), the field of applied, or, as I prefer to call it, educational linguistics would never have maintained its prominence. The scope of the field of educational linguistics is defined by the interaction of language and formal instruction; it thus encompasses first and second language teaching a…
Testing Language Proficiency
Toward the Measurement of Functional Proficiency
In its original form, the test is a dictation of fifty discrete English sentences, varying in syntactic complexity, recorded on tape with accompanying background white noise. In terms of both its theoretical rationale and its statistical reliability, the noise test has generally been accepted as a useful instrument for evaluating overall English proficiency. A recent study, however, suggested that while the noise test clearly indicates the nonnat…
American Indian Bilingual Education
Educational Linguistics
A model for the evaluation of bilingual education
Frontiers of Bilingual Education
Bilinguisme et contact des langues
Case Studies in Bilingual Education
Sociolinguistics of Literacy, Bilingual Education, and Tesol
Recent sociolinguistic studies suggest a method for understanding more clearly the many complex relations between literacy and language education in general. Three cases are described to demonstrate this. In the history of Jewish education, the change in attitude to literacy, involving the acceptance of literacy for recording and learning the Oral Law as well as the Written Law may be seen as one of the factors that kept Hebrew alive even after i…
Linguistics (70 obras) · Philosophy (56 obras) · Sociology (50 obras) · Psychology (45 obras) · Multilingual Education and Policy (37 obras) · Second Language Learning and Teaching (35 obras) · Computer Science (31 obras) · Mathematics education (27 obras) · Political science (26 obras) · Pedagogy (23 obras)