bilingual region

Word Count: 6000 plus/minus 10% (excluding appendices and references)

Choose a country or region that you know, or know of, which has a multilingual or bilingual character. How do the languages and varieties co-exist? Is there evidence of diglossia, language shift, reversing language shift? Critically discuss the role education plays in this context.

For this assignment, the student needs to be able to:

• Understand and write critically about the ways in which languages are organised or patterned (officially or unofficially) in multilingual and bilingual societies drawing on a range of sources
• Understand and write critically about the sociolinguistic concepts of diglossia, language maintenance, language shift and reversing language shift drawing on a range of sources
• Evaluate the importance of families, communities, schools, and other educational institutions, in the sociolinguistic processes of language maintenance and language shift
• Identify a minority language or language variety which is at risk of language shift and evaluate critically what is being done (or not being done) to minimise such a risk