Conference Agenda

The following study investigates language attitudes of post-graduate students towards Pakistani English (PakE) as non-native variety of English in Punjab province of Pakistan. Attitudes can be divided into three types namely: cognitive, affective, and behavioral (Edwards, 1982). Punjab is a multilingual setting, having rich potential to study language attitudes. Data has been collected from 100 participants through questionnaire and interviews. The participants are post-graduate students of English departments at University of Sargodha and The University of Lahore, Sargodha Campus in the district Sargodha of Punjab province. Qualitative and quantitative techniques have been employed to analyse data and measure language attitudes e.g. P-IAT. Findings reveal that students have both positive and negative attitude towards English. There are certain socio-political and economic reasons behind such mixed response. As far as implications for language planning and policy are concerned, majority recommends use of English but not at the cost of indigenous languages. Thus, such complex multilingual situation demands further exploration by including view point of other segments of society like teachers. The current study might work as catalyst to devise language planning and policy according to the latest socio-linguistic dynamics.

Recent research has emphasized that attitude is key to language learners’ learning outcomes. More specifically, language learners’ feelings about languages and language learning may affect their study behavior and willingness to engage with a second or foreign language. While there have been numerous studies examining the attitudes of individuals who speak one or two languages, relatively few investigations have focused on multilingualism as an object of study, particularly in relation to demographic factors. As such, influencing factors (e.g. gender, ethnicity, language proficiency) have not gained sufficient attention.

The present study seeks to address this research gap by exploring language attitudes, especially towards multilingualism, among members of the Uyghur minority group in Songjiang University Town, Shanghai, China. It attempts to answer two research questions:

1) What is the reliability and validity of the scale measuring individual perceptions of multilingualism?

2) How do the selected socio-demographic variables and language proficiency impact Uyghur college students’ multilingual attitudes?

The results from the questionnaire and semi-structured interviews indicated that there exists a negative correlation between gender, attitudes towards ethnic language and multilingualism. Furthermore, significant positive correlations were observed between Chinese proficiency level and the four attitude dimensions. Based on the research results, the influence on multilingual learning of minority students is discussed.

These findings are not consistent with previous research reports, which demonstrated a positive relationship between ethnic identity and proficiency in one’s national language among ethnic minority college students. Hence, this study highlights the importance of understanding the complex relationship and nuances between language attitude, national identity, and ethnic minority students’ proficiency in their own language and other languages.

In language learning, the attitude towards the target language is an essential factor that affects the learner's learning effectiveness, as it reflects the purposes and motivations of learning and using the target language. This presentation reports on some of the findings of a case study, the purpose of which was to observe the attitude toward Putonghua, the official language of China, among young people of Hong Kong, and to discuss some of the challenges for Putonghua education in Hong Kong.

The primary instrument for the study was a self-designed questionnaire survey. The target respondents were college students from Hong Kong, aging from 19 to 22. The content of the questionnaire includes two parts: (1) personal information including gender, age, the period when they first learned Putonghua, the level of their Putonghua, and (2) their attitude toward Putonghua including their understanding of the necessity and importance of the language, their recognition of language proficiency, and their perception of the prospect of languageuse in Hong Kong.

It is concluded that while Cantonese is still the most common language and English enjoys a higher social status over other languages especially in political arena and business sectors, Putonghua has been gaining increasingly important status in Hong Kong over the past twenty years. In addition, multilingual ability, especially bilingualism in English and Putonghua, is valued as an unparalleled advantage in today’s business environment in Hong Kong, which mostly motivates young people to learn Putonghua. The challenges include, but are not limited to, how to strengthen Putonghua education in school system, to improve the environment for using the language in daily life, and to integrate Hong Kong people’s self-identity into China’s national identity.

The state of Canadian and Quebecois law has evolved in the last decade when it comes to gender questions. These modifications have led to increased legal protections for non-binary and trans people, particularly through the recognition of discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression (An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, SC 2017, c 13; An Act to strengthen the fight against transphobia and improve the situation of transgender minors in particular, SQ 2016, c 19) and the legal recognition of the existence of non-binary people (Centre for Gender Advocacy v Attorney General of Quebec, 2021). In the case of Centre for Gender Advocacy v Attorney General of Quebec, the court declared that articles 111, 115, and 166 of the Civil Code of Québec (CcQ) «[…] violate the dignity and equality rights of non-binary parents […]» (para 338) because they were obligated to be identified as a mother or father instead of a parent in government-issued documents (eg. birth certificates). This declaration led to the modification of the Civil Code of Québec (CcQ) by Bill 2, An Act respecting family law reform with regard to filiation and amending the Civil Code in relation to personality rights and civil status (SQ 2022, c 22). In this presentation, we analyse the discourses (Kramer, 2015; van Dijk, 2015) that led to the linguistic modifications of the Civil Code of Québec (CcQ) to account for non-binary people during the Clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 2, an Act respecting family law reform with regard to filiation and amending the Civil Code in relation to personality rights and civil status (Québec, 2022) to determine if the changes solve the situation pointed out in Centre for Gender Advocacy v Attorney General of Quebec or if there remains linguistic discrimination in that Code (CcQ).