There are more students with disabilities going to college than ever before. It is important that colleges understand the experiences of students with disabilities when in university. This research project was carried out by 12 students with intellectual disabilities who are enrolled in an Irish University, under the guidance of their lecturers. It looked at four research questions: (1) What do we like about going to college?; (2) What do we dislike about going to college?; (3) What supports do students with disabilities experience to participation in college?; and (4) what barriers do students with disabilities experience to participation in college? The results show many interesting findings about what students with disabilities experience in college and this information can be used to help colleges to better support students with disabilities.
Target varieties for language learning are contentious in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. Debates centre on the nature and utility of alternative norms. Approximation to ‘native speaker’ practices is the hallmark of language education. Thus, policy and pedagogy frequently orient toward achieving native‐like production. While many language learning stakeholders are committed to this model, it is also contested. Opponents point to the ideological assumptions about ‘native’ and ‘nonnative’ speech inherent in the model, and to the unrealistic aims it presents to teachers and learners. While much research focuses on learner preferences, little work exists on teacher attitudes. This article aims to address this dearth in the target variety debate. By focusing on Irish as a minority language, the article supplements the literature on classroom targets for English and other major languages. A thematic analysis of interviews with Irish language pedagogues is presented and reveals their engagement with target varieties for the language.
The efficacy of unitary and polynomic models of codification in minority language contexts: Ideological, pragmatic and pedagogical issues in the codification of Irish Although traditional, unitary models of language standardisation have been prominent in minority languages, it is contended that this approach reproduces dominant language hierarchies and hegemonies, diminishes linguistic diversity and marginalises speakers who do not conform to prestige models. The polynomic model has been described as an alternative that is possibly more efficacious in minority language maintenance, revitalisation and revival. Focusing on the codification of written Irish, this article assesses the efficacy of unitary and polynomic models of codification. The Irish context offers a rich locus for the study of these issues, owing to the longstanding presence there of conflicting ideologies of uniformity and plurality with regard to codification of the written variety. These conflicting orientations are manifest in the development of the 1958 unitary written standard, in a recent review of this standard for writing, and in the rejection of this review in favour of a more unitary model. The article demonstrates that many ideological, pragmatic, pedagogical and political obstacles inhibit the effectiveness of standardisation efforts in minority language situations, whether efforts are based on unitary or polynomic principles.
Converging and diverging stances on target varieties in collateral languages: The ideologies of linguistic variation in Irish and Manx Gaelic This article will argue that language revival movements, particularly those founded in the ethno-nationalist era of the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, retain founding overt beliefs rooted in an ideological commitment to a specific language because of its role as the authentic and legitimate cultural vehicle of a distinct people. Revival is thus the reinstatement of cultural distinctiveness based on traditional language. Revivalists have in the past afforded the language varieties of the remaining traditional native speech communities a high prestige status based on their perceived ethnolinguistic authenticity. However, after more than a century of language maintenance and revivalism, significant linguistic institutionalisation, a strong presence in schooling and new socialisation mechanisms outwith the traditional speech communities, some minoritised languages have regained a degree of their sociolinguistic vitality by the advent of 'new speakers' who have no organic relationship with the traditional language community. The ways that these 'new speakers' and 'learners' of previously displaced languages negotiate linguistic authenticity and ethno-cultural legitimacy in our contemporary late modern period provide challenges to established value-laden perceptions about language revitalisation and regeneration of traditional speech communities and the long-held belief in the prestige of 'native' speech as the target variety. This discussion will draw on data from recent fieldwork among contemporary speakers of Irish and Manx Gaelic in order to analyse both their overt and more hidden beliefs about the utility and legitimacy of traditional and revival speech. It will further argue that 'traditional' and 'new' speakers do not live parallel sociolinguistic realities in which they are sociolinguistically isolated from one another, but rather that contemporary speakers contest the prestige of both traditional and innovative revival varieties in their language practices and ideologies in a multi-faceted fashion.
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