This article draws on qualitative data from two Spanish-English dual language elementary classrooms to explore how teachers in these classrooms made sense of the everyday practice of bilingualism. Methodologically, this study relied on participant observation, video recording, and semi-structured interviews. Conceptually, this article draws on the notion of translanguaging to describe how these teachers and their students moved fluidly across multiple languages and dialects in their everyday interactions. Drawing on language ideological inquiry, this article illustrates that these teachers' perspectives on translanguaging sometimes echoed ideologies of linguistic purism that emphasize language separation, while also reflecting counterhegemonic ideologies that privilege Spanish and promote bilingualism. Teachers' everyday language use and instructional practices both reflected and contrasted with their stated ideologies. It is argued that a more nuanced understanding of teachers' complex language ideologies can inform efforts to help them embrace translanguaging pedagogies that recognize and build on students' everyday bilingualism.

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The terminology that we use to refer to English learners has shifted over the past two decades, from limited English proficient to English language learner to what is now the preferred term in California and, increasingly, other states: English learner. Yet, what has not changed is how this category continues to limit our thinking about bilingual/multilingual students. English learner is a label that conceals more than it reveals. It emphasizes what these students supposedly do not know instead of highlighting what they do know. As a category, “English learner” constrains our ability to perceive the many strengths that bilingual/multilingual students bring to the classroom—strengths on which we might build to support their language and literacy learning. The author describes how this label distorts our view of bilingual/multilingual students and proposes an alternative perspective that highlights the richness of these students’ linguistic repertoires.

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Objectives To determine the gene expression profile of pelvic ganglia neurones after bilateral cavernosal nerve resection (BCNR) and subsequent treatment with sildenafil in relation to neurotrophic-related pathways. Materials and methods Fisher rats aged 5 months were subjected to BCNR or sham operation and treated with or without sildenafil (20 mg/kg body-weight in drinking water) for 7 days. Total RNA isolated from pelvic ganglia was subjected to reverse transcription and then to quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with the RAT-neurotrophic array. Results were corroborated by real-time PCR and western blotting. Another set of animals were injected with a fluorescent tracer at the base of the penis, 7 days before BCNR or sham operation, and were sacrificed 7 days after surgery. Sections of pelvic ganglia were used for immunohistochemistry with antibodies against neurturin, neuronal nitric oxide synthase, tyrosine hydroxylase and glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor receptor α2. Results A down-regulation of the expression of neuronal nitric oxide synthase accompanied by changes in the level of cholinergic neurotrophic factors, such as neurturin and its receptor glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor receptor α2, artemin, neurotrophin-4 and cilliary neurotrophic factor, was observed 7 days after BCNR in pelvic ganglia neurones. Treatment with sildenafil, starting immediately after surgery, reversed all these changes at a level similar to that in sham-operated animals. Conclusions Sildenafil treatment promotes changes in the neurotrophic phenotype, leading to a regenerative state of pelvic ganglia neurones. The present study provides a justification for the use of phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitors as a neuroprotective agent after BCNR.

This article explores the role of profanity and graphic humor in the bilingual wordplay of Latin@ middle school students. We highlight the creativity, skill, and communicative competence embedded in this transgressive wordplay, revealing how these youth employed profanity and graphic humor to index ethnic solidarity and construct bilingual identities. We argue that further exploration of such wordplay might well reveal other functions and meanings that are obscured when it is simply dismissed as inappropriate. [bilingual wordplay, Latin@ youth, transgressive language practices, communicative competence] bs_bs_banner