The central concern in this book is the relationship between language and group identity, a relationship that is thrown into greatest relief in ‘minority’ settings. Since much of the current interest in minority languages revolves around issues of identity politics, language rights and the plight of ‘endangered’ languages, one aim of the book is to summarise and analyse these and other pivotal themes. Furthermore, since the uniqueness of every language-contact situation does not rest upon unique elements or features – but, rather, upon the particular weightings and combinations of features that recur across settings – the second aim here is to provide a general descriptive framework within which a wide range of contact settings may be more easily understood. The book thus begins with a discussion of such matters as language decline, maintenance and revival, the dynamics of minority languages, and the ecology of language. It then offers a typological framework that draws and expands upon previous categorising efforts. Finally, the book presents four case studies that are both intrinsically interesting and – more importantly – provide specific illustrations of the generalities discussed earlier.
This paper describes the consequences for workplace e-learning of viewing organisations as political systems. Organisations tend to stratify, and potential conflicts develop between ???top-down???, or designer-generation of workplace systems, and ???bottom-up???, or learner- and practice-based approaches. The differences between these groups in terms of their objectives, procedures, tacit knowledge and conceptions of the value of workplace e-learning have led to conflicts which have damaged real e-learning projects in the past. Some cases from the literature are analysed to support this point. However, other examples show how these tensions may also be turned into opportunities for communication, learning and collaborative design, through including in workplace e-learning design a measure of operational proximity and organisational citizenship behaviour. It is suggested that through initiatives like these, designer-generation and learner-generation of context may act as complementary checks or balances, each helping compensate for the deficits of the other, and thus improving workplace e-learning effectiveness.
