Foreword

Abstract

With this volume, Acta linguistica is entering its 5th year. We would like to announce, with our great pleasure, that the journal has undergone some changes  and will from now be published twice a year, with its summer and winter volume. This summer volume includes researches with a common topic of practicing a language, whether in educational, and religious institutions, or in the languages primary surroundings. In this spirit, the volume is divided into two parts, with the first devoted to the methodology of language teaching, focusing mainly on Chinese and Japanese language and presently still under-researched dyslexia role in language studies, and the second focusing on under-documented languages and their gap between language policies and the actual state of language use.

The first paper by Katja Simončič, entitled Evaluating Approaches to Teaching and Learning Chinese Vocabulary from the Learning Theories Perspective: An Experimental Case Study, discusses two basic approaches to teaching Chinese vocabulary, and evaluates them based on the results of experimental study on Slovene students of Chinese.

The next two papers deal with the different lexica in Japanese language. Nataliia Vitalievna Kutafeva's research, entitled Japanese Onomatopoeic Expressions with Quantitative Meaning analyzes the lexical mode of expression of quantitative meanings and their semantics with the help of onomatopoeic (giongo) and mimetic (gitaigo) words, and based on it proposes the new arrangement of semantic groups.

Kiyomi Fujii’s research, entitled Blogging Identity: How L2 Learners Express Themselves, discusses identity expression in blogs by Japanese language learners on the intermediate and advanced level.

The paper by Nagisa Moritoki Škof, Japanese Language Education and Dyslexia:
On the Necessity of Dyslexia Research, shows an insight to dyslexia and through an outline of the present state of accepting and treating leaning disabilities in the Japanese education system stresses the  importance of incounting dyslexia in language education in general.

Manel Herat in his paper Functions of English vs. Other Languages in Sri Lankan Buddhist Rituals in the UK, analyzes the language shifts from the Sinhala and Pali languages to English at Buddhist festivals and sermons in UK. 

Next paper by Ali Ammar and his colleagues, Language Policy and Medium of Instruction Issue in Pakistan, briefly re-explores the situation of languages in the country and studies the latest language policy of Pakistan and its implications for local languages.

The last research paper in this volume Bhadarwahi: A Typological Sketch was written by Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi and is an attempt to describe phonological and morphosyntactic features of the under-documented Bhadarwahi language belonging to Indo-Aryan language family.

Finally, in the context of describing under-documented languages, the influence of the existing language policy is also noticed by Erwin Soriano FERNANDEZ and his book review on Pangasinan, entitled Panuntunán na Ortograpiya éd salitan PANGASINAN 2012. Manila: Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino.