Language Attitudes (Languages And Linguistics)

PhD thesis investigating implicit and explicit attitudes towards non-native (Asian) speakers of English in China, Japan and South Korea using a cross-cultural research instrument for direct comparison. The study also investigates factors on social judgements such as nationality, gender, and identification rate. The research uses a verbal guise experiment, a free classification task and an adapted perceptual dialectology task in order to measure judgements towards speakers of English from Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mainland China and South Korea.

See download for detailed abstract.
Full text available at: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/18036

Keywords: language attitudes; EFL; ELF; Asian Englishes; World Englishes; verbal guise; speaker identification; speech perception; folk linguistics; sociolinguistics

Initial research on Indian Sign Language (ISL) in 1978 determined that it is indigenous to India and does not have a strong influence from any European sign language or American Sign Language. Despite observable lexical varieties across different states of India, further research in 2000 found that Indian Sign Language has a consistent grammar and is 75% similar throughout all of India. However, the initial documentation of Indian Sign Language was largely conducted by foreigners rather than native users as even now only 5% of deaf Indians receive education. Before the recognition of ISL in 2000, some Indian teachers of the deaf studied American Sign Language and used it in their classrooms.

With the first plenary speaker from India participating in the 2019 World Federation of the Deaf Congress, it could be said that the Indian deaf community is now being officially recognized in global deaf community discourse. The primary modes of communication used at international deaf gatherings are almost always International Sign and written English. Additionally, through upgrades in communication and travel technology deaf people in India are now exposed to sign languages online and through interactions with foreign sign language users. This thesis seeks to explore how Indian deaf people may have incorporated American Sign Language and International Sign lexicon into their own way of signing through lexical borrowing and how they feel about American Sign Language and International Sign being used in India. These questions are explored through a quantitative survey, qualitative interviews, and a small sample of lexical analysis. All data were collected during an internship in partnership with the Deaf Enabled Foundation.

This paper focuses on the variety of Italian spoken in Bozen (South Tyrol, Italy) by Italian L1 speakers. Due to the peculiar multilingual situation of South Tyrol, Italian speakers are concentrated in the big towns of this area (e.g. Bozen), whereas the majority of Tyrolean people speak German or German dialects. Leaving apart the interaction problems between the two speaking groups, this work focuses on Italian community settled in Bozen by emphasizing the composition of their linguistic repertoire, and the differences among the districts of the town, also in terms of linguistic identity.
For this purpose, the few data actually at disposal on this linguistic variety will be analyzed, in order to highlight the presence and use of Italo-Romance dialects by Italian speakers. A field work on this variety has never been carried on before, thus all previous statements were based only on aprioristic assumption (i.e. they were not data-driven). Without data of sort, scholars assumed the absence of spoken Romance dialects in the variety of Italian spoken in Bozen, basing on the belief that Italian speakers were not originally settled in this town.
Arguing against those previous assumptions, this paper will show how dialects constitute a central part of Italian linguistic identity in the multilingual setting of South Tyrol, as it emerges from a collection of expressions collected in the so-called “Slang of Bozen”, and from speakers’ linguistic perceptions recorded during face-to-face interviews. The results of this study point out that a large number of dialects are used inside the family, and sometimes also for informal communication, whereas some words and expressions are more largely used as part of a we-code characteristic of the Italians of Bozen.

Parents' assessment of children's development in the first and the second language is an essential part of their family language policy (FLP) and an important component of parent–child communication. This paper presents a pilot study focused on Russian-speaking immigrant parents' assessment of their children's language knowledge in Russian as a first language and Hebrew as the second language in the context of their FLP. The research questions were as follows: How is parents' assessment of their children's bilingual language development linked to their choice of bilingual versus monolingual preschool education? To what degree are parents' reports of their children's language knowledge similar or different to their children's actual language knowledge? Which domains of language knowledge do parents relate to or ignore when assessing their children's language development? The sample consisted of 27 children (14 from bilingual and 13 from monolingual kindergartens), and their parents. Two sets of measurements were used, one to obtain parents' reports on child's knowledge of Russian and Hebrew and the other to assess children. The finding points out parents' insensitiveness to the length of the children's utterances and their tendency to rationalise FLP by overestimating their children's general language knowledge.

The optimal language for literature and educational materials is not the same for all Zay areas. The data gathered during the current study points to Zay as optimal for the islands on Lake Ziway and Oromo as optimal for the lakeshores. However, the Zay people living on the islands would probably be well served by Amharic literature and educational materials until most of them immigrate to the shore or the Oromo educational system causes a shift in preference to Oromo. Zay’s case is one of an endangered language that could prove to be a development success story, but only if the level of motivation for a language development project is high enough to initiate and sustain the effort.

Uno de los factores más importantes que determinan la vitalidad de una lengua es la actitud de sus hablantes y el ambiente general en el que se desarrolla el proceso de la interacción lingüística. El trabajo presenta los resultados de un estudio piloto realizado en 15 comunidades shuar durante el año 2010. Los temas que forman el eje del presente estudio son la vitalidad de la lengua shuar, la actitud de los hablantes hacia su lengua vernácula, y la posición de la lengua shuar en el sistema educativo. Aunque la lengua shuar no se encuentra entre las más amenazadas, los resultados del análisis documentan una transición muy rápida del bilingüismo hacia la pérdida completa de la lengua vernácula. A la vez, la mayoría de los miembros de esta etnia no son conscientes del peligro que corre la lengua, puesto que no correlacionan el idioma que transmiten a sus hijos con la situación general de la lengua vernácula. El tema subyacente del estudio es la relación entre los conceptos de lengua, cultura e identidad. Por esta razón, la posible pérdida de la lengua vernácula supone a la vez alteraciones sustanciales en la identidad de cada individuo.

La notion de norme et de référence à la norme est absolument fondamentale pour qui s’intéresse aux langues humaines. Langues, dialectes, parlers et accents suivent tous des règles rigoureuses, que l’observation permet de déterminer. Il n’y a pas de langue sans grammaire : la langue est une norme.
Cependant, les langues du monde ne jouissent pas toutes de statuts égaux. Dans certains États, le ou les idiomes parlés par la majorité de la population sont normés (pourvus d’une norme de référence) et normalisés, c’est à dire soutenus par un appareil administratif et éducatif conséquent.
À l’inverse, de nombreuses communautés linguistiques, minoritaires ou trop pauvres, sont obligées d’utiliser d’autres langues que leur langue maternelle pour avoir accès à l’enseignement ou aux services publics. La normalisation des langues vernaculaires de ces groupes laissés pour compte est souhaitable pour deux raisons : 1. la préservation de la diversité culturelle de la planète ; 2. l’établissement de systèmes éducatifs et d’information plus performants, parce qu’utilisant la langue maternelle des communautés considérées.
Fixer la norme d’une langue peu décrite est loin d’être une sinécure, comme le montre l’exemple capverdien. Et en fin de compte, cette nouvelle norme n’aura d’utilité que si les pouvoirs publics favorisent sa normalisation, à savoir sa diffusion systématique auprès des populations concernées. L’aventure de la normalisation des langues vaut cependant la peine d’être vécue, en particulier dans nombre de pays du Tiers-Monde. En normant et en normalisant, le linguiste a un rôle essentiel à jouer dans les processus de développement économique.

This project is the extension of my bachelor’s degree thesis focused on linguistic stereotypes. Both the bachelor’s degree project and master’s degree project are focused on linguistic stereotypes. If the bachelor’s degree project investigated the presence of linguistic stereotypes in Northern Italy towards different Italian accents (native and non-native), the master’s degree project aims to deepen the concept of stereotype considering both its development in children and its effect on foreign language learning. To pursue the matter the master’s degree project has been developed through two different studies, each of them focused on a particular point of the concept of stereotype. The first study was also part of a major research project, “Progetto Biella”, supervised by Dr. Chiara Meluzzi (my thesis supervisor) dedicated to migration in the Biellese area in the north of Italy. The aim of this study was to investigate when linguistic stereotypes develope and if there are external factors (family origin, spoken languages and dialects, contact with different outgroups) that influence linguistic perception. To answer these questions, the research sample was gathered in a primary school and involved 81 male and female pupils from age 6 to age 10. Stereotype about six varieties of Italian accents were elicited by two different tasks, both lead with the matched guise technique. During the first task, children were asked to listen to the six stimuli of Italian accents and answer a questionnaire about social and economic status of the speaker. The second experiment consisted in asking the children from which of the six voices they would prefer to receive a present, in order to indirectly elicit their preference towards accents. Data gathered from the experiments were observed through both quantitative and qualitative analysis with SPSS 20 statistic software. The combination of different variables in crosstabs (child gender, age, family origin, language spoken) allowed us to understand when linguistic stereotypes develop and from which external factor is increased. The second study of the master’s degree project ranks among language perception and language acquisition. The aim was to verify whether linguistic stereotypes exist also in foreign learners of Italian as a second language and whether they influence Italian L2 acquisition. Part of the data for this study were gathered during my Erasmus traineeship 2 experience at Asociación Dante Alighieri (Comité de Sevilla) between June and august 2019. The sample included 18 Spanish learners of ITAL2, 26 learners of ITAL2 from other countries and 6 Italian respondents as control group. The experiment was realised through the verbal guise technique: 8 varieties of Italian accents were used as uditive stimuli for the sample. Stimuli included both female and male voices of people between the age of 24 and 30 in order to reduce voices’ differences caused by age and to have gender as a variable for the analysis. Speakers were from northern, central and southern Italy. Respondents were asked to fill in a questionnaire in which we asked for judgements about comprehensibility of the voice and supposed social status of the speaker. Data from the questionnaires were observed both through quantitative and from qualitative analysis with SPSS 20. The results showed how Italian accents are percived by foreign learners and how the perception influences their acquisition of Italian as second language. The combination of the two studies in the master’s degree project allowed us to build a complete overview of the concept of stereotype, from its origin to its consequences in human activities.

Guided by sociolinguistic theories—including indexical order (Silverstein, 2003), folk linguistics (Niedzielski & Preston, 2000, 2009), and
enregisterment (Agha, 2003, 2007), this article reviews research on Taiwan Mandarin and explores the indigenization and enregisterment of Taiwan Mandarin since the KMT government introduced Mandarin Chinese, or Guoyu, into Taiwan in the 1940s. Two main research questions that guide the literature review are: Is Taiwan Mandarin linguistically unique from other Mandarin varieties? If so,
how aware are speakers of Taiwan Mandarin (and speakers of other Mandarin varieties) of Taiwan Mandarin’s linguistic uniqueness? In other words, is Taiwan Mandarin perceived as a socially recognizable variety? A review of the past thirty years of research on Taiwan Mandarin indicates that Taiwan Mandarin is indeed indigenized in a variety of linguistic dimensions and has enregistered into a socially identifiable variety that marks a Taiwanese identity.

本文以社會語言學理論中的指標層次（indexical order；Silverstein, 2003）、大眾語言學（folk linguistics；Niedzielski & Preston, 2000, 2009），及語言標記化（enregisterment；Agha, 2003, 2007）等理論概念為論證基礎，以台灣華語的相關文獻為佐，探討自1945 年國民黨接收台灣以來，通稱為「國語」的台灣華語是否已經在地化，在語言層面上形
成獨樹一幟的華語語言變體。除此之外，本文更進一步論證語言上的獨特性，是否代表在語言態度的層面上，台灣（及其他華語區）民眾亦認為台灣華語有其獨特性？而在這個語言標記化的過程裡，民眾對於各種語言特徵的意識程度究竟到了哪個階段？結果顯示，台灣華語不只在語言各面向已在地化，在社會感知及語言態度的層面也已被標記為獨立的語言變體，並已達到Johnstone 等人（2006）所言的第三層指標性（3rd order
indexicality）的階段。

Durante el siglo XIX español, se operó un gran cambio tanto en el porcentaje de la población que era capaz de leer y escribir como en la consideración social de estas habilidades. La prensa, en continuo crecimiento durante todo el periodo, reflejó este estado de cosas a través, sobre todo, de anuncios por palabras y de piezas de opinión. En este trabajo, se exponen los principales rasgos del tratamiento del analfabetismo y de la habilidad de leer y escribir en la prensa decimonónica.

During the 19th century in Spain, as was the case in other European countries, the literacy of the population underwent a huge change, as many more persons than in the past learned to read and write. Subsequently, also the social consideration of this ability changed notably. These facts are perhaps nowhere better to be seen than in the press, a genre that was in the ascendant during the whole of the century. In this paper, the authors expound the main characteristica of the treatment of literacy and illiteracy in the press of the 19th century.

In the project reported on here, the researcher conducted focus group discussions with participants during a fifty-day data-collection trip round South Africa in early 2014, twenty years after the end of the apartheid regime. Participants, who represented most language and ethnic groups in the country and a wide range of ages and educational backgrounds, discoursed on their daily language use, language preferences, factors influencing language choices, code-switching habits and views on the benefits of multilingualism and multi-culturalism. They also presented their views of the current language-in-education policies and their predictions for the long-term future of the languages in the country in general and of their own first languages in particular.  Of special interest are the differing ways in which participants attempt to ensure that their heritage languages are passed on to the next generation.

Attempts to standardise a Scots written language have been met with challenges stemming not only from what I perceive to be an inability to decide how to select and codify an official written standard, but also a lack of popular awareness in Scotland of what Scots actually is. Indeed, attempts to standardise Scots have been made before (Lallans, issues 56 & 57), but they have not been met with wide acceptance and use. I would like to therefore argue that these challenges can be explained as the result of (a) the wide variation within Scots dialects as well as mutual intelligibility with English, (b) the lack of any high-prestige Scots, and (c) events of social history which have made it difficult to make the concept of a “Scots” language part of Scotland’s national linguistic consciousness. Any Scots standard would therefore require careful sociopolitical rhetoric, popular support and elaboration over time. As I will show, there is nevertheless little indication of consensus on how approaches to standardising Scots can encompass variation, as well as promote favourable language attitudes about Scots in opposition to English.

This chapter deals with Italian speakers’ perception of the Italian and the German varieties spoken in Bozen (South Tyrol). A qualitative approach has been preferred to quantitative
ones. The data presented here have been collected during spoken interview sessions conducted by the researcher. In the interviews, speakers were asked about their perception of the Italian and German varieties spoken in town. The analysis shows that perception varies mostly according to the variables of age and district of residence. These results represent a
first step for a sociolinguistic analysis of the Italian of Bozen.

Language of the article: Italian

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the motivations that may lead certain bilingual adults to reject and/or limit their use of Valencian. Why is it that a significant number of speakers are able to speak both Valencian and Spanish but only choose to speak Spanish? Under what circumstances is the use of Valencian rejected or limited? My study attempts to provide answers to such questions by presenting evidence acquired from qualitative techniques such as observation, personal interviews and written questionnaires. In line with previous research, my results suggest that the use of Valencian may often be rejected and/or limited because of the political conflict with the neighboring region of Catalonia as well as because of the low instrumental value associated with Valencian.

The dissemination of the standard form of the language has not always been easy for such languages as Catalan. Even so, the standard form of Catalan has taken root among the Valen-cian people with a certain success (Segura, 2003; Baldaquí, 2015). Recently, however, the publication of the Diccionari normatiu valencià (DNV, AVL) has marked a partial change in the lexical component of the standard language for Valencian Catalan. This paper deals with some words which do not appear in the prescriptive dictionary (Diccionari de la llengua cata-lana, DIEC2, IEC), such as clevill, gasto, roín and ximenera, but which are indeed included in the DNV, as well as other words which are secondary forms in the DIEC2 but primary in the DNV, thus giving preference to vacacions, parat, catxerulo and entropessar as opposed to vacances, aturat, milotxa and ensopegar, to give some examples. This study is based on surveys among young Valencians. They have been asked about their lexical preferences regarding some words in the standard form of the language. Our aim is to assess the degree of introduc- tion and dissemination of different words and the attitudes young people show with respect to them. Following a cognitive sociolinguistics approach (Geeraerts, Kristiansen & Peirsman, 2010), the findings of this study show that the standard form of Valencian is prototypically formed by the words of the general standard form of Catalan and of the so-called convergent standard.

This book explores stereotypes that learners of six Asian languages-Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Myanmar, Thai and Vietnamese-hold about the target language country, its cultures and people. Some of the findings, such as the language learners' mental images of Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, are presented here for the first time. Recognizing that stereotypes, and attitudes embedded in them, have an impact on people's actions and behavioural intentions, this book examines whether and how the country stereotypes held by the students influenced their motivation to learn the target language. Besides providing worthwhile insights into the content and structure of the country stereotypes and their relationship with language learning motivation, this book offers methodological and theoretical advancements. Drawing on the intellectual heritage of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), the book highlights how the concepts of word meaning (znachenie slova) and word sense (smysl) could be fruitfully employed in studies on stereotypes that people learning a foreign language hold about a target language country. This book will appeal to all readers interested in stereotypes that people have about foreign countries and also to educators and researchers who study language learning motivation. Larisa Nikitina, PhD, is Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya, Malaysia. Her research interests include the psychological aspects involved in learning an additional language, approaches to the teaching of culture in the language classroom and quantitative methodologies in applied linguistics. She has published extensively on these topics.

La población inmigrante en España experimentó un crecimiento rápido y progresivo desde la última década del siglo XX hasta los comienzos de XXI. En este contexto, los flujos migratorios procedentes de Ecuador han sido unos de los más significativos desde el punto de vista cuantitativo. La integración social de estos inmigrantes pasa necesariamente por el plano lingüístico, cobrando, en el caso de la población hispanohablante, una especial relevancia factores psicosociales que afectan a la esfera del individuo.

Atendiendo a los últimos enfoques cognoscitivos en el estudio de las variedades del español, en las páginas de esta obra se analiza de qué manera influye la lengua en la integración de los inmigrantes ecuatorianos residentes en la ciudad de Madrid y se plantean hipótesis sobre el modo en que se está produciendo su integración sociolingüística, detectando los factores que condicionarán este proceso. Para ello, dada la incidencia directa de las actitudes lingüísticas en la integración sociolingüística y en los procesos de acomodación comunicativa, el libro ofrece un estudio de actitudes hacia las variedades ecuatoriana y madrileña, aplicando una metodología sociolingüística, de fuerte base psicosocial, que combina técnicas tanto cualitativas como cuantitativas, así como de medición directa e indirecta.

The social function and place of basque language: the case of trademarks
The basque language and identity have a clear symbolic role. The basque
language has been used to enhance and highlight the expressive function of trademarks;
there are common examples of those: “limpiezas garbi” and other similar. In these cases
the rhetorical side comes in basque and the information side comes in Spanish or French.
We have researched these names and through them, we have examined the basque
identity and the expressive function that the basque language serves.

Attitudes toward languages of bi- and multilingual children and adolescents have not yet become a focus of research. Despite rapid growth in the number of bi- and multilingual children and adolescents across the globe, surprisingly few studies have been devoted to this significant phenomenon.  Bi- and multilingualism is a major consequence of immigration and cross-cultural marriages. Regardless of whether cross-cultural marriage is involved, the immigration of families has considerable linguistic consequences on children and adolescents. This paper draws on five case studies in examining the complex factors determining the attitudinal patterns evinced by bi- and multilingual children and adolescents from immigrant families in Thailand. Five households agreed to participate in this research endeavor and data were also collected from surveys, interviews, observations and field notes acquired through the employment of ethnographic investigative methods.  The data collected were analyzed through constant comparative method and content analysis.  Findings showed consistent patterns for those bi- and multilingual children and adolescents whose Thai-speaking mother was linguistically dominant in a family with an immigrant father speaking a minority language.  The results showed that these children were more likely to perceive Thai as more highly regarded language.  By contrast, it was also found that Thai was not as highly regarded by the children of parents if both were minority-language speaking immigrants. It was concluded that the family structure of immigrant families is associated with the language attitudes of their children.  By the same token, the type of marriage of immigrant families has long-reaching effects on the development of children and adolescents’ language attitudes.  Moreover, data showed that a non-migrant mother’s dominant language played a more influential role in contrast to the minimal role-played by the migrant father’s minority language in the development of children and adolescents’ language attitudes.

En Brasil, la variación lingüística diatópica adquiere relevancia en la enseñanza de español como lengua extranjera, debido a la situación geográfica del país entre Hispanoaméricana y a causa de sus relaciones económicas y culturales, por una parte, con los demás países latinoamericanos, cuya lengua oficial es el español, y por otra, con España. El presente trabajo se centra en el estudio de las actitudes y creencias lingüísticas hacia las variedades diatópicas del español por parte de estudiantes universitarios brasileños de ELE, ya que dichas actitudes y creencias desempeñan un importante papel en la motivación que tienen por aprender, y por ende, en su grado de adquisición de la lengua extranjera. Además de estudiar sistemáticamente las percepciones y las actitudes en relación con las variedades del español, este estudio busca investigar concretamente las actitudes hacia las formas de tratamiento en español (tú, vos, usted, vosotros y ustedes), ya que suponen realizaciones lingüísticas ciertamente variables, tanto geográfica como estilísticamente. Asimismo, contemplamos analizar si existen relaciones entre la proficiencia lingüística de los encuestados, su perfil académico y el contacto que tienen con hablantes de variedades de español y las actitudes generales que declaran tener hacia tales variedades. En base a datos empíricos, consideramos las implicaciones que tienen los resultados para la enseñanza de ELE en un contexto en el que el español se concibe como una lengua pluricéntrica. Para investigar estas variables, utilizamos un cuestionario, que suministramos a 60 estudiantes que cursan español en el Centro de Ensino de Línguas de la Universidade Estadual de Campinas y que, además, realizan sus estudios en esta misma universidad. A través de técnicas de observación de actitudes tanto directas como indirectas, y mediante el estudio cuantitativo y cualitativo de las variables que analizamos, concluimos que existe una prevalencia por las variedades latinoamericanas con respecto a la variedad peninsular por parte de los estudiantes brasileños de ELE, lo cual supone un contraste con investigaciones previas realizadas en este ámbito. En el caso de las actitudes hacia las formas de tratamiento, los resultados de la investigación muestran que no existe una correspondencia de estas actitudes con las actitudes generales hacia las variedades diatópicas, puesto que la forma vos, característica exclusivamente de variedades latinoamericanas, se concibe como una de las menos utilizadas y una de las más innecesarias en el uso de la lengua española.

RESUMEN

En las siguientes páginas se presentan otros resultados complementarios sobre las actitudes lingüísticas de los dominicanos en Madrid. Nos interesa saber, entre otras cosas, cuáles factores pueden estar fundamentando las actitudes de los hablantes y comparar estos resultados con los obtenidos por Alvar (1983) sobre las actitudes positivas de los dominicanos en Santo Domingo hacia la variedad estándar madrileña. Los resultados permitirán observar, por otro lado, la importancia que tiene la ‘movilidad’ en los estudios de contacto dialectal internacional. Los datos derivan de las entrevistas realizadas a treinta informantes. En este estudio se analiza las percepciones de los informantes sobre dos variables lingüísticas en concreto –una gramatical y una fonética– y se aplicó, además, la técnica de pares ocultos.

ABSTRACT

“More data on language attitudes of Dominicans in Madrid”

In this paper, we present others results about language attitudes of Dominicans living in Madrid. We want to know, among other things, what factors may be basing the attitudes of speakers and compare these results with those obtained by Alvar (1983) about positives attitudes of Dominicans living in Santo Domingo towards Madrid standard variety. On the other hand, the present results will allow observing the importance of ‘mobility’ in studies of international dialect contact. These data came from interviews with thirtyinformants. We analyze informants’ perceptions about two linguistics variables –a grammatical and phonetic variable, and also applied them the match guise technique.

This paper focuses on some representations that Valencian students of Education have as regards plurilingualism, language transmission and the construction of identity in linguistic autobiographies. These students are learning to face the challenge of a plurilingual education. With this in mind, the object of study here has been these learners’ perceptions of the relationship between identity and education, the process of language acquisition, and different aspects of Valencian sociolinguistic reality. This reality is based on a bilingual educational system (Valencian-Castilian Spanish), which is official since 1983. More specifically, this paper centres on two extended concepts students commonly used to express their linguistic identity as regards their first language and their second language. On the one hand, the use of the expressions “castellanoparlante” (Castilian Spanish native speaker) and “valencianoparlante” (Valencian native speaker) is explored. Such usage entails the existence of two unchangeable ethnolinguistic groups. On the other hand, the different uses of the term “lengua materna” (mother tongue) are also examined, i.e.: mother tongue as origin (the language or languages that have been learned first), mother tongue as internal identification (the language or lan¬guages one identifies with) or external identification (language or languages one is identified with), and mother tongue as competence (the language or languages that one masters) or function (the language or languages that one uses the most).

(The report was made at: EAAL 14th Annual Conference
SÕNA JA GRAMMATIKA / LEXIS AND GRAMMAR, 23.-24. aprill 2015 / 23-24 April, 2015, Tallinn)
The google search for 'linguistic arrogance' gives a top link 'I can't help smiling when I read Ukrainian or Belarusian texts'. Well known feeling of lingual superiority of Russian before Ukrainan is usually explained by extralinguisic causes: domination of Russian culture in Empire and later USSR (except short period of so called 'korenizatsiia', nativization). Other reasons are also known: Russian with its most conservative spelling looks closer to Old-Russian, while Belorussian and Ukrainian, with their more modern orthography, seems younger.

Here is proposed pure linguistic explanation of the situation. Standard Russian (SR) was constructed in XVIII cent. following classicism theory of three styles or registers of language: high (odic poetry), neutral (prose), low (comedy, burlesqe). By this pattern in SR were connected elements of Old-Church Slavic (high) and Russian (neutral and low) and so it remains till now. Standard Ukrainian (SU) was formed in XIX cent., in epoch of Romanticism, which was focused on folk culture, therefore SU is based on dialects, unlike SR. In comparison SU has only two registers: neutral and low. In most cases when SR has high and neutral lexems of the same meaning, SU has only one, e.g. 'face' SR 1. лик, чело; 2. лицо; 3. морда etc; SU: 0.-; 2. лице, обличчя; 3. писок. etc.

This difference is most fully revealed in poetry, where high register is used most often. Indeed most of Russian jokes about SR superiority are based on fiction or real translations of Russian XIX cent. poets (Pushkin, Lermontov et al.) into Urkainian. On the other side most famous classical Ukrainian poets are I.Kotlyarevsky (author of burlesque, mock-heroic poem Eneide Travestied) and T.Shevchenko (author of folk-songs).

In the register comparison SR is a marked part, and that explains why this jokes are not mutual. SR being constructed from two languages of dyglossal pair can convert almost any lexic into high register. The situation reminds closely elaboration of Yiddish, which could give high register for any meaning, using its Hebrew vocabulary, meanwhile Soviet Standard Yiddish was by and by moving to two-register type of language, getting rid of Hebrew lexic.
[The report was published in Tallin newspaper "Sirp" (6 May 2014) in Estonian as quasi interview.]

Hasta el día de hoy, el español de Guinea Ecuatorial es una variedad lingüística poco considerada en estudios sobre historia, dialectología y sociolingüística del español. De modo similar, y a diferencia de otros grupos hispanohablantes, los inmigrantes guineoecuatorianos en España constituyen un colectivo poco visible, que hasta ahora no se ha visto representado en investigaciones sociolingüísticas sobre la población inmigrante en la sociedad española. El presente trabajo tiene como propósito mejorar la visibilidad de los guineoecuatorianos y de su situación lingüística en Madrid a través de una primera aproximación a las valoraciones que hacen del español madrileño y del español hablado en su país de origen. Los datos se extraen de diez entrevistas, realizadas en 2017 en Madrid con inmigrantes procedentes de Guinea Ecuatorial. Los resultados se pondrán en relación con el contexto histórico-político y sociolingüístico actual en el que ocurre el contacto entre las dos variedades del español.

This study analyzes lexical accommodation in Judeo-Spanish (JS) to model Peninsular and Latin American (PLA) Spanish varieties. Data were obtained through sociolinguistic interviews, including an oral translation task, conducted in Istanbul, the Prince Islands, and New York City. Although accommodation appears higher in those lexical items that involve phonological adaptation, such as changing a JS palatal to a PLA velar ([mu.'3er] --> [mu.'xer]), accommodation by lemma replacement is also a widely- used strategy (JS merkar - > PLA comprar). Most of these lemmas appear in all three communities, and a statistical analysis demonstrated that accommodation is higher among speakers 60 years of age and younger. Also, New York City presents the highest percentages of accommodation, probably due to constant contact with other Hispanic and PLA Spanish-speaking populations in the United Stales. Additional sources and motivations for accommodation include having relatives in Spanish-speaking areas, language attitudes, and professional marketability in a globalized economy.

In this chapter, I first discuss current understanding of style and register, as
well as prestige and stigma, and the way that these are related to, but distinct
from, questions of formality. Next, I describe a critical pedagogical SHL curriculum that incorporates Critical Language Awareness (CLA) of these sociolinguistic constructs. Thus, I present the results from a qualitative study utilizing an attitudinal survey to investigate students’ sociolinguistic attitudes during and after completing the two-course SHL sequence in a CLA-based
SHL program. The qualitative results from the attitudinal survey reveal that since the beginning stages of the program, students (n = 33) were able to differentiate categories of social stigmatization among particular linguistic forms. In addition, the data indicate that after students (n = 31) took more than one SHL course, there was an attitudinal shift from dominant sociolinguistic and culture ideologies to a deeper understanding of social meanings and behaviors informing language use and social perceptions. These results have profound implications for SHL education; they underscore the benefits of critical pedagogies that incorporate CLA combined with careful attention to students’ linguistic confidence and self-esteem.

The normative tradition in Greek lexicography is remarkably long-lived. As early as the Second Sophistic (I–III CE), Atticist grammarians and lexicographers sought to recapture the quality of classical Attic Greek by composing usage manuals that prescribed correct usages and proscribed incorrect ones (i.e. Koiné and vernacularisms). This prescriptive tradition ushered in the long-lived diglossic situation that subsequently contributed to the enregisterment of (high) puristic variants, which survived in various forms until the twentieth century. Following the official end in 1976 of the last of these, katharevousa, Greek lexicography has continued to struggle with the residual influence of prescriptive thinking, which is but one symptom of Modern Greek’s continuing struggle to completely free itself of its classical shackles. However, despite the fact that negative usage labelling, such as esfalménos (incorrect), and even references to Atticists like Phrynichus, can be found in some of today’s widely-used dictionaries of Modern Greek, there is evidence that the art of lexicography has taken a decisively descriptive turn in the last few decades.

В статье дается краткий обзор проблематики в области отношения к языкам и их изучения; рассматриваются результаты данных, полученных в результате опроса дошкольников одного из детских садов Череповца и их родителей об их отношении к изучению иностранных языков; обобщаются их мнения по таким вопросам как возраст и способ усвоения нового языка, цели и мотивы изучения конкретных языков и др.
The paper outlines issues in the theory of language attitudes and language learning; it focuses on the results obtained with the help of surveys of Cherepovets preschool kindergarten children and their parents; the authors summarize their opinions about the age appropriate for the onset of L2 learning, methods of L2 learning, purpose and motivation in learning certain L2, etc.

In the 20th and 21st centuries English has become an indispensable part of educational curriculum in Iranian schools. Despite all the efforts and investments devoted to cultivate and popularize English among Iranian language learners, the resultant outcome could not live up to the authorities’ expectations. A great body of research has proved that learners’ attitude towards foreign language learning and success in learning a foreign language are highly related. This study is to investigate Iranian junior high school students’ overall attitude towards learning English as a foreign language. As well as, the possible difference that exists between boys’ and girls’ attitude towards learning English as a foreign language. The findings indicate that Iranian junior high school students generally have a positive view of using and learning English. It was also observed that there is no significant difference between female and male learners’ attitudes, although that of the girls was slightly more positive.

ABSTRAK Percampuran kod merupakan satu fenomena biasa dalam kalangan penutur yang mengamalkan lebih daripada dua bahasa. Terma ini digunakan secara meluas di dalam bidang linguistik terutamanya bidang Pemerolehan Bahasa Kedua dan Kedwibahasaan. Terdapat dua jenis percampuran kod iaitu percampuran kod dalaman atau 'inner code-mixing' dan percampuran kod luaran 'outer code-mixing'. Sebuah negara yang penduduknya berbilang kaum seperti Malaysia, fenomena percampuran kod ini tidak dapat dielakkan. Malah menjadi satu kelaziman dalam pertuturan dan penulisan. Oleh yang demikian, adalah amat perlu untuk mengkaji fenomena ini. Sorotan karya menyarankan bahawa fenomena percampuran kod ini menggambarkan tahap kreativiti seseorang dalam penggunaan bahasa. Selain daripada itu, fenomena ini juga menunjukkan tahap pengetahuan dan penguasaan bahasa seseorang. Justeru, makalah ini akan membincangkan amalan percampuran bahasa dalam novel 'The Wedding Breaker' karya Evelyn Rose dan bagaimana percampuran bahasa mempengaruhi makna dan komunikasi sebenar. Makalah ini juga meneroka makna sosio-budaya yang terkandung. Kata Kunci: percampuran kod, bahasa rojak, 'outer code-mixing', percampuran kod luaran, kedwibahasaan Pengenalan Percampuran kod merupakan pertukaran bahasa daripada satu bahasa ke satu bahasa yang lain dalam bentuk lisan atau penulisan. Dalam istilah biasa, percampuran kod juga dikenali sebagai bahasa rojak. Perkara ini merupakan fenomena biasa dalam masyarakat yang mengamalkan lebih daripada dua bahasa. Kajian tentang percampuran bahasa akan dapat meningkatkan pemahaman seseorang individu tentang sifat, proses dan kekangan bahasa (Myers-Scotton, 1993; Boeschoten, 1998; Azuma, 1998), dan juga hubungan penggunaan bahasa, nilai individu, strategi komunikasi, sikap dan fungsi bahasa dalam konteks sosio-menyatakan bahawa percampuran kod berfungsi sebagai petanda konteks apabila digunakan dalam pertuturan dan penulisan. Manakala Bokamba (1989) pula menyatakan bahawa percampuran kod ialah percampuran perkataan, frasa dan ayat daripada dua sistem nahu yang berbeza melangkaui sempadan ayat dalam sesuatu pertuturan. Sementara Numan dan Carter (2001) pula mejelaskan bahawa fenomena penutur mencampur bahasa dalam pertuturan yang sama ini dikenali sebagai percampuran kod. Nomura (2003) menyatakan bahawa percampuran kod yang berlaku semasa pertuturan adalah disebabkan penutur ingin mencari perkataan dan frasa yang sesuai digunakan. Percampuran kod yang juga dikenali sebagai bahasa rojak merupakan satu bentuk komunikasi serta penyampaian maklumat dan sering berlaku dalam komunikasi tidak formal. Percampuran kod juga bergantung kepada hubungan antara fungsi dan peranan bahasa. Peranan merujuk kepada individu yang menggunakan bahasa. manakala fungsi bahasa merujuk kepada apa yang ingin dicapai atau disampaikan oleh penutur dalam percakapannya. Peranan juga bergantung kepada ciri-ciri khusus penutur seperti latar belakang sosial, tahap pendidikan dan kawasan setempat. Hamers dan Blanc (2000) menjelaskan bahawa percampuran kod terbahagi kepada tiga jenis: 'inner code mixing'; 'outer code mixing'; dan 'extrasentential code mixing'. 'Outer code mixing' atau percampuran kod luaran juga dikenali sebagai Intersentential merupakan percampuran dua jenis bahasa seperti mencampurkan bahasa Melayu dan bahasa Inggeris dalam satu pertuturan. 'Inner code-mixing' atau pencampuran kod dalaman juga dikenali sebagai Intrasentential ialah percampuran dialek dalam satu pertuturan. Manakala, 'Extrasentential code mixing'

Recent anthropological and socio-historical research on Maroon populations suggests that Maroon communities have undergone significant social change since the 1960s spurred by processes of urbanization. However, to date very little is known about how these social changes are impacting on the Maroon Creoles as there is very little sociolinguistic research being carried out in the region. The aim of this paper is to examine the sociolinguistic context of the Maroon Creoles in the light of data from two recent sociolinguistic surveys carried out in Suriname and French Guiana. The findings demonstrate that the sociolinguistic status of Maroon languages has undergone various changes. Several of them are now well represented in French Guiana and, as additional languages, are gaining speakers both in Suriname and French Guiana. While their speakers increasingly practice them together with other languages, thus displaying their multilingual repertoire, there is little indication that their survival is threatened because their speakers predominantly hold positive attitudes towards them.