scholarly journals Sociolinguistic Aspects and Language Contact: Evidence from Francoprovençal of Apulia

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-288
Author(s):  
Carmela Perta
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Italian Region ◽  
Contact Processes ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
Functional Distribution ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The aim of this paper is to investigate two Francoprovençal speaking communities in the Italian region of Apulia, Faeto and Celle di St. Vito. Despite the regional neighborhood of the two towns, and their common isolation from other Francoprovençal speaking communities, their sociolinguistic conditions are deeply different. They differ in reference to the functional distribution of the languages of the repertoire and speakers’ language uses, and in reference to the degree of ‘permeability’ of Francoprovençal varieties towards Italian and its dialects. The repertoire composition and the relationship between the codes have a key role both for minority language maintenance and for language contact processes. In this perspective, I analyse some language contact phenomena in a sample of speakers discourse. I report correlations between the choice of different code-mixing strategies and three sociolinguistic variables (age, sex and village), but not with occupation.

Language contact and multilingualism in Iran

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahrzad Mahootian
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Language And Identity ◽  
General Description ◽  
The Status ◽  
Bilingual Communities ◽  
The Relationship

Throughout its history, Iran has been a richly multilingual nation, with documented evidence reaching back nearly three millennia. Today, estimates of the number of languages spoken in modern Iran vary, with numbers ranging from fifty-four to seventy-six living languages. This chapter presents a general description of societal bilingualism, how bilingual communities come about, the relationship between language and identity in multilingual contexts, and how best to describe the kind(s) of bilingualism found in Iran, including the use of English. The chapter then turns to bilingualism in Iran from a historical perspective, with the goal of understanding why there are so many languages in present-day Iran. Finally, it addresses the status of English in pre- and post-revolutionary Iran and issues of language maintenance.

Language contact in Sardinian between the Middle and the Early Modern Ages

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-254
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Morphological Features ◽  
Contact Processes ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper describes the role of language contact in Sardinian lexical stratification, focusing on the Sardinian lexicon as well as on some morphological features. The major aim is to show the importance of the Sardinian lexicon for the understanding of the historical contact processes between Sardinian and other languages of the island and for the comprehension of the relationship between different varieties of Sardinian.

Language contact in Sardinian between the Middle and the Early Modern Ages

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2017) ◽  
pp. 225-254
Author(s):  
Simone Pisano
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Morphological Features ◽  
Contact Processes ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper describes the role of language contact in Sardinian lexical stratification, focusing on the Sardinian lexicon as well as on some morphological features. The major aim is to show the importance of the Sardinian lexicon for the understanding of the historical contact processes between Sardinian and other languages of the island and for the comprehension of the relationship between different varieties of Sardinian.

scholarly journals Redefining Forro as a marker of identity: Language contact as a driving force for language maintenance among Santomeans in Portugal

Multilingua ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Eve Bouchard
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Group Code ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Sao Tome And Principe ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
Changing Attitudes

AbstractIn São Tomé and Príncipe, the language shift toward Portuguese is resulting in the endangerment of the native creoles of the island. These languages have been considered of low value in Santomean society since the mid-twentieth century. But when Santomeans are members of a diaspora, their perceptions of these languages, especially Forro, change in terms of value and identity-marking. It is possible to observe such changes among the Santomeans who learn Forro when they are abroad, who use it as an in-group code, and start to value it more. In this article, I address the role of language contact in the maintenance and expansion of Forro. I investigate the mechanisms of language maintenance by focusing on the shifts in community members’ attitudes and beliefs regarding their languages, as a result of contact. The changing attitudes and beliefs have led to a redefinition of the role of Forro in the speech community. This qualitative study is based on semistructured interviews conducted on São Tomé Island and in Portugal. Findings suggest that the change in value attributed to Forro by Santomeans as a result of contact contribute to the valorization of the language.

Cognate similarity and intervocalic /d/ production in Riverense Spanish

2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692199680
Author(s):  
Michael Gradoville ◽  
Mark Waltermire ◽  
Avizia Long
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Frequency Effect ◽  
Acoustic Measurements ◽  
Linear Mixed Effects Model ◽  
Phonetic Variation ◽  
Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Contact Language ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Phonetic Realization

Aims and objectives: While previous research has shown that phonetic variation in language contact situations is affected by whether a word has a cognate in the contact language, this paper aims to show that such an effect is not monotonic. According to the usage-based model, items in memory are organized according to similarity, thus we anticipated that formally more similar cognates would show a stronger cognate effect. Methodology: This variationist sociophonetic study investigates the relationship between cognate similarity and phonetic realization. We examined this relationship in the bilingual community of Rivera, Uruguay, in which both Portuguese and Spanish are spoken with regularity. Specifically, we focused on intervocalic /d/, which in monolingual Spanish is realized as an approximant [ð̞] or phonetic zero, but in monolingual Brazilian Portuguese is produced as a stop [d] or, in most varieties, an affricate [ʤ] before [i]. Data and analysis: We analyzed a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews of the Spanish spoken in Rivera. Acoustic measurements were taken from approximately 60 tokens each from 40 different speakers. Using a linear mixed-effects model, we examined the relationship between several predictors and the degree of constriction of intervocalic /d/. Findings/conclusions: While there is an overall frequency effect whereby more frequent words exhibit less constriction of intervocalic /d/, as both frequency and cognate similarity increase, less constriction of intervocalic /d/ obtains. Therefore, frequent cognates in Portuguese that have very similar forms affect the production of intervocalic /d/ more so than other cognates. Originality: No previous study has demonstrated that the cognate effect on phonetic variation in a situation of language contact is regulated by form similarity between cognate pairs. Significance/implications: The data support the usage-based model in that similar cognates have more lexical connections and can therefore show greater influence on phonetic realization than can cognates that share less phonetic material.

The cost of linguistic loyalty

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devin L. Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Census Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
Median Income ◽  
Social Variables ◽  
Model Set ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Relationship

In a census-related study on language maintenance among the Hispanic/Latino population in the southwest United States, Hudson, Hernández-Chávez and Bills (1995) stated that, given negative correlations between language maintenance and years of education and per capita income, “educational and economic success in the Spanish origin population are purchased at the expense of Spanish language maintenance in the home” (1995: 179). While census figures from 1980 make this statement undeniable for the Southwest, the recent growth of the Spanish-language population in the United States, which has grown by a factor of ~2.5 over the last twenty years, begs a reexamination of these correlations. A recent study on the state of Colorado (McCullough & Jenkins 2005) found a correlational weakening, especially with regard to the relationship between language maintenance and median income.
 The current study follows the model set forth by Hudson et al. (1995) in examining the interrelationship between the measures of count, density, language loyalty and retention based on 2000 census data, as well as the relationship between these metrics and socioeconomic and demographic variables, including income and education. While some relationships existed in 2000 much in the same way that they did in the 1980 data, especially with regard to count and density, the measures of loyalty and retention saw marked reductions in their correlations with social variables.

scholarly journals The role of education, knowledge and human resources for the agricultural development in the perspective of new cap: an hypothesis of change in Basilicata

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 123-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Contò ◽  
M. Fiore ◽  
P. La Sala ◽  
P. Papapietro
Keyword(s):  
Human Resources ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Econometric Model ◽  
Italian Region ◽  
Network Education ◽  
Dummy Variable ◽  
New Models ◽  
The Relationship

The role of education, knowledge and human resources in the agribusiness becomes of primary importance for the development of agricultural sector and, more generally, of the territory. The main objective of the present paper is to verify the role of investment in human resources and, consequently, in services for the agricultural development for the dynamics of rural development, trade and international cooperation of agribusiness.After a literature review, the paper firstly analyses the characteristics of the Italian Region of Basilicata, selected for our empirical application, and secondly develops an econometric model to explain the relationship between the rural GDP and a set of economic variables and of network-education-social (NES) dummy variable. These NES is representative of social, educational and, network factors, describing the degree of openness of the region firm. As expected, the results show that farmers may act as engines for economic development when they are trained on the basis of the needs and requirements related to innovation and research, and they are assisted through new models of organization of agricultural services.

scholarly journals Finding One’s Place in a Host Space: A Small-Scale Study of Cultural Integration and Language Maintenance Among Croatian Immigrants in Canada

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-76
Author(s):  
Sanja Škifić ◽  
Antonia Strika
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Cultural Integration ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cognitive Perspectives ◽  
Insight Into

This paper focuses on sociocultural and language-related issues among Croatian immigrants in Canada. It presents the results of thestudy conducted from November 2018 to February 2019 among Croatian immigrants of different generations in Ontario and British Columbia. Questions included in the questionnaire refer to different aspects of participants’ identity and their (families’) immigration, as well as issues related to their attitudes towards the homeland and engagement in Croatian associations in Canada. Participants were asked to provide feedback on their language acquisition, competence and use, as well as evaluations of the importance of the Croatian language for their identity. The questionnaire also contained questions related to participants’ language use from emotional and cognitive perspectives. Conclusions drawn on the basis of the collected data provide an insight into Croatian immigrants’ language use, the extent of cultural integration and language maintenance, and their attitudes towards the relationship between identity and language.

scholarly journals Chinatown in Bangkok: The Multilingual Landscape

MANUSYA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongmei Wu ◽  
Sethawut Techasan
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Chinese Community ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Other Hand

This paper examines the linguistic landscape (shop names) of Chinatown in Bangkok, a prosperous minority language (Chinese) community of diverse commercial establishments. Informed by an ethnographic framework, it explores the preservation of Chinese language and culture under the circumstance of language contact with Thai, the majority language, and globalization influence of English. Unsurprisingly, the inherited Chinese language (dialects as Teochew or Cantonese) was lost in the 2nd or 3rd generation of the Chinese descendants in Chinatown. However, the shop names suggest that in part because of its commodifying value and cultural awareness of the current proprietors, the Chinese shop owners are inclined to preserve the Chinese language and culture of the shops through the use of traditional Chinese characters, colors, layout and other marks of the shops. On the other hand, an analysis of the mutual translations of Chinese and Thai indicates that Chinese has more of a symbolic rather than informative function for Thai monolingual customers. Moreover, the ascendancy of English has contributed to the complexity of the multilingual landscape in Bangkok’s Chinatown.

Primary and secondary factors in language maintenance in a medium-sized community language: Catalan in Spain

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 525-552
Author(s):  
Raquel Casesnoves ◽  
Josep-Àngel Mas ◽  
Anna Tudela
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
University Students ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Relative Weight ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Inclusive Language ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Very High

Aims and objectives: The main aim of this study is to find out which social and ideological factors determine the maintenance of Catalan language in public contexts, and particularly the relative weight each factor contributes to the choice. The question is which of the socio-demographic and ideological factors determines to a greater extent the use of Catalan. Methodology: Participants completed a survey, which consisted of a sociolinguistic questionnaire and an attitudinal test based on the matched-guise technique. Sociolinguistic inferences concerning the relationship between different factors and language use were made using statistical methods. Data: Six hundred university students from the cities of Valencia, Palma and Barcelona answered the same survey. University students are a very interesting research group, since they are going to become part of the most influential social groups. Findings: Results from the analysis support the importance of social networks in understanding language maintenance, apart from making some differences between the territories clearer: this relative importance of social networks is very high in Valencia and Palma, but not in Barcelona. Originality: This study shows the first comparison between the influence of different kinds of factors in the use of the Catalan language, as well as the comparison between the behaviour of the three major Catalan-speaking cities. Furthermore, the focus on the factors related to university students’ language use is not a much-visited field. Significance and implications: The use of Catalan seems to be naturalized in Barcelona, whereas in Palma and Valencia the use of this language is more ideologized – and minor. The coincidence in the same territory, Catalonia, of the major language use in all situations and the more incisive and inclusive language policy should point out the direction that campaigns to promote Catalan in the other two regions should take.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document