scholarly journals Language shift and host society attitudes: Dutch migrants who arrived in New Zealand between 1950 and 1965

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 528-540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ineke Crezee
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Home Environment ◽  
Language Use ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Life Questionnaire ◽  
Good Position ◽  
Host Society ◽  
English Speaking

A study published in 2010 reported on past and current language use of a group of older Dutch migrants in New Zealand. Dutch migrants were chosen because the researcher was herself a bilingual Dutch–English-speaking migrant and hence in a good position to understand respondents’ background and assess their language use in both English and Dutch. Respondents interviewed for the study consisted of 30 retired Dutch migrants, all of whom had arrived in New Zealand between 1950 and 1965 when they were aged between 18 and 35 years. All respondents were living in the Greater Auckland area and were aged between 65 and 92 years at the time of the interview. All respondents were asked questions based on a sociolinguistic life questionnaire and asked about their language use and experiences since migration. Interviews were recorded, and information from interviews and questionnaires was supplemented by data collected from participants’ adult children. This article will focus on respondents’ comments in relation to their motivation to either maintain their first language (L1) Dutch or shift to their second language (L2) English in the home environment. It appears that external societal attitudes affected respondents’ language use in a number of domains.

scholarly journals Placing Migrants in Employment: Recruitment Consultants' Experiences

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqui Campbell ◽  
Mingsheng Li
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Communication Skills ◽  
Oral Communication ◽  
Competitive Market ◽  
Good Position ◽  
Standard Process ◽  
Positive Experiences ◽  
English Speaking

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issues that recruitment consultants face when trying to place non-native English speaking professional migrants in employment in New Zealand. Five recruitment consultants participated in two focus groups as part o f a wider study conducted in 2007. The consultants in this study worked in the permanent and temporary markets covering a range of professions. Theirs is a highly competitive market, aiming to match candidates with employers to the satisfaction of both. Essentially, the role is a sales one, volume driven and time pressured. Consultants follow the same standard process for all applicants: assessing skills, including communication skills, and preparing three candidates to present to the employer for interview. The perceived differences between migrants and local candidates include difficulties in oral communication; limited knowledge of New Zealand culture, and lack of experience with behavioural interviews. Consultants adopted an educative role towards some highly prejudiced employers. Employers with previous positive experiences with migrants tended to be more receptive. Consultants considered that migrants needed to be more realistic in their job expectations; be prepared to accept contract positions and accept lower level roles initially. They should familiarise themselves with the New Zealand culture, humour and workplace expectations.  Current labour market shortages place migrants in a very; good position for accessing employment.

Last in First Out?

2007 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 131-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merel Keijzer
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
Linguistic Development ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Children First ◽  
Language Influence

This paper examines whether the order in which Dutch emigrants in the English-speaking part of Canada lose their first language is the reverse of that in which Dutch-speaking children first acquire their mother tongue. This idea, captured in the regression hypothesis, has not been extensively tested so far. Through an experimental research design, the study shows that regression does obtain in the case of morphology, but that syntax is more dominated by second language influence from English. The results furthermore indicate that regression is a much more subtle phenomenon than has previously been assumed with attriters showing more parallels with advanced L1 acquirers than with children in the initial stages of their linguistic development.

Translation in Light of Bilingual Mental Lexicon: A Psycholinguistic Approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
Congmin Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
First Language ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Insight Into

This paper gives insight into the translating process of second language learners in language use in light of the mechanism of bilingual mental lexicon. Structure and development of second language mental lexicon explains the existence of first language items and translation equivalents. Conversely translation can promote the construction of second language mental lexicon and ultimately second language acquisition.

The use of English as a lingua franca in the Japanese second language classroom

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blake Turnbull
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
First Language ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
English Speaking

AbstractDespite the growing interest surrounding the use and role of the first language in the second language classroom, the vast majority of research in the field has been conducted in classrooms where English is taught as a second language in English-speaking countries. Very little research has investigated the role of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in other language learning environments, such as those in which Japanese is learnt as a second language (JSL) in Japan. This paper investigates the purposes for which ELF is employed, and the perspectives of learners from multilingual and multicultural backgrounds on the use of ELF, in the JSL classroom. The findings show that English is employed to varying degrees in relation to proficiency level, and that learners themselves are generally welcoming of this use. The author suggests that learners seek security and comfort in what they already know, with ELF easing the gap between their L1 and their developing Japanese skills.

scholarly journals How much does parental language behaviour reflect their language beliefs in language maintenance?

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shanjiang Yu
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Home Language ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Know How ◽  
Migrant Families

It has been widely accepted that parental language beliefs play a crucial role in language maintenance. Studies show that Chinese immigrants are not exempted from language shift although they are frequently reported cherishing their language as an important part of their culture. This paper attempts to find out how parental language beliefs reflect their daily language behaviour. Eight recent Chinese migrant families had 60 minutes of conversation recorded each month for one calendar year. Their language use has been analyzed and compared with the information gathered from a home language use questionnaire. Results show that there is a substantial gap between parental language beliefs and their actual language behaviour. Although the parents state they strongly support mother tongue maintenance, within 28 months, the use of mother tongue had dropped significantly and there is very little evidence showing much effort from the parents to prevent this from happening. This could be either because they want their children to keep their first language but do not know how to do this, or, their language beliefs are different from their behaviour. This should raise methodological issues regarding how to interpret parental language beliefs properly in the research area.

scholarly journals Investigating the acquisition of the Split-IP parameter and the V2 parameter in second language Afrikaans

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Conradie
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
First Language ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Parameter Resetting ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Parameter Values

Researchers who assume that Universal Grammar (UG) plays a role in second language (L2) acquisition are still debating whether L2 learners have access to UG in its entirety (the Full Access hypothesis; e.g. Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994; 1996; White, 1989; 2003) or only to those aspects of UG that are instantiated in their first language (L1) grammar (the No Parameter Resetting hypothesis; e.g. Hawkins and Chan, 1997). The Full Access hypothesis predicts that parameter resetting will be possible where the L1 and L2 differ in parameter values, whereas the No Parameter Resetting hypothesis predicts that parameter resetting will not be possible. These hypotheses are tested in a study examining whether English-speaking learners of Afrikaans can reset the Split-IP parameter (SIP) (Thráinsson, 1996) and the V2 parameter from their L1 ([-SIP], [-V2]) to their L2 ([+SIP], [+V2]) values. 15 advanced English learners of Afrikaans and 10 native speakers of Afrikaans completed three tasks: a sentence manipulation task, a grammaticality judgement task and a truth-value judgement task. Results suggest that the interlanguage grammars of the L2 learners are [+SIP] and [+V2] (unlike the L1), providing evidence for the Full Access hypothesis.

When-questions in second language acquisition

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyeson Park
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Reading First ◽  
First Language ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Developmental Sequence ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
L1 Acquisition

It has been observed that when-questions are one of the last wh-questions produced by children learning English either as a first language (L1) or as a second language (L2). Explanations proposed for the late appearance of when-questions in L1 acquisition have been mostly based on cognitive factors. However, the cognition-based approach to when-questions faces problems in explaining L2 acquisition data, which show that L2 children who are cognitively more mature than L1 children follow the same developmental sequence. In this paper, I propose a possible explanation based on internal linguistic factors. According to Enç (1987), tense is a referential expression and temporal adverbials are antecedents of tense. I develop Enç's theory further and propose that in a when-question, tense is a bound variable, which is bound by the quantificational interrogative when. Thus, in order to produce when-questions, children must be at a stage where they understand bound variable readings. According to Roeper and de Villiers (1991), English-speaking children learn a bound variable reading approximately after 36 months, and the learning continues through the kindergarten years. The age at which a bound variable reading first appears corresponds to the point at which when-questions begin to occur. I propose that the complexity of the interaction between the quantificational when and tense, a bound variable, causes the delayed production of when-questions in developing grammars.

First and second language use in English medium instruction contexts

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 382-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernesto Macaro ◽  
Lili Tian ◽  
Lingmin Chu
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
First Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Chinese University ◽  
English Medium Instruction ◽  
Efl Classrooms ◽  
Academic Content

Although there is a wealth of research on the use of the first language (L1) in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms, there is as yet very little research of this kind in classrooms where the prime pedagogical objective is to teach academic content through English as a second language (English medium instruction; EMI). It is important to begin filling this gap because a purported aim of content-based programs is to expose students to large quantities of the target language. We investigated the practices of five EMI teachers in a Chinese university and measured the reactions of their students both quantitatively and qualitatively. Our findings show that these teachers switched to the L1 rarely (although with considerable differences among the teachers) and mostly to explain both simple and complex concepts in their academic disciplines. Although students were unperturbed by the switches to the L1, some felt that the teacher could have made more of an effort to explain it in L2 first.

The language use, attitudes, and motivation of Chinese students prior to a semester-long sojourn in an English-speaking environment

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Chinese Students ◽  
Willingness To Communicate ◽  
International Exchange ◽  
Exchange Program ◽  
English Speaking

Second language acquisition scholars have long recognized that language attitudes and motivation can play a critical role in second language (L2) learning, leading to variations in willingness to communicate (WTC) and initiate interactions in that language. This paper reports on the pre-sojourn phase of a mixed-method study that investigated the language and intercultural learning of 149 Chinese students from a Hong Kong university who participated in a semester-long exchange program in an English-speaking country. By way of a questionnaire survey, document analysis (e.g., study plans), and in-depth interviews, the first phase examined their pre-sojourn language use, attitudes, and motivation, as well as their aims, expectations, and concerns about their impending study and residence in the host environment. Studies of this nature are essential to provide direction for pre-sojourn orientations and other interventions that can support and optimize the language enhancement and intercultural engagement of outgoing L2 international exchange students.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document