scholarly journals Where Are the Goalposts? Generational Change in the Use of Grammatical Gender in Irish

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Siobhán Nic Fhlannchadha ◽  
Tina M. Hickey
Keyword(s):  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Accelerated Convergence ◽  
Adult Performance ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Indigenous Minority

The Irish language is an indigenous minority language undergoing accelerated convergence with English against a backdrop of declining intergenerational transmission, universal bilingualism, and exposure to large numbers of L2 speakers. Recent studies indicate that the interaction of complex morphosyntax and variable levels of consistent input result in some aspects of Irish grammar having a long trajectory of acquisition or not being fully acquired. Indeed, for the small group of children who are L1 speakers of Irish, identifying which “end point” of this trajectory is appropriate against which to assess these children’s acquisition of Irish is difficult. In this study, data were collected from 135 proficient adult speakers and 306 children (aged 6–13 years) living in Irish-speaking (Gaeltacht) communities, using specially designed measures of grammatical gender. The results show that both quality and quantity of input appear to impact on acquisition of this aspect of Irish morphosyntax: even the children acquiring Irish in homes where Irish is the dominant language showed poor performance on tests of grammatical gender marking, and the adult performance on these tests indicate that children in Irish-speaking communities are likely to be exposed to input showing significant grammatical variability in Irish gender marking. The implications of these results will be discussed in terms of language convergence, and the need for intensive support for mother-tongue speakers of Irish.

scholarly journals The French-Farsi Simultaneous Early Bilingualism in an Iranian Child—Study on the Regularity of the Presence of the Minority Language in the First Lexical Productions of a Bilingual Child

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 156
Author(s):  
Sahar Jalilian ◽  
Rouhollah Rahmatian ◽  
Parivash Safa ◽  
Roya Letafati
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Parental Attitudes ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Child Study ◽  
Iranian Child ◽  
Audio Files ◽  
A Minor

In a simultaneous bilingual education, there are many factors that can affect its success, primarily the age of the child and socio-cognitive elements. This phenomenon can be initially studied in the first lexical productions of either language in a child. The present study focuses on the early lexical developments of a child, who lives in the monolingual society of Iran, where there is no linguistic milieu for French, and has been exposed to a bilingual education since birth. Applying Ronjat’s principle of “one parent-one language” (1913), the parents have formed the child’s basic linguistic interactions; the father employs Farsi in his interactions with the child as his mother tongue while the mother uses French as her foreign language. The data is collected from audio files recorded in the period between 18 and 36 months old of the child, containing her everyday interactions with her parents. Through the analysis of the data with the purpose of studying the changes of the presence of the minority language words, i.e. French, in the child’s sentences at different ages, questions are raised regarding the conditions of a persistent presence of both languages and the reason due to which one language positions as a minor means of communication, observing parental attitudes and environmental issues that can influence the language acquisition procedure.

Indigenous Minority-Language Media

2008 ◽  
pp. 232-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth McElroy
Keyword(s):  
Minority Language ◽  
Indigenous Minority

Reflections on the Promotion of an Endangered Language:

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olimpia Rasom
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
The Creation

This chapter investigates the linguistic beliefs and ideologies of Ladin women in the Dolomites in Italy. The reasons that lead women to speak their heritage language in a progressively globalized Europe were investigated, to identify the role of ideologies about language and culture in shaping personal views. Focus groups of no more than seven women per group allowed the creation of a constructive setting where each woman could express her own ideas, which progressively evolved as other women’s opinions were heard. Life history interviews were used to investigate the ideologies of women aged 70 and over. Results suggest that reflection may lead to greater awareness of what it means to speak the ‘mother tongue’ and the consequent implications for an endangered minority language. Reflecting together makes women aware of their own skills and fosters willingness to promote their language and culture.

The Wolaytta languageby Marcello Lamberti and Roberto Sottile: some reactions and reflections

2000 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-420
Author(s):  
R. J. Hayward
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The World ◽  
Important Variety ◽  
Introductory Review ◽  
Scholarly Attention

In terms of numbers of speakers, Wolaytta (hereafter to be referred to by the abbreviation ‘W’) is by far and away the most important variety of the Ometo linguistic cluster. According toEthnologue: languages of the world(Grimes (ed.), 1996), there are two million mother-tongue speakers of the variety, and this number would have to be augmented by large numbers of speakers of other Ometo tongues who have some degree of second language command ofW. It is surprising, therefore, how little scholarly attention has been focused on it. The present work goes some way towards rectifying the situation. The earlier literature (Cerulli, 1929; Chiomio, 1938; Padri Missionari, 1969; Ohmanet al., 1976) represents a decidedly scanty resource for solid information onWgrammar, and in their introductory review (13–14) Lamberti and Sottile (hereafter abbreviated to ‘L&S’) dispose of it in summary fashion, though it does appear that they draw rather more heavily on these sources for their account of cultural matters (15–19). One other work that L&S refer to in their introduction is the doctoral dissertation by Adams (1983), but one must assume that they had no access to it since, subsequently, it is never cited, and this is very unfortunate as in the present reviewer's opinion Adams's description ofWis still the best available—but of this more will be discussed later.

scholarly journals English language students’ productive and receptive knowledge of collocations

ExELL ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirna Begagić
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Language Performance ◽  
Lexical Collocations ◽  
Language Students

Abstract The importance of collocations in second language learning has been recognized in the past few decades. There have been numerous studies in L2 acquisition research that investigated how the knowledge and use of collocations at different levels of proficiency affect learners’ communicative competence and language performance. Moreover, it seems important to mention that most of the studies investigating the collocational knowledge of students learning English as their L2, indicated students’ poor performance (Fayez-Hussein 1990; Aghbar 1990; Bahns and Eldaw 1993; Stubbs 2002; Wray 2002; Nasselhauf 2005; Ozaki 2011). The aim of this paper is to explain the notion of collocation as well as its most common classification, and to point out the importance of its proper use for English language students who are native speakers of the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS) language. Furthermore, this study examines the productive and receptive knowledge of lexical collocations in order to access students’ collocational competence. The results indicate students’ poor collocational knowledge. This can be due to the fact that collocations of the language students are learning are interfering with the collocations of their mother tongue, but also due to the way students are taught English (vocabulary negligence in comparison with grammar and unawareness of the importance of collocations in language learning).

Grammatical competence is not a psychologically valid construct

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 467-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
PATRICIA J. BROOKS
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Adult Child ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Linguistic Performance ◽  
Grammatical Competence ◽  
Adult Performance ◽  
Linguistic Demand ◽  
Linguistic Behaviour

It is not unusual for developmental psychologists to become frustrated with the theory of universal grammar (UG), whose proponents have tended to dismiss most research on children's language production and comprehension as irrelevant to explaining how human languages are acquired. This is because children's actual linguistic behaviour is presumed to reflect factors besides their grammatical competence, rendering most methods of sampling linguistic behaviour unsuitable for evaluating UG theory. This means, in practice, that UG proponents do not view performance errors as evidence against their hypothesis that grammatical knowledge is largely innate. When children perform at ceiling on a given task, this is usually taken as proof of their adultlike grammatical competence, while poor performance is dismissed as due to research design flaws or limitations in information processing capacities (e.g. working memory). Crain & Thornton (1998) attempt to eliminate what they consider to be post hoc processing accounts of children's linguistic behaviour by arguing, counter to Chomsky (1965) and many others, that children and adults share identical language processing mechanisms, and that linguistic performance directly reflects grammatical competence. Therefore, if UG principles are available from an early age, child and adult performance should be the same when tasks are properly constructed to avoid extra-linguistic demand characteristics (excepting adult–child differences predicted by parameter-setting or maturational models). It should not be surprising then that some psycholinguists, such as Drozd (target article), would find C&T to be misguided with respect to these issues, because children's linguistic behaviour surely differs from adults' in seemingly unpredictable ways.

scholarly journals IMPROVING ABILITY TO SPEAK MOTHER TOUNGE THROUGH USE OF MINANGKABAU CREATION

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Yetti Yetti ◽  
Vivi Anggraini ◽  
Hapidin Hapidin
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Analysis Techniques ◽  
Quantitative Data Analysis ◽  
West Sumatra ◽  
Group B

This study aims to describe the process and learning outcomes through the use of song creation Minangkabau in improving the ability to speak the child's mother. This research is conducted in TK Nurul Hidayah., Bukittinggi- West Sumatra in January until February 2017. The subjects were students group B were 17 children. This study uses research methods Action research, from comprising: a) planning, b) actions and observations, c) reflection. Conducted over 16 sessions that are divided into two cycles. Data was collected through tests, observations, interviews and documentation study. Data analysis techniques used in this research is the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative data analysis used to determine the percentage of children's ability to speak their mother tongue after the action. the results showed an increase in children after learning to use the song Minangkabau creations. pre-actions are performed to determine the percentage of children's mother tonge by 47, 43%, increased to 68.38% after the cycle for the First, and increased to 87, 50% after the second cycle. The ability to speak their mother tongue can be developed through the use of song creation Minangkabau, where the song creations Minangkabau can attract children to use their imagination so that he is able to express ideas. Minangkabau creations song is a fun activity for young children.

scholarly journals Stages of language shift in twentieth-century Inner Mongolia

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Sarala Puthuval
Keyword(s):  
Inner Mongolia ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Retrospective Survey ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Autonomous Region ◽  
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

Mongolian as a minority language in China is losing speakers, although several million remain in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The case of 20th-century Inner Mongolia is an example of the long-term processes that may precede language endangerment. This paper takes Fishman’s (1991) notion of language shift as a decline in intergenerational mother tongue transmission and formalizes it for quantitative research, applying the methodology to a retrospective survey of intergenerational language transmission concerning over 600 Inner Mongolians born between 1922 and 2007. Results show that bilingualism with Chinese has penetrated the entire Mongolian-speaking population, but has not thus far precipitated massive language shift.

scholarly journals Language shift in Newar: a case study in the Kathmandu Valley

2018 ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
Bhim Lal Gautam
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Community Living ◽  
Indigenous Language ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Kathmandu Valley ◽  
Language Community

This paper explores the patterns of language shift in Newar, the ethnic indigenous language community living in the Kathmandu Valley. The research focuses on language contact situations in different domains viz. social, cultural, personal, and official as well as media related activities where the informants are asked to use different languages along with the use of their own mother tongue i.e. Newar. This socio-ethnographic research aims at providing some clues as to how the discovery of a minority language triggers changes in representations and attitudes.

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