Social acquisition context matters: Increased neural responses for native but not nonnative taboo words

This study examined whether the context of acquisition of a word influences its visual recognition and subsequent processing. We utilized taboo words, whose meanings are typically acquired socially, to ensure that differences in processing were based on learned social taboo, rather than proficiency. American English-speaking participants made word/non-word decisions on American taboo (native dialect), British taboo (non-native dialect), positive, neutral, and pseudo- words while EEG was recorded. Taboo words were verified as taboo by both American and British English speakers in an independent norming survey. American taboo words showed a more positive amplitude of the Late Positive Complex (LPC), a neural correlate of emotionality and social processing, compared with British taboo words and all other word categories. Moreover, in an item-wise analysis, LPC amplitudes of American taboo words were positively correlated with their taboo ratings. British taboo words did not show this effect. This indicates that American participants, who had very limited social contact with British English, did not have the same perception of social threat from British taboo words as they had from American taboo words. These results point to the importance of social context of acquisition in establishing social-affective meaning in language.

Litewska mniejszość narodowa w Polsce – język i społeczność

This paper is dedicated to Lithuanians, one of the smallest national minorities in Poland. It characterises the Lithuanian community, which densely populates the Podlasie region in three clusters (Puńsk, Sejny, Suwałki). The study presents the last century’s history of the Lithuanian education and culture, including differences between the Puńsk and Sejny centres. Lithuanians’ strong sense of national identity is closely connected with their mother tongue, culture and traditions. The minority’s community nature is evidenced by the high prestige and broad scope of use of the native dialect. The functions of the primary and secondary languages are clearly specifi ed by the Lithuanian- or Polish-speaking recipient. The transformations occurring in the Southern Aukštaitian dialect are aimed at unifi cation of the Sejny and Puńsk dialects in younger people’s speech and creation of a regiolect. Interference under a strong infl uence of the Polish language is noticeable at all levels of the primary language

The Perception of Postalveolar English Obstruents by Spanish Speakers Learning English as a Foreign Language in Mexico

The present study deals with the perception (identification and discrimination) of an English phonemic contrast (/t∫/–/∫/, as in cheat and sheet) by speakers of two Mexican varieties of Spanish who are learning English as a foreign language. Unlike English, Spanish does not contrast /t∫/ and /∫/ phonemically. Most Spanish varieties have [t∫], but not [∫]. In northwestern Mexico, [∫] and [t∫] find themselves in a situation of “free” variation—perhaps conditioned, to some extent, by social factors, but not in complementary distribution. In this variety, [∫] and [t∫] are variants of the same phoneme. The present study compares the perceptual behavior of English learners from northwestern Mexico, with that of learners from central Mexico, whose native dialect includes only [t∫]. The results of a word-categorization task show that both groups of learners find cheat and sheet difficult to identify in the context of each other, but that, relative to the other learner group, the group of learners in northwestern Mexico find this task to be particularly challenging. The results of a categorical discrimination task show that both learner groups find the members of the /t∫/–/∫/ contrast difficult to discriminate. On average, accuracy is lower for the group of learners in northwestern Mexico than it is for the central Mexicans. The findings suggest that the phonetic variants found in one’s native dialect modulate the perception of nonnative sounds and, consequently, that people who speak different regional varieties of the same language may face different obstacles when learning the sounds of their second language.

German dialects of the Tomsk and Novosibirsk regions (based on the open online archive of German dialects in Siberia)

The paper interprets the data from the open online archive of German dialects (https:// www.tomdeutsche.ru/dialects/). This work was started ten years ago in Tomsk by Prof. Z. M. Bogoslovskaya and her students. The archive provides the records of the native dialects and folklore of Russian Germans whose speech originates from different mother tongues and has different degrees of preservation. Archival materials were collected on the territory of Tomsk and Novosibirsk regions during linguistic expeditions of recent years. Many dialects of the upper German and middle German types appear to be mixed, containing (primarily in phonological terms) the features of different dialect systems, mixed as early as last century. These are secondary language formations that are exclusively spoken by older people. It is not the case in the German-Mennonite dialect (Plautdietsch), which is based on the Low German language substrate. This dialect has a higher degree of preservation and is spoken not only by older people but also by young people and children. The genre component of the collected samples of folklore and religious practices does not show much diversity. The archive contains only a few samples of songs, ditties, and jokes that old speakers can still perform in their native dialect. A special role is played by literary German – it is the language of liturgical practices, of prayers and spiritual singing. The paper presents a number of dialect material transcriptions.

Prosodical System of the Northern Aukštaitian dialect of Panevėžys of the Lithuanian Language

The Northern Aukštaitian dialect of Panevėžys of the Lithuanian Language is interesting in synchronic, diachronic, typological, and ethnogenetic aspects; its idioms bear some witness to contacts of Lithuanian and Semigalian languages (Kačiuškienė 2009). The secondary types of pitch accents of the Northern Aukštaitian dialect of Panevėžys were discussed in Dialectologia et Geolinguistica 24 (Kačiuškienė 2016). The auditory and instrumental research proved that two secondary types of pitch accents contrast in the pure and mixed diphthongs of the forms of some dialectal verbs and denominative words in the Northern Aukštaitian dialect of Panevėžys of the Lithuanian Language. This is a distinctive opposition. It is possible that the opposition relates to Proto-Baltic accentuation paradigms. The secondary types of pitch accents have different acoustic properties. The most distinct are the quantitative characteristics of diphthongs and characteristics of the fundamental pitch. The detailed analysis of the prosodic system of the Northern Panevėžys dialect in the present article is based on the data of the author’s native dialect and the instrumental and auditory research (see (Kačiuškienė 2006)). The results of the research of the Northern Aukštaitian dialect of Panevėžys are important to the comparative and historical dialectology of the Baltic languages; they can be used in typological research and in the classroom as teaching materials.

Non-Native Dialect Matters: The Perception of European and Brazilian Portuguese Vowels by Californian English Monolinguals and Spanish–English Bilinguals

Studies show that second language (L2) learners’ perceptual patterns differ depending on their native dialect (e.g., Chládková and Podlipský 2011; Escudero and Williams 2012). Likewise, speakers from the same native language background show different perceptual patterns depending on the dialect to which they are exposed (e.g., Escudero and Boersma 2004; Escudero and Chládková 2010). The Second Language Linguistic Perception model (L2LP; Escudero 2005) accounts for these differences, explicitly stating that the acoustic similarity between the native and target dialect affects L2 perception. This study investigated whether Californian English monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual listeners differ in their perception of European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) vowels. Escudero et al. (2009a) showed that there were differences in the acoustic realization of vowels in BP and EP. Stressed vowels were longer in BP than in EP, with differences in vowel height observed for some vowels (e.g., /ɛ/ is higher in EP than in BP). According to the L2LP model, these acoustic differences between dialects will affect vowel perception; therefore, we predicted that there would be differences in the listeners’ perception of certain vowel contrasts in BP and EP. Participants completed a non-native categorization task and a discrimination task presented in the XAB format. The results from the non-native categorization task predicted differential vowel perception depending on both the dialect and vowel contrast that listeners heard, which were mostly confirmed with an interaction between dialect and contrast in the discrimination results. We contextualize these results with respect to models of L2 speech perception, highlighting that dialectal differences impact language perception and may influence later language learning.

LATGALIAN COMPONENT IN THE LEARNING OF LATVIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE: FROM PRESCHOOL TO SECONDARY SCHOOL (1990–2015)

The conditions of language development and preservation are the quality of its acquisition in the early childhood, in-depth usage and study in the educational process and formation of positive and responsible attitude towards language and national literary heritage. The quality of the development of child’s Latvian language is determined by several environmental factors: the language environment in the family, the language environment in preschool, basic and secondary educational institutions and the language environment in public space.In Latgale most children learn Latvian in heterogeneous sociolinguistic environment. Child’s acquisition of the Latvian language in the family occurs in one of the following ways: in the native dialect (variant of dialect), if all the family members communicate only in one of our dialects, the High Latvian dialect; in the Latvian standard language, if the family members communicate in the standard language; in the so-called “third variant”, if the communication is in the Latvian standard language with a strong dialectal influence; or bilingually (dialect – Latvian standard language, dialect – Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Belarusian or some other language, Latvian standard language – Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Belarusian or some other language).Experience acquired during the project “Latvian Language in Monolingual and Bilingual Acquisition: tools, theories and applications” (LAMBA) shows that a part of our High Latvian dialect-speaking parents found it difficult to answer MacArthur-Bate Communicative development test questions, which were formed according to the Latvian standard language system. As communication with children takes place only in their native dialect, there are differences between child’s speech and the standard language at phonological and morphological level. At the same time, parents, after consultation on how to complete the test, noted that the quality of learning Latvian at school is better than learning at home where incorrect colloquial Latvian is used. Latvian language users in other parts of Latvia faced a similar problem, but in general it did not seriously affect the performance of the test. Students emphasize that more knowledge about interrelation between the Latvian dialectal and standard language would make the Latvian language acquisition process easier and help avoid interference of the native dialect. Language learning at school takes place in a monolingual environment, but some schools offer optional courses also in the Latgalian written (standard) language and literature. Outside the classroom, communication goes on in both, standard Latvian and native dialect and other languages.Language environment of the public space is heterogeneous; children hear different High Latvian variants as well as the so-called “third variant” which causes the most harm, both to Latgalian and Latvian standard languages and other languages. Taking into consideration the fact that two traditions of the written language have historically developed in Latvia – the Latvian standard language, and the Latgalian standard language tradition – and the Latgalian standard language is a very important component of Latgale regional and cultural identity and significant cultural value of Latvia, State Language Law 3 (4) determines that “the State ensures the preservation, protection and development of the Latgalian standard language as a historical option of the Latvian language”. Language knowledge, its usage in the learning process and the knowledge of literary and cultural heritage in close connection with national values are preconditions of language development and retention. Therefore, it is important that the school curricula and literature contain both Latvian and Latgalian. This report focuses, firstly, on how the school curricula and learning standards reflect the necessity to form and develop the Latgalian standard language and literature, secondly, how these issues are revealed in the text books of the Latvian language and literature developed from 1990 to 2015 and thirdly, it deals with secondary school students’ survey results on the knowledge of the Latgalian standard language and literature. Analysis of the standards and curricula of the primary school and secondary school subject “Latvian language” and “Literature” reveals that neither the Latgalian standard language as an option of the Latvian language, nor fiction written in the Latgalian standard language are reflected in text books. The text books developed during the last 20 years deal with these thematic issues only sporadically.