Suomen kielen hallinta ja sen kehitys. Peruskoululaiset ja nuoret aikuiset

The topic of the book is the incremental growth of linguistic knowledge from lexical to structural-cum-textual during the so-called later language development. Language mastery does not presuppose any acquaintance with prescriptive grammar but, instead, concerns the core of language which the so-called consensus principle applies to: the most frequent words and structures are mastered with certainty by everybody, but uncertainty increases as less frequent and more variable phenomena are taken into consideration. It is the goal of the study to make explicit the knowledge that is common to school children of different age groups, and to show how it develops both in its core and in its fringe areas. The mastery of less common aspects exhibits considerable statistical variation. The research embodies methodological pluralism insofar as it has been carried out by means both of the corpus method and the experimental method. Here experimental subsumes writing tasks, paper-and-pencil tests, and behavior under experimental conditions. The amount of participants native in Finnish varies from 300–2000. The book has a bipartite structure: mastery of meanings (Part I), and mastery of forms (Part II).

Acceptability of Different Psychological Verbal Constructions by Heritage Spanish Speakers from California

This study set out to investigate whether US Heritage Spanish features a more streamlined verbal paradigm in psych verb constructions compared to standard varieties of Spanish, where HS speakers find an invariable third-person singular form acceptable with both singular and plural grammatical subjects. In standard Spanish, the semantic subjects of psych verbs are typically pre-verbal experiencers cast as oblique arguments in inverse predicates such as in me encantan los buhos ‘I love owls’. The translation of this sentence shows that equivalent English predicates are typically direct constructions. The data were gathered using an acceptability judgement questionnaire that was distributed to participants that fit into one of three groups: early bilingual heritage speakers of Spanish from California, advanced Spanish as L2 speakers, and non-bilingual native speakers of Spanish who had learnt English as an L2 as adults. The Heritage Spanish speakers in this group often patterned differently from both other groups, who surprisingly patterned together. We argue that this is due to L2 speakers’ mode of acquisition (formal and subject to prescriptive grammar), in comparison with Heritage Spanish speakers’ naturalistic acquisition. Specifically, we find evidence for a streamlining of the Spanish verbal paradigm not immediately attributed to English interference, and that in psych verb constructions, Heritage Spanish speakers more readily accept a third-person singular invariable verbal form. This differentiation of the verbal paradigm from standard Spanish use should be considered a bona fide linguistic change, but not proof of either incomplete acquisition or language attrition. Since Heritage Spanish speakers are, after all, native speakers of Spanish, this study shows that Heritage Spanish should be considered and studied as any other dialect of Spanish, with its distinctive grammatical features, and subject to variability and change.

Who Rules the Language?

Greater attention is paid to oral language by the new prescriptive grammar of Catalan recently issued by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, and several prescriptive or guiding texts on the same topic published by Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua have put under focus a territorial conflict on language authority and raised questions on the limits between external authority and personal competence in a field (spoken language) especially favorable for the persistence of diversity. This chapter offers a discussion on prescriptivism and standardization in contemporary Catalan, and the conflict experienced on two axes: horizontal or territorial and vertical or bottom-up/top-down options in prescriptivism.

The English Language in India: From Racial-Colonial to Democratic

In India and the other countries of the global south, a non-native variety of English Language has been serving the interest of the socio-cultural needs. Such a variety suits to the interest of the young learners since they have already mastered the tools of communication from outside the class room. Even the seasoned writers and columnists have developed a tendency to experiment further and develop suitable material for language teaching which was previously dependent on prescriptive grammar and lexical structures. This calls for an investigation into the nature of a shift within the very core of this language in India. This Paper tries to draw a graph on the course of this shift by examining data collected from mass media and situate this fresh use of language at a democratic space unlike the monolith of language as practiced in past. The news entries are trendy and user friendly, contain morphological and syntactic novelty that provides suitable methods to support pedagogy. It is fascinating to see how such data holds a promise of huge curricular implications providing a pragmatic road map for the teaching of theory, literature, and English language in India rather than development of mere skills as done in past.

A behavioural dataset for studying individual differences in language skills

This resource contains data from 112 Dutch adults (18–29 years of age) who completed the Individual Differences in Language Skills test battery that included 33 behavioural tests assessing language skills and domain-general cognitive skills likely involved in language tasks. The battery included tests measuring linguistic experience (e.g. vocabulary size, prescriptive grammar knowledge), general cognitive skills (e.g. working memory, non-verbal intelligence) and linguistic processing skills (word production/comprehension, sentence production/comprehension). Testing was done in a lab-based setting resulting in high quality data due to tight monitoring of the experimental protocol and to the use of software and hardware that were optimized for behavioural testing. Each participant completed the battery twice (i.e., two test days of four hours each). We provide the raw data from all tests on both days as well as pre-processed data that were used to calculate various reliability measures (including internal consistency and test-retest reliability). We encourage other researchers to use this resource for conducting exploratory and/or targeted analyses of individual differences in language and general cognitive skills.

Is the linguists’ View of Prescriptive Grammar Reductionist? (A Re-examination of the Accusations Made against the Prescriptive Tradition)

This paper seeks to intellectually stimulate researchers who are interested in the history of grammar and the long-standing debate about prescriptivism. Contrary to popular belief, there are scholars who still put forward arguments about the significant role played by prescriptive grammar in the development of Modern Standard English. Such counter-arguments are usually absent in many introductory textbooks to linguistics, which portray prescriptive grammar in a negative light. Nonetheless, only by listening to both sides of the debate, researchers can make a more objective judgment, avoid reductionist views, and encourage students of linguistics to engage in critical thinking. Therefore, the aim of this study is to re-examine the accusations made against prescriptive grammar by investigating various sources that give a different perspective on the origins and significance of the prescriptive tradition. The study has found that there is a strong connection between the prescriptive school of grammar and the development and preservation of Modern Standard English. Instead of being an impediment, the prescriptive approach that began in the 18th Century was a historical necessity at a time when linguistic variations were out of proportion and accepted standards were absent. The founders of this school did a great service to the English-speaking world by their contributions to the creation of a standard variety that has facilitated communication between speakers of diverse dialects of English. Unfortunately, the merits of this school have been buried by blanket accusations that lack careful analysis of what the works of prescriptive grammarians contained. The study has also shown how the dismissal of the prescriptive grammar can have negative outcomes and why it is important to re-examine the allegations made against it by modern linguists.

Cognitive grammar on "smash": Perspectives from Langacker's framework

The language system allows us to express perceived events in different ways using different linguistic resources. Ability to perform this task goes beyond the notion of prescriptive grammar, which makes no connection between language and the cognitive mind. Cognitive grammar focuses on the way we construct our ideas. Meaning is equated with conceptualization. Semantic structures are characterized Based on the ideas and theses posited by Langacker with regards to Cognitive Grammar, we seek to illustrate how our cognitive minds help us manipulate the use of language, especially the grammatical items.

How Lithuanian language textbooks present language to gymnasium pupils

The article analyses, how the Lithuanian school education system teaches to understand language and evaluate linguistic phenomena (linguistic diversity, different language forms and varieties) as well as language functions (communicative and function of identity). Basis of the research are the newest Lithuanian language textbooks for the last two gymnasium grades (11-12th grades), published since year 2000. Using qualitative analysis method it is being investigated, what notion of language is presented to the pupils, how much the descriptive approach to language of contemporary linguistics and knowledge about language are present in the textbooks, and to what extent there still exist attitude of the so-called traditional (prescriptive) grammar and ideas of language corrections. Language teaching at school serves double function – on the one hand, school teaches literacy, where language is understood as a tool for creation and analysing of texts. On the other hand, language in itself is a study object, about which pupils at school receive a certain understanding. Therefore, the question arises, what notion of language is being formed in the Lithuanian education system on the gymnasium level through teaching material – Lithuanian (native) language textbooks. Does the teaching material for the last two – 11-12th – grades provide knowledge about language of contemporary science, as it might be expected in the education of the 21st century? Do the pupils get introduced to science-based notion of language, as it is accepted in current linguistics, which is a descriptive science, that seeks to study and describe all the aspects of a language descriptively, based on facts, without prejudices and evaluations. Or is it on the contrary being followed the notion of language, which is characteristic of normativity and prescriptivism and which is rejected by contemporary linguistics as not scientific. The research analyses five Lithuanian language textbooks for 11-12th grades, published after year 2000, which have been selected for the analysis using the database of textbooks and other teaching materials (https://www.emokykla.lt/bendrasis/mokykis/vadoveliu-db/naujausi-vadoveliai). The main question, that is being raised with this research, is whether and to what extent scientific or non-scientific notion of language is being formed in school language textbooks, what attitude is predominant, and which notion of language is prevalent, if different attitudes exist. The method of the research is qualitative discourse analysis of the textbooks, using the qualitative data analysis program NVivo. The results of the textbooks’ analysis show, that non-scientific notion of language is dominant in the Lithuanian education system. The majority of the analysed textbooks represent this notion. The main characteristics of this notion, visible in the textbooks, are prescriptivism, romantic images of language, ideology of linguistic nationalism. However, besides the dominant normative approach to language, the scientific, descriptive approach is also visible in the textbooks, though to a lesser extent than the normative approach. One of the analysed textbooks is different from the rest ones with its exceptionally descriptive approach to language as a study object.