Comprehension and production of non-canonical word orders in Mandarin-speaking child heritage speakers

Across languages, structures with non-canonical word order have been shown to be problematic for both child and adult heritage speakers. To investigate the linguistic and child-level factors that modulate heritage speakers’ difficulties with non-canonical word orders, we examined the comprehension and production of three Mandarin non-canonical structures in 5- to 9-year-old Mandarin-English heritage children and compared them to age-matched Mandarin-speaking monolingual children and adults. Specifically, we examined how linguistic properties, such as linear word order, presence or absence of morphosyntactic cues, and surface structural overlap between languages, as well as child-level factors, such as chronological age and current home language use affect the acquisition of non-canonical structures in heritage children and their monolingual peers. Results showed that although heritage children could use morphosyntactic cues, they did not show monolingual-level sensitivity to passive-related morphology. Additionally, children produced more canonical SVO word order, which is shared between English and Mandarin, and preferred the reverse interpretations of non-canonical structures in comprehension. These responses were taken as evidence for cross-linguistic influence from the majority to the minority language. Finally, although non-canonical structures caused difficulties for child heritage speakers, their performance was modulated by structure and improved with age, over and above heritage language use.

Tintagel Footbridge Void for Imagination

<p>English Heritage published a design competition for a footbridge to offer a better accessibility to the Tintagel Castle. The new bridge links the mainland with the island, the real world to the imaginary world of legends. Its setting is extraordinary, remote. The context is therefore deeply reflected in the bridge design and construction. The bridge looks like and arch, but tells so much more after a closer look. It leaves a void, between present and history, reality and imagination.</p>

English Author Dictionaries as Contribution to National Heritage

The paper is devoted to cultural heritage dictionaries with special reference to the oldest branch of English lexicography – author lexicography, comprising three hundred reference books of different types: concordances, glossaries, lexicons, indices, thesauri, etc. The article describes the main trends in developing author linguistic dictionaries for general and special purposes to single and complete works of G. Chaucer, W. Shakespeare, J. Milton, other famous English writers since the 16th c. up to the present days. The architecture of author encyclopedic dictionaries (guides, encyclopedias, companions) and onomasticons (dictionaries of characters and place names, who is who in … series) and their significant contribution to the English language, culture and society are discussed. The main accent is made on the digital era of English heritage lexicography, innovative features of modern printed and Internet author reference resources, aimed at certain target groups users’ needs and demands.

The foreign language effect in bilingualism: Examining prosocial sentiment after offense taking

This study examines whether the foreign language effect mitigates reactions to value-inconsistent sociopolitical content. We examined 69 English–Spanish bilinguals and 31 Spanish–English heritage bilinguals, half of whom did the experiment in their native language and half in their second language. Participants were administered a survey in which trial emotiveness was manipulated by using the quantifiers some and all (e.g., Some Trump supporters are racists vs. All Trump supporters are racists). The some-types (n = 30) served as a baseline for the all-types (n = 30). After each target, participants rated their willingness to be prosocial (e.g., holding the door for a stranger) on a scale of 1–7, 1 being totally agree and 7 being totally disagree. Our results suggest that processing emotional information in a second language is less emotional than in a first language and that such a decrease in emotionality results in the neutralization of offense taken. However, individual differences in linguistic profiles across participants, as well as contextual framing, lead to discrete value judgments. Proficiency, learner type, political affiliation, and context type affect willingness to engage in prosocial behavior. As a group, the bilinguals showed no decrease in their willingness to engage in such behaviors, regardless of context type; speakers of higher proficiency and stronger political values increase prosocial sentiment; and lower proficiency and weaker views lead to neutral prosocial sentiment.

EMI and the ‘Pre-heritage’ Period Film

First coined in the UK in the early 1990s as a new label for an ostensibly new, post-1979 kind and cycle of period cinema, the ‘heritage film’ is now firmly established as a widely used term and category in academic film studies. Although the heritage film’s defining features, ideological character and ontological coherence would remain debated, its status as a ‘new’ category hinges, self-evidently, on the presumption that the films of post-1979 culturally English heritage cinema marked a new departure and were clearly distinct from their pre-Thatcher-era precursors. Yet, paradoxically, the British period/costume films of the preceding decade, the 1970s, have attracted almost no scholarly attention, and none which connects them with the post-1979 British heritage film, nor the 1980s cultural and industry conditions said to have fostered these productions with those of the 1970s. This article pursues these questions through the prism of Britain’s largest film production and distribution entity throughout 1970–86, EMI, and EMI’s place as a significant and sustained, but little-acknowledged, force in British period film production throughout that time. In so doing, the article establishes the case for studying ‘pre-heritage’ period cinema. EMI’s period film output included early proto-heritage films but also ventured notably wider. This field of production is examined within the broader terrain of 1970s British and American period cinema and within wider 1970s UK cinema box-office patterns and cultural trends, attending to commercial logics as well as to genre and the films' positioning in relation to the later heritage film debates.

Exploring the unique challenges of presenting English Heritage’s castles to a contemporary audience

The seventy-nine castles in the care of English Heritage Trust (EHT) are some of the most visually stunning and historically important in the world. In recent years, EHT has explored new ways of sharing the histories and stories of these properties with local communities and with domestic and international visitors. This paper presents a review of these approaches, outlining the ways in which the Trust has applied different methodologies to castles within certain areas of operation, such as Interpretation; Digital Content; and Conservation. It assesses the self-reflection of EHT staff members from some of the organisation’s operations as to how certain strategies and approaches have met the expectations of both the EHT and its target audiences. It outlines approaches to sharing our passion for these properties which were not heavily reliant on significant monetary investment, for instance examining how to re-interpret castles in the context of a challenging economic climate. It assesses some of the philosophies behind the decisions made as well. These reflections are examined in the context of a new castle interpretation project currently underway, at Warkworth Castle in Northumberland, England. They are presented to our international colleagues with the explicit desire to share our experiences and improve our industry’s approach to the interpretation of humanity’s rich castle heritage.