Gender, mobility and contact

We examine variation in a rural variety of Acehnese spoken in Aceh Province, to better understand the impact of long-term contact with Indonesian and increasing urbanization. The Great Aceh variety is characterized by variable realization of word-final (t) as a dental vs. glottal stop. Analyses of over 2,000 tokens of this variable from a corpus of spontaneous speech from 35 speakers indicate that the variability is relatively stable among men, and among women of high mobility, measured in terms of education, occupation, and time spent outside Great Aceh. Women with low mobility produce the lowest rates of [t̪], and in this group we observe a higher rate of [t̪] by younger than older women, suggesting change over time. We thus find both stability – among those who have long enjoyed high levels of mobility – and change – among those most affected by recent social changes, namely low-mobility women.

The Socio-Economic Heterogeneity of Rural Areas: Towards a Rural Typology of Poland

The paper aims to identify the significant heterogeneity of socio-economic rural development in Poland by identifying different types of rural areas and clarifying the existing diversity. This objective requires the following: (1) defining the rural development in Polish conditions, (2) abandoning the urban–rural continuum concept, and (3) conducting an analysis involving data aggregated from the local administrative units (2173 gminas/communes). The approach is exploratory and is limited to two questions elaborating the main problem related to the scale and character of rural variety: What socio-economic types of rural area are found in Poland? How are they distributed spatially? The statistical procedure is based on Diday’s dynamic clouds typological analysis. This yielded seven types of rural areas that exhaust their diversity. The main indicator of the character of the different types is related to the level of deagrarianisation of the local economy. The authors argue that the a priori urban–rural continuum model should be abandoned in favour of a more open approach. Typologies based on local administrative unit data, which avoid a priori assumptions concerning rurality, provide an excellent insight into the heterogeneity of rural areas.

P038: Emergency medicine interest group: evaluation of a student led organization at Memorial University

Introduction: Interest groups have become increasingly popular as students explore potential career paths earlier in their undergraduate experience. Emergency medicine (EM) has grown as a specialty and the match has become quite competitive. Attractive features of EM cited by learners (diversity, procedural skills and flexible schedule) appeal broadly to the undergraduate population. Learners at Memorial University recognized this leadership opportunity and worked with faculty to reach this wide target audience through a streamlined iterative evaluation of their EM Interest Group (EMIG). Methods: The local EMIG was formed in 2010. Yearly, EMIG executive work with outgoing members using prior experiences, contacts and best practices to facilitate handover and progress. From 2015 to present, 305 surveys were collected, giving an 81.9% response rate. 59.7% of respondents were first year students, and 40.3% were second year. The survey consisted of Likert scale and open-response questions. The Likert scale questions yielded favorable responses. 304 students (99.6%) felt presenters were knowledgeable, 301 (98.6%) would recommend the sessions to others and 301 (98.6%) were satisfied they attended. Surprisingly, 133 students (43.6%) said they were not interested in Emergency Medicine, likely attending due to the appeal of session topics and transferrable of EM skills. 232 (76.0%) stated that attendance did increase their interest in EM. Top responses for aspects of EM most interesting to them included: ability to find a work/life balance, ability to work urban or rural, variety of cases seen, and the non-routine shifts. Results: Survey feedback is used to inform refinement of the content, delivery and format of EMIG activities, delivered by EM faculty. Hands-on sessions (eg. suturing & airway management) have been popular. Informational sessions, on specific medical topics (ECG, resuscitation cases) or broader topics (EM streams) have also been very well received. Inclusion of all interested students, particularly large numbers for hands-on sessions, has presented challenges. Beyond current survey results, it will be interesting to consider if EMIG participation translates to learning or behavioral changes relevant to later clinical encounters; a question that will be difficult to quantify. Conclusion: The EM interest group is one of the most active at Memorial University. Survey results indicate that participants enjoy the EMIG session content and the structured iterative approach used by the group has been successful in maintaining an effective student led organization.

Acquisition of a rural variety

Glottal stop is a widely reported phenomenon in the United Kingdom, but it has been rarely studied in the United States. The current study follows up on work on this feature in a wide age range of speakers in Vermont. Currently the speakers comprise thirty-six children ages 2;6 to 5 from this same location. In addition to demonstrating that these children have acquired the phonological constraints, as well as the full range of allophones of /t/, the results provide a lens through which to explore other issues of language acquisition and language variation, most notably, the boundary between dialectal and developmental variation. In general, it is argued that sociolinguistically conditioned variation adds empirical as well as theoretical value to studies of phonetically and phonologically conditioned variation and acquisition of the phonological system by first language learners.

From pedagogy to communities: Issues within and beyond the Spanish heritage language classroom

Research on Spanish heritage language pedagogy has flourished in the past few decades, revealing both challenges and successful models to address them. The discussion here will focus on some of these major challenges and models, specifically, heritage language assessment, language variety validation, biliteracy approaches, and connections beyond the classroom. Students enroll in heritage language courses to develop their language repertoires and to become better prepared for professional opportunities that require formal uses of Spanish. However, one of the problems that heritage language instructors may face is guiding learners to develop biliteracy skills while also validating students’ language varieties. Heritage language learners frequently enter the classroom with feelings of inferiority about their language use either because their variety is stigmatized (e.g., they speak a rural variety), their Spanish is limited to oral/informal registers and/or their Spanish has English language influence. For these reasons, instructors’ role in empowering students and their language use is particularly crucial. Heritage language classrooms are also ideal for establishing stronger connections with local communities and professional sectors where Spanish is in demand (e.g., health care).

Peruvian Amazonian Spanish

Some linguistic structures found in Amazonian Spanish tend to be associated by and large with a rural variety spoken by people frequently depicted as indigenous. However, direct observations indicate that most of these features are pervasive among speakers across the social spectrum. What, then, are the parameters of linguistic variation in Peruvian Amazonian Spanish? Is there any social and/or linguistic meaning associated with the attested variation? This paper looks at data from ten monolingual speakers, five born and raised in Iquitos, and five born and raised in Kokama indigenous villages. The linguistic variables examined are: (i) permutation j/f, (ii) possessor/noun number agreement, (iii) double possession, and (iv) genitive fronting. This study concentrates on one social variable, place, which is found to significantly impact language use. City-speakers emphasize or downplay their category membership through the quantitative manipulation of markers; village-speakers show less variability in their language use. In addition, certain possessive constructions seem to be undertaking specialized functions.

Stereotypes, variation and change: Understanding the change of coronal sonorants in a rural variety of Modern Greek

The results of a study of the variation between the palatal and alveolar pronunciation of the coronal sonorants /l/ and /n/ in a rural Greek community are presented. The study integrates the methodologies of both large surveys and ethnographic studies and shows that there is change in progress as younger speakers adopt the alveolar pronunciation through contact with urban varieties. The results of the statistical analysis indicate that the variation is determined by factors such as gender, education, attitude toward the local community, and awareness of the variation. The responses given in the interviews reveal that the palatal pronunciation is stigmatized as vlachika, a term that connotes rural rather than urban, uneducated rather than educated, and naive rather than sophisticated attributes. This information coupled with a closer look at the behavior of particular individuals helps elucidate aspects of the pattern of variation that at first appear to be counterintuitive.