Bilingualism Flashcards
(65 cards)
1
Q
What is bilingualism?
A
- result of languages in contact (peoples, cultures, and/or nations in contact)
- the practice of 2 or more languages
- one-size-fits-all definition of bilingualism not the answer
2
Q
how do nations, communities, individuals become bilingual
A
immigration colonization war crisis globalization trade politics arbitrary national borders education career tourism cultural transmission of language
3
Q
bilingualism vs multilingualism vs plurilingualism?
Mahootian
A
bilingual - better to describe individuals who use more than one lang/dialect
mutlilingual/plurilingual - applied to contexts where there are 2+ languages in a community, w/o expectation that all members of the community know or use all the languages
4
Q
difficulties in defining bilingualism
A
- Where does bilingualism ‘start’?
- How to accomodate different lvls of frequency?
5
Q
6 factors that influence individuals’ bilingual capabilities
A
age of acquisition manner of acquisition sequence of acquisition literacy skills function fluency
6
Q
age of acquisition (influence individuals’ bilingual capabilities)
A
- childhood/adolescence/adulthood
- hypothesis of ‘critical period’ for lang acquisition - controversial
- better: ‘optimal’ / ‘sensitive’ period
- research doesn’t fully support nor refute such a period
- ability to master some aspects of an L2 lessens with age, takes more effort
7
Q
manner of acquisition
influence individuals’ bilingual capabilities
A
- natural setting, informal (at home)
vs. - formal setting (lang classes, school)
- closely tied to sequence of acquisition
- affects ease and rate of acquisition
- early bilingualism usually starts in the home
8
Q
sequence of acquisition
influence individuals’ bilingual capabilities
A
- simultaneously vs sequentially
- when both languages learned in childhood - often simultaneously
- if home language differs from school/majority lang - sequentially
- languages acquired sequentially often learned in formal classroom settings
9
Q
literacy skills
influence individuals’ bilingual capabilities
A
- whether the individual can read and write in any or all of their languages
- literacy not a requirement of bilingualism, just as literacy not a requirement of monolingualism
- literacy can be a factor in what TYPE of bilingual the speaker may be
10
Q
function (influence individuals' bilingual capabilities)
A
- how often and for what functions languages used
- bilinguals do not randomly choose which language to use where, when, with whom
- indication of status and vitality of each lang within the community
- can serve as predictive tool for lang loss and endangerment
11
Q
fluency
influence individuals’ bilingual capabilities
A
- no agreed-upon measure for fluency; not clear which components should be measured
- what can/should we reasonably expect from speakers in order to pronounce them bilingual?
- native-like vs. communicative competence?
12
Q
proficiency vs fluency
A
- proficiency implies speaker may not be native-like but able to perform various language tasks easily at various level
- measuring proficiency: either as set of linguistic structure tasks OR as tasks that measure the speaker’s ability to meet speech community expectations and norms in a native-like manner
13
Q
self-assessment
influence individuals’ bilingual capabilities
A
- when bilinguals are asked why they consider themselves to bilingual, they often reply that they are “comfortable” using their languages in (almost) all contexts
- sense of comfort/belonging - most often described by early bilinguals
14
Q
defining types of bilinguals
A
- by age: early, late
- by method: primary, secondary, elite
- by function: receptive/passive, productive/active, additive, subtractive, achieved
15
Q
early bilingualism
A
when child is exposed to more than one language anytime from birth to puberty
16
Q
late bilingualism
A
- bilingualism achieved after the sensitive period, and after the first lang has been fully acquired
- takes place outside of the home
17
Q
primary bilingualism
A
- dual competence
- acquired naturally through contextual demands
- can overlap with early bilingualism - but can also apply to late bilingualism
18
Q
secondary bilingualism
A
- linguistic competence acquired through formal instruction
19
Q
elite bilingualism
A
- aka elective bilingualism
- usually involves 2 or more prestige languages
- elected language often learned formally in educational setting
20
Q
receptive (passive) bilingualism
A
- refers to those who can understand a language when spoken to them
- cannot (easily) speak it
- often an outcome of lang learning that takes place in adulthood and in classroom settings
- learner often doesn’t have opportunity to use lang outside of classroom
21
Q
productive (active) bilingualism
A
- individual can both understand and produce each language
- typically they use both languages frequently and in a variety of contexts
22
Q
additive bilingualism
A
- describes late and/or secondary bilinguals who are able to acquire a new lang. while maintaining their first language
23
Q
subtractive bilingualism
A
- one language replaced with another
24
Q
achieved bilingualism
A
- accomplished through formal education
- chosen lang hold promise of more career options than the native language
25
possible outcomes of contact for Indiginous languages (IndL) and home languages (HmL)
shift - monoling. NL - loss/death IndL.
stable bilingualism: HmL + NL
26
first language
- lang of first exposure
| - acquired naturally, w/o instruction, in a home environment
27
native language
- language first acquired in a home environment
| - also denotes association with a nation
28
mother tongue
- an older term
| - same meaning as, used interchangeably with 'native language'
29
home language
- complex term
- paints a picture of a situation where there is a lang used outside of the home for public activities/events
- refers to a minority language
30
heritage language
- cultural connections
- combination of the concepts of minority language, home language, and cultural identity
- heritage lang speakers may or may not be frequent users of the lang or particularly proficient
- community language
31
minority language
- carries negative associations and connotations
- lang with fewer speakers than the majority lang within a community or nation
- speakers may have fewer opportunities, less economic and political influence, less access to services
32
majority language
- usually carries positive spin
- often the national language
- seen as the norm
33
national language
- language associated with the name of the nation
34
official language
- statutory language
| - makes a legal statement about the status of a language
35
de facto
- 'of fact'
- not by law, but by practice
- a "de facto bilingual nation"
36
de jure
- 'by law'
- affects the entire nation or state
- lang de jure = official/statutory language
37
lingua franca
- any language in wide use used to bridge the lang gap
- languages that take on such a role associated with power and prestige
- may change over time
38
diglossia
- two languages or two varieties of a lang used in different domains for different social and communicative functions
39
primary language
vs.
secondary langauge
primary:
- the language that a speaker uses most often and in more contexts
- frequently is or becomes the speaker's dominant language
secondary:
- language used less often
relationship:
- dependent on domains of use
- use conditional on value of each language in the larger context
40
dominant language
- the lang in which a speaker is most proficient
- also may be used most often by the speaker
- may correspond to the speaker's first/home language
- context of community/nation: language used publicly
41
community of practice
- groups who share linguistic and cultural norms and expectations
- often bound together through language(s) and language use
42
5 general principles of CS
faith - faithfully and economically capturing the intended conceptual, semantic-pragmatic, and/or socio-culturally or ideologically grounded meaning
power - position to index or construct power, status, authority, social distance, difference betw self and others
solidarity - index/create solidarity, affiliation, connection, intimacy, similarity betw. self and others
face - manage interpersonal relations, appreciation/tact/deference/respect/politeness
perspective - signal what is assumed to be currently salient pt of view and socio-cognitive orientation in discourse, quotation, repetition, elaboration, key/tone
RANKING of principles community-specific!
43
CS: speaking vs writing?
- written texts: more staying power
- in written text: monolingualism=norm
- question = why? when there is time/resources to produce monoling text per expected norm
- functions of CS may differ
- structure still guided by basic universal ling. principles
- signage: informational function + symbolic function (mark ethnic territory, valorize community language)
- branding, defining of bilingual identity
- serves to delinate territory (socially + politically)
- intentional switches in some written discourse part of "texture" (form, organization, content" -- present distinctly different message, meta-lvl message
- where monoling. established norm - when lang-mixed texts found in institutionalized, mainstream publications = indication that established norm shifting/expanding
- users of biling. variety gaining visibility, legitimacy...
- highlight + challenge social/pwr imbalances, call for change
- show shift in balance
- highlight an ethnic identity as a sort of food in the door of the social order
- single-word switching in otherwise monoling text
- --kind of additive bilingualism?
- --enhance descriptions, authenticity
- --personal and community identity w/in and outside of community
OTHER factors
- use of visual boundaries, devices to set off words from differing languages - italics for CS
- lend an "otherness" to the language
- otherness not necessarily equivalent to being an outsider
- type of text/genre! : literary text with intended/overt political message? Magazine with "fluff" content not overtly political? (though mere appearance = political statement)
- magazine: presence of CS accepted, associated with youth, progressiveness, + ultimately with status
44
types of switches
intersentential (btw. utterances)
vs.
intrasentential (within utterances)
intentional
vs.
unintentional
45
intersentential CS
between utterances
| less frequent than intrasentential
46
intrasentential CS
within utterances
47
CS as complex skill
- develops as part of emergent bilinguals' communicative competence
48
monolingual view of bilingualsm
- not considered current!
| - bilinguals defined as possessing native like competencies in each language
49
CS as resource (esp in classroom)
- used in writing-related talk: means of communicating ideas, enactment of cognitive activity (thinking out loud, processing)
- evaluation, self-regulation of skills
- metalinguistic insights
- communicating ideas with peers -- emphasis, translating, defining, discussing forms, comparison
50
CS structure - basic universal ling principles (Mahootian)
Head-Complement Principle
| - relationship betw. syntactic head + complements
51
Gumperz - 6 conversational functions of CS
```
quotation
addressee specification
interjections/sentence fillers
reiteration/emphasis/clarification
message qualification
personalization vs objectification (involvement or distancing)
```
(not comprehensive)
52
Grosjean - additional discourse functions of CS
```
marking group identity
emphasizing solidarity
excluding others from convo
raising status of speaker
adding authority/expertise to message
```
53
metaphorical switching
- doesn't really add to content of message
- meant to deliver extraling. message
- indication of speaker's momentary attitudes and emotions
- inclusion of social variables (class, situation, speakers...) and ideological variables (identity, group affiliation)
54
code-switching (def)
- the use of several lang or sociolects in the same convo or sentence
- discursive practice, influenced by existing power relations such as the distribution of ling resources and the legitimacy of various knowledges
- act of changing from one lang or dialect to another
- systematic use of 2 or more lang or varieties of the same lang during oral or written discourse
- variable practice!
- variation betw. vs w/in communities
- in most current lit: used interchangably with codemixing
55
arguments for considering CS from socioling perspectives
- study of CS developed in tandem with study of socioling
- CS = construct derived from behavior of bilinguals
- socioling. factors = prime source of variation in CS behavior
56
3 types of factors that contribute to the form taken by CS
(Gardner-Chloros)
+
criticism
There are overlaps and interrelations betw the 3 sets of factors
- factors independent of particular speakers + particular circumstances (e.g. power relations, prestige)
- factors directly related to speakers, indiv and as members of a subgroup (relationships, attitudes, ideologies, indiv. competence)
- factors w/in conversation (tools for structuring discourse)
CRITICISM
- (Wodak)
- conversation-analytical approach
- argues against idea that codes have meaning independent of local context
- participants define what actually counts as CS (NOT external categories)
57
hegemonic multilingualism
- patterns of control will lead to choices of more prestigious languages
- multilingual context with power dynamic will lead to choices of more prestigious languages
- e.g. EU institutions have progressively moved towards narrowing their linguistic repertoires, set of traditional working languages (3 vs 23)
58
multilingualisms; continuum of multilingual practices
| -- factors for language choice
- highly context-dependent
- beyond monoling / multiling dichotomy
- co-text related factors: topic, prof. jargon (lang for spec. purporses), lang of preceding speaker, politeness
- genre-related factors: structure of meeting, functions
- language/ideological factors: perceived prestige
- power-related factors: intention to win an argument, attempts to control debate, set agenda etc
- personality-/relationship-oriented factors: preferred lang choice, group dynamics, traditions of community practice
59
borrowing
- borrowings = loan words
- any words or phrases taken from one lang and used by monoling speakers of another language
- often fill lexical gaps
- pronunciation changes to adapt to sounds of host language
- borrowings sometimes imparts different message than if same word used in host language
- distinguished from code-switches by the fact that they've become part of monolingual lexicon
60
unintentional CS
- motivated by combination of ling and psycholing issues
- lexical gaps
- freq of speaker's use of each word in each lang
61
intentional CS
- of special interest to sociolinguists
- meaningful, intent
- relationship between lang choice and identity
- discourse tool
- meta-message
62
cultural CS
- codeswitching to accomodate cultural expectations
| - pressure to conform
63
speech community
- well-defined limits
- common structural base
- unified set of socioling norms
- share norms and expectations regarding the use of language
- delimiting/defining a speech community = first step in obtaining good data for research
- for determining change: long-term biling community
64
determining contact-induced change
Comparisons of bilingual varieties with benchmarks
- with pre-contact variety / earlier stage of same variety
- -- see if change has occurred at all
- with non-contact varieties of both of the languages
- --- diagnostic differences, conflict sites, places of structural divergence
- bilingual varieties with each other
- -- do bilinguals mix their two grammars or keep them separate?
- comparison of ling patterns in the context of presence and absence of CS
Overall rates of use
- not dependable
- has to include quantitative element though
- overall rate difference doesn't give info about direction of change
- Structure of variation
65
contact-induced change hypothesis
Bilinguals' use of 2 langauges spawns similarity between their grammars
