Skewed Sociolinguistic Awareness of a Native Non-standard Dialect: Evidence from the Cypriot Greek Writing of Greek Cypriot Students.

Ioli Ayiomamitou,Androula Yiakoumetti

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02017

Abstract

Over the last 50 years, sociolinguistic research in settings in which a regional, social, or ethnic non-standard linguistic variety is used alongside the standard variety of the same language has steadily increased. The educational implications of the concomitant use of such varieties have also received a great deal of research attention. This study deals with regional linguistic variation and its implications for education by focusing on the Greek Cypriot educational context. This context is ideal for investigating the linguistic profiles of speakers of proximal varieties as the majority of Greek Cypriots are primarily educated in just one of their varieties: the standard educational variety. The aim of our study was to understand Greek Cypriot primary school pupils’ sociolinguistic awareness via examination of their written production in their home variety [Cypriot Greek (CG) dialect]. Our assumption was that, because written production is less spontaneous than speech, it better reflects pupils’ conscious awareness. Pupils were advised to produce texts that reflected their everyday language with family and friends (beyond school boundaries). As expected, students’ texts included an abundance of mesolectal features and the following were the ten most frequent: (1) palato-alveolar consonants, (2) future particle [ená] and conditional [ítan na] + subjunctive, (3) consonant devoicing, (4) CG-specific verb stems, (5) final [n] retention, (6) [én/ éni] instead of [íne], (7) CG-specific verb endings, (8) [én/é] instead of [ðen], (9) elision of intervocalic fricative [ɣ], and (10) CG-specific adverbs. Importantly, in addition to the expected mesolectal features that reflect contemporary CG, students included a significant and unexpected number of basilectal features and instances of hyperdialectism (that are not representative of today’s linguistic reality) which rendered their texts register-inappropriate. This led us to conclude that Greek Cypriot students have a skewed sociolinguistic awareness of variation within their first dialect and a distorted impression of their own everyday language. We argue that the portrayal of CG in its basilectal form was performed intentionally by students in an effort to distance themselves from a socially constructed identity of a rural, uneducated, and stigmatized non-standard-dialect speaker. The study is of international relevance as it deals with sociolinguistic issues that pertain to all bidialectal speakers.

Highlights

Research in settings where regional, social, or ethnic linguistic varieties are used alongside a standard variety of the same language has burgeoned in recent years
Greek Cypriot Sociolinguistic Landscape Two linguistically related varieties are primarily used in Greekspeaking Cyprus: the Cypriot Greek (CG) dialect and Standard Modern Greek (SMG). (Cypriot Turkish and Standard Turkish are used in Turkish-speaking Cyprus.) CG is the naturally acquired mother tongue of virtually all Greek Cypriots who go on to learn SMG via formal education
Cypriot Greek speakers recognize a hierarchy of linguistic varieties which range from ‘heavily peasanty’ to SMG (Tsiplakou et al, 2006; Katsoyannou et al, 2006; Papapavlou and Sophocleous, 2009). (We further address this hierarchy in our Methods where we outline the various levels of language use along a continuum.) It must be emphasized here that the sociolinguistic and linguistic realities on the island offer its speakers a varied linguistic repertoire

Summary

Introduction

Research in settings where regional, social, or ethnic linguistic varieties are used alongside a standard variety of the same language has burgeoned in recent years. Researchers have aimed to identify whether the bilingual advantage, which has strong empirical support (Bialystok, 1988; Bialystok et al, 2012), extends to speakers of proximal dialectal varieties (Antoniou et al, 2014, 2016). In pursuit of this aim, a flourishing area of research has grown up around the premise that dialectal diversity may often have favorable outcomes and, in particular, that there is merit in assessing the potential for bidialectal programs in formal educational settings to produce beneficial learning outcomes. In the Creole setting of Guinea-Bissau, Benson (1994, 2004) discovered that more students spoke in class and that there was less reliance on rote learning when bidialectal programs (deploying the native Crioulo alongside Standard Portuguese) were introduced. In the Creole setting of Guinea-Bissau, Benson (1994, 2004) discovered that more students spoke in class and that there was less reliance on rote learning when bidialectal programs (deploying the native Crioulo alongside Standard Portuguese) were introduced. (For a review of studies on the outcomes from expanded use of Pidgins and Creoles in education, see Siegel, 2012.)

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