Markedness Theory Research Articles

Optimizing Language Teaching with Markedness Theory

Optimizing Language Teaching with Markedness Theory

Exploring Teachers’ Views in Using Code-switching for Classroom Interaction in Secondary Schools in Temeke District, Tanzania

Code-switching is a common phenomenon among communities in which the medium of instructions is different from the mother tongue. This study aimed to explore the opinions of educators and students on the usage of code-switching in classroom interaction in secondary schools in Temeke District, Tanzania. The study was guided by the markedness theory (sociolinguistic theory) proposed by Carol Myers-Scotton (1993). The study employed a qualitative research approach and a descriptive research design. A total of 52 participants were involved, of whom 12 were teachers and 40 were students from four secondary schools. Data were collected using interviews and focus group discussions. The findings of the study were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed that teachers and students viewed code-switching as switching between languages as a translation, and they encouraged the use of code-switching in classroom contexts. Based on research findings, the study concludes that most teachers and students supported using code-switching in a learning environment to enhance learners understanding of the subject matter. The study recommends that in order to improve effective teaching and learning in secondary schools by using the English language, code-switching is needed but should not jeopardise students’ proficiency in the language.

Is vowel devoicing in Japanese lexically specified?—An eye-tracking study

In Tokyo Japanese, high vowels can be devoiced typically between voiceless consonants. Traditionally, devoiced vowels are treated as allophones of corresponding vowels in which the devoicing process is a result of phonetic implementation commonly affected by speech rate. An opposing view is that devoicing is lexically specified since there are cases of interactions between devoicing and compounding that can be naturally accounted for by lexical phonology. To investigate this issue, the present study conducted an eye-tracking experiment. Edited mismatch stimuli where vowels were voiced before a voiceless consonant (M1) or devoiced before a voiced consonant (M2) were auditorily presented with pictures of the target word, a competing word, and a distractor presented visually. This design is based on a prediction that M1 and M2 invoke confusion in the recognition process if devoicing is specified lexically. Sixteen participants were recruited for an experiment of about 200 trials. Results showed that only M1 stimuli invoked a different pattern of fixation rates than M2 and other natural stimuli. This can be interpreted as partial support for the traditional view of devoicing. The asymmetry between M1 and M2 calls for an account based on markedness theory which is independent of the lexical specification.

Language and Race: Settler Colonial Consequences and Epistemic Disruptions

This article reviews anthropological paradigms that link language and race with a focus on the United States and other settler colonial nations that continue to use language as a tool of racialization to bolster White supremacy. Enduring colonial ideologies, along with Boas's “salvage anthropology,” which separated race and language, have enshrined White racism in anthropological studies of language as well as in the field of linguistic anthropology. Contemporary studies frame linguistic racialization through markedness theory and use paradigms of language ideology, language materiality, and semiotics to forward discursive and ontological analyses that span communities and institutional spaces. I offer “disruption” as a way to consider the impact of epistemologies that inform academic research agendas as well as institutional power dynamics between BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) scholars and White practitioners in linguistic anthropology and discuss how these disruptions could form the basis from which to decolonize aspects of linguistic anthropology.

Role of markedness in the perception of Bengali stops

Markedness is a theory that was developed on the basis of segmental patterns observed in speech output and has primarily been addressed in regard to speech production in previous studies. According to the Markedness Theory, marked segments are more difficult to produce due to an additional property or “mark” which requires more articulatory effort. However, its effects on speech perception are not discussed in the previous literature. This study examines the role of markedness in perception with Bengali stops. Bengali stops involve two types of markedness or additional properties, voicing and aspiration. Voiced stops (represented as D) are marked with respect to voiceless stops (represented as T), and aspirated stops (TH) are marked with respect to unaspirated stops (T). Voiced aspirated stops bear both additional properties (represented as DH). While the absence of a marked property may make segments easier to produce than those with the property, the question addressed here is whether the same holds true for perception. This study investigates the possibility that the opposite is what is observed. That is, the presence of additional properties may make segments more audible and identifiable. Additionally, this study also investigates whether the combination of multiple marks in the Bengali DH stops lead to a cumulative effect on perception with the best perceptual results for the DH stops. The results from this study show that this is, in fact, the case.

Syntactic Functions and Pragmatic Aspects of Preposition Stranding and Preposition Pied-Piping with wh-Relativizers: Perspectives from English Novels

This study examines syntactic functions and pragmatic aspects of preposition stranding (PS) and preposition pied-piping (PP) with wh-relativizers as used in English novels. While previous studies focusing on the syntactic functions and pragmatic aspects of PS and PP with wh-relativizers selected the data from international corpora and academic research articles, this study contributes to the perspectives of English novels. The materials in this study were gathered from nine best-seller English novels (www.amazon.com). They are The Power of One (Courteney, 2007), Naked Lunch (Burroughs, 2016), Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Brontë, 2016), Middlemarch (Eliot, 2019), A Class of Kings (Martin, 2019), The Nature of Middle-Earth (Tolkien, 2021), Moby Dick (Melville, 2020), The Promise (Galgut, 2022) and Far from the Madding Crown (Hardy, 2022). Approximately 450,000 words of English novels provided 51 tokens, referring to sentences. The data analysis of PS and PP with wh-relativizers follows Radford’s (2009) generative grammar. The results in this study show that PP with wh-relativizers occurs at 92.16 percent, whilst the occurrences of PS in this study are only 7.84 percent. The syntactic functions of PP with wh-relativizers are always used as adjuncts. The higher frequency of PP with wh-relativizers in English novels is explained by markedness theory and standard English, whereas the lower frequency of PS is due to archaic form and spoken register. It is hoped that the results in this study will be useful for learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) and learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in terms of applying the use of PS and PP with wh-relativizers in writing English novels and writing English short stories accurately and appropriately.

The Acquisition of the English Spatial Prepositions: in, on, and at by Saudi EFL Students

This study investigates the acquisition of the three English spatial prepositions: ‘in’, ‘on’, and ‘at’ by 100 Saudi EFL students within the framework of the Markedness Theory. From the markedness point of view, marked/infrequent structures are more difficult in acquisition compared to their corresponding unmarked/frequent structures. English and Arabic differ in the way they express the semantic relations of these prepositions. This is assumed to pose difficulties in learning for EFL students where learners compare the English prepositional system to that of Arabic and resort to literal translation; thus, L1 transfer takes place. The study aims to provide insight into the challenges that Arab EFL learners encounter when learning English and to fill a gap in the literature of second language acquisition regarding the acquisition of prepositions by Arab EFL learners when semantic asymmetries are attested. Results show that the unmarked preposition ‘in’ is learned easily because its Arabic equivalent ‘fi’ covers more functions in the native language. As for the prepositions ‘on’ and ‘at’, results show that participants are struggling to learn them because only a few meanings correspond between ‘on’ and its Arabic equivalent ‘ʕala’, and that Arabic lacks an equivalent for ‘at’.

На пути к оптимальному структурированию системы видовых парадигм в русском языке

The author of this paper defines the aspectual paradigms of Russian verbs as such grammatical structures whose formal aspect is correlated with the conceptual one, therefore being its cognitive counterpart. With a view to analysing these paradigms he uses the theory of markedness as an analytic tool. According to it, the grammatical changes that occur in natural languages originate from general principles of naturalness which are typologically relevant. They result in morphological shifts that are linked to the verbalisation of Russian aspectual paradigms and allow to predict the direction of their development. In particular, the principle of natural grammatical development should be considered crucial. It means that the grammatical changes in natural languages cause elimination of marked elements, so that these more complex linguistic structues are replaced with less complex ones. Such a principle manifests an unconscious desire of language users to minimise their linguistic efforts, as it would place an additional burden on interpersonal communication.

중국 방언 속 비음 말음 합류 현상에 관한 고찰

Chinese linguists have long debated about the bifurcated direction of syllable-coda nasal mergers in Chinese dialects since 1970’s. Some believed that the merging process is unidirectional (anterior to posterior), but others asserted that alveolarization of nasal codas (-m>-n and -ŋ>-n) is the major trajectory. Previous experimental research not only discovered salient acoustic cues in perceiving nasal codas but also provided social implications of different patterns of the merger. However, they failed to make a reasonable prediction about the further direction of the merger in addition to a lack of phonology-based analysis. This research aims to analyze the merging process on the basis of Contrastive Hierarchy (CH) and Sisterhood Merger Hypothesis (SMH). First, we can think of two types of contrastive hierarchies: [Dorsal]>[Labial], [Labial]>[Dorsal] because of Markedness theory. A theory of Predicted Acquisition Sequences and the SMH make us choose the first hierarchy: [Dorsal]>[Labial]. In short, the alveolarization of the velar nasal coda will happen after the completion of the merger between the labial and velar ones. Previous research papers and the data of Chinese dialects both support the conclusion.

Гендерно-маркированная асимметрия в русском и китайском языках

The aim of the study is to identify the features of gender-marked asymmetry in the Russian and Chinese languages. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time, basing on the theory of markedness, a comparative analysis of gender-marked asymmetry in the vocabulary of the two languages is carried out. As a result, the features of formal, semantic, distributive marking of gender vocabulary are revealed. The obtained results have shown that the gender vocabulary of the Russian and Chinese languages has a clear marked asymmetry, which is a concentrated expression of the national culture, socio-cognitive characteristics and socio-political development of the two countries.

Consonant Cluster Productions in Preschool Children Who Speak African American English.

The aim of this study was to compare word-initial and word-final consonant cluster productions in young children who speak African American English (AAE) and compare their productions to what we know about cluster productions in children who speak Mainstream American English (MAE), in order to minimize misdiagnosis of speech sound disorders. Twenty-two children (ages 2;10-5;4 [years;months]) labeled pictures whose names contained at least one consonant cluster in word-initial and/or word-final position. Most two-element clusters of English were sampled, the majority in two or more words. The participants' responses were transcribed using a consensus transcription procedure. Each cluster attempt was analyzed for its similarity with MAE. Percentage matching scores were significantly higher for word-initial than word-final clusters. Word-final clusters produced as singletons were significantly more common than word-final cluster substitutions. However, word-initial cluster substitutions were significantly more common than word-initial clusters produced as singletons. Word-initial cluster mismatches were consistent with markedness theory and the sonority sequencing principle (SSP). By contrast, word-final cluster mismatches were not consistent with the SSP, while the voicing generalization seen in adult speakers of AAE was evident. Culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment of phonological development in children who speak AAE requires an understanding of the contrastive and noncontrastive features exemplified in their consonant cluster productions.

GRAMMATICAL MARKEDNESS OF NON-VERBAL CONSTRUCTIONS IN MINANGKABAUNESE: A Grammatical Typological Study

The markedness theory has been becoming an important tool to directly link formal (structural) linguistic data and properties across languages. Markedness is one of the criteria which is used to determine the asymmetry of grammatical constructions in languages being learnt. So far, typological analyses on the non-verbal grammatical constructions in Minangkabaunese[1] have not been particularly based on the markedness theory yet. Therefore, the markedness analysis on the grammatical constructions of Minangkabaunese is linguistically meaningful. This article specifically analyzes and discusses the markedness values of the non-verbal constructions in Minangkabaunese based on markedness theories developed and used in Linguistic Typology. Two questions as the basis for data analysis and discussion are: (i) what are the unmarked and marked non-verbal constructions of Minangkabaunese based on formal and functional markedness analysis?; and (ii) how are the unmarked and marked constructions of Minangkabaunese functionally used in communication in its speech community? The data presented in this article are the basic-clause constructions which were collected through the execution of a field research in West-Sumatera and supported by a library study. The result of data analysis reveals that the non-verbal grammatical constructions without copula are the formal and functional unmarked constructions in Minangkabaunese. Meanwhile, the constructions with copula are those of formaly and functionally marked.[1] A main local language originally spoken by Minangkabaunese in West Sumatera, Indonesia

Aspects of Markedness in English and Standard Arabic

One of the most important theories in structural linguistics is markedness theory. Scholars and linguists have always been drawn to it because of its academic value. This study will look at three different types of markedness in English and Standard Arabic, from both a formal and semantic standpoint: formal markedness, distributional markedness, and semantic markedness. These three categories of markedness are discussed in depth in both English and Standard Arabic, from their definitions to their qualities. A brief reference to Markedness Theory is also introduced with an attempt to shed light on the relationship of the three types of markedness. The ultimate aims of this paper is to investigate whether markedness exists in Arabic and to give an insight of markedness phenomenon not only from linguistic form or structure, but from its semantic distinctions and pragmatic use. The study also aims to shed light on the increasing applications of Markedness Theory in different fields of language study.

Noun modification in Shinyiha

Modification is a typical defining function of adjectives in the world languages. However, it can be perfomed by single words, phrases or clauses. When dealing with modification of the noun, most studies (Rugemalira 2007, Lusekelo 2009, Van de Velde 2013; Williams 2005 etc) have focused on adjectives or on closed system elements (demonstratives, possessives, distributives, interrogatives etc) that appear within the noun phrase. Little attention has been paid to other marked forms like nouns, verbs, conjoined nous etc. that modify the head noun. This paper focuses on modification of nouns by nouns, verbs, participials, passives and locatives to express different property concepts. The paper uses markedness theory to show the markedness of forms other than pure adjectives to express property concepts. In addition the study shows structural changes taking place within these other modifiers. The study reveals that Shinyiha has several strategies its speakers use to modify the head noun including the use of derived nouns and irregular verbal forms which partake both properties of adjectives and verbs.

상고중국어에 보이는 ‘풀다’를 중심의미로 갖는 단어가족에 대한 小考

The phono-semantic compound characters 悅yuè, 說shuō and 脫tuō which take their sound from 兌duì belongs to the same word family together with 奪duó. The core meaning found in this word family is to “release”. The character 悅yuè means to release something that rackles in the mind and feel at ease and content (to relieve), 說shuō is to release some thoughts and feelings with words (to explain), and 脫tuō is to release the body from something covering or tying it (to take off) or to release oneself from a place (to escape). Here, 脫tuō refers to the act of releasing done by “myself”. If the act is done by others, it is 奪duó which means “to take away”. In the past, studies on word families in old Chinese were limited to grouping certain ranges of characters that are correlated in terms of sounds and meanings, but now, based on advanced reconstruction phonology, it has been made possible to identify the root and examine how the words were derived from the root in a relatively specific way. According to the morphological markedness theory, the root of this word family appears to be *lod悅, and the word differentiated by adding the prefix h- is considered *hljod說, while *l˳ʰo:d脫and *l

Conjoined Fraternal Twins: Marking Something Other than Time in Matthew 13.44-46

While some read Mt. 13.44-46 as making the same point about the kingdom of heaven twice over, this article instead uses verbal markedness theory to suggest use of the perfect tense-form within Treasure in the Field (TIF) and Pearl of Great Price (PGP) indicates otherwise. Whereas TIF foregrounds the kingdom’s ‘hiddenness’ with κεκρυμμένῳ, PGP instead uses πέπρακεν to emphasize the toll its purchase exacts on investors. Hence, one might accurately describe the parables on the basis of verbal markedness theory, and their redactional similarities, as a set of fraternal twins the First Gospel conjoins within the parables discourse. While their individual points remain distinct, Matthew binds the implications of TIF and PGP together to suggest their mutual entailment. For those fortunate enough to uncover the hidden kingdom’s location, its entrance will cost them everything and so alter their lives forever. All experience difficulty obtaining the kingdom, and its discovery remains tentative even for those in the right line of work.

Geminate attrition in the speech of Arabic–English bilinguals living in the United States

This study explores the phenomenon of language attrition. Specifically, we investigate the phonetic properties of consonant gemination across three groups of speakers of Palestinian Arabic: monolinguals (i.e., native speakers born in Palestine who have lived there their entire life, n = 5), late bilinguals (i.e., speakers born in Palestine who emigrated to the US during their teens, n = 6), and heritage speakers (i.e., speakers of Palestinian descent, born in the US and who speak both English and Arabic in their daily lives, n = 7). All speakers were in their mid-1920s. The participants were tested using a delayed word repetition task. The stimuli comprised 158 bi-syllabic Arabic minimal and near-minimal pairs (e.g., /ħam:aːm/ “bathroom” versus /ħama:m/ “pigeon”) including long and short stops, fricatives, and sonorants. We controlled for stress and syllabic position. Distractors were also included. The acoustic analysis is underway, and consists of manually aligning the target consonants, extracting the mean consonant duration and comparing it across groups. Additional measures include voicing, aspiration, and formant transitions. The findings will enable us to address the question whether universal phonetic factors (from the perspective of Markedness Theory) have an effect on degree of attrition by specifically comparing consonants from different voicing categories and manners of articulation.

Harnessing web-based contrastive instruction to address English relative clause accuracy and subject-object asymmetry

This exploratory study set out to investigate two principal aims: (1) the general effect of contrastive linguistic input delivered via an online medium on the subsequent written accuracy of subject and object restrictive relative clauses; and (2) the specific effect of administering such instruction in equal proportion on both clause types in light of markedness theory (that purports easier structures will naturally improve when harder ones are afforded more pedagogical attention). To meet these aims, a total of 156 Japanese EFL university learners were divided into two groups: an experimental group that was exposed to four web-based treatment sessions over four consecutive weeks, and a control group that continued with their regular studies without any contrastive input. Statistical analyses of pre, post, and delayed posttest performances demonstrated that the intervention led to positive learning outcomes for overall clause accuracy. However, in spite of markedness theory predicting a greater improvement for subject relative clauses (which are generally deemed easier), the reverse was found to be true. Interpretations for this unexpected finding are provided, along with pedagogical implications and future directions for related research.

Specialized Information Systems for the DigitallyDisadvantaged

A number of specialized information systems for the digitally disadvantaged (SISD) have been developed to offset the limitations of people less able to participate in the information society. However, contributions from social identity theory and social markedness theory indicate that SISD can activate a stigmatized identity and thus be perceived unfavorably by their target audience. We identify two mechanisms by which functional limitations affect a digitally disadvantaged person’s adoption decision: (1) adoption decision as shaped through technology perceptions (i.e., perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived access barriers), and (2) adoption decision as shaped through marked status awareness (i.e., stigma consciousness). We test our contextualized research model on digitally disadvantaged users with physical and/or sensory disabilities. Results of our mediation analysis show that the individuals who have the most to gain from SISD use (i.e., those with greater perceived functional limitations) are doubly disadvantaged: as a group, they find it more challenging to use SISD and are also more sensitive to the fear of being marked as disadvantaged or vulnerable.

Simplification Strategies in the Production of English Word-final Obstruent Clusters by Iraqi EFL College Students from A Markedness Theory Perspective

This study investigates the phonotactics of English obstruent clusters in the word-final position from a markedness theory perspective among Iraqi EFL College Students whose native language, Arabic, prefers only two-member word-final obstruent cluster as a maximum. The markedness of clusters is measured depending on Iraqi EFL College Students’ utilization of the simplification strategies. This study tries to answer whether or not word-final obstruent clusters are marked or unmarked for Iraqi EFL College Students, and whether or not the markedness of the obstruent cluster increases as to its length. In order to answer these questions, a test has been distributed among 60 Iraqi EFL Fourth-Year College students, Department of English, College of Arts-University of Baghdad for the academic year 2017-2018 involving a list of words and sentences containing word-final obstruent clusters. The study concludes that word-final obstruent clusters are marked due to the fact that the obstruents are universally marked in the coda. The four-member obstruent clusters are more marked than the three-member obstruent clusters which are in turn more marked than the two-member obstruent clusters.