Minority Language Research Articles

How Bilingual Experience Shapes Accents in German-Italian Primary School Children

Abstract This study investigates the accents of German-Italian school children (6–10 years old) in their two languages. We ask whether accents in the bilingual children’s two languages are related and how foreign accentedness is associated with proficiency in other areas of language (speech rate, vocabulary size) and extralinguistic factors (formal and informal exposure and AoO in the majority language). Data from 87 early bilingual German-Italian children is judged by adult raters in Italy and Germany. Bilinguals are perceived as being more accented than monolinguals, mostly in Italian, the HL of the bilingual children. Moreover, children with a more monolingual-like accent in Italian tend to sound foreign in German, and vice versa, but some children have no perceivable accent in any language. Accentedness is especially affected by amount of language use, which underlines the importance of exposure to the minority language at this age, regardless of the setting, formal or informal.

The metalinguistic and metarepresentational attitude of early bilingual children: A study on definitional skills

Aims and objectives: Definitional skill is the ability to define words using canonical formats. This skill requires lexical, morpho-syntactic, and pragmatic abilities, as well as metalinguistic attitude. Bilingualism has a crucial role in cognitive development, especially in promoting metareflective competencies. The relationship between bilingualism and definitional skills is a very under investigated topic. The aim of this study is to explore in the same sample of bilingual children how they define words in both languages. Methodology: Thirty early bilingual minority language children (age range 7–16 years) were administered a definition task (Co.De.Scale). They were asked to define words both in their native language, Romanian (L1), and their second language, Italian (L2). Data and analysis: Data were analyzed via mixed-method effects. Furthermore, we were also interested in studying if there were any differences in the answer proportions per definitional level (from 0 to 6) between Italian and Romanian. Findings: The results showed the production of better definitions in L2 compared with L1. The finding is readable in the light of the different settings where the two languages are used: home/family for L1 versus at school/non-family contexts for L2. Originality: This is the first study to show the role of both educational school settings and language dominance in promoting development of formal definitional skills. More specifically, it is worth stressing the relevance to study this topic in minority language bilingual children. Implications: Given the lower performance of minority language bilingual children in defining in their native language L1, a crucial educational objective could be enhancing the definitional skills in L1, designing ad hoc interventions that boost formal instruction. In turn, this would favor more inclusion and the exploitation of the minority language children, as well as more intercultural integration, thus enhancing language minority cultures.

Are ‘coercive’ language policies fair?

AbstractThis paper provides a normative justification regarding the fairness of ‘coercively’ protecting minority languages in mixed societies where the minority group already knows the majority language. To do so, it adopts first a theory‐testing approach and examines, by using the Catalan case, the validity of the arguments presented in Morales‐Gálvez's (2017) ‘protectionist’ theory of linguistic justice. In this vein, it argues that some of the ideas this author uses to defend the ‘coercive’ protection of minority languages still work when the minority group is bilingual. Yet, there are others that appear to be problematic. As such, this paper then unfolds using a theory‐building approach and reframes these concepts with the objective of proposing complementary arguments. This article concludes that ‘coercive’ policies to protect the language of a bilingualised minority group are fair and necessary if they aim to accomplish active reciprocal bilingualism and hence ensure equal rights for all speakers.

Benidorm’s linguistic landscape: unveiling the multifaceted tapestry of urban expression

ABSTRACT The study of linguistic landscapes offers a captivating and nuanced avenue for understanding the intricate interplay among language, culture, and urban environments. The influence of mass tourism in Benidorm, a vibrant city within the Valencian region, has left an indelible mark on its linguistic landscape, offering a testament to the transformations brought about by the tourism industry. In addition, the coexistence of autochthonous minority languages within this city presents a complex and often precarious situation, where the tensions between cultural preservation and economic prosperity come to the fore. Through our own field methodology, and under the theoretical framework of the Critical Discourse Theory, we will analyse in depth the different aspects of the linguistic landscape of Benidorm, showing the challenges that the city faces to maintain coexistence between all the different languages that populate its streets and that make up a unique linguistic landscape.

Translation of Hmong Folklore Terms in Hmong Oral Epic “Creating Heaven and Earth” From the Perspective of Eco-Translatology

The Hmong, a Chinese ethnic minority, possess a rich cultural heritage. Due to their unique history of exile and migration, the Hmong have scant documentation of their vanishing cultural heritage. The Hmong oral epic constitutes a vital component of documenting Hmong culture. Thus, this paper delves into the translation of the Hmong Oral Epic 'Creating Heaven and Earth', focusing on folklore terms as fundamental units for analyzing Hmong culture. Eco-Translatology has the great importance in protecting the languages of Chinese ethnic minorities and enhancing the dissemination of their literature (Li, 2017). Hence, this paper examines the translation of Hmong folklore terms in the Hmong Oral Epic 'Creating Heaven and Earth' from the perspective of Eco-Translatology. The study reveals 53 translations of Hmong folklore terms, encompassing material, social, and spiritual aspects, within the Hmong oral epic 'Creating Heaven and Earth'. For Hmong material folklore terms, translators predominantly employ the 'target contextualization' strategy, along with 'extending substitution' and 'vitalization' methods. For Hmong social folklore terms, translators favor the 'source contextualization' strategy, supplemented by 'adaptive addition' and 'vitalization' methods. For Hmong spiritual folklore terms, translators predominantly utilize the 'source contextualization' strategy, in addition to 'extending substitution' and 'naturalization' methods.

Prolegomeni allo studio dei parlanti ereditari di sardo

When a minority language holds a subordinate position and is neglected or abandoned in family communication, some speakers acquire it imperfectly, resulting in limited proficiency; these individuals are known as heritage speakers. However, some heritage speakers later develop an attachment to their ancestral language and choose to study it in formal or informal educational settings, becoming heritage learners. This study focuses on heritage learners of Sardinian, a Romance language spoken in Sardinia. Today, most Sardinian residents under fifty primarily speak Italian, but there is a growing interest in Sardinian language courses aimed at reconnecting community members with their linguistic heritage. This research examines the grammatical and lexical competence of a sample of these heritage learners, particularly focusing on areas identified in the literature as vulnerable to erosion and interference from Italian. Specifically, it will demonstrate that in instances of grammatical or lexical divergence between Sardinian and Italian, heritage learners tend to accept both idiomatic Sardinian forms and Italian-influenced forms, indicating significant interference in their proficiency of the minority language. This study aims to help language teachers develop targeted interventions to enhance the competence of heritage learners, differentiating from curricula designed for second language learners of Sardinian when necessary.

Ethnic identity construction through multimodal linguistic landscape at Ban Arunotai in Thailand

ABSTRACT Thailand is a country where ethnic diversity and multilingualism are deeply embedded in the cultural landscape, and understanding the construction of ethnic identity provides crucial insights into its social dynamics. This study investigates how ethnic identities are constructed and negotiated through multimodal resources within the linguistic landscape of Ban Arunotai, a multiethnic village in Chiang Mai. Utilizing a comprehensive multimodal framework, the research analyzes how public signage combines linguistic, visual, auditory, and spatial elements to articulate and reshape identity. The findings reveal a hierarchical structure of languages and modes, where dominant languages are visually prioritized, while minority languages serve more localized, symbolic functions. Moreover, a shift from static, monolingual systems to fluid, multilingual repertoires among speakers reflects broader sociocultural changes shaped by translanguaging practices. By framing public signs as dynamic resources in the active formation and reinforcement of ethnic identities, this study offers significant implications for understanding identity politics and social integration in multilingual settings.

Linguistic landscape in George Town, Malaysia: Language visibility in a postcolonial and globalized context

The visibility of languages in the linguistic landscape reflects various aspects of linguistic diversity and dynamics in a given territory, signifying social interactions, identities, and power relationships among ethnic groups. However, postcolonial acontexts with widespread use of ethnic minority languages and the coexistence of state-sponsored national languages with precolonial official languages in the era of globalization have received limited research. This paper investigates the visibility of language in three neighbourhoods in George Town, Malaysia, a former administrative city under British governance, focusing on language visibility within three distinct neighborhoods: Chinatown, Little India, and the Beach Street. The study reveals a complex interplay of languages, highlighting the predominance of English as an information carrier and a symbol of modernity, alongside the increasing prominence of Chinese and the lesser visibility of Tamil and underrepresentation of other minority languages. The research underscores the ethnic boundaries between the vibrant enclaves of Little India and Chinatown, while Beach Street serves as a multicultural space reflecting a blend of local and global influences.

Inclusion in Immersion Education: Identifying and Supporting Students with Additional Educational Needs

This entry reviews the research around identifying and supporting students with additional educational needs (AEN) in immersion education. This is important as it is clear from international research that teachers in this form of education experience challenges due to the lack of availability of minority language services, assessments, interventions, and resources. The international research and literature on the positive practices that can be implemented in immersion education to help teachers and schools overcome the challenges they encounter is reviewed. The themes included in this entry are inclusive pedagogies, assessment, literacy, mathematics, and challenging behaviour.

Къэбэрдей-шэрджэсыбзэр ужьыхынымкIэ, кIуэдыжыпэнымкIэ шынагъуэ зыпылъ Iуэхугъуэ щхьэхуэхэр

This paper highlights the most important issues of the state and functioning of the modern Kabar-dino-Circassian language in impending globalization and the existing realities in the field of state language policy. The study examines the fundamental risk factors that, without appropriate drastic measures, will inevitably accelerate the process of extinction and subsequent disappearance of the Adyghe language. Material for the presented research was normative legal acts in the field of functioning, preservation and development of the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federa-tion, journalistic materials of the republican newspaper “Adyge Psal”, Kabardian broadcasts of radio and television of the Republic. The work uses descriptive, comparative research methods, synthesis, and analysis. Conducted research allows us to conclude that the most important condi-tion for the preservation and development of minority languages, which include Kabardino-Circassian, is the implementation of a unified “protective” state language policy in the country, which would not only declare the legal and social status of the language but also provide a real opportunity for its use in official spheres with a guarantee translation, since an indispensable con-dition for the functioning of any language is its relevance to society; the suppression of the cur-rently violent interference in the natural course of language development by introducing fictional terms into its vocabulary instead of established lexical units that native speakers actively use.

Accurate minority Language Representation in the Public Space: the case of Arabic in Israel

ABSTRACT Although Arabic is the native language of a fifth of the Israeli population, its representation in the Israeli linguistic landscape (LL) is problematic. Adopting a sociolinguistic framework that underscores the political nature of language (Ben-Rafael 2009), this study invited Palestinian-Israeli college students to reflect on the linguistic reality in their area through the participatory documentary photography tool ‘PhotoVoice’. The students captured photos of linguistic landscapes, analysed them, and wrote commentaries voicing their reflections. Students ‘PhotoVoices’ shed light on the abundance of mistakes in Arabic words on the signs. Content analysis of the ‘PhotoVoices’ on this issue highlighted students’ cognitive and emotional perceptions and emerging awareness of the explicit and implicit messages delivered through the signage.

‘Dear guest, pay for your language’. How accommodation rating and ownership effect language presence on the Online Linguistic Landscape

Abstract The present paper draws on the concept of Online Linguistic Landscape (Kallen, Ní Dhonnacha & Wade, 2020) to explore code preference on hospitality websites at international tourist destinations. The analysis of a purpose-made database comprising the websites of all 254 accommodation establishments in Palma (Mallorca, Spain) reveals that although major tourist markets condition code presence on websites, the wide array of languages displayed does not correspond to the narrower catalogue of visiting nationalities. Beyond the strictly informative, websites have become effective promotion and sales tools, and marketability derived from vogue associations may mean that a language is listed on a website, even when other, more frequent guest languages are not. The scant online presence of Catalan, the autochthonous language of Mallorca, illustrates how, in mass tourism environments, minority languages are at the crossroads of succumbing to the demands of the market or submitting to processes of commodification of uncertain outcome.

The Minority Language as a Second Language: Challenges and Achievements, Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D, New York: Routledge, 2024

The Minority Language as a Second Language: Challenges and Achievements, Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D, New York: Routledge, 2024

Chinese in the Linguistic Landscape of Chinese Communities in Malaysia: A Tale of Three Cities

The study of linguistic landscapes (LL) in Malaysia has emerged as a prominent area of research in Asia, predominantly focused on Kuala Lumpur, the capital city. Despite Chinese constituting over one fifth of Malaysia’s population, the presence of Chinese in the LL remains insufficiently explored. This empirical study addresses this gap by examining the visibility of Chinese in the LL of Chinese communities across three Malaysian cities: Penang, Ipoh, and Johor Bahru. By analysing a corpus of photographed public signs from various spaces, this research investigates the visibility of Chinese in the LL both quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings reveal that the visibility of Chinese in the LL of Chinese communities in the three selected cities not only signifies Chinese identity but also serves as an effective means to preserve traditional Chinese culture among Malaysian Chinese. This study underscores the importance of understanding the role of minority languages in the LL within ethnic communities, contributing to a more comprehensive view of Malaysia’s multilingual and multicultural context.

Limited input and the acquisition of Finnish: The evolution of a child speaker in a multilingual environment

Aims and Objectives/Research Question: This is a case study of a toddler acquiring Finnish in a trilingual (Finnish–Spanish–English) setting. Despite the apparent ease of the child’s acquisition of Finnish, the pressure of the majority language (English) suppresses the use of the acquired minority language. Is it feasible to expect an early-childhood minority language to be maintained at the level of production? Design/Methodology: Video-recordings were collected in domestic settings, mostly with the Finnish-speaking mother in interactions with the child, who was between the ages of 3;6 and 4;6. The approach follows loosely the principles of interactional sociolinguistics. Data and Analysis: The data were collected in 2008, when the child was 3 years old, and the follow-up data 8 months later, when the child was four. Samples of this corpus are analyzed in detail for the emerging target-like Finnish case endings and verbal inflections, as well as for deviations from adult Finland Finnish. The mother’s strategies of maximizing the effects of the limited input are also discussed. Findings/Conclusions: Even though the input the child receives is limited, his acquisition of Finnish morphosyntax follows monolingual patterns and shows overgeneralizations typical of monolingual Finnish children’s language. Some transfer from the contact with English and Spanish languages is present. The question of ultimate attainment in a heritage-language situation is addressed. Originality: The study is rare, as it documents the rapid transition from the child’s well acquired minority language to English, the majority language, in the matter of months. Significance: This article confirms the vulnerability of childhood bilingualism: even a few months between the two longitudinal datasets show a sharp decline in the child’s output in the heritage Finnish, but the dichotomy between “maintenance” versus “loss” is challenged because the decline in output does not necessarily extend to the loss of comprehension.

Complementary schools as ‘breathing spaces’: identity, multilingualism and critical pedagogies in heritage language education

Whilst mainstream schools in England may encourage multilingualism by insisting on the study of foreign languages, multilingual children are not always provided with support for the maintenance of their heritage languages and cultures. In response to this shortcoming, communities organise themselves to support their young members by setting up extra-curricular education institutions or associations, also called complementary schools, which contribute to the cultural and linguistic maintenance of minority communities. Through emblematic extracts from a fourteen-month ethnographic research in an Italian complementary school in London, this article examines how HL learners engage in and reflect on their multilingual practices and how they develop agency in their learning environment. The findings illustrate how critical modes of teaching and learning that make space for multilingualism can provide children with unique opportunities to discover, explore and experiment with their multilingual and multicultural selves, which, in turn, permit them to access linguistic resources and legitimise multilingual learner identities. Expanding on Fishman’s notion of ‘breathing space’, the article suggests that complementary schools represent a space where minority languages but also pedagogical practices can breathe and develop.

The Function of Digital Technology in Minority Language Preservation: The Case of the Gyalrong Tibetan Language

Abstract In the digital media era, the preservation of minority languages and cultures faces profound challenges. This article focuses on the Gyalrong Tibetan language (GTL) as a representative case within the broader context of linguistic diversity endangerment. The emergence of digital technology as a supplementary tool to preserve endangered languages provides opportunities and challenges in language conservation. Adopting a qualitative research approach and thematic analysis, collecting data from previous studies, fieldwork, and interviews, this study considers the intersection of digital technology and GTL preservation. It examines 1) the opportunities, 2) the challenges and concerns of integrating digital technology and minority languages and 3) the evolving dynamics of language proficiency influenced by educational systems among younger generations. Moreover, these considerations are placed within the framework of media ecology and language shifts, exploring how communication technologies shape GTL and its cultural context. This research contributes empirical insights to the discourse on minority language revitalisation and offers a strategic view for further research into language preservation in a digitised world.

Equality of access to minority language assessments and interventions in immersion education

Abstract In the Republic of Ireland (RoI), Irish is recognised as the first official language of the state. The public has the right to conduct all business with the state solely through the medium of Irish if they wish. The reality, however, is that many government bodies only provide services in English. This article discusses the language used for assessments and interventions for students with special educational needs (SEN) in Irish-medium (IM) primary and post-primary schools in the RoI. A mixed methods study was conducted, with teachers from schools (n = 56) completing an online questionnaire at first and then teachers (n = 32) undertaking semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that students in IM schools are not being afforded access to services in Irish and many challenges exist for these schools when meeting the SEN of students. Recommendations are made around how to strengthen educational policy and practice to enable IM teachers meet the needs of all students.

Service satisfaction among a language minority: a randomized survey experiment on the satisfaction of Swedish-speaking Finns with early childhood education

Service satisfaction among a language minority: a randomized survey experiment on the satisfaction of Swedish-speaking Finns with early childhood education

Cultural metaphors of death in some Ewe proverbs

This study investigates the cultural significance of metaphors used in some Ewe proverbs on the schema of death. Employing the theoretical lens of cultural linguistics whose thrust is that aspects of a people’s culture can be unearthed through their use of language on any given topic, this study uses an aspect of this theory called cultural metaphors. Cultural metaphors are the implicit or explicit comparison of one idea or concept with another. A purposive sample of sixteen proverbs on the concept of death were collected from an anthology of Ewe proverbs, with the purpose of identifying the cultural metaphors used in these proverbs, and their significance. Findings reveal that the Ewe view death as not altogether bad and that one can defeat death with good deeds and gain immortality by qualifying to become an ancestor and live forever in the spirit realm. In addition, the Ewe acknowledge the unpredictability of and humanity’s helplessness before death. The implication for this study is that cultural linguistics is an effective tool for analysing proverbs. This framework should be adopted in investigating proverbs of minority languages as a way of preserving their cultures.