Non-standard Varieties Research Articles

The Structure and usages of future forms in Classical Sinhalese Literature

This research paper is presented to identify the morphological and practical approaches to the future verb appearing in the prose language of classical Sinhalese. According to records, five formations of the future verb can be identified. This shows that the future verbs of the Sinhalese language were not clearly identifiable in classical literature. Therefore, it is possible to observe how different formations were used to convey the same linguistic meaning. There are two future formations in the traditional standard grammar of Sinhalese. According to the facts found in religious texts which were written in the Classical Sinhalese Period, some other formations of future verbs are realized. This research is mainly based on the qualitative research method. The data is collected from primary and secondary resources. The future forms used in the Classical Sinhalese Period are taken into account in this research. The religious texts such as Dharma Pradīpikā, Amāvaturǝ, Butsarǝɳǝ, Pūɟāvəlijə, Saddharmə Ratnāvəlijə, and Pansijəpaɳas Ɉātəkə Potə are considered as main primary resources in the research. These literary works which were written in the Classical Sinhalese Period have been selected for the research because they represent the written and spoken varieties, the standard and non-standard varieties of the Sinhalese language. The data collected from the texts is categorized and analyzed according to the relevant formations of the future tense. According to the facts found in the above-mentioned religious texts, there are five formations of future forms. They are as follows: the future form with future meaning, the future form with present meaning, the adverb of (future) time with the future verb form, the adverb of (future) time with the present verb form and the representation of the future meaning by the present form. Therefore, two future formations of traditional grammar are developed up to five in the Classical Sinhalese literature.

Analysis of sounds and spellings based on RP [i:] in the nineteenth-century Lancashire vernacular

Northern dialects and the Lancashire vernacular have been substantially represented in literature. Regional literature is principally classified into dialect literature and literary dialect. The former is addressed to a limited readership as it comprises those novels, plays and poems that are entirely composed in a non-standard variety. The latter relates to the literary production which is for the most part written in standard English, except the characters’ dialogues that are marked with a particular variety. This last approach is considered to be a useful tool for linguists in dialect study. This paper analyses the sounds and spellings related to the FLEECE lexical set in the nineteenth-century Lancashire vernacular, according to Wells’s classification (1982) for words containing RP [i:]. To this end, several nineteenth-century literary dialect works were compiled and studied. In this endeavor, the deviant spellings associated with RP [i:] are gathered and attributed to their pronunciations in the dialect. The present paper examines the coexistence of sounds for FLEECE on the grounds of historical and sociolinguistic reasons.
 Keywords: Lancashire dialect; literary dialect; deviant spellings; dialect sounds; FLEECE lexical set

Revolt against standard language: requirements for language of literature and Jan Zábrana’s stories

Abstract The language of literary texts is a complex and multiform phenomenon. One of the problems connected with it is the employment of non-standard linguistic varieties. This paper focuses on the especial situation in Czech culture in the 1950s. In that decade, literary critics and linguists strictly required the use of Standard Czech and the restriction of non-standard varieties in literary texts. On the other hand, various inedited works were written the language of which was based on the so-called Common Czech, colloquialisms and slangs. The main part of the paper describes the language of stories by Jan Zábrana (from the years 1954 to 1957) in relation to the official requirements. Zábrana’s stories (published posthumously in the 1990s) represent a radical denying of these requirements. Zábrana depicts spontaneous and informal spoken communication that differs from the idea of cultivated standard expression. Both the figures and the narrator consistently use nonstandard linguistic means and colloquial lexicon (including vulgarisms).

Juegos con propósito para la anotación delCorpus Oral Sonoro del Español rural

AbstractThe study of dialectal microvariation in spoken Spanish faces challenges due to the absence of an adequate morpho-syntactically annotated and parsed corpus. Therefore, this article introduces a novel technique, a game-based approach, for creating resources for non-standard Spanish language varieties. The article provides an overview of the progress in designing three Games With A Purpose (GWAPs) prototypes, to wit, Agentes, Tesoros, andAnotatlón. These games aim to facilitate the confirmation and correction of the morpho-syntactic tagging task of theCOSER-AP(Corpus Oral y Sonoro del Español Rural-Anotado y Parseado, ‘Annotated and Parsed Audible Corpus of Spoken Rural Spanish’). First, the article presents the methodology used to build the games. Second, it offers a detailed description of the implemented Game Design Elements (GDEs). Finally, the article discusses the results of a pilot evaluation that assesses player enjoyment and the linguistic accuracy. Findings are promising, withTesorosandAnotatlóndemonstrating high levels of enjoyment. Additionally,Agentesproves to be effective in collecting a large number of annotations. The linguistic accuracy also shows potential benefits of gamified approaches in linguistic annotation tasks. However, it also emphasizes the importance of considering regional in player assessment and training them in multidialectal contexts.

Is ‘he’ still here?

Abstract Various non-standard language varieties in the Netherlands traditionally allow for the use of masculine personal subject pronouns (i.e. regionally distinct variants of hij ‘he’) in reference to women. While this practice is well-documented within Dutch dialectology, especially during the twentieth century, it is unclear to what extent this feature still exists nowadays. Moreover, the use of masculine subject forms for female reference has not previously been described for Limburgian dialects. This paper offers a start to filling these gaps, by providing insight into the contemporary use of ‘he’ for women in Dutch dialects, with a specific focus on occurrences in Dutch Limburg. We report on a Twitter query and three interviews, showing (i) that the use of ‘he’ for women still exists in various Dutch dialects, and (ii) how native speakers of a Limburgian dialect use and perceive this feature of their dialect.

On the Nature of Verbal Non-Local Doubling in Patagonian Spanish

The main objective in this study is to describe and offer an account of verbal non-local doubling in Patagonian Spanish (PatSp), an understudied non-standard variety of Spanish in Argentina. We focus on data in which there are duplicated verbs surrounding an XP that bears the nuclear accent of the phrase (XPNA). First, our analysis describes the prosodic, semantic, and morphosyntactic behaviour of the data gathered. Second, we present the problems and challenges that doubling phenomena in PatSp pose for approaches that have tried to explain similar data in other Spanish varieties and other languages, such as the copy theory or prosodic cloning. Third, this work explores a biclausal analysis of verbal non-local doubling in PatSp in which each duplicate originates in a different clause, CP1 and CP2. In this approach, duplicated verbs (V1 and V2, according to their linear distribution) are not derivationally related. We also argue that the XPNA moves to the left periphery of CP2. This movement would account for the three typical traits of verbal duplication in PatSp: the mandatory adjacency between the nuclear accent and V2, the non-locality between verbal duplicates, and the semantic value of mirativity.

Investigating Indonesian language varieties in social media interactions: Implications to teaching practices

Social media users come from various circles with different social and cultural statuses which will bring up diverse language variations. Additionally, language variations in speech events on social media certainly have characteristics that are distinctive and different from speech events in general. This study aimed at investigating types and forms of Indonesian language varieties occurred in speech events on social media. A quantitative and qualitative approaches was applied to accomplish the research objective. The quantitative approach was carried out using content analysis. The qualitative approach used was based on sociolinguistic theory. The research data were collected using the listening method (uninvolved conversation observation technique, recording technique, note-taking technique) and questionnaire method. The data were analyzed using the content analysis method to determine the form and percentage of language variety used in speech events on social media. In addition, Miles and Huberman's model was also used for data reduction, verification, conclusion drawing. The research found that language varieties in speech events on social media was not dominated by non-standard varieties, and inter-language mixture (code switching and code mixing). The characteristics of speech events on social media use, among others, informal language, daily-conversation language, unnatural context, and shortened writing. The results implied that the variety of language use on social media has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, it is necessary to research the use of codes, politeness, or hate speech on social media. Moreover, opportunities are also open to research the use of social media for language learning.

Hungarian as a minority and majority language in different language policy contexts

ABSTRACT This study primarily focuses on the situation of Hungarians in minority situations in relation to language varieties, i.e. it interprets the various language policy issues primarily in the context of the Hungarian-speaking community, rather than in the context of Hungary, where the place, role and relationship between standard and non-standard language dialects play a prominent role. In most cases, the preservation of Hungarian identity is equivalent to the preservation of non-standard language varieties, in relation to which several language policy and language planning issues arise. The aim of the study is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to provide an up-to-date overview of the language policy situation of the Hungarian language and the Hungarian language community, especially with regard to the Hungarian autochthonous minority of about 3 million people who live in the countries neighbouring Hungary. On the other hand, the study describes the language policy role of dialects and the related attitudes from the perspective of the entire Hungarian language community, addressing the macro-, meso- and micro-level language planning possibilities.

The impact of non-standard varieties of isiZulu language learning on students’ performance at a university of technology in Gauteng

The impact of non-standard varieties of isiZulu language learning on students’ performance at a university of technology (UoT) in Gauteng incorporates the investigation of the positive and negative impacts that non-standard varieties may have in isiZulu language learning and the interference of non-standard varieties with its correct standard usage. The researchers purposefully sampled 85 respondents (80 students, three lecturers and two Department of Arts and Culture workers) at a UoT. They used a mixed-methods approach, including both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. The responses from 60 questionnaires, 15 interviews and 10 proficiency tests form a sociolinguistic profile of the non-standard varieties at a UoT. The dissemination of questionnaires, interviews and proficiency tests occurred almost simultaneously. A quantitative approach was used to analyse the qualitative questionnaire data, based on the frequency of response type as a percentage. The article reveals that non-standard varieties have both a positive and negative impact on isiZulu language learning and that non-standard varieties interfere with the correct usage of a standard language. The article concludes that this interference of non-standard varieties in isiZulu language learning is the cause of students’ poor performance.

Challenges Facing Mpondo Learners in Learning Standard Xhosa: Teachers’ Perspectives

Granting equal opportunities to non-standard and standard language learners is unfair practice, since these two language groups are expected to achieve the same outcomes at the end of their school career. Learners who speak a non-standard variety of a language are at a disadvantage in classrooms that promote the standard language and face struggles such as differences in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, syntax, orthography, and discourse style. The current study exposed the challenges Mpondo-speaking learners face in learning the Xhosa standard language through the eyes of their teachers and subject advisors. The study was qualitative and a case study design was followed. Three Xhosa subject advisors and three Xhosa teachers were purposively sampled to provide data for the study. The findings showed that Mpondo-speaking learners were not exposed to the Xhosa standard language outside of the classroom context. The results also indicated that since Mpondo is a language that learners learn before going to school, it conflicted with Xhosa vocabulary and complicated the life of Mpondo-speaking learners when learning the new language, Xhosa. The results also showed that Mpondo-speaking learners received penalties in terms of marks allocation. They were punished for using their mother tongue. Finally, the findings revealed that Xhosa teachers and Xhosa subject advisors were of the view that using a dialect and standard language simultaneously in the classroom could minimise the challenges experienced by Mpondo learners.

What Did(n’t) Happen to English?: A Re-evaluation of Some Contact Explanations in Early English

McWhorter (2002) argued that contact with Norse caused simplifications in English grammar that set English apart from other Germanic languages. This paper focuses on one of the losses McWhorter attributed to the linguistic impact of the Scandinavian invasions, External Possessors. An investigation of electronic Old and Early Middle English corpora reveals that the construction was already on the decline in the Old English period, and that Norse contact cannot explain the Early Middle English data. There is no support for the view that the loss of the construction spread from the Scandinavianized areas southwards. The facts are consistent with the view that while Celtic influence did not cause the loss of the construction in Old English, Celtic speakers shifting to English may have played a role in triggering the initial decline of the construction. Study of non-standard variants of other Germanic languages is needed to increase our understanding of the history of External Possessor constructions in those languages.

The use value of Turkish loanwords in contemporary Serbian standard and colloquıal language

Turkish loanwords are an indispensable part of the Serbian vocabulary, represented in literary language as well as in everyday communication. After the interlinguistic contact between the Serbian and Turkish language has ended, some turkisms became archaic; others remained unchanged, while some began to develop their semantic meanings according to the nature and logic of the Serbian language. The period of Serbian history as part of the Ottoman Empire has left deep traces, not only in the language, but also in the collective memory of the Serbian people. For those very reasons, the use of turkisms is of great importance for the stylistic and emotional-expressive markings of language utterances. The use values of lexemes of Turkish etymology are present at all levels of the language, and manifest itself especially in the non-standard language varieties, such as: vernacular, colloquial and slang. Also, a large number of those varieties have a slightly or completely different meaning from their equivalent in the standard Serbian language, and some of those semantic values are not even listed in dictionaries. These, and other characteristics that are outside the scope of normative standards of the Serbian language, are indicators of the complexity for the usage of turkisms and their value.

István Kótyuk and the Hungarian dialects of Transcarpathia

István Kótyuk is known as a versatile scholar in Transcarpathia and beyond the borders of his homeland. He is known to dialectologists primarily as a researcher of the Ung-Vidék dialect and of Ukrainian vocabulary, to lexicographers as a researcher of the Ukrainian-Hungarian and Hungarian-Ukrainian dictionary database edited by István Udvari, and to literary scholars as a literary translator. István Kótyuk is known among Transcarpathian Hungarians primarily as a textbook writer. We would like to talk about István Kótyuk as a dialectologist and Transcarpathian representative of applied dialectology. István Kótyuk published his first studies in various university publications and conference proceedings in Uzhhorod, and in 1974 he defended his thesis on Ukrainian dialects of the lower Ung River in Hungarian dialects. At the time, it was not possible to publish the thesis in print, and the few copies of the typed manuscript were difficult for specialists to access. It was well known that István Kótyuk was very fond of plants, especially flowers. He was not only interested in the care of plants, but also in their names. István Kótyuk took part in the linguistic-geographical research and landscape collections of the Hungarian Department in Uzhhorod. In addition to his work on dialect research, István Kótyuk also played a significant role in the practical application of the Hungarian language, in the implementation of the reform of mother tongue teaching and in the development of the theoretical background. As the leader of the working group that developed the Hungarian language curriculum in 2005, he considered it important to emphasise the issue of dialects and local language varieties. István Kótyuk has combined the traditions of classical dialectology with the main goals of applied dialectology in the study of dialects in Transcarpathian Hungarian: the results of his scientific research have been widely disseminated and used in practice through his textbooks. Independently of the official guides, he conveyed an objective, rational approach to non-standard varieties in the manuals he wrote, thus increasing the prestige of local language varieties.

Incorporating automatic speech recognition methods into the transcription of police-suspect interviews: factors affecting automatic performance

IntroductionIn England and Wales, transcripts of police-suspect interviews are often admitted as evidence in courts of law. Orthographic transcription is a time-consuming process and is usually carried out by untrained transcribers, resulting in records that contain summaries of large sections of the interview and paraphrased speech. The omission or inaccurate representation of important speech content could have serious consequences in a court of law. It is therefore clear that investigation into better solutions for police-interview transcription is required. This paper explores the possibility of incorporating automatic speech recognition (ASR) methods into the transcription process, with the goal of producing verbatim transcripts without sacrificing police time and money. We consider the potential viability of automatic transcripts as a “first” draft that would be manually corrected by police transcribers. The study additionally investigates the effects of audio quality, regional accent, and the ASR system used, as well as the types and magnitude of errors produced and their implications in the context of police-suspect interview transcripts.MethodsSpeech data was extracted from two forensically-relevant corpora, with speakers of two accents of British English: Standard Southern British English and West Yorkshire English (a non-standard regional variety). Both a high quality and degraded version of each file was transcribed using three commercially available ASR systems: Amazon, Google, and Rev.ResultsSystem performance varied depending on the ASR system and the audio quality, and while regional accent was not found to significantly predict word error rate, the distribution of errors varied substantially across the accents, with more potentially damaging errors produced for speakers of West Yorkshire English.DiscussionThe low word error rates and easily identifiable errors produced by Amazon suggest that the incorporation of ASR into the transcription of police-suspect interviews could be viable, though more work is required to investigate the effects of other contextual factors, such as multiple speakers and different types of background noise.

Tense-aspect constructions in Jish Arabic: Morphological, syntactic, and semantic features

This paper aims to examine the present and past tense-aspect constructions in Jish Arabic, an undocumented Arabic variety of Upper Galilee (Israel), and delineate their morphological, syntactic, and semantic features. Nine such constructions are identified, and the structure of each construction is discussed. In addition, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach (NSM), an explication (a definition using simple words) of the meaning of each construction is presented. In discussing the Jish Arabic constructions, a comparison is made with their English counterparts, which are chosen as a familiar point of reference. The comparison with English does not make the explications prone to Anglocentrism, as the explications are built via a simple, universal language. This language ensures their translatability into Jish Arabic and their verification by native Jish Arabic speakers. In addition, it makes their meanings accessible to non-specialists, as the explications can be translated into any language. This study can be seen as a contribution to the field of theoretical linguistics, particularly descriptive linguistics, as it documents the tense-aspect constructions of an undocumented variety. In addition, it can be seen as a contribution to the field of applied linguistics, especially as it compares these constructions to their English counterparts. It is hoped that this paper will stimulate the investigation of tense-aspect constructions in other non-standard Arabic varieties, most of which are undocumented.

COMPARISON OF THE DYNAMIC PROPERTIES OF THE UNDERFLOOR WHEEL LATHES BODIES

The research results presented in this article are important because information on machine tools for machining wheelsets is scarce in the literature, due to technical limitations related to large machine tool dimensions, a limited number of manufacturers and non-standard variants. This paper presents the findings of experimental and finite element method (FEM) simulation studies on the vibration of bodies used in Underfloor Wheel Lathes. Two bodies, varying in shape, dimensions, and weight, were examined, with their common characteristics being their purpose, material (cast iron), and casting technology. The bodies underwent experimental and numerical modal analyses to determine damping coefficients as a function of vibration frequency. The study was conducted on both free-suspended bodies and bodies positioned and leveled on a foundation. The results of the experimental and numerical tests were compared, showing good convergence in terms of natural vibration frequency and form.

Housing policy and linguistic profiling: An audit study of three American dialects

The 1968 Fair Housing Act protects consumers from discrimination based on membership in protected classes, such as their gender, race, and ability. There is a large gap, however, between what this policy seeks to protect and the lived experiences of certain individuals, since many listeners continue to link the production of non-Standard speech varieties with social stereotypes. In light of the findings of Purnell et al. (1999), who demonstrated that such judgments negatively affect housing access, this study was designed to determine if linguistic profiling remains observable in the contemporary housing market. Through an audit of ninety publicly listed rental properties in three demographically heterogeneous Knoxville, TN, neighborhoods, the study analyzed the effects of using three different American dialects: African American Language (AAL), Mainstream US English (MUSE), and Southern American (SA). A single, multidialectal speaker asked property managers questions about each unit and neighborhood. The outcomes were assessed in terms of (i) the caller’s success in gaining an appointment to view the property and (ii) the relation of dialect and neighborhood to the phenomenon of local prestige A key finding is that using non-Standard voices produces significantly better outcomes in neighborhoods with demographics that match those of the indexed social characteristics of the given non-Standard speech variety (e.g. Blackness with AAL in zip code 37914). Results from an attribute assessment are also reported, revealing how general listeners categorize and respond to speech used in the audit study. Analyses of attribute assessments reveal that three very different character profiles emerge from a single person’s speech varieties. These results have stark policy implications, as these linguistic profiles develop without listeners having made accurate or consistent identification of social information—like the race of the speaker—in their percepts. Federal antidiscrimination policy must be adjusted to protect individuals who experience voice-based oppression—in the housing market and across institutions. This study adds to the growing evidence such individuals can use to challenge FHA violations in voice-only contexts.*

Bairisch verstehen – auf Hochdeutsch reagieren. Strategien zum Aufbau einer rezeptiven Varietätenkompetenz für (tschechische) DaF-Lerner

Based on previous studies discussing the thematization of German dialects in lessons of German as a foreign language within and outside the German speaking countries, the article outlines a didactic concept for building receptive variety competence of Czech learners of German towards the diatopic varieties of German spoken in the Free State of Bavaria. Using the example of the North and Middle Bavarian dialects, it will be demonstrated how the Bavarian-Austrian loan vocabulary present in the Czech non-standard varieties can be used didactically to enable learners to overcome the phonetic distance between dialect and standard language, which is the main barrier to comprehension. In this respect, the learners’ inner multilingualism is used to differentiate their outer multilingualism. The current foreign German studies background to the concept is the establishment of interdisciplinary Bavarian Studies at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (2019) whose curriculum provides a more profound receptive study of the dialects of Bavaria.

LexSIC

It has been increasingly acknowledged that regional languages and dialects bear similarities with heritage languages, and that some heritage speakers are bilectal with two closely related minority languages or dialects. However, assessing the knowledge of non-standard varieties proves difficult due to the lack of assessment materials. Our contribution documents the creation and validation of LexSIC, a yes/no vocabulary task, a placement test for speakers with receptive and/or productive skills in Sicilian. The materials are freely available. The vocabulary items were validated in a survey with 100 speakers of Italian, who had varying levels of proficiency in Sicilian, including bilectal heritage speakers in Germany. We have relied on Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT) in validating test items and we demonstrate and discuss correlations with self-reported measures of proficiency, language use, age and education. A comparison of vocabulary proficiency in bilectals with Italian and Sicilian proficiency further shows that the two are highly correlated, which underlines a cumulative enhancement of vocabulary proficiency in bilectals. We discuss the challenges in creating assessment materials in minority languages and dialects.

Multidialectal and multilingual translanguaging in L2 Arabic classrooms: teachers’ beliefs vs. actual practices

This study adopts a multidialectal and multilingual translanguaging perspective to explore the relationship between beliefs and actual linguistic practices concerning multilingual and multidialectal practices among L2 Arabic teachers in Islamic independent schools in Sydney, NSW, Australia. To this end, the study draws on class observations and individual interviews. The findings show a clear mismatch between teachers’ beliefs about the use of English and their actual employment of it in the classroom. The majority of the teachers indicated that English should be either limited or totally avoided in the L2 Arabic classroom, but class observations showed that (a) English was utilized in all 11 classes, and (b) it was used significantly more than Arabic in nine of these classes. As for multidialectal practices, although most of the teachers believed that the use of non-standard varieties along with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) should be limited, findings were inconclusive due to the fact that English was found to be the main medium of communication in the majority of the observed classes. Therefore, the study underscores the need for providing teacher training that demonstrates how to purposefully deploy multilingual and multidialectal translanguaging to help learners enrich their linguistic repertoire in their desired L2.