Patterns Of Language Use Research Articles

Coherent oscillations in word-use data from 1700 to 2008

AbstractIn written language, the choice of specific words is constrained by both grammatical requirements and the specific semantic context of the message to be transmitted. To a significant degree, the semantic context is in turn affected by a broad cultural and historical environment, which also influences matters of style and manners. Over time, those environmental factors leave an imprint in the statistics of language use, with some words becoming more common and other words being preferred less. Here we characterize the patterns of language use over time based on word statistics extracted from more than 4.5 million books written over a period of 308 years. We find evidence of novel systematic oscillatory patterns in word use with a consistent period narrowly distributed around 14 years. The specific phase relationships between different words show structure at two independent levels: first, there is a weak global phase modulation that is primarily linked to overall shifts in the vocabulary across time; and second, a stronger component dependent on well defined semantic relationships between words. In particular, complex network analysis reveals that semantically related words show strong phase coherence. Ultimately, these previously unknown patterns in the statistics of language may be a consequence of changes in the cultural framework that influences the thematic focus of writers.

Language use in Norwegian-Ukrainian multilingual couples

As a result of globalization, interpersonal relations are now being constructed across borders, cultures, and languages. Concurrent with this trend runs the emergence of English as the lingua franca. In the present study, the patterns of language use are examined in Norwegian-Ukrainian multilingual couples residing in Norway. The overarching objective of the project was to explore how these couples create their private lingua franca and engage in building their shared linguistic culture. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five couples. Most of them had adopted a pragmatic attitude to language choice, employing English as the strongest and fairest shared language and having recourse to code-switching when necessary. The process of common linguistic culture building in the participating couples is characterized by linguistic relaxedness.intercultural couple

A direct discourse-based approach to the study of language attitudes: The case of tussentaal in Flanders

In this paper, the results are reported of a perception study conducted in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. 80 informants were subjected to an interview in which direct language-related questions were asked about intralingual variation in Flanders in general, and the omnipresent variety tussentaal (lit. in-between-language) in specific. These interviews were analysed by means of a qualitative discourse-based approach, both looking at the explicit metalinguistic discourse of the respondents and at their implicit metalinguistic awareness. The study shows that tussentaal is not denounced (as is the case by many linguists), but instead characterised as a quite neutral and even desirable variety. On the basis of this case-study, the approach used is evaluated, and considered valuable for explaining patterns of language use, in this case the omnipresence of tussentaal in Flanders.

Code-Switching as a Multilingual Strategy in Conversations among Indonesian Graduate Dtudents in the US

Choosing what language to use and what cultural values to adopt may be problematic for international students undertaking cross-border studies in the U.S. This –problem occurs simply because the students bring with them the various cultural values and beliefs, and language-related identities with them in a new linguistic environment. This paper aims at identifying the major patterns of language use among Indonesian students in the U.S. and the reasons of Indonesian students in choosing particular languages in conversations. The study involved eighteen Indonesian students undertaking master and doctoral studies in some American universities. The survey and interview methods are used to gather the data. The results of the survey and interview disprove my previous prediction that the inter-or intrapersonal mechanism, such as community or institutional norms, accommodation, politeness, physical condition such as fatigue or laziness, and rationality may determine the speakers' language choices. This study indicated that that Indonesians in the U.S. might be aware of the importance of influences such as, cultural values that may directly or indirectly impact the language preference, and some unpredictable and violable arrangements for language choice, such as exclusion/inclusion of others in addition to the apparent communal perception of English as the accepted institutional and social password in the U.S. Additionally, I learned that the students' multilingual strategy was reflected in. their ability to 'play safe' in using the languages in multilingual interactions, by selecting the most comfortable languages in conversations without neglecting others who were within their earshot.

Heritage Language Self-Assessment: The Role of Cultural Identity and Language Domain

In this study, we investigated the role of cultural identity in self-assessment of heritage language skills for Korean heritage speakers in the U.S. The influence of a language domain i.e., speaking vs. writing, on self-assessment outcomes was also examined. Thirty Korean- American participants completed questionnaires on their language background, cultural identity, and self-rating of Korean speaking and writing skills. Speech and writing samples in Korean were then elicited with picture stimuli. Results of the self-assessment were closely related, but not identical, to those of the formal assessment, which suggests the potential of self-assessment as a complementary assessment tool in heritage language learning to provide information not obtained from other traditional types of assessment. In addition, bicultural identity was a strong predictor for self-assessment of speaking and writing in Korean. While the heritage speakers’ reported language exposure before age 5 and current patterns of language use predicted the self-assessment of speaking, the quality of output from external assessment was a strong predictor for the self-assessment of writing in Korean.

Vertical peer supervision of consultation: A linguistic exploration of relational hierarchy

The language used in consultation supervision by one supervisor-in-training (SIT) and five consultant-in-training (CIT) supervisees during one semester of consultation training in a doctoral-level school psychology program is investigated. Exploratory analyses conducted with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software measured SIT and CIT use of pronouns, and summary variables of Analytical Thinking, Clout, Authenticity, and Emotional Tone. Patterns of language use in sessions and changes in patterns over time suggest a hierarchical supervision dynamic despite supervision being offered by a fellow trainee. Implications for consultation supervision in a vertical training model are offered.

Applied Linguistics Research at the Service of Classroom Practices: Bridging Connections

<span>Introduction to Issue</span><br />

The Role of Associations in Vocabulary Acquisition: A Psycholinguistic Study on Indian ESL Learners

Learning English as a second language is an area of study which demands persistent research, probing and application of the findings. In India, English language is a part of everyday life, and the exposure to English vocabulary comes through a multitude of sources which include media, game applications and social networking among others. In many instances, even complicated and less frequent words are made familiar by these sources. However, the learners of ESL struggle for a good choice of words when they are in a situation to use the language. This has led the researcher to question how the process of vocabulary acquisition happens and how the acquired words are organised and stored. The current research is a psycholinguistic analysis of the way words are organised and associated with each other in the mental lexicon of the learners. The researcher attempts to study the role and impact of associations in vocabulary acquisition through an experimental study. The participants of the study are 120 Indian ESL learners enrolled for an undergraduate programme. They were tested with two methods of teaching vocabulary, namely the word definition method and semantic cluster method. The outcome of the study is discussed in the research paper.
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 Fitzpatrick, T. (2006). Habits and rabbits: Word associations and the L2 lexicon. EUROSLA Yearbook 2006, 6, 121–45.
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 Sahgal, A. (1991). Patterns of language use in a bilingual setting in India. In: J. Cheshire, ed. English around the world: Sociolinguistic perspectives. (pp. 299–307). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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 Singleton, D. (1999). Exploring the Second Language Mental Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.V. Kavitha, Padmasani Kannan

Language ideology and the linguistic landscape

Sociolinguistics as an interdisciplinary science joins language and society to provide knowledge on their relationship and interaction. Language planners and policy makers can use this science to make accurate decisions. This study examined language policy and the strategies used by the public to shape the linguistic landscape of Petaling Jaya, in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. The study focused on the patterns of language use on private and government signage to examine whether the top-down language policy, was being complied with. The samplings included 400 photographs of signboards of shops, restaurants, internet cafes, and offices. Results suggested that majority of signboards are bilingual or multilingual. Sign users apparently comply with the official policy particularly with regard to the national language Bahasa Melayu (BM) in terms of font size and language sequencing. However, some shopkeepers tend to use strategies to circumvent the policy. Simultaneous accommodation and resistance to the official policy characterizes these strategies, some of which are driven by commercial motives. A common approach is to create names in the English language. A recurrent strategy is that of using multiple codes or languages on a single signboard. We conclude that power apparently sets the tone for language ideology on signboards, and that language ideology in Malaysia ‘serves to rationalize existing social structures and dominant linguistic practices, particularly through their institutionalization in official language policy’ (Lanza and Woldemariam, 2009: 189). However, we suggest that it is important that policies with regard to linguistic landscape be based on sociolinguistic science including cultural, racial and political demands.

Race, religion and the city: twitter word frequency patterns reveal dominant demographic dimensions in the United States

AbstractRecently, numerous approaches have emerged in the social sciences to exploit the opportunities made possible by the vast amounts of data generated by online social networks (OSNs). Having access to information about users on such a scale opens up a range of possibilities—from predicting individuals’ demographics and health status to their beliefs and political opinions—all without the limitations associated with often slow and expensive paper-based polls. A question that remains to be satisfactorily addressed, however, is how demography is represented in OSN content—that is, what are the relevant aspects that constitute detectable large-scale patterns in language? Here, we study language use in the United States using a corpus of text compiled from over half a billion geotagged messages from the online microblogging platform Twitter. Our intention is to reveal the most important spatial patterns in language use in an unsupervised manner and relate them to demographics. Our approach is based on Latent Semantic Analysis augmented with the Robust Principal Component Analysis methodology, which permits identification of the data’s main sources of variation with an automatic filtering of noise and outliers without influencing results by a priori assumptions. We find spatially correlated patterns that can be interpreted based on the words associated with them. The main language features can be related to slang use, urbanization, travel, religion and ethnicity, the patterns of which are shown to correlate plausibly with traditional census data. Apart from the standard measure of linear correlation, some relations seem to be better explained by Boolean implications, suggesting a threshold-like behaviour where demographic variables influence the users’ word use. Our findings validate the concept of demography being represented in OSN language use and show that the traits observed are inherently present in the word frequencies without any previous assumptions about the dataset. They therefore could form the basis of further research focusing on the evaluation of demographic data estimation from other big data sources, or on the dynamical processes that result in the patterns identified here.

Language use and identity in the Cuban community in Russia

ABSTRACTA significant body of research has begun to explore the association between language and identity, a relationship that becomes more complex when considering multilingual communities. Important for this field, a number of studies have examined the interrelation between language and identity in the Cuban population in the USA, a case in which dominant (English) and minority language (Spanish) interaction has largely resulted in language maintenance and a positive correlation between language use and ethnic identity. While the Cuban population in Russia shares cultural and historical background with the well-studied US Cuban community, key differences allow for the examination of the role of several external factors (e.g. community size, lack of contact with monolingual speakers) on patterns of language use and identity. Employing quantitative survey methods and qualitative sociolinguistic interviews, the present study examines language use and language identity in the Cuban community in Russia, including both first and second-generation speakers. In contrast with the US Cuban community, results illustrate a shift towards the dominant language (Russian). Considering language and identity, results show the development of a dual identity, particularly among the second-generation speakers. The contribution of external factors on patterns of language use and identity is discussed.

Language Use and Violence: Assessing the Relationship Between Linguistic Context and Macrolevel Violence

Scholars have produced a sizable body of research assessing the macrolevel links between immigration and crime. However, researchers have given far less attention to related questions about the effects of language use on aggregate levels of violence. The current study addresses this gap in research by exploring the ways that patterns of language use—specifically, language heterogeneity and Spanish‐language concentration—are related to year 2010 serious violent crime rates for nearly 2,900 census places across the United States. Results of our analysis reveal that linguistic heterogeneity is associated with increased violence and that this relationship is stronger in disadvantaged contexts. In contrast, Spanish‐language concentration appears to be protective against violence and mitigates the violence‐generating effects of structural disadvantage, net of immigration and other macrostructural characteristics. Implications of these findings for research on immigration, communities and crime, and related theoretical perspectives on immigrant revitalization and macrostructural theories of crime are discussed.

Perceptions of Palestine: The View from Large Linguistic Datasets

Cultural norms and trends are often reflected in patterns of language use. This article explores cultural perceptions of Palestine and Palestinians in the English-speaking world, through two analyses of large linguistic datasets. The first analysis seeks to uncover current conceptions of participants in the Israel-Palestine conflict, by identifying words that are distinctively associated with those participants in modern English usage. The second analysis asks what historical-cultural changes led to these current conceptions. A general theme that emerges from these analyses is that a cultural shift appears to have occurred recently in the English-speaking world, marked by greater awareness of Palestinian perspectives on the conflict. Possible causes for such a cultural shift are also explored.

The patterns of language choice at the border of Malaysia-Thailand

Any activities conducted at the boundary area between countries will only be successful if the community of speakers has mutual understanding in terms of language, especially those involving business. This study focuses on a community in the northern part of Malaysia near the Thailand border where majority of people are bilingual in Malay and Thai. This study aims to investigate the patterns of language used by speakers in the Malaysia-Thailand border, in the context of language maintenance and language shift. Both countries use different languages; with Malaysians use Malay and the Thais use Thai language. In this cross-border context, activities pertaining to business, visit or personal matters will have an impact on the development of the two languages. This study presents the findings on the language choice from a survey involving 202 respondents that was conducted in two border towns at the Malaysia-Thailand border, namely Rantau Panjang (Malaysian side) and Golok (Thailand side). By utilizing the domain concept that was introduced by Fishman (1972), this study focuses on two domains namely, business and family. In addition to the questionnaire, participant observations and interviews were also conducted as supplements. The data on the patterns of language choice were analyzed statistically. The findings show that although Malaysians and Thais speak two different languages, Kelantanese dialect, which is a variety of the standard Malay, was the most dominant language at the border. This study also found that age was a significant factor in determining the patterns of language use. The younger generations were using Kelantanese dialect and Thai language in domains where older people would only use Kelantanese dialect. This points to the occurrence of language shift at the border. However, the community at the Thai side of the border tends to choose Kelantanese dialect in their daily activities, which seems to indicate language maintenance in this area. These findings suggest that language can serve as a marker of identity, especially for those communities in Golok as most of them are originally from Malaysia. Finally, this study has contributed empirical data on language usage at the Malaysia-Thailand border.

Inside the Shop Names: Hybridity, Language Awareness and Globalization in the Linguistic Landscape of a Local Commercial Neighborhood in Bangkok

The present study explores the patterns of language use and the influence of English on the shop names in the linguistic landscape of Si Yan market, a local commercial neighborhood in Bangkok, Thailand with respect to script, lexicon and syntax. Using photographs and interviews with the business owners as sources of data, analysis of the language in shop names showed that a combination of Thai script, lexicon and syntax were found most often, followed by shop names with a mix of Thai and English script, lexicon and/or syntax. Shop names written with English script, lexicon and syntax were a distant third. Shop names written in English script with Thai lexicon or syntax were not found in the area. The interviews with the business owners revealed that most of the creators of the shop names with a combination of Thai and English script, lexicon or syntax were not aware of the presence of English in the shop names. This study suggests that English lexical borrowing and the hybridization of language provide evidence not only of the globalization of English but also of the subconscious nature of the pervasive influence of English on Thai.

Directionality of Language-Mixing in Bilinguals with Non-Fluent Aphasia

Directionality of Language-Mixing in Bilinguals with Non-Fluent Aphasia

Is There a Cognitive Advantage for Spanish Heritage Bilinguals? A First Look

We report the findings from an ongoing study on the relationship between bilinguals’ language experience and cognitive control. Previous research suggests that early bilingualism exerts an advantage on executive control, possibly due to the cognitive requirements involved in the daily juggling of two languages (Adesope, Lavin, Thompson, & Ungerleider, 2010). However, other researchers also have argued against a cognitive control advantage in bilinguals (Hilchey & Klein, 2011). It remains unclear whether cognitive benefits hold true for bilinguals across different contexts, given differences in sociolinguistic and socioeducational settings that shape individual bilingualism. In the current study, following Costa, Hernández and Sebastián-Gallés (2008) who tested Catalan-Spanish bilinguals, young adult simultaneous heritage bilinguals and late classroom emerging bilinguals of Spanish in the U.S. completed three blocks of the Attentional Network Task (ANT) (Fan, McCandliss, Sommer, Raz, & Posner, 2002) to gauge executive control abilities. Results for the executive network component of the ANT reveal no significant differences between the two bilingual groups, although the descriptive data trend suggests that HL bilinguals experienced less difficulty in solving conflicting information and demonstrated fewer switching costs between trials. These first findings imply that the bilingual advantage is not replicated across contexts, and that socioeducational practices determine individual patterns of language use, which in turn leads to variation in cognitive outcomes.

Multilingual practices in Nigerian army barracks

The aim of this study was to analyse the multilingual practices in Nigerian army barracks with a view to showing the sociolinguistic profile of the Nigerian army barracks, establishing the patterns of language use of the Nigerian army and demonstrating how they make use of language choice in different domains to express multiple identities. Data were collected from 46 military men comprising soldiers and officers in four army barracks through face-to-face interviews, observation and questionnaire. The study revealed that army barracks are profoundly multilingual settings in which soldiers and officers had at least a minimum of three languages in their repertoire. It was also found out that most of the soldiers and officers are receptive multilinguals as the majority of them can speak English, Nigerian Pidgin English, their own native language but also understand the indigenous languages of other soldiers and officers. Furthermore, it was shown that the army engaged in functional differentiation of the languages in their repertoire as each of the languages they had competence in was being used in a specific domain. Finally, the study showed that our participants expressed their occupational, ethnic and religious identities through language choice.

When experience meets language statistics: Individual variability in processing English compound words.

Statistical patterns of language use demonstrably affect language comprehension and language production. This study set out to determine whether the variable amount of exposure to such patterns leads to individual differences in reading behavior as measured via eye-movements. Previous studies have demonstrated that more proficient readers are less influenced by distributional biases in language (e.g., frequency, predictability, transitional probability) than poor readers. We hypothesized that a probabilistic bias that is characteristic of written but not spoken language would preferentially affect readers with greater exposure to printed materials in general and to the specific pattern engendering the bias. Readers of varying reading experience were presented with sentences including English compound words that can occur in 2 spelling formats with differing probabilities: concatenated (windowsill, used 40% of the time) or spaced (window sill, 60%). Linear mixed effects multiple regression models fitted to the eye-movement measures showed that the probabilistic bias toward the presented spelling had a stronger facilitatory effect on compounds that occurred more frequently (in any spelling) or belonged to larger morphological families, and on readers with higher scores on a test of exposure-to-print. Thus, the amount of support toward the compound's spelling is effectively exploited when reading, but only when the spelling patterns are entrenched in an individual's mental lexicon via overall exposure to print and to compounds with alternating spelling. We argue that research on the interplay of language use and structure is incomplete without proper characterization of how particular individuals, with varying levels of experience and skill, learn these language structures.

Writing a report

Reading and writing informational genres is a literacy skill highly valued in school, workplace and society. One key to the development of this skill is mastering the lexicogrammatical resources that are functional for realizing these genres. Drawing on a genre-based theory of learning and using analytical tools provided by systemic functional linguistics, this cross-sectional longitudinal study examined patterns of language use in Grades 3–5 students’ writing of report, an informational genre whose main function is to present factual information on a topic. Quantitative and descriptive analyses of their written reports on a common, familiar science topic reveal that the preadolescents demonstrated considerable expertise in instantiating certain features of report (e.g. timelessness, non-particularization), but were much less successful in using language to construe its other features (e.g. technicality, density, thing-focus, abstraction, objectivity). Instead, the students tended to draw on the grammatical resources of everyday spontaneous speech, presenting information in an interactive, non-authoritative and unconventionally structured manner. Furthermore, while considerable variation existing between and within the three grade levels in the students’ working knowledge of report, no clear, consistent developmental pattern emerged from the analyses. In fact, the development seems best characterized as non-linear and feature-specific. These findings raise a number of important developmental and pedagogical issues that have practical implications for language and literacy educators.