Social Language Research Articles

Language Socialization in Classrooms: Culture, Interaction, and Language Development, edited by Matthew J. Burdelski and Kathryn M. Howard

Language Socialization in Classrooms: Culture, Interaction, and Language Development, edited by Matthew J. Burdelski and Kathryn M. Howard

Their Words, Their World: A Paradigm for Culturally Relevant Family-Centered Intervention

Purpose:This clinical focus article examines the relevant research regarding culturally responsive practices and its application in early intervention for communication disorders. Authors describe the ways in which language socialization varies by culture and the impact of family-centered intervention for communication development on this process. The profound mismatch of racial, cultural, and linguistic characteristics of the professional workforce and the families served is noteworthy. Speech-language pathologists and teachers of the deaf are invited to examine personal beliefs about culture and language by reflecting on fiveKey Realizations for Professionals. Through an ongoing process of self-reflection, practitioners will be better situated to deliver culturally relevant intervention practices that respect and enhance family talk to promote optimal child outcomes.Conclusion:By establishing guiding principles for culturally responsive intervention and demonstrating case study applications, the information presented in this article can help professionals improve their ability to deliver culturally relevant intervention.

Sentiment Polarity Identification of Social Media content using Artificial Neural Networks

Sentiment of people about consumer goods and government policies for decision making is normally collected through feedback forms, surveys etc. The social network sites and micro blogging sites are considered a very good source of information nowadays because people share and discuss their opinions about a certain topic freely. With the increased use of technology and social media, people proactively express their opinion through social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. A social media sentiment analysis can help companies to understand how people feel about their products. On the other hand, extracting the sentiment from social media text is a challenging task due to the complexity of natural language processing of social media language. Often these messages reflect the emotion, opinion and sentiment of the public through a mix of text, image, emoticons etc. These statements are often called electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) and are much prevalent in business and service industry to enable customers to share their point of view.

Language Socialization between Two Different Non-Native English Speakers through Conversation Analysis

This paper presents evidence that there are, at least, three important language socialization phenomena within a dyadic Non-Native English Speaker (NNES) conversation. By doing conversation analysis of the two NNES in a non-formal situation, it is found that; (1) Background knowledge cannot be separated from the language acquisition process in mediating the discovery of a new concept (2) The value of tolerance owned by more expert individual contributes positively to the success of new member learning process and (3) Socialization process earned not only through direct experience but also an indirect process that may still give the same impact for the readiness of a potential new member before actually engaging in a community.

Friend matters: sex differences in social language during autism diagnostic interviews

BackgroundAutistic individuals frequently experience social communication challenges. Girls are diagnosed with autism less often than boys even when their symptoms are equally severe, which may be due to insufficient understanding of the way autism manifests in girls. Differences in the behavioral presentation of autism, including how people talk about social topics, could contribute to these persistent problems with identification. Despite a growing body of research suggesting that autistic girls and boys present distinct symptom profiles in a variety of domains, including social attention, friendships, social motivation, and language, differences in the way that autistic boys and girls communicate verbally are not yet well understood. Closely analyzing boys’ and girls’ socially-focused language during semi-structured clinical assessments could shed light on potential sex differences in the behavioral presentation of autistic individuals that may prove useful for identifying and effectively supporting autistic girls. Here, we compare social word use in verbally fluent autistic girls and boys during the interview sections of the ADOS-2 Module 3 and measure associations with clinical phenotype.MethodsSchool-aged girls and boys with autism (N = 101, 25 females; aged 6–15) were matched on age, IQ, and parent/clinician ratings of autism symptom severity. Our primary analysis compared the number of social words produced by autistic boys and girls (normalized to account for differences in total word production). Social words are words that make reference to other people, including friends and family.ResultsThere was a significant main effect of sex on social word production, such that autistic girls used more social words than autistic boys. To identify the specific types of words driving this effect, additional subcategories of friend and family words were analyzed. There was a significant effect of sex on friend words, with girls using significantly more friend words than boys. However, there was no significant main effect of sex on family words, suggesting that sex differences in social word production may be driven by girls talking more about friends compared to boys, not family. To assess relationships between word use and clinical phenotype, we modeled ADOS-2 Social Affect (SA) scores as a function of social word production. In the overall sample, social word use correlated significantly with ADOS-2 SA scores, indicating that participants who used more social words were rated as less socially impaired by clinicians. However, when examined in each sex separately, this result only held for boys.LimitationsThis study cannot speak to the ways in which social word use may differ for younger children, adults, or individuals who are not verbally fluent; in addition, there were more autistic boys than girls in our sample, making it difficult to detect small effects.ConclusionsAutistic girls used significantly more social words than boys during a diagnostic assessment—despite being matched on age, IQ, and both parent- and clinician-rated autism symptom severity. Sex differences in linguistic markers of social phenotype in autism are especially important in light of the late or missed diagnoses that disproportionately affect autistic girls. Specifically, heightened talk about social topics could complicate autism referral and diagnosis when non-clinician observers expect a male-typical pattern of reduced social focus, which autistic girls may not always exhibit.

‘Jingo Dingo insanity’ and Mafeking Day: articulating madness in Federation-era Australia

In 1899, the Australian colonies sent military contingents to South Africa to support the British in fighting the Boer enemy. While some questioned the justice of the conflict, the public reaction to the war was akin to a ‘national insanity’. British victories in the first half of the war, particularly the relief of Mafeking in May 1900, saw noisy jingo crowds filling the streets of capital cities in celebration, resulting in public drunkenness and damage to property, behaviour typically deemed ‘mad’. Colonial society, faced with increases in lunacy rates, was not only in the process of comprehending madness, but also ideas about Australian nationalism in the period approaching Federation of 1901. These factors, added to popular involvement in a British war in South Africa, shaped political, police and press responses to the new manifestation of jingoism. The press, a site of both the production and advancement of public conceptions of insanity, drew upon the social language of madness to communicate the acceptability or unacceptability of specific jingoistic behaviour. This paper examines the metaphorical use of mad vocabularies by the colonial press during this period to explore the ‘arbitrary boundary’ between madness and sanity in Federation era Australia.

Formation of the language identity of the residents of Central and Southern Ukraine in the conditions of tricodalism (Ukrainian Language – Russian Language – Ukrainian-Russian mixed speech)

This article aims to analyze the features of linguistic socialization and formation of the language identity of the residents of central and southern regions of Ukraine, which are normally considered as a territory of Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism and Ukrainian-Russian code-mixing, i.e., so-called Surzhyk. The relation between the dominant language of the respondents and the factors of formation of their speech competence is described in four contexts as follows: 1) a parent’s language and communication in a family; 2) a close environment language; 3) a school language; 4) a language of books, television, and the Internet. Being conducted on the basis of sociolinguistic data obtained from the 2014—2020 survey in the region and semi-structured in-depth interviews with mixed-language speakers, the research combines quantitative and qualitative research methods. In families, respondents mostly use their main language with their children. In Ukrainianspeaking families, there is a partial shift toward mixed speech (Central Ukraine) or Russian (Southern Ukraine). In Russian-speaking families, this shift is toward Ukrainian with respect to mixed speech. The influence of the school language on respondents’ speech shall be differentiated. While the school language is quite significant for the skills formed during school education, e.g., reading and writing, it much less determines the choice of the respondents in their everyday speech. The peer environment also defines the development of children’s/teenagers’ speech competencies. According to the respondents, Ukrainian prevails in peer groups. This is determined by a number of factors, e.g., the spread of Ukrainian-language education and preschool education, the increasing number of books in Ukrainian, television products and Internet content in Ukrainian, the increasing use of Ukrainian in culture, and public services. Keywords: language socialization, language identity, Ukrainian-Russian code-mixing

Language Awareness and Identity Formation among Plurilingual Students at a High School Accepting Foreign Students in Japan: Focusing on the Language Socialization and the Positioning of English in the Youth “Crossing Borders”

Language Awareness and Identity Formation among Plurilingual Students at a High School Accepting Foreign Students in Japan: Focusing on the Language Socialization and the Positioning of English in the Youth “Crossing Borders”

A Survey of the Language Use and Language Attitudes among Adolescents in Sanya

Through a large-scale survey of the language life environment of primary and secondary school students in Sanya, this paper finds that the language usage of local adolescents in the city shows significant age changes. Behind this change, there are also age changes in language attitudes and language identity. As local teenagers grow up, their sense of identity with Hainan dialect is increasing, but their use and identity with Putonghua is declining. To some extent, the dialect returning of the adolescents nowadays is a phenomenon of age grading, which is caused by various factors such as changes in the language environment, language socialization, and increased local awareness. The study also finds that there is a significant correlation between language choice and the sense of language belonging. It is suggested that when promoting Putonghua in the future, more consideration can be given to enhancing the emotional identity of Putonghua, so as to better promote it.

Design and development ritatoon learning media to supporting preschool children's social emotional and language development

The purpose of this study is to develop a medium for learning ritatoon to support the social, emotional, and language development of preschool children. The method used in this research is research and development. The implementation of research and development uses the Borg and Gall model development procedure. The sample in this study was children aged 5-6 years. The data analysis technique is quantitative analysis in the form of a percentage used to percentage the validity of the ritatoon media and the paired sample t-test for the effectiveness test. The development product in the form of ritatoon learning media has gone through the process of validating learning designs, media experts, linguists, and early childhood social-emotional experts and obtaining score 88.88%, based on the eligibility criteria, the Ritatoon learning media can be said to be very valid or suitable for use. Furthermore, the results of the effectiveness test using paired sample t-test showed a sig value < .001, so it could be concluded that the ritatoon learning media was able to improve children's language and social-emotional development.

Context Analysis of Non-intellective Correlates affecting Future Educators’ Sociolinguistic Competence

The study investigated the non-intellective correlates affecting the sociolinguistic competence of teacher education students, with a focus on the analysis of their contexts relative to social experiences, language attitude, and use of linguistic forms in different situations. It also determined the common difficulties they experience in the use of English in both oral and written forms. Descriptive mixed methods were utilized, with a validated questionnaire serving as primary instrument to gather relevant data from 331 teacher education students from different fields of specialization. Focus group discussions were conducted to activate the students’ awareness of non-intellective correlates and extract emerging issues in language use. The analysis of the quantitative data together with the coded and categorized transcriptions revealed that while the students generally have a positive attitude towards the use of the English language, they rarely use varied linguistic forms adaptive to different social contexts, implying the need to work on their adaptive capacities in using English for various purposes. Most of the issues they encounter are psychological and socio-physical in nature, while limited vocabulary, over-consciousness in grammar use, and lack of confidence affect their skills most. It was recommended that contextualized activities be developed for integration in the communication courses to highlight the authentic use of language in different social contexts.

LANGUAGE ORIENTATION AS AN ASPECT OF HUMAN ACTIVITY

The article is devoted to the research of a phenomenon of language orientation as aspect of human's language activity. The research revealed that language, being a phenomenon of human activity, exists as a set of individual subjective languages (private languages) and as universal objective language (general language). A codified and conventional model is general language; the set of individual ideas about language are private languages. The research showed that correlation between general and private languages forms individual's language experience. As a result of received and comprehended language experience the language orientation of language personality is formed. In turn, society exerts influence the personality by its language orientation in language area. The author determined that vectors of orientation are elements of inner permissive language structure of personality, formed and fixed by individual's language experience in the course of language socialization and social adaptation. Finally, it was concluded that language orientation presupposes the differentiation of language material to relevant and irrelevant. It may be conscious or unconscious. As a result, language experience and language orientation organize and control human's cogitative activity. It is important to understand that consistency and integrity of language orientation system are indications of stability and autonomy of language personality.

Why Do Adults Use Baby Talk in the Online Space? Baby Talk as a Pragmatic Face Device in Adult Communication

This study aims to explore the motives and pragmatic functions of baby talk in adultto- adult communication in the online space. By concentrating on a recent communicative trend of using scripted baby talk in Turkish language by the Turkish social media users, we seek to answer why adults collectively adopt a speech register which is primarily used in adult-infant communication in their online socializations. Drawing on the Goffmanian notion of face and the theory of (im)politeness, the study argues that baby talk among adults in the online space functions as a powerful multidirectional and multifunctional face device addressing the notion of face in diverse directions and communicative goals. The most significant pragmatic functions of adult baby talk are found to be attacking/threatening one’s face, responding to face attacks and lastly enhancing/boosting one’s face. Face attacks were observed to occur through imposing sarcasm, mock-politeness, verbal aggression and insult while face boosting communicates affection, admiration and love. We also suggest that new affordances of the online space lead to the transformation of baby talk as a register among adults and its recontextualization as a tool for a new way of online language socialization.

International students’ language socialization in an English-medium university

Abstract This article investigates second language socialization of three international students in a tertiary institute in New Zealand. To understand the experiences of international students, the article draws on the theoretical framework of the production of space to examine how the students experienced their new social space. The article uses multiple sources of data including video/audio recordings of the classroom interaction, field notes, interviews with the focal students/teachers/tutors/lecturers, diaries, and institutional documents to provide a thick description of students’ participation, language socialization, and identities. It does a within and across case analysis of the students’ experience to situate the learning experiences but at the same time to highlight the role of space as a participating social being in the socialization process. The concepts of language socialization and identities are reconceptualized as ever-evolving and ever-changing phenomena, whose production depends on the social conditions and relationships in the social space.

CASE STUDY OF A PATIENT WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER BASED ON THE FAESA’S DENTAL

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are complex disorders that involve a patient's neurological development. They are characterized by changes in social interaction, language and motricity, as well as stereotypical and repetitive behaviors. Patients may also present hypersensitivity to loud noises and bright lights. To answer specific anamnesis for patients with ASD, also taking into account patients' information that don't fit in Kanner's classic description. The chosen method was the Descriptive Case Study model, established through filling a specific anamnesis directed at a patient with ASD. The Odontological Medical Record of the clinic at FAESA was the basis for the data collection. It was not possible to answer many of the questions in the anamnesis from the data available on the medical records. Most of the questions were answered through previous contact with the patient. Other questions could not be answered by any means. A specific anamnesis for ASD patients should be included during treatment at FAESA's clinics for Patients with Special Needs. Treatment of patients with autism is still a great challenge for dental surgeons, since it requires knowledge of the problem and specific, objective techniques to cause the least possible trauma.

Health Risks Posed by Social and Linguistic Isolation in Older Korean Americans

Guided by the double jeopardy hypothesis, the present study examined the health risks posed by the coexistence of social and linguistic isolation in older Korean Americans. Using data from the Study of Older Korean Americans (SOKA, n = 2,032), comparisons of four isolation typologies (no isolation, social isolation only, linguistic isolation only, and dual isolation) were made, and their impacts on physical (self-rated health), mental (mental distress), and cognitive health (cognitive performance) were examined. The ‘dual isolation’ group exhibited greater sociodemographic and health disadvantages. The odds of having fair/poor health, mental distress, and cognitive impairment were 2.21-3.17 times higher in the ‘dual isolation’ group than those in the group with no isolation. Our findings confirm that both social relationships and language proficiency are key elements for older immigrants’ social connectedness and integration, deprivation of which puts them at risk in multidimensions of health.

Minority Language Learning and Use: Can Self-Determination Counter Social Determinism?

To what extent is minority language use in society imposed by social determinism, a force acting on individuals based on the language group's relative vitality in terms of demography, institutional support, and status? Can social determinism be countered by the force of self-determination sustained by group members’ personal autonomy, critical consciousness, and strong engaged integrated identity? These questions are addressed by testing a revised Self-determination and ethnolinguistic development (SED) model, using structural equation modeling. This model specifies how three categories of language socialization (enculturation, personal autonomization, critical consciousness-raising) mediate between objective ethnolinguistic vitality (EV) and four psycholinguistic constructs (engaged integrated identity, community engagement, linguistic competencies, subjective EV) in the prediction of minority language use. Results on a large sample of French Canadian students in different EV settings strongly support the SED model and show that social determinism can be at least moderately countered by psycholinguistic constructs that increase individual self-determination.

‘But I want to say “I means love you”’

Family talk is a rich site for children’s language learning as well as navigating into cultural values, social roles and stances. This study examines a child’s stancetaking in language-focused interaction initiated by the parent, in order to understand children’s role in language learning as a social activity and in their own language socialization. Conversation analysis of audio-recorded child–parent conversations in family settings over eight months reveals the varied epistemic and affective stances that the child displayed towards language forms, cultural norms, the parents’ stances, and the language-focused activity itself. We show that the child changed over time to orient to a correctness norm as part of his socialization into the family’s beliefs and values regarding language. We argue that talk about language forms is deeply connected with participants’ stances towards language and cultural norms as well as toward others’ stances and actions, and that for a sound understanding of language learning as a social activity, detailed examinations of children’s and caregivers’ stancetaking in interaction are indispensable.

Digital literacy: exploration of social media-based Arabic language learning

Social media is often used as a learning tool, one of which is Arabic learning. This study aims to explore social media-based Arabic learning carried out by Arabic Language Education study program lecturers at IAIN Palangka Raya. By using descriptive qualitative research methods, this study describes the steps for implementing Arabic language learning which is carried out using social media, such as accessing, selecting, understanding, analyzing, verifying, evaluating and producing. The findings in this study describe that social media is used as: First, as a publication forum for project-based assignments; Second, as a means of digital literacy to obtain information; Third, as a way for students to optimize social media as a medium for literacy. The social media used in learning Arabic in the PBA IAIN Palangka Raya study program are; Whatsapp is used as a learning resource for Maharah Istima, Instagram is used as a learning resource in Maharah Kalam. Facebook is used as a learning resource for Maharah Qiraah and Kitabah. Meanwhile, Youtube is mostly used for the publication of project-based assignments. Further research recommended is the effectiveness of using social media in improving Arabic learning skills, as well as digital literacy-based Arabic learning using other information technologies.

Language socialization and academic discourse in English as a Foreign Language contexts: A research agenda

AbstractIn this paper, I argue for expanding language socialization research on the academic discourse socialization of speakers of English as an additional language to less-commonly researched settings outside of English-dominant countries. Following an overview of some theoretical and methodological issues involved in conducting such research, I lay out a research agenda, focusing on several topics and issues that have the potential to illuminate issues of interest in both language socialization and second language acquisition regarding howcompetenceandcommunityare defined in a globalized, multilingual world. These include: (a) closer investigation of presumed ‘cultural differences’ between ‘Western’ and ‘Asian’ academic discourse practices, (b) the effect of social categories such as ethnicity and ‘nonnative speaker’ status on the construction of ‘expert’ and ‘novice’ identities in these settings, (c) the role of socializing agents outside of the classroom, and (d) the extent to which students in these settings are being socialized into practices and ideologies that promote multicompetence.