Sociolinguistic Environment Research Articles

Non-participation and the stability of Dominant Language Constellation in contextual shifts: the case of a Hong Kong multilingual student

ABSTRACT This study explores how a multilingual Hong Kong student exercised agency to maintain a stable Dominant Language Constellation (DLC) amidst significant shifts in sociolinguistic contexts. Employing an intrinsic case study approach, the study collected data through interviews and written documents, which were then analysed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed that the multilingual student strategically managed his language use by compartmentalising Cantonese, Putonghua, and English into distinct domains, a practice he maintained consistently across different environments, including Hong Kong, Beijing, and Montreal. Key sources of his agency were identified, such as his self-conception as an introverted individual, parental influence, and the demands of his educational contexts. His strategic non-participation in social interactions helped him avoid linguistic discomfort and maintain psychological stability. This study contributes to the field of multilingualism by illustrating how agency can be manifested through deliberate non-participation and strategic language use, offering new insights into the dynamic interplay between individual agency and sociolinguistic environments.

On Chinese Hui-Muslim elementary vocabulary (3): funeral terminology [II

Following on from a previous contribution in this journal, the article gives three additional examples of lexis in the field of funeral terminology among Chinese Muslims (here from those collected from Chinese Muslims in the Malay Archipelago) as well as various considerations regarding the socio-linguistic environment.

The influence of the sociolinguistic environment on the evolution of pronouns

The influence of the sociolinguistic environment on the evolution of pronouns

Ecosystemic Clinical Assessment of Linguistic Diversity: Greek-Dominant Speech

Purpose: Diversity considerations are of paramount significance in the clinical assessment and treatment of speech disorders in bilingual children and adults who speak a less common language (and/or its dialects). While comprehensive assessment is essential for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) populations, this is clinically challenging due to the indeterminacy entailed in the process and incumbrances in access to resources. This clinical tutorial outlines key considerations necessary for holistic, ecological, and dynamic assessments of speech disorders internationally, focusing on Greek. Method: Pertinent literature is reviewed to provide the relevant theoretical backdrop for the ecosystemic protocol, both conceptually and schematically. Greek is utilized as an example language, aiming to underscore knowledge, tools, and other resources on clinically relevant aspects of dialectal, interlanguage (adult second language [L2]), and child multilingual (L2/third language) variation in Greek-dominant speakers. Results: The tutorial highlights facets of Greek speech and scripts a primary assessment model for clinical use mostly targeting clinicians that are not speakers or cognizant of the language, also viewing speech in linguistic diversity as a sociolinguistic construct. Recommendations for clinical practices are outlined proposing a specific action plan, exemplified by a case scenario. Conclusions: The demonstrated ecosystemic paradigm in holistic, ecological protocols for clinical assessment of speech disorder in CLD speakers addresses the need for nonlinear, multilevel assessment of variable language exposure and use; being sensitive to individual speaker specificities; the sociolinguistic environment; and employing people-first, culturally sensitive, and dynamic strategies in clinical assessment. The stance also simplifies disambiguation tasks regarding the difference disorder dichotomy, enhancing existing clinical procedures.

L’é ciaro che se dise cusì. On Change in the System of Expletive Subject Clitics in Opitergino

Expletive subject clitics (ESCs) are pronominal elements that occur in impersonal contexts with which no individual reference is associated. Their presence strikingly distinguishes northern Italo-Romance varieties from standard Italian. We target this structural incongruence by studying the occurrence of ESCs in present-day Opitergino, a virtually unstudied Venetan variety. We explore the question of whether, in the wake of a profound transformation in the sociolinguistic environment that occurred between the first half of the 20th century and early 2020 years, the contact between Opitergino and now-dominant Italian has induced change in the Opitergino ESC system. To test whether change has occurred and to what extent, we compare the results of an extensive online survey we conducted in 2022 with the baseline rules we extracted from speakers born before 1942. We observe that while the system is overall stable, a thread of change is ongoing and manifests in (a) rule weakening in declaratives and (b) erosion of the obligatoriness of ESCs in interrogatives. We argue that this change is likely to be an effect of contact, resulting in structural convergence but not in loss, and affected the part of the ESC system that features more optionality, namely, the domain of declarative clauses.

When the definite article is used for possessive determiners in Kenyan English

The literature on the use of articles in L2 varieties of English reports both the overuse and the underuse of the definite article. An excellent synoptic discussion of such apparently contradictory results is Sand (2004). Because L2 English varieties have developed in a sociolinguistic environment where they were in contact with indigenous languages, Sand (2004: 284–287) reviews what research findings show about ‘substrate influence on article use’. Two substrate languages she mentions (p. 286) as examples are Hindi (which is expected to have influenced Indian English) and Swahili (which is expected to have influenced Kenyan English). Regarding Indian English she writes: ‘Typically, we find reference to a “lack of articles” in descriptions of contact varieties like Indian English [ . . . ]’ (p. 286). But a few lines later she adds this: However, Sedlatscheck (forthcoming: 105) also finds for his Indian data that, apart from zero articles, the largest number of what he calls ‘article substitutions’ occur in the category of the definite article. Thus, the definite article is used instead of the zero or indefinite article expected according to standard English usage. (p. 286)The quotation above suggests that both some overuse and some underuse of the definite article can be observed in Indian English, thus making the possible influence of a substrate language like Hindi (reported not to have articles) not so relevant.

Societies of strangers do not speak less complex languages.

Many recent proposals claim that languages adapt to their environments. The linguistic niche hypothesis claims that languages with numerous native speakers and substantial proportions of nonnative speakers (societies of strangers) tend to lose grammatical distinctions. In contrast, languages in small, isolated communities should maintain or expand their grammatical markers. Here, we test these claims using a global dataset of grammatical structures, Grambank. We model the impact of the number of native speakers, the proportion of nonnative speakers, the number of linguistic neighbors, and the status of a language on grammatical complexity while controlling for spatial and phylogenetic autocorrelation. We deconstruct "grammatical complexity" into two separate dimensions: how much morphology a language has ("fusion") and the amount of information obligatorily encoded in the grammar ("informativity"). We find several instances of weak positive associations but no inverse correlations between grammatical complexity and sociodemographic factors. Our findings cast doubt on the widespread claim that grammatical complexity is shaped by the sociolinguistic environment.

On the Semantic Expansion of the Word “Change” among Yorùbá Speakers of English Bilinguals

The paper investigates the semantic evolution that has characterised the word ‘change’ in the Yorùbá-English speech community. It undertakes this descriptive effort through pragmatic and sociolinguistic perspectives that give credence to the impact of widespread usage and acceptability on the semantic elasticity of particular words. Moving from the pedestrian and original financial-related meaning of the money given back when a customer hands over more that the exact price of an item, it has now assumed broader and more socially significant interpretations that may only be comprehensible to a certain class of the Yorùbá-English bilinguals who occupy South Western Nigeria. These contextual meanings are socially inclined and are largely influenced by a certain leaning that borders on the ‘membership’ of an undefined social group that consists of semi-literates in that particular subset of the Nigerian sociolinguistic environment. The paper concludes that the uses of ‘change’ in the aforementioned contexts present a valid case of gradual semantic expansion in the widespread use of some words.

Family language policy in multi-ethnic and multilingual villages in Yunnan, China: a comparative case study of Kena village and Anmin village

ABSTRACT Based on Spolsky’s (2004) tripartite framework for language policy, this study explores language practices, language ideology, and language management in relation to minority languages, Putonghua, and English in ethnic minority families in Yunnan, China. Through observations of and interviews with nine interethnic marriage families in Kena Village and Anmin Village, we found that although people in both villages recognise the value of their native languages in ethnic identification and cultural inheritance, people in Anmin Village make efforts to teach the children Mosuo, while children in Kena Village usually acquire Malimasa naturally. Such differences are associated with sociolinguistic environment and child agency. Meanwhile, Putonghua is widely used in television programmes and smartphone applications and acquired by the young generation due to national policy and the spread of smartphones and television. Families in both villages demonstrated similar aspirations for their children’s English learning, but low socioeconomic status affected their ability to invest in foreign language learning. The results suggest that in the special context of multi-ethnic and multilingual villages in Yunnan the agency of rural parents and grandparents is relatively weak, and family language policies are mainly influenced by meso – (e.g. school) and macro- (e.g. socioeconomic environment, national policy) level factors.

“Happy wives” and “sad husbands”

The COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic (a global health emergency) following its ravaging spread and increasing death toll that led to the unprecedented multi-sectoral crisis and collateral damage. These, and the non-discovery of reliable therapeutic medicines combined to generate rising fears and tension across the globe. To cope with these realities, discourse participants devised humorous expressions to create laughter, ease tension and melt fears. The paper seeks to examine the contextual usage of such humorous expressions used in Nigeria, particularly in Calabar, that denote the sociolinguistic milieu, and shared knowledge and experience of the interactants. The study adopts Relief and Encryption Theories of Humour because the theories account for the situational appropriateness of the humorous expressions as “coping devices” in coherence with the cognitive, linguistic, situational and social contexts. Data were generated by means of participant observation in on-site and virtual interactions in social media platforms. Findings show that COVID-19 pandemic has exerted irresistible pressure on language resources that stimulated the creation of humorous expressions as coping needs for the consequential circumstance. Specifically, the humorous expressions such as “happy wives”, “sad husbands”, “side chicks are hungry” among others were regularly and contextually deployed for comic reliefs and cognitive recreations to stimulate laughter in crisis. Linguistically, the expressions are devised English structures and other constructs with codemixed elements derived from the registers of several discourse domains that reflect the Nigerian sociolinguistic environment. The constructs are therefore modelled to demystify the pandemic and unify interactants in order to ease tension and cope with the realities of the preventive and survival protocols.

A sociolinguistic-typological approach to the linguistic prehistory of South Asia

Abstract The present study compares two Indo-Aryan languages, Sadri and Konkani, with respect to their morphological complexity. Based on assumptions made in sociolinguistic typology (e.g., Trudgill, 2011), which forms part of a larger research program investigating the effects of social factors on language structures, this study attempts to reconstruct various aspects of prehistoric society based on the structures of these two modern languages as typical representatives of eastern and western Indo-Aryan, respectively. The results suggest that 2,000–2,500 years ago eastern and western Indo-Aryan languages were spoken in very different sociolinguistic environments, with a high degree of ethnic and linguistic diversity in eastern India and a comparatively low level of diversity in the west. The study also confirms the results of other studies which suggest that different areas of grammar, such as nominal and verbal systems, may be affected to different degrees in language contact and that their respective rates of (re)complexification may also differ.

English medium instruction at Sino-foreign cooperative education institutions in China: is internationalising teaching and learning possible?

ABSTRACT The development of English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) at the tertiary level has been accelerated by the ever-increasing degree of higher education internationalisation. The study, based on a survey with 112 students and semi-structured interviews with 16 instructors collected at a Sino-foreign cooperative education institution in China, explores students’ perceptions of and adaptation to EMI teaching and learning. The findings indicate that students show a positive attitude towards EMI teaching and learning. Students’ motivation and prior English proficiency are important factors that influence their learning experience through EMI. Tailored pedagogical strategies to facilitate students’ learning, an enhanced level of collaboration between EMI teachers and language teachers, and the provision of an immersive sociolinguistic environment conducive to EMI are also instrumental. The study suggests a range of strategies and policy implications that might benefit EMI teaching and learning in non-Anglophone countries that are keen on higher education internationalisation.

Individual and Sociolinguistic Differences in Language Background Predict Stroop Performance.

To examine how differences in language experience and sociolinguistic context impact cognitive control, 146 Spanish-English bilingual participants were tested on a non-linguistic Stroop arrows task. Dimensions of language experience included a continuum of L2 proficiency, exposure, age of L2 acquisition, and English receptive vocabulary, along with cognitive non-verbal reasoning. Sociolinguistic context varied with more exposure to Spanish for participants in Southern California (SoCal) than in the Midwest. The task involved perceptual stimulus-stimulus conflict within stimulus features (e.g., right-pointing arrow on the left side of a display). Reaction times to trials where arrow location and direction matched (congruent), mismatched (incongruent), or arrow location was centered (neutral) were used to calculate Stroop (incongruent-congruent), facilitation (neutral-congruent), and inhibition (incongruent-neutral) effects. When examining performance on a continuum of bilingual language experience, individual differences in linguistic background (i.e., L2 proficiency and exposure, receptive vocabulary) and cognitive abilities (i.e., non-verbal reasoning abilities) predicted more efficient performance on the Stroop task. Across sociolinguistic contexts, findings revealed better performance via smaller Stroop and facilitation effects in the Midwest than in SoCal, and no group difference on the inhibition effect. We conclude that research on the cognitive consequences of bilingualism must consider a continuum of language experiences and must be situated in broader naturalistic contexts that take into account the sociolinguistic environments of language use.

On the Phi-Features of English Ungendered Singular Pronoun THEY

This paper aims to discuss the demise and shift of phi-features in English pronouns, in particular, THEY used as a 3rd person, singular, non-binary, and gender-neutral pronoun. It has been argued that pronouns have been considered as a hybrid category between functional and lexical (Zimman 2016, Gelderen 2017). As recent as Dec., 2019, a singular-they has attracted much attention from linguists, journalists, and grammarians in the world, for the obvious reasons that the English language officially selected the epicene-they (Balhorn 2004) as Word of the Year (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). The surge of the word THEY as a non-binary (ungendered) singular pronoun is extremely engaging in one hand, while the morphosyntactic consequences of its novel form seem quite murky and nebulous, especially from a heuristic perspective such as an EFL/ESL context. It is argued in this paper that pronouns, belonging to “a weaker category”, are more susceptible to their morphosyntactic changes whose recent appearance as a singular-THEY is the consequence of such weakness and instability in their feature matrix. The changes of the phi-features, particularly gender and number features in singular-THEY, are due to the language usage of the speakers’ level of participation in this grammatical change, as well as to the diversity of sociolinguistic environment.

Hand in Hand or Worlds Apart? An Overview of Translation and Education in the Upper Sorbian Context

The second smallest of the Slavic languages, Upper Sorbian (hornjoserbšćina) is a minority language spoken in Upper Lusatia, located in eastern Germany close to the Czech and Polish frontiers. Building on previous work, this literature-based preliminary study explores the intersection between the domains of translation and minority language education with regard to the Upper Sorbian language. Initially, a historical and contemporary overview of the relevant sociolinguistic environment is provided, which is followed by an examination of the links between translation and education in the Upper Sorbian secondary and tertiary education sectors, as well as in professional training for language professionals. In addition, particular attention is also paid to the role of Domowina Verlag, the Sorbian-language publishing house. Finally, relevant information and new developments regarding the provision of translation and interpreting within the Upper Sorbian context are also presented, and the need for further empirical research is outlined.

Minds in action: Evidence that linguistic diversity helps children build a theory of mind

AbstractReports suggest that the development of a child's understanding of the mind (ToM) is enhanced in bilingual children. This is usually ascribed to different features of executive functioning (EF), though there is not a lot of empirical support for that position. Instead, published studies suggest an association between linguistic processes such as sociolinguistic sensitivity, metalinguistic awareness, language proficiency, and bilinguals’ ToM development. Coupled with evidence that bilinguals rely more on person-intention cues and show enhanced abilities to repair breakdowns in communication compared to monolinguals, this paper presents the argument that navigating sociolinguistic environments with agents differing in linguistic knowledge helps bilingual children develop an enhanced ToM. Additionally, this review includes relevant literature on deaf children and cultural variations and ToM, which are indicative of other situations in which contextual variants, especially those that are linguistically mediated, have an impact on the development of ToM that is independent of EF.

Children's Knowledge of a Name‐Based Avoidance Register: A Quantitative Study among Datooga of Tanzania

ABSTRACTAmong Datooga pastoralists of Tanzania, an elaborate in‐law naming taboo has led to the emergence of a conventionalized avoidance vocabulary used by married women. We report on a survey investigating Datooga children's knowledge of this special vocabulary. The questionnaire and our expectations were pre‐registered and the results were analyzed using regression analysis. Though use of the avoidance vocabulary is gender‐specific, girls were only slightly more knowledgeable than boys about avoidance words. More predictive of children's responses was sociolinguistic environment: children from more “traditional” backgrounds showed greater knowledge of avoidance words. Based on this finding, we discuss how social change may be affecting this particular kind of knowledge transmission. Low overall accuracy reveals the gradual nature of certain types of sociocultural learning. [language learning, knowledge transmission, avoidance registers]

Youth language in virtual space in Nigeria: Multimodal affordance, indexicality and youth identities

AbstractVirtual space expressions contribute to the proliferation of African youth lingo within the Nigerian environment. However, beyond the sheer accumulation of lingual features, virtual space in Nigeria is also a site for the projection of both modern and indigenous youth identities, and for the deployment of sundry communication codes and multimodal affordances. This article explores this twin deployment, first as a way of broadening the sociolinguistic profile of African urban and youth languages, and second as a platform for examining aspects of youth identity formations in the Nigerian setting and how these intersect with the larger linguistic and sociolinguistic environment. Employing the methodology of content analysis, the article establishes youth language practice in virtual space in the Nigerian environment as not only multimodal, but also as indexical. Data samples are drawn from multiple discussion threads onNairaland, a Nigerian youth news and entertainment blog that is hugely representative of the virtual space youth speech community in the country. The article concludes that virtual space and multimodal affordances enable the projection of hybridized and sometimes nondescript youth identities and alter-egos, as well as a display of communicative usages that appear distinctively African.

Linguistic system and sociolinguistic environment as competing factors in linguistic variation: A typological approach

AbstractThis paper brings together typological and sociolinguistic approaches to language variation. Its main aim is to evaluate the relative effect of language internal and external factors on the number of cases in the world’s languages. I model word order as a language internal predictor; it is well-known that, for instance, languages with verb-final word order (that is, languages in which both nominal arguments precede the main lexical verb) tend to develop complex case systems more often than languages with SVO word order do. I model population size and the proportion of second language speakers in the speech community as sociolinguistic predictors; these factors have been suggested recently to influence the distribution of the number of cases in the world’s languages. Modelling the data with generalized linear mixed effects modelling suggests an interaction between the number of cases, word order, and the proportion of second language speakers on the one hand, and between the number of cases, word order, and population size, on the other. This kind of complex interactions have not been previously reported in typological research wherefore they call for more complex explanations than previously suggested for cross-linguistic variation.

Analogical mapping of ỌKỤKỌ proverbs in Ideke lect

This study examines how analogical mapping is used to analyse ọkụkọ proverbs in Ideke lect. The objectives of the study are to analyse the attribute and relational mapping of selected ọkụkọ proverbs in Ideke lect. The data of the study are drawn from ọmaba chant of Ụmụdịaka in Nsukka area of Enugu State, through an audio recording of Ụdara Nwa onyishi (Ọmabe) chant and also the study uses introspection since the researchers are indigenous speakers of the Ideke lect. The research desgn used in this study is a qualitative research paradigm. The study was done descriptively and purposive sampling was used to sample the population. The analogical mapping theory is adopted as the framework for this study. The study finds out that ọkụkọ proverbs in Ideke lect has abstract meanings which contradict the physical (source concepts) image. Another finding of the study proves that in Ideke lect, ọkụkọ as used in this study possess different semantic impulse due to the sociolinguistic environment where such proverbs are being used. These different shades of meanings will be gotten by aligning the physical concept to abstract concept(s). During the analysis of ọkụkọ proverbs in Ideke lect, it is evident that source domain is liable to form various new abstract semantic realisations which was not the initial semantic usage of the linguistic expression. From the semantic purview, proverbs are complex cognitive tasks which links source domain to the target domain.