scholarly journals Varietäten und Sprachkontakt in rätoromanischen SMS

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Grünert
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Its Region ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
German Language ◽  
Complex Spectrum ◽  
Tertiary Sector ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
Written Form ◽  
University Level

As a minority language in Switzerland, the Romansh of the Grisons is exposed to pressure from the dominant language in its region, namely (Swiss) German. Consequently, it has not developed a generally accepted standardized written form, being above all a spoken language, which cedes many written functions to the dominant language. These premises entail a complex spectrum of language variation in informal written use of Romansh in SMS-communication. This variation includes deviations from regional written norms, traits of (dialectal) orality, interference of (Swiss) German, and code-switching to (Swiss) German. Language contact is evident in the fact that Romansh is used for part of an SMS whereas another part of the same SMS sent by the same person may be written in one or even in two varieties of the majority language, i.e. German and Swiss German. Some speakers of Romansh, mainly people who live outside of the traditional linguistic territory, do not write in Romansh at all. It should be noted that the users of Romansh in SMS-communication who participated in this research project are mainly women with university-level educations who are working in the tertiary sector.

scholarly journals Evidence for a bimodal bilingual disadvantage in letter fluency

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCEL R. GIEZEN ◽  
KAREN EMMOREY
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Fluency Task

Many bimodal bilinguals are immersed in a spoken language-dominant environment from an early age and, unlike unimodal bilinguals, do not necessarily divide their language use between languages. Nonetheless, early ASL–English bilinguals retrieved fewer words in a letter fluency task in their dominant language compared to monolingual English speakers with equal vocabulary level. This finding demonstrates that reduced vocabulary size and/or frequency of use cannot completely account for bilingual disadvantages in verbal fluency. Instead, retrieval difficulties likely reflect between-language interference. Furthermore, it suggests that the two languages of bilinguals compete for selection even when they are expressed with distinct articulators.

Diglossia and Local Identity: Swiss German in the Linguistic Landscape of Kleinbasel

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edina Krompák ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Local Identity ◽  
Focus Group Discussions ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
Written Form

The city of Basel is situated in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, in the geographic triangle of three countries: France, Germany and Switzerland. Everyday urban life is characterised by the presence of Standard German and Swiss German as well as diverse migrant languages. Swiss German is ‘an umbrella term for several Alemannic dialects’ (Stepkowska 2012, 202) which differ from Standard German in terms of phonetics, semantics, lexis, and grammar and has no standard written form. Swiss German is predominantly used in oral forms, and Standard German in written communication. Furthermore, an amalgamation of bilingualism and diglossia (Stepkowska 2012, 208) distinguishes the specific linguistic situation, which indicates amongst other things the high prestige of Swiss German in everyday life. To explore the visibility and vitality of Swiss German in the public display of written language, we examined the linguistic landscape of a superdiverse neighbourhood of Basel, and investigated language power and the story beyond the sign – ‘stories about the cultural, historical, political and social backgrounds of a certain space’ (Blommaert 2013, 41). Our exploration was guided by the question: How do linguistic artefacts – such as official, commercial, and private signs – represent the diglossic situation and the relation between language and identity in Kleinbasel? Based on a longitudinal ethnographic study, a corpus was compiled comprising 300 digital images of written artefacts in Kleinbasel. Participant observation and focus group discussions about particular images were conducted and analysed using grounded theory (Charmaz 2006) and visual ethnography (Pink 2006). In our paper, we focus on signs in Swiss German and focus group discussions on these images. Initial analyses have produced two surprising findings; firstly, the visibility and the perception of Swiss German as a marker of local identity; secondly, the specific context of their display.

English loanwords in the Serbo-Croatian immigrant press

1966 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-63
Author(s):  
Milan I. Surducki
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Languages In Contact ◽  
Weekly Newspapers ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
Secondary Phenomenon ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Immigrant Language

I propose to present here the findings of an analysis of a limited corpus of English loanwords as found in four Canadian weekly newspapers published in the Serbo-Croatian language. Though interference in written language is a secondary phenomenon in a situation of languages in contact, instances of such interference are interesting and important since they may contribute to the adoption and spread of the corresponding instances of interference in spoken language. In addition, kinds of interference, as well as the total amount of interference in an immigrant language contact situation, may be usefully compared with interference phenomena in the corresponding standard language (in which very often, as is the case with E and SC in contact, almost all borrowing is done from a written model language). The linguistic analysis of the interference in written language seems therefore to be worth while.

scholarly journals The impact of language contact in a bilingual translation class

2019 ◽  
pp. 29-54
Author(s):  
Farkad Abdulrahman Mahmood AL-TAMEEMI
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Language Behavior ◽  
The Subject ◽  
University Level ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Present Effort

This effort focuses exclusively on the realization of the phenomenon of language contact and the impact it has on the language behavior of users. Each two languages, or more, by one way or another may get into a contact situation when they are alternately used by the same person. Among the situations where both languages would be exposed to contact that of the translation class covered by this study. The present effort highlights the example of French and Arabic languages used alternatively by university level translator-learners, specifically by third year students. After having shown the aspects of bilingualism related to the subject, and following a corpus elaborated to trace the source of the problem, being the realization of the contact of languages in the class concerned, we notice that the phenomenon is actually realized and that negative impacts are seen in the production of the translator-students as to the translating activity. In this respect, all the gaps in the pedagogical situation are identified and effective solutions are therefore proposed in order to cope with the linguistic problems which hinder any progress made by the translator-students. It is a matter of establishing measures to avoid, or at least reduce, the negative impact resulting from the meeting of two different linguistic systems, which affects the performance of translators in the process of learning.

scholarly journals THE POWER OF ENGLISH: RECOGNIZING AND UTILIZING THE TREMENDOUS IMPACT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ON THE COMMUNITY

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Andi Kaharuddin
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
The World ◽  
Tremendous Impact ◽  
Learning English

This paper discusses two things i.e. the power of English as the most dominant language in the world and the concepts of using English and using the power of English. English today emerges as a power which can’t be defeated by any languages in the world. The domination of English is obviously seen from its status as: the most rapidly growing language, the most widely spoken language, the most popular content language on the internet, the most preferred language for the scientific communities, the number-one language for business, and the most preferred Language for publishing. Knowing this, learners of English should be proud since they evidently learn something extraordinary. The pride should be reflected in two things i.e. learning English earnestly to achieve benefits of having English skills and turning the achivement of benefits to providing benefits for the communities. However, the reality shows that many learners simply learn English to achieve benefits, for example, to get a job or to win a scholarship abroad. Meanwhile, few learners are aware of using English to bring benefits. As the learners learn English and finally achieve a benefit. This is called Using English. Yet, they learn English and achieve a benefit, and could bring benefits to the communities. This is called Using the Power of English. To use the power of English, we should have and integrate English skills, knowledge, experiences, education, as well as professionalism. Therefore, the orientation of learning English should not just end immediately after Using English, but it should continue to Using the power of the English. 

scholarly journals Alemannisch und der Deutschunterricht.

2019 ◽  
Vol 98 (5) ◽  
pp. 387-409
Author(s):  
Raphael Berthele
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
Language Education ◽  
German Language ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Educational Context ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
Multilingual Education ◽  
The Media ◽  
Language Norms

In this contribution, I describe the evolution of the role that Alemannic dialects and Standard High German play in the Swiss German educational context. Drawing on a content analysis of a collection of school-related documents from 1950 to 2014, I describe the change in the roles attributed to dialects and the standard language, respectively. The task of German-language education shifts from the two-fold goal of teaching standard-language literacy and cultivating the “pure” dialect in the 1950s to a clear prioritization of standard language skills both in orality and in literacy towards the end of the twentieth century. I discuss these changes in relation to the backdrop of the media discourse on identity, language, multilingual education, language norms, and other social issues such as migration.

Design of Signed Language Tests for Deaf L1 Children

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-40
Author(s):  
Rosalind Herman ◽  
Katherine Rowley
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Language Tests ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Age Appropriate ◽  
Hearing Children ◽  
Development Proceeds

Recent changes in the earlier diagnosis of deafness and improved amplification options have meant that deaf children increasingly have better opportunities to develop spoken language. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of children continue to use signed language as a first language (L1), including deaf and hearing children in deaf signing families and deaf children in hearing families where families use signed language in the home. For both groups, mastery of sign language as an L1 is important because it paves the way to communication and also because it provides the basis for development of spoken language, in either its oral or written form, as a second language (L2). It is crucial that signed language development proceeds in an age-appropriate manner, and assessments of signed language are therefore important to ensure that this is the case. However, the development of effective tests of signed language acquisition is not without challenges. This chapter presents these challenges and other issues and gives examples of how available tests seek to overcome them.

scholarly journals Structural effects of English–German language contact in translation on concessive constructions in business articles

2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Bisiada
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Hierarchical Structures ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
German Language ◽  
Structural Effects

AbstractStudies on a variety of languages have observed a shift away from hypotactic, hierarchical structures towards paratactic, incremental structures, and have attributed this to language contact with English in translation. This paper investigates such a shift towards parataxis as the preferred structure of concessive constructions in German business articles. To this effect, a diachronic corpus method that has been applied to popular science articles in existing studies is adopted and applied to business articles, in an attempt to reproduce existing findings for this genre. This method is complemented by a corpus of manuscripts which allow to control for the effect of editing on the translated texts. Based on the analysis of hypotactic and paratactic translations of English concessive conjunctions between 1982/83 and 2008, I argue that hypotactic structures are indeed used less frequently in translated texts, but that this development is restricted to translated language. In non-translated texts, the use of hypotactic conjunctions has increased. The use of sentence-initial conjunctions, however, does seem to spread in this genre (as was reported for popular science), which may be further evidence for it to be a case of language change through contact in translation.

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