On the enregisterment of Szekler. Communicational stereotypes recreated in the sketch Úgy-e, Magdi? by Open Stage

The article aims at unfolding the key linguistic aspects of nowadays’ stereotypical Szekler-representations through a case study on a satirical representation of regional communicative practices in the locally well-known sketch Úgy-e, Magdi? (‘Right, Magdi?’) by Open Stage. The research is mainly centred around the concept of enregisterment, thus the work is meant to be a contribution to the scarce literature on the enregisterment of Szekler (and Hungarian dialects in general) and on regional communicative practices. After providing a brief overview of the key areas and aspects along which the Szekler dialect has been enregistered so far in public discourse and in linguistics, the article tries to capture the main attributes which create the authentic Szekler voice for Hungarian speakers through analyzing the plot, the characterological figures and the linguistic repertoire conveyed by the sketch, as well as the online reactions to it given by viewers. Besides examining the most prominent phonological/phonetic, lexical and grammatical phenomena construed as characteristic to Szekler, the article also touches upon some regional conversational features depicted through stylization by the sketch.

The Linguistic Ecology of the Sahel

The topic of this chapter is the linguistic ecology of multilingualism in the Sahel. Based on the premise that named languages are social and often colonial constructs, the chapter focuses on the speaker-centered notion of linguistic repertoire and the ways in which Sahelians use their linguistic resources. French and standard or literary Arabic are important languages in the Sahel, and they reflect strong regimes of language that are reinforced through education, both secular and Quranic. Communication in the multilingual Sahel is facilitated by indigenous languages that have become local or regional lingua francas. There are a number of writing practices generally overlooked in official statistics on literacy, including the use of the Arabic and other scripts to write indigenous languages. Orality is widely valued, and mastery of eloquent language has resulted in the differentiation of a caste of verbal artists or griots within the social hierarchy.

Italian-Bangladeshis in London: Onward Migration and Its Effects on Their Linguistic Repertoire

This article discussed language use and language maintenance among the Italian-Bangladeshi community in London, considering in particular the effects of onward migration on the reorganisation of their linguistic repertoire. Drawing on focus groups and interviews with the second-generation members of Italian-Bangladeshi families, initial findings revealed that Italian is maintained through communication with same-age friends and siblings, with older siblings acting as the main agents of language maintenance. English is considered the most important language and, together with a British education, functions as a pull-factor for onward migration to improve the second generation’s future prospects. Bengali, on the other hand, is spoken by parents among themselves and children are not always fluent in the language. Bengali also represents a marker of identity for the Italian-Bangladeshi community as opposed to the larger Sylheti-speaking British-Bangladeshi community.

TEACHING HOMOPHONEL IN FFL AT THE UNIVERSITY

Teaching/ learning phonetics and phonology at university became indispensable because of the complexity of the French linguistic system. The majority of non native FFL learners make some writing mistakes as orally, where the most frequent those relating to homophones not verb and grammatical homophones which often reveal mark of inaptitude and incapacity observed at the level of the linguistic repertoire of the university audience. Our professional profile fosters future teachers intended for teaching at the primary level. We have decided to take a form of a dictation text. We based on homophones noun verb to know the cognitive skills of students. This work is intended as a reflection on the problems linked to the lexicon of FFL classroom and reuse of the teaching strategies to be followed to reinforce the learning of homophones for these students. The emphasis of the errors produced in the expression written, the most common grammatical homophones in dictation practice as well as we present the difficulties faced by these learners and the educational tools by the teacher to unite them in FFL class.

LINGUISTIC REPERTOIRE PROJECT BY ABDEL RAHMAN HAJJ SALAH

The linguistic repertoire project is one of the most prominent projects established by the linguistics scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Hajj Saleh who succeeded in convincing many Arabic language academies and research communities of its importance and feasibility. Despite the beginning of its concretization and its cultural importance, the exorbitant commissioning of this project and the death of this great scientist suspended its application. However, this project must be valued and resurrected. There should be also a political and civilized will to allocate sufficient funds to ensure its success, as planned by its founder, because his students and followers believe in it. What does this linguistic project consists in? How can we make it successful? and What is its civilizational and political impacts on the entire Islamic nation? This project aims at introducing a new automatic Arabic lexicon including all the vocabulary of the Arabic language as it was used in the ancient and contemporary Arab heritage, so that the researcher for the meaning of a word or phrase can know their various uses. In this context, heritage books should be edited, automatically stored and electronically processed, hence the importance of creating an automatic bank for the actually-used language, containing texts and not vocabulary. Those texts represent the real language utilization, which extends over time and includes countries, employing the Arabic language, as well as the various knowledge and sciences. Treating language in this way makes it a living, vital and practical material, which is not the case in the available dictionaries that represent the theoretical explanation of a word rather than its meaning in the context where it is used because they do not take into account the real use of language. However, such treating requires great effort and important coordination between a large number of researchers in various disciplines such as mathematics, computer sciences, automated media and software. It also necessitates huge funds and continuous and methodical work, which has already been initiated through many research centers and universities in the Arab countries, particularly Algeria. Nevertheless, this project began to fade away with the death of Abd al-Rahman al-Hajj Saleh and the absence of binding laws to continue its application. The aim of this intervention is to explain the importance of the project, its implementation plan and its great cultural and physical implications. This project is like an Arabic search engine or Arabic Google, as called by the late Hajj Saleh. So, will the dream of this man, which instilled it in the souls of many of his students who can supervise, follow up and embody this civilizational linguistic work, come true?.

Raced Repertoires: The Linguistic Repertoire as Multi-Semiotic and Racialized

In this article, the central argument is that research on the semiotic repertoire should also focus on how repertoires are racialized, and race is evoked through the semiotic repertoire. The article uses data from the South African educational context to advance a position in which semiotic repertoires simultaneously give and restrict access, evoke evaluation and construct identities in particular ways because of their entanglement with (racialized) bodies. I propose that this simultaneity can be theorized by viewing the black body as ‘intercorporeal’ and ‘grotesque’ (Bakhtin 1984). By drawing on such an approach, processes of racialization are explicitly connected to how semiotic resources are evoked in discourse. This article thus theoretically contributes to the recent movements in applied linguistics that view language as embodied, re-examine repertoires, and view language as multiplex and entangled. In addition, it also offers a framing that can theoretically challenge discourses of post-racialism with its multi-layered account of how race continues to be experienced as a significant form of meaning-making.

A Qualitative Analysis of Translanguaging by Colombian Migrants in North Carolina

This study examines the usefulness of the theoretical construct of translanguaging in analyzing the linguistic production of twenty-four Colombians (originally from Bogotá) residing in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. Translanguaging maintains that bilinguals and multilinguals have a single linguistic repertoire consisting of features traditionally associated with different named languages (English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, etc.), and that they freely select from among these features according to their communicative needs in specific contexts. In terms of named languages, participants utilized varying amounts of English during sociolinguistic interviews conducted primarily in Spanish by the investigator. The study presents a qualitative analysis of participants’ linguistic production viewed through the lens of translanguaging, which offers a better account than codeswitching of several patterns of language use observed in the data. These include phonetically ambiguous words, fluid combinations of morphemes from each named language (Spanish and English), and innovative uses of linguistic forms. The study concludes with a consideration of the relevance of translanguaging in addressing the issue of the legitimacy of the (often stigmatized) language varieties of Hispanics in the U.S. context.