Translanguaging space and translanguaging practices in multilingual Russian-speaking families

Translanguaging is seen both as a threat and as an opportunity for minority language development and transmission. While the theme of translanguaging has been explored especially in a context of migration, the novelty of this study lies in its investigation of the multiple contexts in which translanguaging is examined. In order to understand the nature of translanguaging, we adopt a novel interdisciplinary approach and view it in all its complexity, including liminal spaces of linguistic landscape. Family language policy affects the home linguistic environment. Our purpose is to investigate language choices by multilingual Russian-speakers in Cyprus, Sweden and Estonia, immigrant and minority settings, and try to understand how they are reflected in the multilingual interaction of the families. Using ethnographic participant observations and oral spontaneous multilingual production, our study attempts to describe how communication is managed through translanguaging practices among multilingual Russian-speaking families members in the cultural and linguistic environments of the three countries. By looking closely at the complexities of translanguaging space, it is our ambition to gain new insights about how it is organised and how translanguaging becomes a valuable linguistic resource in multilingual families. Our results indicate that translanguaging practices can be used in family conversational contexts and contribute to the creation of a rich and positive family repertoire. A new norm of Russian has been developed in all the three settings. A language shift can happen more quickly than expected, and, thus, it is important for parents to provide many opportunities for practising Russian as the L1.

Modality across genres in Spanish as a heritage language

Writers’ use of modality, an interpersonal linguistic resource commonly used for expressing probability, reveals key information about their claims. Most research on modality addresses L2 English learners, leaving a gap in research in advanced language development in other languages. This paper addresses this gap by studying how heritage language (HL) speakers of Spanish express doubt and probability in Spanish and how the lexicogrammatical features they use across genres reveal how they express these meanings. Drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics and pragmatics, this study examines modality in 125 texts written in Spanish by HL students in the U.S., including narratives, expositions, article reviews, personal responses, and research papers. The results reveal that students use the most modality resources in personal responses and the least in reviews. This work offers insights about the interpersonal resources writers choose to express their argumentative stance and the socio-pragmatic competence in writing among HL students.

O tabu no discurso cinemático: tradição, funções e reflexões

Although taboo has become an ever-increasing widespread linguistic resource within audiovisual contexts (Sapolsky et al. 2010; Bednarek 2019), and despite the importance sociolinguistic profiles hold in cinematic products, little research has been carried out on the topic.Thus, this study aims at examining the role taboo language plays in the movies. In order to do so, the presentation will combine a theoretical approach - geared towards the cinematic tradition of how taboo is used in the movies, the stereotyping of fictional characters through taboo and the relationship established between the use of taboo and the multimodal and ephemeral nature of cinematic products, with an applied approach – which presents the frequency of taboo words in six North-American movies as well as their functions. Based on the findings, this study suggests that taboo in cinema discourse can be disclosed in two different layers of functions: an intratextual function, concerning the role taboo plays within the narrative; and an extratextual function, related to the role taboo plays beyond the story, i.e. between the movie and the receivers. Further, more detailed, analysis showed that taboo is used intratextually, with an expletive, offensive, social or stylistic function, and, extratextually, with a mimetic, comic or ideological function; the frequency of each will help us characterize taboo in this audiovisual corpus.

Exploring the use of grammatical metaphor in Indonesian EFL learners’ academic writing

Grammatical metaphor is considered to be the key linguistic resource in the creation of academic discourse. In a pedagogical context, identification of grammatical metaphor in students’ writing can be used as a measurement of students’ academic literacy level to determine actions to improve the existing situation. In Indonesian EFL context, students’ grammatical metaphor deployment and development has not been much studied, despite its strategic role in improving students’ academic literacy. This paper presents a first step towards understanding Indonesian tertiary students’ linguistic strengths and weaknesses in academic literacy through the identification of ideational grammatical metaphor deployment and development. Using cross-sectional data from first year and third year students in a State Islamic College in a rural area of Indonesia, the students’ academic writing were analyzed for the deployment of experiential grammatical metaphor. The findings show that the two groups of different levels of participants deployed similar types of reconstrual of experiential grammatical metaphor. Process to Thing transcategorisation was the most frequent type of experiential grammatical metaphor reconstrual across the two groups, while Relator to Process was the most frequent logical grammatical metaphor reconstrual in both groups. Third-year students surpassed the first-year group in the frequency and proportion of instances of grammatical metaphor deployment. This study has shown that the development of learners’ academic writing was limited. Thus, it was suggested that a more explicit pedagogy to expose students to grammatical metaphor and more basic lexicogrammar teaching to enable the students to write academic texts is warranted.

A RECEPÇÃO DA ÉKPHRASIS NO POEMA ÉPICO PROSOPOPEIA, DE BENTO TEIXEIRA

We seek to understand the different meanings attributed to ekphrasis in order to analyze its use, as a linguistic resource, in the epic poem Prosopopeia (1601), by Bento Teixeira, whose discourse, outlined by Rhetoric, uses the ekphrasis to legitimize or build an argumentation. In order to do so, particularities about the literate production of Portuguese America are presented, and issues concerning Ancient Rhetoric and, more precisely, the ekphrasis are discussed. The analysis consists of delimitation and discussion of ecfrastic passages present in the poem, so that the ekphrasis is associated with the affiliation to the epic genre and the rhetorical character of Bento Teixeira's verses.

Meta discourse Use in Thesis Abstracts: A Case of M.Ed. English Majors

A metadiscourse is an important linguistic resource that binds different parts of a text together and facilitates communication building relationships with audiences. This aspect of discourse analysis has gained a considerable attention in academic writing these days. The aim of this study was to identify the types of metadiscourses used in the thesis abstracts of M.Ed. English majors of Tribhuvan University (TU), Kathmandu, Nepal. It also aimed at investigating the distribution patterns of metadiscourse resources in their thesis abstracts. Following Hyland's (2005) metadiscourse taxonomy, a corpus of 20 master theses submitted to the Department of English Education, TU in the year 2019 was analyzed to identify the types of metadiscourse used in the abstracts. Relying on a quantitative data analysis followed by qualitative analysis, it was found that the number of interactive metadiscourse features was considerably higher in the corpus than the interactional metadiscourse markers. The most frequent types of metadiscourses used in the texts were endophoric markers, transitions, boosters self mentions, and code glosses. Understanding the uses and functions of metadiscourse academic writing is pivotal for EFL/ESL students, particularly for postgraduate students when they are writing their theses or research articles for publication.

“Quiero juksar en la julaftenito” – Playfulness and metalinguistic awareness in translingual family interactions

This article explores playfulness and creativity in translingual family interactions. In particular, it focuses on how and to what ends adolescents mobilize multilingual resources in family interactions. It investigates the cases of two multilingual families with adolescent children (13–18 years old). The families have different linguistic backgrounds, but have in common that one of the parents have migrated from a Spanish-speaking Latin-American country to Northern-Norway, and that Spanish represents a linguistic resource and a heritage language in the families. The data consists of self-recorded family interactions (29 recordings, ca. 5 h.) and were collected over the course of one year. By analysing interactions where the adolescents employ Spanish features, the article offers insights into how adolescents negotiate the position of the heritage language Spanish in the family. A close, turn-by-turn analysis demonstrates that the adolescents in a creative and playful manner employ a multitude of linguistic resources to fulfil interactional achievements: Through metalinguistic talk and playful translingual practices, the adolescents challenge and negotiate identities and family roles, exert agencies, and demonstrate metalinguistic awareness and sociolinguistic control.

Made in India SiDHELA Indias First Endangered Language Archive

Sikkim-Darjeeling Himalayan Endangered Languages Archive (SiDHELA) created by the Centre for Endangered Languages, Sikkim University is India’s first endangered language archive. This archive is part of the ongoing language documentation initiatives of the Centre funded by the University Grant Commission. The Centre, formally established in December 2016 aims for preservation and promotion of endangered languages in Sikkim and North Bengal. The Centre carries out documentation and description of the indigenous endangered languages of the region through linguistic and ethnographic fieldwork. SiDHELA conceptualised as a platform for a linguistic resource of the languages spoken in the region, houses the primary data collected through fieldwork. One of the main aims of this archive is to preserve the data for long term usage and dissemination. Central Library, Sikkim University hosts the archive under its digital library. Through this archive the Centre for Endangered Languages, Sikkim University seeks not just to preserve and protect but also to promote the use of endangered languages spoken in the region. This paper presents the journey of this archive from idea to reality. This paper outlines the motivation behind the conceptualisation of SiDHELA as a regional archive and then discusses its development. It includes discussion on the developmental platform, theoretical issues in the conceptualisation of the archive and practical challenges in its design and development and its prospects. This paper thus primarily intends to inform scholars and researchers working with endangered languages of the region about this archive and its development. Finally, it hopes to kindle interest among researchers and librarians for developments of more such regional archives.

Language as a resource with fluctuating values: Arabic speakers in humanitarian and social work

This paper investigates the fluctuating value of Arabic when constructed as a linguistic resource for multilingual, “languaged” workers in a counselling centre for refugees in Austria and in an international humanitarian agency operating in ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. Drawing on a variety of ethnographic data (observations, interviews and documents), our analyses of the institutionalised division of labour and of workers’ narrative positioning show how workers in both organisations discursively construct this linguistic resource as being of ambivalent value in their positioning vis-à-vis their colleagues, for their careers and in work interactions. Stratifying and empowerment effects are interwoven in the varying and coexisting values of Arabic.