Languages

Usage-based approaches have become increasingly important in research on language acquisition and recently also in bilingual first language acquisition. Lexically specific patterns, such as What’s this? and frame-and-slot patterns, such as [I want X] play an important role in language acquisition scenarios. The ubiquity of such conventionalized chunks and frame-and-slot patterns supports the idea that children construct their early utterances out of concrete pieces they have heard and stored before. To investigate the emergence of patterns in children’s speech the traceback method has been developed, which accounts for the composition of utterances by relying on previously acquired material. Recently, the traceback method has also been applied to code-mixed utterances in bilingual children testing the assumption that bilingual utterances are structured around a frame-and-slot pattern in which the open slot is filled by (a) word(s) from the other language, e.g., [where is X] as in where is das feuer ‘where is the fire’. In this paper we want to present how the empirical use of the traceback method, and the general adoption of a usage-based theoretical perspective, can shed new lights on the study of bilingual phenomena, such as code-mixing. Full article

This paper presents results from two experiments on the L2 acquisition of wh-features and relevant constraints (Superiority and Subjacency) by L1 Sinhala–L2 English speakers. Our results from a Truth Value Judgment Task and a Grammaticality Judgment Task with 31 English native controls and 38 Sinhala/English bilinguals show that the advanced adult L2 speakers of English we tested have successfully acquired the uninterpretable wh-Q feature and relevant movement constraints in English, despite the lack of overt wh-movement in L1-Sinhala. These results raise questions for Representational Deficit Accounts of second language acquisition and offer evidence that (i) uninterpretable syntactic features are not necessarily subject to an early critical period and (ii) uninterpretable features not instantiated in learners’ L1 can be available for L2 syntactic computation. We take our results as evidence for full access by L2 learners to syntactic properties that are not instantiated in their L1, but that remain accessible due to a cognitive capacity for language (i.e., knowledge of Universal Grammar) independently of the L1. Full article

This study explored the patterns and predictors of aspect marker acquisition of Chinese preschoolers speaking Mandarin Chinese as their first language (L1). Based on a corpus drawn from 157 preschoolers from Beijing, China, this study set out to explore (1) the developmental pattern of aspect marker acquisition; (2) the interactional pattern between grammatical aspect markers and lexical aspects; (3) the production of temporal adverbs with aspect markers; and (4) the predictors of aspect marker acquisition. The main research findings included the following: (1) the Jonckheere–Terpstra test revealed an age-related increase in children’s production of aspect markers, and in particular, there was a significant increase in grammatical aspect markers and lexical aspect subclasses from age 4;6 (Year; Month) onwards; (2) the Friedman’s ANOVAs indicated that -LE was frequently used in combination with most of the lexical aspect subclasses, among them the achievement was the most frequently co-occurring subclass, while the activities came second; (3) a series of Chi-square tests showed that using temporal adverbs in combination with aspect markers became increasingly common among older children; (4) the hierarchical regression analysis identified children’s preschooling experience as a significant predictor of their early aspectual development, after controlling for the other variables. Full article

This contribution bridges three fields—pragmatics, argumentation, and law. Arguments can be seen as the verbal formulation of inferences that articulate justificatory relationships, meaning that behind every argument is at least one argumentative inference. As an argumentative activity and verbal practice, legal discourse has gaps to be filled by pragmatic inference. Neo- and post-Gricean frameworks can thus tentatively be used for its analysis. Based on these frameworks, this contribution asks whether argumentation in the interpretation of statutory law is the same as in international law. More precisely, it looks at judges’ legal interpretations, which function as justifying arguments because they are constrained by rules/canons of interpretation. It is shown that neither a pragma-dialectical hierarchy of statutory canons nor a hierarchy of related presumptions carries over to international law where there is no such hierarchy. Full article

With the boom in Indo-European (IE) studies among linguists from the early 20th century, toponymic studies on European place names have been largely based on the Proto-Indo-European (PIE). However, historical and archaeological records of non-IE groups, such as the Nuragic civilization of Sardinia, have presented the possibility of pre-IE/non-IE (Paleo-Sardinian) linguistic stratum influences on certain toponyms in Sardinia, Italy. This article aims to present a meta-study on existing toponymic reconstructions theorized by scholars, while offering a fresh perspective by employing methods of historical phonetic chains and sequences analysis to identify toponyms of interest. Analysis showed that certain Sardinian toponyms contain striking phonetic sequences that are uncharacteristic of PIE, such as *s(a)rd-, *kar-, *-ini, *-ài/*-éi, *#[θ]-. Overall conclusions appear to display the merits of (1) PIE and (2) pre-IE/ non-IE theories. Both provide plausible toponymic reconstructions. (1) The accuracy of IE theories is brought into question, as they appear to rely heavily on phonetic links to existing PIE roots, sometimes with a lack of consideration for other contextual or hydro-geo-morphological factors. (2) Conversely, pre-IE/non-IE theories are found to be highly speculative due to the lack of historical data, and knowledge, about the Paleo-Sardinian language. Full article

The present paper addressed the categorial content of affixes forming a set of denominal adjectives in Italian, arguing that they are substantially the derivational counterpart of oblique case/adpositions. Specifically, we argued that they act as elementary relators, following Manzini and Franco, who characterized oblique cases and prepositions as general relators expressing the relations is-included (⊆)/includes (⊇), or, in other words, their content is what Belvin and den Dikken dubbed “zonal inclusion”. Full article

Diglossia in Arabic differs from bilingualism in functional differentiation and mode of acquisition of the two registers used by all speakers raised in an Arabic-speaking environment. The ‘low’ (L) regional spoken dialect is acquired naturally and used in daily life, but the ‘high’ (H) variety, Modern Standard Arabic, is learned and used in formal settings. Register variation between the two ends of this H–L continuum is ubiquitous in everyday interaction, such that authors have proposed distinct intermediate register levels, despite evidence of mixing of H and L features, within and between utterances, at all linguistic levels. The role of sentence prosody in register variation in Arabic is uninvestigated to date. The present study examines three variables (F0 variation, intonational choices and post-lexical utterance-final laryngealization) in 400+ turns at talk produced by one speaker of San’ani Arabic in a 20 min sociolinguistic interview, coded for register on three levels: formal (fusħa), ‘middle’ (wusṭaː) and dialect (ʕaːmijja). The results reveal a picture of key shared features across all register levels, alongside distinct properties which serve to differentiate the registers at each end of the continuum, at least some of which appear to be under the speaker’s control. Full article

It has been noted that examples with extractions out of relative clauses that have been attested in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are judged to be unacceptable in Icelandic and Faroese. We hypothesize that this may reflect whether or not speakers tend to prepose unstressed object pronouns as a way of establishing a coherent discourse. In this article we investigate to what extent pronoun preposing is used in Swedish, Icelandic and Faroese and whether there is any correlation with the acceptabilty of extractions from relative clauses. We show that Icelandic speakers use pronoun preposing to a very limited extent whereas Faroese speakers often prepose the VP or sentential anaphor tað. In both languages extraction from relative clauses is mainly judged to be unacceptable, with Faroese speakers being somewhat more accepting of extraction from presentational relatives. A crucial factor seems to be whether preposing is associated with a marked, contrastive interpretation or not. Full article

In Catalan, -isme ‘-ism’, -itis, and -metre ‘-meter’ create new words that do not follow the WFRs described in grammar books and dictionaries. As a result, these lexical innovations, such as panxacontentisme (panxacontent ‘carefree’ + -ism ‘-ism’), titulitis (títol ‘certificate’ + ‘-itis’), and emocionòmetre (emoció ‘emotion’ + -metre ‘-meter’), tend to be considered transgressive. The main aim of this paper is to provide a close review of grammar books and dictionaries among other sources to compare the rules described in the literature and the data provided by the bank of neologisms of the Observatori de Neologia. Since language changes and variations are inherent phenomena of any living language, the deviation experienced by these bound morphemes could be conceived as an example of linguistic change and not only as a one-time transgression. In addition, in order to check whether these linguistic changes are specific to the Catalan language, I reviewed some English, French, and Spanish literature. Finally, a set of diachronic corpora, that covers the time span from the 11th century until the present day, is used to study the first examples of these phenomena in the Catalan language. The results point out that in Catalan, these changes can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century, and that they cannot be considered language-specific, since they affect the different languages under study. Full article

In 2017, Quebec’s Auditor General reported several major issues regarding government-funded French as a second language (FSL) courses, especially those intended for adult students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE). To this day, no official framework or program exists for this specific population, a situation that the government of Quebec wishes to resolve. Our research team was thereby mandated by the Ministry of Immigration to conduct a large-scale multilingual study with the objective of gaining a better understanding of the realities and needs of the various stakeholders involved in low-literate FSL classes. We met 42 teachers, 24 French learning center directors, and 10 pedagogical advisors in individual interviews; we also led 107 group interviews with SLIFE in 26 languages, allowing us to meet 464 adult SLIFE enrolled in low-literate FSL classes from 11 regions of the province of Quebec, most of them being refugees. This article reports on the decision-making process in which we engaged to overcome the ethical and methodological challenges we faced at various stages of the data collection with SLIFE participants: recruitment, informed consent, confidentiality, interview protocol design, instrument piloting, data collection, and data translation and transcription. To make informed decisions, we had to turn to literature outside SLA (i.e., refugee research and translation/interpreting literature) for guidance. In this article we discuss the limitations and contributions of our research to guide researchers who will conduct studies with similar non-academic samples/populations. Full article

Adjuncts and relative clauses are traditionally classified as strong islands for extraction across languages. However, the Mainland Scandinavian (MSc.) languages have been reported to differ from e.g., English in allowing extraction from adjunct and relative clauses. In order to investigate the distribution of possible island extractions in these languages based on naturally produced material, we conducted two exploratory corpus studies on adjunct and relative clause extraction in Danish and in English. Results suggest that both extraction from finite adjuncts and from relative clauses appears at a non-trivial rate in naturally produced Danish, which supports the claim that these structures are not strong islands in Danish. In English, we also found a non-trivial amount of examples displaying extraction from finite adjuncts, as well as a small number of cases of relative clause extraction. This finding presents a potential challenge to the claim that English differs from MSc. in never allowing extraction from strong islands. Furthermore, our results show that both languages appear to share certain trends that can be observed in the extraction examples regarding the type of extraction dependency, the type of adjunct clause featured in adjunct clause extraction, and the type of matrix predicate featured in relative clause extraction. Full article

This article explores processes of place-making through the study of the linguistic landscape of a small-size town in Northern Sweden. The analysis of signs is used as a tool for examining the role and visibility of actors in the landscape. For this purpose, we examine who the authors are, what forms of multilingualism can be observed, and who has agency in the place-making of the public space. Our documentation consists of photos and fieldnotes from observations, encounters, and conversations with people during ethnographic fieldwork in 2019. Using a mixed-methods approach, all signs were first analysed quantitatively according to the categories of authors and function. Regression analysis was used to explore correlations between the categories. Secondly, multilingual signs were analysed qualitatively regarding their function and purpose in relation to their contexts. Our results illustrate a city centre with a strong presence of the Swedish language. Multilingual signs target specific groups and are intended for information, advertisement, rules and regulations; moreover, our findings indicate that the opportunities for private actors to influence the linguistic landscape are limited. The form of multilingualism in this context—visible multilingualism present mainly through English—is different from the one we can see in the socio-demographic data. Full article

This study explores the acquisition of the English quotative system and the innovative quotative variant be like among Chinese L2 speakers of English residing in Melbourne, Australia. The L2 speakers’ use of quotatives such as say, go, be like, and quotative zero is compared with quotatives used by native speakers of Australian English (AusE) in Perth and Sydney, as well as with a group of Polish L2 speakers in Ireland. A quantitative analysis of the Chinese L2 speakers’ sociolinguistic interviews shows that their distribution of quotatives is dramatically different from native AusE speakers, primarily because of their overall low proportion of be like and their high proportion of quotative say and zero. The L2 speakers also show neutralization (no preference) for language-internal constraints, which have traditionally shown be like to be preferred in first person contexts and for reporting inner thoughts, differing from patterns for AusE observed in Perth and in a recent study of second generation Chinese Australians in Sydney. Full article

The present study aims to assess differences in executive functioning between monolingual and multilingual 23-month-old toddlers, both when dichotomizing multilingualism and assessing it on a continuum. It is hypothesized that multilinguals, individuals with greater non-dominant language exposure, and individuals with more translation equivalents, would perform better in the following domains: response inhibition, attentional flexibility, and regulation. No differences are expected for working memory. The Early Executive Functions Questionnaire, a newly developed parental report, is used to measure the four executive functions of interest. Multilinguals and individuals with greater non-dominant language exposure have significantly higher response inhibition; however, no differences are noted for any other executive function. Additionally, no associations between translation equivalents and executive functioning are found. Post-hoc analyses reveal that non-dominant language production had a positive correlation with working memory. The present findings support the notion of a domain-specific cognitive advantage for multilingual toddlers. Full article

Because of the suspension of face-to-face (F2F) teaching activities caused by COVID-19, practitioners are in limbo regarding the assessment of young learners (YLs) in the virtual learning environment, as they are left with minimal guidance and evidence on what can be applicable and effective in the new context. In many countries worldwide, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, schools in Greece were closed in March 2020. Schools began re-opening in September 2020; however, the second wave of COVID-19 struck, and the number of cases began to grow dangerously. Consequently, schools closed for the second time at the beginning of November 2020, causing teachers and students to face significant assessment challenges. The article presents a case study that concentrates on eight YLs aged 8–10 years old. Alternative assessment was applied during the students’ online language lessons as a means for the teacher to assess and evaluate students’ progress and learning of vocabulary and spelling. For the needs of the study, online observations were conducted, and field notes, record sheets and checklists were kept for a period of two months. Two months after the online lessons commenced, the students were interviewed in order to gain a holistic view of their progress and their feelings toward the experience of an alternative form of assessment. Full article

Health care delivery depends on effective provider–patient communication. An important issue is whether and how this communication differs for second language (SL) patients. While understanding health information can be impaired by limited English proficiency, we examined a potential benefit of SL use. SL users may be “affectively distanced”, with weaker emotional reactions to content presented in a foreign versus native language (NL). This distancing may have important implications for understanding, and for making decisions and judgements about health information to the extent these processes involve affective responses. For example, patients may respond to diagnostic test results indicating risk of illness with less intense negative affect if the information is presented in their SL. Language differences in affective response may in turn attenuate risk perception for SL versus NL users, with perceived risk being lower while the objective risk associated with test results increases, as predicted by the ‘risk as feelings’ view of risk perception, where perceived risk is based on affective response to the information. On the other hand, risk perception may be more calibrated with objective risk for SL users to the extent that affective distancing encourages SL users to rely on deliberative rather than affective-based, intuitive processes related to risk perception. SL use may also influence attitudes toward and intentions to perform behaviors that address risk because these processes are driven in part by risk perception and memory for the risk information. These processes may also depend on numeracy, defined as the ability to make sense of and rationalize numbers, because it influences risk perception. We tested these predictions in the context of a simulated Electronic Health Record (EHR) patient portal, in which participants were presented diagnostic test results in English from fictional patients. Native English speakers (n = 25), and native Mandarin speakers with higher numeracy (n = 25) and lower numeracy (n = 28) participated in the study. Consistent with the ‘affective distancing’ effect, SL participants with either higher or lower numeracy demonstrated a flatter slope for positive and negative affective responses to the test results compared to NL participants. Moreover, SL participants reported greater perceived risk than NL participants did as objective risk rose. A similar pattern occurred for attitudes toward and intentions to perform behaviors that addressed this risk, especially for treatment health behaviors. On the other hand, language did not influence memory for risk-related information. Our findings extend the affective distancing effect associated with SL use to the health domain and show that this effect influences risk perception and behavioral intentions beyond memory recall and numeracy skills. Full article

The study aims to contribute to our understanding of the situation of languages in contact and the phenomenon of linguistic borrowings in the modern online world. The current study investigates the use of English terms borrowed to describe romantic relationships in Spanish. We use a list of terms presented in GQ Spain, a men’s culture, fashion and style magazine, as popular terms in 2020 to describe (a lack of) love in romantic relationships. In order to analyze the actual use of these borrowings in Spanish, we collected data from the Corpus del Español NOW (2012–2019), focusing on the number of occurrences of each English borrowing, level of morphological adaptation, co-occurrence of translations or explanations, date of first use and location of use. Overall, 11 of the 20 terms, such as ghosting, gaslighting or benching, appeared in the corpus. We note the presence of quotation marks, parentheses or uppercase letters in some cases, but it was observed that most examples keep their English form. However, many terms appeared with an explanation or translation, reflecting the novelty of the borrowing. Data regarding dates and countries were collected in order to set the year they were integrated with the new meaning (2013–2019). The country with the highest number of cases was Argentina, and there were a substantial number of cases in other Spanish-speaking countries. Overall, these findings show an increase in the incorporation of these borrowings over the years in the Spanish lexicon. Full article

This paper investigates object-based and action-based iconic strategies and combinations of them to refer to everyday objects in the lexicon of an emerging village sign language, namely Central Taurus Sign Language (CTSL) of Turkey. CTSL naturally emerged in the absence of an accessible language model within the last half century. It provides a vantage point for how languages emerge, because it is relatively young and its very first creators are still alive today. Participants from two successive age cohorts were tested in two studies: (1) CTSL signers viewed 26 everyday objects in isolation and labeled them to an addressee in a picture-naming task, and (2) CTSL signers viewed 16 everyday objects in isolation and labeled them to an addressee before they viewed the same objects in context being acted upon by a human agent in short video clips and described the event in the clips to a communicative partner. The overall results show that the CTSL signers equally favored object-based and action-based iconic strategies with no significant difference across cohorts in the implementation of iconic strategies in both studies. However, there were significant differences in the implementation of iconic strategies in response to objects presented in isolation vs. context. Additionally, the CTSL-2 signers produced significantly longer sign strings than the CTSL-1 signers when objects were presented in isolation and significantly more combinatorial sign strings than the CTSL-1 signers. When objects were presented in context, both cohorts produced significantly shorter sign strings and more single-sign strings in the overall responses. The CTSL-2 signers still produced significantly more combinatorial sign strings in context. The two studies together portray the type and combination of iconic strategies in isolation vs. context in the emerging lexicon of a language system in its initial stages. Full article

In the first two decades following Ross’s Constraints on Variables in Syntax, a picture emerged in which the Mainland Scandinavian (MS) languages appeared to systematically evade some of the locality constraints proposed by Ross, including the relative clause (RC) part of the complex NP constraint. The MS extraction patterns remain a topic of debate, but there is no consensus as to why extraction from RCs should be so degraded in English (compared to MS)—or why it should be so acceptable in MS (compared to English). We present experiment results which indicate that English should be counted among the languages that allow extraction from RCs in at least some environments. Our results suggest a negligible island effect for RCs in predicate nominal environments and a substantially reduced island effect for those in canonical existential environments. In addition, we show that the size of the island effect resulting from extraction from an RC under a transitive verb is substantially reduced when the transitive verb is used to make an indirect existential claim. We present arguments that patterns of RC sub-extraction discovered in Mainland Scandinavian languages are mirrored in English, and we highlight methodological innovations that we believe may be useful for further investigation into this and other topics. Full article