Languages

This study re-investigates the merger of *-iun/iut and *-un/ut in 46 Yuè Chinese varieties, which lacks explanatory treatment, from the variant derivative patterns of *-iun/iut > [yn]/[yt] and *-un/ut > [yn]/[yt]. The historical-comparative method was employed as the frame to analyze spatial (geographic) variation obtained from QGIS. The data showed that the merger of the reflexes of *-iun/iut and *-un/ut does not prevail in the majority of Yuè varieties, while mergers of *-iun/iut with *-in/it and *-iun/iut with *-on/ot or *-ion/iot are dominant. The spatial patterns of *-iun/iut and *-un/ut suggest different diffusion patterns and background factors. Full article

Multilingualism and multiculturalism are verbally and visually recurrent in the sitcom Family Guy (1999-in production) through a combination of a main language of communication (L1) and other languages (L3) in the source language (SL) or source text (ST). The use of L3 is tantamount to tokenism and stereotyping characters, especially those whose recurrence is incidental and part of jokes. This paper compares two versions of the episode “Road to Rhode Island” (American and Spanish DVDs) and addresses a scene to analyze the linguistic challenges and lexical choices in dubbing and subtitling L1 and L3 in two geographical varieties of Spanish: Latin American Spanish and Peninsular Spanish. In this regard, this study focuses on the role and function of L3 in translation, the techniques to represent L3 in translation, L1 and L3 translation techniques, and which techniques are used in translation. Overall, this paper explores how the Spanish DVD adds a new L3 in the target text (TT) to maintain its original function in subtitling and dubbing, and the differences in the American DVD: L3^TT omission in subtitling and L3^TT change of function and meaning in dubbing, which ultimately accentuates linguistic and cultural misrepresentation and stereotypes. Full article

Sinitic languages are very often described as tenseless, since they are generally seen as lacking ‘true’ grammatical markers of tense: thus, the interpretation of time reference relies on other factors, such as aspect, modal verbs, and the use of time expressions. However, the debate concerning the tenseless nature of Chinese has not been settled yet: several types of items in Sinitic have been analyzed as expressing both aspect and tense, tense and modality, or even tense only. In this paper, we offer a critical analysis of the proposals made in the description of Standard Mandarin Chinese and (so-called) Chinese dialects concerning grammatical exponents of tense. We shall show that there appears to be a very broad degree of variation within Sinitic in the type and nature of tense(-like) meanings expressed, with different degrees of overlap between tense and other TAM categories (i.e., aspect and modality), and different degrees of grammaticalisation of alleged tense markers. Furthermore, the most grammaticalised tense markers are located in subregions within northern China: we shall thus discuss the relevance of our data for the areal typology of Sinitic. Full article

This study is a qualitative analysis of a naturally occurring translanguaging phenomenon in the writing practices of fifteen high-scoring deaf bilingual adult writers. This study aims to identify translanguaging factors related to writing achievement and explore themes that emerge within an asset-based/antideficit, deaf bilingualism/Deaf Gain theoretical framework. Data were gathered by collecting, reviewing, coding, and identifying overarching themes in the interview transcripts. The findings show that high-scoring deaf participants utilized translanguaging writing strategies and tools such as translingual interdependence, language flexibility, semiotics and multimodalities, American Sign Language (ASL) drafting, and visual tracking skills that led to their writing achievement. Full article

This paper focuses on the issue of multilingualism in contemporary literary texts, which contain examples of code-switching or words and expressions in different languages, which contribute to placing emphasis on the foreignness and strangeness of the characters or narrators of the stories. This study stems from the edition of a compilation of short narrative and dramatic texts translated into Spanish by authors who build up stories from a position of in-betweenness, rejection, or displacement. In this context, the presence of different languages contributes to revealing the multilingual and multicultural reality that provides the background for the different stories. They are all concerned about manifesting their vital experiences of (un)belonging to a certain labelled culture or identifiable group, often from a diasporic point of view. Some real examples of translation processes will be provided to show the strategies employed to preserve an effect of strangeness on readers, to reveal feelings of (un)belonging, to manifest a variety of identities, or to make explicit culturally marked terms. Translation is then approached from the perspectives of cosmopolitism, diversity, and postcolonial studies, which rely on multilingualism as a signal of a diversified and multicultural identity. Full article

Research on different populations of heritage speakers (HSs) has demonstrated that these speakers (i) frequently produce fewer adjectives, and (ii) produce more errors in nominal concord than in subject–verb agreement. The first point, (i), has been attributed in the literature to the optionality of adjectives and to the fact that adjectives characterize the literary language and HSs lack familiarity with this register. The second point, (ii), is viewed by other researchers as supporting theories that treat nominal concord as being different from subject–verb agreement. In this paper, we contribute data on production of adjectives and agreement asymmetries with adjectives from heritage Greek. We show that these cannot be viewed as supporting claims with respect to (i) but conclude that nominal concord and subject–verb agreement involve different mechanisms. We furthermore explore ways to account for a slight contrast we observe between prenominal and postnominal agreement. Full article

This study presents productive L2 French grammar data obtained at the end of grade 1 from 186 elementary school children learning French in bilingual (CLIL) or in regular school programs in Germany. The children completed a picture description task to assess their productive oral L2 French grammar skills and two standardized cognitive tests on nonverbal intelligence and sustained attention. The results did not indicate any significant effects of the cognitive tests or of child-internal variables (in this case gender, language background and educational background). However, children in the regular French program unexpectedly outperformed their peers in the bilingual French program. Classroom observations and information provided by teachers suggest that this finding may, at least in part, be due to the fact that in grade 1 there were only minor differences between the two programs in terms of L2 exposure time and teaching methodology. Full article

This paper examines switch reference (SR) in A’ingae, an understudied isolate language from Amazonian Ecuador. We present a theoretically informed survey of SR, identifying three distinct uses of switch reference: in clause chaining, adverbial clauses, and so-called ‘bridging’ clause linkage. We describe the syntactic and semantic properties of each use in detail, the first such description for A’ingae, showing that the three constructions differ in important ways. While leaving a full syntactic analysis to future work, we argue that these disparate properties preclude a syntactic account that unifies these three constructions to the exclusion of other environments without SR. Conversely, while a full semantic account is also left to future work, we suggest that a unified semantic account in terms of discourse coherence principles appears more promising. In particular, we propose that switch reference in A’ingae occurs in all and only the constructions that are semantically restricted to non-structuring coordinating coherence relations in the sense of Segmented Discourse Representation Theory. Full article

(1) Background: Given the scarcity of data on the psychometric evaluation of measures used with typically developing Greek-speaking bilinguals, this study aims to present preliminary evidence for the standardization and the psychometric evaluation of a gender assignment and agreement assessment designed for the Greek language (henceforth, GAAGL Assessment) employing real and pseudo-words. This is the first study to standardize the GAAGL Assessment and to explore its discriminatory ability with typical populations. (2) Methods: The assessment was designed as part of the BALED project which targeted language skills in bilingual children for whom one language is Greek. For the psychometric evaluation and the exploration of the test’s discriminatory ability we ran a Cronbach’s alpha analysis and a Youden Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis across the domains and sub scores of the test. Our sample consisted of 53 typically developing Greek monolingual children and 57 age-matched Greek–Albanian-speaking bilinguals. (3) Results: The results showed: (a) a high internal consistency for the GAAGL Assessment across its four main tasks and (b) excellent discriminatory ability, since statistically significant positive discrimination was detected between monolingual and bilingual children in the tasks and scores of the GAAGL Assessment. Full article

This paper is the introductory paper of the Special Issue titled: “New Research on the Role and Effects of Structured Input in Assessing the Nature of Language Processing”. It provides a clear analysis of the nature and role of structured input activities in second language research and language pedagogy. It presents the main findings of genuine empirical research investigating the effectiveness of structured input on different forms and structures across different languages and among different populations. The paper provides suggestions for future research within this framework. Full article

Many languages of lowland South America mark remoteness distinctions in their TAM systems. In Amahuaca (Panoan; Peru) multiple remoteness distinctions are made in the past and the future. I argue that the temporal remoteness morphemes (TRMs) of Amahuaca can be understood as indications of the remoteness of the event time relative to the utterance time in matrix environments. In dependent clauses, however, the picture is more complicated. By exploring adjunct switch-reference clauses, I show that TRMs in dependent clauses display a previously unreported ambiguity reminiscent of ambiguities found with adjunct tense. Specifically, they can relate the time of the adjunct clause event to the time of the matrix event or to the utterance time. I suggest that this ambiguity may arise from the availability of multiple interpretation sites for adjunct TRMs, with the possible interpretations being constrained by the temporal semantics of switch-reference markers themselves. This work thus contributes to the empirical understanding of how TRMs are interpreted in dependent clauses, suggesting interesting potential parallels to the interpretation of adjunct tense. Full article

This paper presents a detailed description of the phonology of the Rongpa variety of Choyul, an understudied Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Lithang (理塘) County, Dkarmdzes (甘孜) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province, China. Based on firsthand fieldwork data, this paper lays out Rongpa phonology with details, examining its syllable canon, initial and rhyme systems, and word prosody. Peculiar characteristics of this phonological system are as follows: First, Rongpa has a substantial phonemic inventory, which comprises 43 consonants, 13 vowels, and 2 tones. 84 consonant clusters are observed to serve as the initial of a syllable. Secondly, the phonemic contrast between plain and uvularized vowels is attested. In addition, regressive vowel harmony on uvularization, height, and lip-roundedness can be clearly observed in various constructions including prefixed verb stems. Finally, regarding word prosody, two tones in monosyllabic words, /H/ and /L/, are observed to distinguish lexical meanings, and disyllabic words exhibit four surface pitch patterns. Pitch patterns in verb morphology are also examined. The findings and analyses as presented in this paper could form a foundation for future research on Rongpa Choyul. Full article

This paper describes the lexicalization processes of the expositive adverb yijing in Chinese, taking the view that the lexicalization of yijing has been achieved by both syntactic and semantic–pragmatic contexts. There are two key processes: the grammaticalization of jing is the key factor for reanalysis of the structure yijing. Originally, jing could only be combined with NP. In the structure “yi + jing + NP experiences”, jing acquired the context in which it was possible to combine with VP. When the VP was an active situation, jing was grammaticalized into a manner adverb, while when VP was a semelfactive situation, jing, the same with yi, became a state adverb for the past tense and perfect aspect. The lexicalization of yijing contains two processes, namely reanalysis and cohesion. In the structure “yi_{[relative time]} + jing +VP”, when there were complex elements, it was reanalyzed as “[yi + jing] + VP”, where yijing functioned as a coordinate structure. If the structure “[yi + jing] + VP” was in a sufficient conditional clause and the VP was an accomplishment situation, “yi + jing” in this context acquired the pragmatic function to confirm that an event has happened, but it was still expressing the tense–aspect meanings of the sentence. In the 7th century, when VP was an achievement situation and had a perfective verb in it, yijing no longer bore the tense–aspect function and was specialized into a confirmative expositive adverb for pragmatic function, and the lexicalization processes finished. Full article

This paper draws on conceptualisations of language as heteroglossic practices to examine how the experienced bilingual science teacher navigates between the monoglossic ideology that is embodied in the official Namibian Language in Education Policy (LiEP) within a linguistically constrained Namibian bilingual context. This paper aims to support recent research that challenges monolingual and monoglossic language practices, which tend to ignore the linguistic resources that children bring to the classroom. Data were collected from a classroom including video and audio recordings of lessons, field notes and photographs. The data were analysed through socio-cultural discourse and fine-grained multimodal analytical methods. The data findings illustrate the moment where the science teacher was constrained by English monolingual policy to mediate learners’ access to science learning, and harnessed all linguistic resources that the learners bring to the classroom. Subsidiary to that, there were moments where the teacher worked flexibly across languages, discourses and modes to interrupt the monoglossic ideology that is embodied in the official Namibian Language in Education Policy (LiEP). The use of rich heteroglossic practices is a clear testimony to enhanced science meaning-making regardless of learners’ ‘limited proficiency in English. The findings highlight the need to support learners from linguistically diverse backgrounds through a deliberate inclusive language policy that harnesses the heteroglossic nature of communicative practices and prepares teachers for a multilingual reality. Full article

This paper investigates reduplication in Kua’nsi, a Central Ngwi language of the Sino-Tibetan family, spoken in Yunnan Province, China, by around 5000 speakers. Reduplication is a productive morphological device in Kua’nsi and has complex forms and functions. Although Kua’nsi reduplication shows some similarities with reduplication in other Ngwi languages, it also has reduplicative forms and functions that appear to be cross-linguistically rare. Formally, reduplication in Kua’nsi can be full, partial, or discontinuous. Functionally, it can be used with inflectional and derivational meanings as well as without any semantic or syntactic effect in certain constructions. Some functions of Kua’nsi reduplication appear to be not frequently found across languages. The forms and functions of Kua’nsi reduplication are complex and there is not a one-to-one relationship between the form and function of particular patterns of reduplication. Full article

Linguistic diversity is present in many audiovisual productions and has given rise to fruitful research on translation of multilingualism and language variation. Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001) is a prototypical film for translation analysis, since multilingualism is a recurrent feature, as the film dialogue combines English (L1) with Hindi and Punjabi (L3), which creates an effect of code-switching. This article analyses how the multilingualism and the cultural elements present in the source text (ST) have been transferred to the Spanish translated text (TT) La boda del monzón. The results show that in the Spanish dubbed and subtitled versions, few Indian cultural elements are left, and little language variation is preserved. Thus, L3 does not play a central role as it does in the source text. In the translation, only a few loan words from Hindi or Punjabi are kept, mainly from the domains of food and cooking, as well as terms of address and greetings, or words related to the wedding ceremony. The results also show that when L3 is not fully rendered in translation, otherness is still conveyed through image and music, thus (re)creating a different atmosphere for Spanish audiences. Full article

Studies on stylistic change in music argue that when singers use stylistic devices in their songs, they have one purpose: to represent their image and their artistic and social identity. In this paper we focus on the singer Rosalía, a Catalan artist who sings flamenco and Latin music. These two musical genres are associated with innovative varieties of Spanish, but this singer is not a speaker of this variety (she uses the Spanish spoken in Catalonia, a conservative variety). So, we want to know whether, when she sings, she linguistically adapts to the associated phenomena of flamenco and Latin music. In order to carry out this work, we have collected two oral corpora: the first is Rosalía’s discography and the second is 40 min of interviews in Spain and America. In our analyses we have verified that, indeed, when Rosalía sings, she uses indexicalized phenomena of the genres. However, in the interviews she keeps her vernacular variety, Catalan, although we have observed signs of accommodation to American Spanish, which also reveal a significant change in the singer’s idiolect. Full article