Search Results (6)

The study investigated the developmental trajectory of the speech act of request among L1 Greek-speaking children spanning the preschool and primary school years (ages 4–11), aiming to address the scarcity of pragmatic research within this age range in Greek. Seventy-three children participated in an experimental task that elicited oral requests based on scenarios systematically manipulating addressee status/familiarity and the cost of the requested action. Responses were analysed via a bottom-up coding method, which showed that three quarters of all utterances adhered to four highly conventionalised, interrogative request constructions: (i) Can-you V-_SUBJUNCTIVE?, (ii) Will-you V?, (iii) Can-I V-_SUBJUNCTIVE?, and (iv) V-_PRESENT-YOU?. Notably, the direct Imperative mood was marginal even among the youngest participants. Results indicate a statistically significant variation in the distribution of these dominant patterns across age groups. Increasing age correlates with greater sensitivity to sociocultural parameters of communication, specifically the imposition/cost and the addressee’s face needs. This is further evidenced by a more elaborated repertoire of modifiers and supportive moves. We conclude that requestive behaviour progresses developmentally from largely underspecified directive forms toward a repertoire of more complex and contextually specified constructions, thereby providing empirical support for usage-based accounts of language acquisition. Full article

This study investigates the ability of listeners to categorize second language (L2) accents with high familiarity and examines how their linguistic background affects their categorization accuracy. The participants were first language (L1) Greek bilingual and multilingual listeners, who completed a task involving the categorization of talkers’ origins. After listening to samples of English (the listeners’ L2) and Greek-accented English, they assigned each sample to either England or Greece. Both bilingual and multilingual listeners showed accuracy above chance levels. This suggests among other findings that shared knowledge of the target language structure by both the talkers and listeners who speak the same L1 (i.e., Greek) and the use of common interlanguage patterns by the talkers may have aided in the easy identification of Greek-accented English by the listeners. Interestingly, multilinguals did not demonstrate higher accuracy than bilinguals in categorizing accents, indicating that the exposure advantage found in previous research may not apply when familiarity effects are strong. Another important finding was the better identification of Greek-accented English compared to English by the listeners; this provides evidence that listeners were more attuned to the acoustic features characteristic of the former accent. The findings carry theoretical and pedagogical implications for L2 acquisition and crosslinguistic speech perception. Full article

This paper provides a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) comparing glass and PET vinegar bottles in the Greek market to determine the more eco-friendly option. The analysis covers a 500 mL glass bottle and a 390 mL PET bottle, examining eleven subsystems from raw material acquisition to recycling. The initial findings indicate that glass bottles require more resources and have a greater environmental impact than PET bottles across several factors, despite the traditional perception of glass as being environmentally superior. This difference is partly due to the heavier weight of glass bottles than PET bottles. The results highlight the complexity of LCA studies. While LCA methodology has limitations, such as data collection quality, system boundary definitions, assessment challenges, and costs, it provides valuable indicators. This study underscores the need for more extensive data collection and systematic LCA application. By integrating LCA methodology through pilot projects and developing internal expertise, companies can make more accurate assessments, leading to sustainable industrial practices and growth. Full article

Ethnolects have been defined as varieties linked to particular ethnic minorities by the minorities themselves or by other ethnic communities. The present paper investigates this association between ethnic groups and language varieties in the Greek context. I seek to answer whether there is an association made (by Albanians or Greeks) between Albanian migrants in Greece and a particular variety that is not their L1, i.e., Albanian, and if so, whether this is an Albanian ethnolect of Greek. I show experimentally that, in fact, there is a variety of Greek that is linked with listeners’ perceptions of Albanian migrants. However, that criterion is not enough in itself to designate the variety as an ethnolect as the acquisition of this variety by the second or subsequent generations of migrants is not evidenced. Rather, those generations are undergoing language shift from Albanian to Greek. Therefore, the classification of Albanian Greek as an Albanian ethnolect of Greek is not possible despite the association between the variety and the particular minority in Greece. Classification as an L2 Greek variety or a Mock Albanian Greek (MAG) variety is instead argued. Full article

Recent proposals suggest that timing in acquisition, i.e., the age at which a phenomenon is mastered by monolingual children, influences acquisition of the L2, interacting with age of onset of bilingualism and amount of L2 input. Here, we examine whether timing affects acquisition of the bilingual child’s heritage language, possibly modulating the effects of environmental and child-internal factors. The performance of 6- to 12-year-old Greek heritage children residing in Germany (age of onset of German: 0–4 years) was assessed across a range of nine syntactic structures via the Greek LITMUS (Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings) Sentence Repetition Task. Based on previous studies on monolingual Greek, the structures were classified as “early” (main clauses (SVO), coordination, clitics, complement clauses, sentential negation, non-referential wh-questions) or as “late” (referential wh-questions, relatives, adverbial clauses). Current family use of Greek and formal instruction in Greek (environmental), chronological age, and age of onset of German (child-internal) were assessed via the Questionnaire for Parents of Bilingual Children (PABIQ); short-term memory (child-internal) was measured via forward digit recall. Children’s scores were generally higher for early than for late acquired structures. Performance on the three early structures with the highest scores was predicted by the amount of current family use of Greek. Performance on the three late structures was additionally predicted by forward digit recall, indicating that higher short-term memory capacity is beneficial for correctly reconstructing structurally complex sentences. We suggest that the understanding of heritage language development and the role of child-internal and environmental factors will benefit from a consideration of timing in the acquisition of the different structures. Full article

This study examines the effects of education and input as predictors of adult second language acquisition in naturalistic contexts. L1 Albanian learners of Greek who differed in amount of schooling (from 4 to 16 years) and length of residence (from 8 to 27 years) completed elicitation tasks that tested mastery of gender and number agreement, and past tense morphology. In addition, samples of spontaneous speech were assessed for fluency, grammatical complexity, and lexical richness in order to establish the learners’ overall proficiency in the L2. We hypothesized that education would facilitate attention to form and hence lead to better attainment of grammatical distinctions with relatively low functional load, particularly when these are complex. Quantity of input would be most strongly associated with aspects of language that are most relevant to communication, and in particular, fluency. These predictions were largely confirmed: education accounted for 15% of the variance on adjective number agreement and between 31% and 38% of the variance in performance on past tense morphology, which is considerably more complex. Fluency and clausal density, in contrast, were associated with length of residence but not with education. Full article