Book ? ?The Consequences of Mobility : Linguistic and Sociocultural Contact Zones?
To translate or not to translate: Attitudes to English loanwords in Norwegian
The ?fast forward? button for the influx of English loanwords1 into the Scandinavian languages has long since been pressed. The views on this phenomenon, both in academic and non-academic circles, can generally be divided into two categories. On the one hand, there are those who are more or less strongly concerned about the ?pollution? and possible future eradication of their language (these possibly constitute a majority, at least among Norwegian academics), and on the other there are those who do not seem to mind so much that English seems to be claiming some territory within their language. In this paper, I look at some material which illustrates the nature of this divide particularly well. The material stems from a Norwegian discussion list on the web (Ordlabben/?The Word Lab?)2, where people are invited to contribute suitable Norwegian translations for a set of recent English loanwords. I focus especially on a subset of these contributions, where the contributors, rather than straightforwardly accepting the task they are invited to perform, show fierce opposition to this proposed strategy of Norwegianization, thereby showing a positive attitude towards the influx of English loanwords into the Norwegian language. After presenting the material I discuss, mainly from the perspective of Bakhtinian dialogism, whether or not there exists a defence for this kind of attitude, and whether indeed such a defence ought to be considered at all, in light of the fact that the prevailing opinion within academic and policy-making circles seems to be that people representing this kind of attitude need to be ?protected from themselves?.
The domain concept, originally suggested by Schmidt-Rohr in the 1930s (as credited in Fishman?s writings in the 1970s), was an attempt to sort out different areas of language use in multilingual societies, which are relevant for language choice. In Fishman?s version, domains were considered as theoretical constructs that can explain language choice which were supposed to be a more powerful explanatory tool than more obvious (and observable) parameters like topic, place (setting) and interlocutor. In the meantime, at least in Scandinavia, the term ?domain? has been taken up in the debate among politicians and in the media, especially in the discussion whether some languages undergo ?domain loss? vis-?-vis powerful international languages like English. A first objection that has been raised is that domains, as originally conceived, are parameters of language choice and not properties of languages, hence languages do not ?have? domains, and therefore cannot lose them. A second objection is that the classical domain concept is not necessarily applicable to the present Danish sociolinguistic situation, since stable multilingualism for in-group communication is absent at least for the dominant group of Danish speakers. A further objection is concerned with the applicability of the domain concept to actual patterns of language choice in multilingual settings. Especially P?draig ? Riag?in has claimed that at least some multilingual situations are best not described in terms of domains, and recent research e.g. about the multilingual communities in the Danish-German border area seems to confirm this.
Deconstructing ?the domain of science? as a sociolinguistic entity in EFL societies: The relationship between English and Danish in higher education and research
Preisler introduces the Danish debate concerning the influence of English on Danish language and language use, and ? drawing on previous research ? describes what he sees as the two ?sides? in the debate: (1) the ?followers,? i.e. the vast majority of the population whose attitude to English is simply instrumental, and who embrace the influence of English as a manifestation of internationalization; (2) ?the concerned,? a small but influential minority whose views on the influence of English are more critical, and who represent the cultural elite. He then takes a quick detour into postmodernism, deconstructing the concepts of ?Language? and ?Domain,? and redefining the latter as ?practice? in an ethnographic sense. Taking a closer look at the relationship between English and Danish within one particular ?domain,? the ?domain of science,? where English is often thought to have won out, he shows that this is really two domains (i.e. practices): the domain of university research, and that of university teaching. Only in the domain of university teaching does it make sense to talk about a potential ?domain loss? for Danish, whereas Preisler concludes that, within the domain of university research, English and Danish are functionally distributed, and that this does not in itself affect the status of Danish within Danish society.
Over the fence ? and into English? Reflections on adolescents, academics, linguistic development and language policy in Norway in the early 2000s
After a discussion of recent language-policy developments in the Scandinavian countries, and of the domain loss theory saying English may displace Scandinavian languages in crucial sectors of society, a model is sketched that links the progress of English to people?s free choices, presupposing (1) bilingualism in the national language and English, (2) arenas where real choices are possible and (3) motives for preferring English. This model is applied to youth language and academic language in Norway, on the basis of recent research. In both cases, there has been an increase in people?s competence in English as well as in the number of arenas and motives for using English. As for the adolescents, in spite of the strongly positive symbolic value they ascribe to English, there are few indications that they are really dropping Norwegian, whereas academics tend to use English more, both in publishing and in other discipline-related activities. Finally the author reflects upon the consequences that should be drawn in relation to language policy. Youth marks a period of freedom, and Norwegian adolescents? use of language doesn?t necessarily forebode a transition into English, and so should be stimulated rather than limited. Contrary to this, academic language use is already governed by regulations, and may be further regulated, if necessary by law, so as to promote parallel use of Norwegian and English at the universities.
Promoting linguistic diversity Reflections on the language policy of European language policy conferences
To face up to the omnipresence of ?Anglo-American? (as defined in footnote 2), conferences on language policy today address the issue of promoting linguistic diversity. This especially applies to contemporary Europe. Nevertheless, these conferences, which can be regarded as a kind of laboratories or academic microcosm, do not subscribe to clear language policies. Consequently, the predominant language is here, as elsewhere, the Anglo-American. This article outlines the deep division between the postulate of linguistic diversity and reality, and is a call for soul-searching.
This present paper concerns recent migrations from the Portuguese mainland and from the island of Madeira to the English and French speaking territory of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands. On-going research is being carried out with a group of students from the Jersey community and studying at the University of Southampton. Through a series of informal discussions and class participation exercises, a detailed evaluation of both behavioural and attitudinal evidence pertaining to these languages in context is carried out. Moreover, the students own observations about their home community?s sociolinguistic network and notions of identity afford a valuable insight into the hierarchical and attitudinal factors which determine the interpersonal communication strategies employed on a day-to-day basis. To this end, tentative conclusions are made regarding the ethnolinguistic vitality of the younger members of this particular community.
Language and identity in post-Soviet Moldova
The multilingual Republic of Moldova emerged from the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991 as an example of the linguistic complications that can result from imperial domination and the mobility associated with political change. The study draws on historical, survey, and ethnographic data to illustrate the complexity of the accessible language and social identities in the emergent country. Among the issues discussed are the status of Russian, the argument over the status of Moldovan as an independent language or a dialect of Romanian, and the role of English as an international language in Moldova's globalizing culture and economy. Trends in the survey data are both reinforced and challenged by the ethnographic data. In conclusion, I argue that the linguistic identity crisis in Moldova seems far from resolution, even though some reasons for hope can be identified.
Mobility, contact and an accent norm: the case of Received Pronunciation
This paper will focus on various facets of RP as an accent norm. In the first part of the paper I will set the stage for a renewed sociolinguistic view of RP, and examine some of the e ffects of social and geographical mobility and contact on RP. At the same time, one of my concerns will be to bring a renewed class analysis into the sociolinguistic discussion. I do this, contra many sociolinguists who have recently taken up the meta-narratives of, for example, the risk society, globalisation and late modernity (see e.g. Coupland, Sarangi and Candlin 2001), in order to argue for the continuing relevance of a restructured and updated notion of individually-instantiated social class for the discussion of an elite social class accent in Britain. Along the way, and perhaps controversially, part of the agenda of this paper will be to advance the case that a renewed understanding of the concept RP itself enables RP to claim a tenable place within descriptive sociolinguistics. In the second part of this paper we will be looking at various facets of the changing situation of RP in present-day England. This includes data showing ongoing phonetic changes in progress, as well as overt and covert attitudes to RP. The phonetic data have been gleaned from sociolinguistic interviews, while the attitudinal data derive from interviews, subjective evaluation questionnaires and the popular press. By thus exploring the current and changing status of RP in the wider sociolinguistic landscape of Britain, the discussion will also highlight several ways in which variationist and attitudinal sociolinguistic studies can mutually benefit each other.
Bilingualism in North-East France with specific reference to Rhenish Franconian spoken by Moselle Cross-border (or frontier) workers
This chapter examines the phenomena of bilingualism in the contact zone of the Moselle area of North-East France on the border with the Saarland, where cross-border workers negotiate linguistic identity in the context of interaction with German and French. The study presents an extensive historical background and takes up an empirical investigation of this little-known corner of France, in a survey of language use amongst 120 cross-border workers, conducted in 1998. The consequences of mobility in this case are that the respondents do not find themselves in a stable diglossic situation, but rather in a situation of linguistic flux. There are several micro- and macro-level factors which mitigate against use of Rhenish Franconian dialect in daily life, with the result that dialect is not being spoken to the same extent as it was in the past. There has been a significant decline in the number of native speakers and a progressive erosion of the dialect?s underpinning in the community. Hence, this location presents many cultural, social and economic repercussions to be explored. By reporting on the usage of, and attitudes to, the dialect spoken by cross-border workers, the chapter gives a baseline to which future studies may refer in order to track ongoing developments in cross-border workers? use of the Rhenish-Franconian variety within this border region between France and Germany
The study of miscommunication between native speakers (NS) and non-native speakers (NNS) is a recent one, derived mainly from the literature on miscommunication between native speakers, borrowing its terminology and paradigms. Most of the studies focus mainly either on the source of miscommunication or trouble source, or on how the repair process begins, that is who initiates the repair (either the speaker -self-repair initiation- or the listener -other-initiated repair). This study considers two other important steps in a case of miscommunication: the negotiation/repair and the re-establishment of communication. That is, who collaborates in the repair of the miscommunication and how the interaction is reconstructed. A better understanding of the reinstatement process is an essential step for Second Language Learning since sociolinguistic interaction is a vital part of communication. This paper presents eight interactions. Seven of them service encounters, between NS and NNS from a Conversation Analysis (CA) perspective, focusing on what type of misunderstanding or non-understanding occurs, who initiates the repair and how, who actually repairs the miscommunication and how, and how participants continue constructing the interaction after it is repaired. ?Much learning does not teach understanding? Heraclitus (540BC-480BC)
Copyright (c) 2016 Marta Gonzalez-Lloret
Footing and identity in interaction at a conversation club
Taking Goffman?s concepts of footing and production format as a foundation, this study analyzes instances of interaction among native and non-native speakers of English in a conversation club at a language school. Following examples of how the production format of a turn may be established, the analysis focuses on the interactional work that is accomplished with different production formats in specific instances. The main generalization that can be drawn about the interactional work accomplished through this generic speaking practice is that it is varied and does not seem to be constrained by the exigencies of interaction in the conversation club. The analysis then shifts to how the establishment of production format provides a resource for the invocation and local constitution of three specific identities of the non-native speakers, as language learners, as language school students, and as members of a culture separate from the native speaker.
Narratives in talk-in-interaction: organization and construction of cultural identities
This paper takes its point of departure in material which was established as part of the European research project INES, International Negotiations in Spanish: linguistic and cultural issues, in which researchers participated from the business school ESADE (Barcelona), Wirtschaftsuniversit?t Wien, and Copenhagen Business School/Roskilde University. The objectives of the INES project were to study the language of negotiations as well as the cultural aspects of this activity type and of the international business community in Spain. The empirical part of the project is composed of focus groups, individual interviews, and simulated negotiations; all of the material was videotaped. In our focus group material, a salient communicative resource is the narrative. In this article, I want to look into the narratives used in the focus group interaction, and specifically within a culturally mixed group of business people operating in the Barcelona area.
Figuring the transnational ?Child-to-be-adopted?: The web as a virtual sociocultural contact zone for intercountry adoption
This paper presents our research which is part of a larger project that explores how to track and understand the linguistic, discursive and sociocultural contact zones or networks brought about by intercountry adoption. Using mediated discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, membership categorisation analysis and interaction analysis, the project attempts to trace a host of discourses and contingent practices of care and kinship that are heterogeneously assembled to ?translate? a child (legally and/or willingly) from one familial ?place? or network in the world to another, crossing linguistic, sociocultural, racial, class and national boundaries in the process. We introduce in this paper our first observations of the discursive construction of the ?child-to-be-adopted? in the pre-adoption stage. We focus on the crucial role of the ?intimate public sphere? of the Internet from the parents? point-of-view, specifically their personal web pages and online diaries that anticipate the ?transnational? mobility of the ?waiting? or abandoned child in a faraway place.
Copyright (c) 2016 Paul McIlvenny, Pirkko Raudaskoski
?Zwei languages zusammenputten?1: Bilingual ways of expressing bicultural identities
The availability of linguistic resources plays a crucial role when sociocultural identities are constructed in interpersonal interaction. When looking at ways of how language is used to fulfil this purpose, the behaviour of bilinguals is particularly revealing because the structure of the bilingual linguistic repertoire is often more transparent than that of a ?monolingual? repertoire. In our research project on contact phenomena between German and English, we investigate bilingual speech patterns of first generation German immigrants to the USA2. In our presentation we focus on the analysis of a tape-recorded free interaction which took place among five bilingual speakers aged 59-82, and we are concentrating on two of the speakers, both of them women. These speakers, we will call them Laura and Toni3, immigrated to the USA as young adults with hardly any prior knowledge of English.
Copyright (c) 2016 Alexandra M?nch, Doris Stolberg
Affect and the EFL Classroom: Language Contact in Addressing
This study investigates affect or affective elements between the teacher and students in EFL classroom interaction. Affect is regarded as a linguistically significant phenomenon in interactions, which are analysed contextually. The focus is on addressing students, (who are native speakers of Japanese), by teachers (native speakers of English). This verbal act in EFL classroom designates students? names that come from their native language and it indicates parts of their self-identities. Therefore, affect in this study is formulated particularly in interaction where contact between the students? native language and the teacher?s native language occurs. The results of this study show that affect is produced along with different teachers? orientations towards teaching and the student?s reaction to it. Particularly, affect operates negatively, when the context of addressing is perceived negatively. This study reveals that affect is tangible in cross-cultural encounters and plays a significant role in human interaction.
The ?Competent Foreigner? A new model for foreign language didactics?
The traditional schema of the language learning-teaching situation is being increasingly challenged by didacticians, sociolinguists and cognitive psychologists, and in particular the constitutive roles of teacher, learner and native speaker have been largely reconfigured to take into account approaches such as learner autonomy and self-directed learning. In this article we will suggest and explain a new model for foreign language didactics: the competent foreigner. This concept emphasizes the fact that learners should be themselves instead of trying to become native speakers. We are using the concept of the competent foreigner in our ongoing research at the CRAPEL: the description and analysis of exolinguistic service encounters.
Copyright (c) 2016 Virginie Andr?, Desir?e Castillo
Towards the development of a plurilingual and pluricultural competence
In 2001, the CRAPEL ran an experimental course in both English and Spanish for French-speaking adult beginners. This course, which was aimed at learners wishing to study two languages without having to follow two separate courses, was based on an integrated approach to the teaching-learning of two target languages: same communicative aims, same activities and tasks and types of materials were selected for each language, with a view to optimising the effects of learning strategies and developing plurilingual competence. First, results confirm the practical feasibility of this project as regards teaching and learning and its effectiveness in terms of outcome. However, several additional questions need to be dealt with. After presenting the didactical and pedagogical approach and its characteristics in language didactics in France, the study focuses on the language contacts and learning strategies learners develop during the experiment, as well as their repercussions for the development of such a competence.
Intercultural understanding in teaching and learning English An opportunity for Swedish compulsory education
The aim of this study is to examine the prospects of developing intercultural understanding through English as a foreign language (EFL) in the Swedish comprehensive school. The study draws on perspectives applied to culture theory (Street, Hannerz, Thavenius, Sj?gren), current theories about language and culture (Kramsch, Byram, Risager), critical discourse analysis (Fairclough) and curriculum theory (Svingby, Englund). The intercultural dimension of EFL is analysed as an order of discourse with competing discourses: research discourse, education authority discourse and language teacher discourse. The findings are summarized as two categories: opportunities and obstacles for developing intercultural understanding in EFL education. Finally the three discourses are related to each other and a model is presented showing a space for the interpretation of teaching and learning in EFL.
Languaculture as a key concept in language and culture teaching
Are language and culture inseparable, or are they separable? Neither of these positions is tenable, and in order to find a solution to this seeming paradox, it is useful to develop a theoretical understanding of the concept of languaculture. The point of departure should be a sociolinguistic one, seeing language primarily as linguistic practice going on in - small and large - social networks of various ranges, incl. the global range. Languages, i.e. language users, spread all over the world by various kinds of migration, and each language carries languaculture with it. The languaculture of each specific language is seen as encompassing three interrelated dimensions: a semantic and pragmatic potential, a poetic potential and an identity potential. Languages and their languacultures spread across cultural contexts and discourse communities. This view has a range of far-reaching implications for the content and identity of language teaching and learning.
Linguistic socialization and social identity Arab students in a mixed college in Israel
The following article brings results from an error analysis of data collected from Arab students whose L1 is Arabic and L2 is Hebrew. The subjects participated in a Project of Democracy and Co-Existence between Arab and Jewish students, which took place in a teacher training college in Israel in the school year of 2001-2002. The research focused on checking the extent of the variability that occurred in the Hebrew used by the subjects because of their interaction with the Jewish students (for whom Hebrew is obviously their L1). The data is comparative and pertains to the differences found between the achievements in Hebrew of the participants in each one of the two optional groups: the Democracy group, which consisted of Arab students only, (hence referred to as ?homogeneous?), and the Co-Existence group, which consisted of both Jewish and Arab students (hence referred to as ?mixed?). All Arab participants also attended, as part of their formal requirements, a course in Hebrew throughout their studies in the college.