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- Volume 10, Issue 3, 2020
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism - Volume 10, Issue 3, 2020
Volume 10, Issue 3, 2020
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What you hear is (not always) what you get
Author(s): John M. Lipskipp.: 315–350 (36)More LessAbstractThe present study offers data from native Spanish speakers who possess receptive competence in Palenquero, a Spanish-lexified creole spoken in the Afro-Colombian village of San Basilio de Palenque. Until recently Palenquero was endangered, but language revitalization activities are now underway in Palenque. These efforts are resulting in young L2 Palenquero speakers and receptive bilinguals, who do not actively use the language but who are exposed to it within the community and through occasional classes. This study, based on experimental research conducted in Palenque, examines receptive bilinguals' grasp of Palenquero subject-verb structures as a demonstration of how the divergence between active and receptive bilinguals' grammars can go undetected within the speech community. Receptive bilinguals sometimes produce referential null subjects instead of overt pronouns even in the absence of other disambiguating cues. Receptive bilinguals also do not systematically differentiate Palenquero pre-verbal particles, in a fashion suggestive of a maximally simplified subject-verb configuration.
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How well can intelligibility of closely related languages in Europe be predicted by linguistic and non-linguistic variables?
Author(s): Charlotte Gooskens and Vincent J. van Heuvenpp.: 351–379 (29)More LessAbstractWe measured mutual intelligibility of 16 closely related spoken languages in Europe. Intelligibility was determined for all 70 language combinations using the same uniform methodology (a cloze test). We analysed the results of 1833 listeners representing the mutual intelligibility between young, educated Europeans from the same 16 countries.
Lexical, phonological, orthographic, morphological and syntactic distances were computed as linguistic variables. We also quantified non-linguistic variables (e.g. exposure, attitudes towards the test languages). Using stepwise regression analysis the importance of linguistic and non-linguistic predictors for the mutual intelligibility in the 70 language pairs was assessed.
Exposure to the test language was the most important variable, overriding all other variables. Then, limiting the analysis to the prediction of inherent intelligibility, we analysed the results for a subset of listeners with no or little previous exposure to the test language. Linguistic distances, especially lexical distance, now explain a substantial part of the variance.
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Mediated receptive multilingualism
Author(s): Anna Branets, Daria Bahtina and Anna Verschikpp.: 380–411 (32)More LessAbstractThis article introduces and defines the concept of mediated receptive multilingualism as a mode of multilingual communication which eases understanding between typologically distant languages through the medium of a language closely related to the target. In an experimental setting, Estonians without previous exposure to Ukrainian were quite successful in understanding Ukrainian texts via their knowledge of Russian. As expected, they made use of various language-specific elements to improve intelligibility, such as linguistic similarities between Russian and Ukrainian. However, a number of extra-linguistic factors were detected as influential predictors of success, especially metalinguistic awareness, exposure to Russian, exposure to various registers, experience with multilingual situations, learnability, and attitudes towards Ukrainian. These findings contest a static take on multilingual potential and point out the emergent nature of competencies and practices that become relevant in multilingual settings. Unconventional communicative modes – like mediated receptive multilingualism – may activate linguistic and sociolinguistic resources needed for establishing understanding in novel and potentially challenging communicative settings.
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A classification of receptive bilinguals
Author(s): Marina Sherkina-Lieberpp.: 412–440 (29)More LessAbstractThe term ‘receptive bilingualism/multilingualism’ is used for diverse populations, all of which understand a language without producing speech in it, but differ in the way this receptive ability was achieved and in the linguistic knowledge underlying it. In previous studies, not enough attention is given to the differences between types of receptive bilinguals (RBs); however, a thorough analysis of all types is necessary to understand the nature of receptive bilingualism and, consequently, language comprehension and production in general.
I propose a classification of RBs based on the presence and nature of an acquisition process that led to receptive abilities. In this classification, RBs who comprehend a language mutually intelligible with one they know are distinguished from RBs with acquired knowledge. Within the former, RBs with and without previous exposure are distinguished. Within acquired types, RBs who comprehend a heritage language are distinguished from RBs who comprehend a second/foreign language.
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