Lectures #1-6

Question 1

Heritage Language

Answer 1

A person is a heritage speaker when the language they speak at home (taught to them by their parents) is different from the majority language of the country they live in

Question 2

Simultaneous bilinguals

Answer 2

Bilinguals who acquire two languages simultaneously at an early age

Question 3

Isolect

Answer 3

A language not related to any other languages (There is only 1 isolate, Basque, in Europe, compared to 55 in Latin America)

Question 4

Sequential bilinguals

Answer 4

A person acquires one language first and the other later. This can also be done at an earlier age (Home language vs. preschool language)

Question 5

Heritage bilingual

Answer 5

A bilingual born in a household where a language is spoken that is not the main language of the community

Question 6

What are the consequences of substantial linguistic diversity?

Answer 6

More language contact,
more bilingual/multilingualism,
many languages belong to different language families

Question 7

What are some examples of linguistic diversity?

Answer 7

Different dialects of Spanish/Portuguese,
Indigenous languages,
languages of diaspora communities

Question 8

What are some issues with defining bilingualism?

Answer 8

Debates over speakers’ age of acquisition, ability with both languages (which can change over time), simultaneous acquisition, and issues of identity

Question 9

Intersentential code-switching

Answer 9

One sentence in one language and another sentence in another language

Question 10

Intrasentential code-switching

Answer 10

Use of more than one language within the same sentence

Question 11

Which form of code switching indicates a higher level of proficiency in both languages?

Answer 11

Intrasentential code-switching, because speakers have to keep track of the grammar from both languages

Question 12

What does WEIRD stand for?

Answer 12

Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic

Question 13

What is the problem with the majority of research being WEIRD?

Answer 13

Studies cannot be generalized to non-WEIRD populations

Question 14

Does code-switching follow grammatical rules?

Answer 14

1) There is a change of language between one sentence and another (intersentential/interclausal)
2) There is a change of language before the end of a sentence (intrasentential/intraclausal)

Question 15

Why study code-switching?

Answer 15

It grants researchers access to combinations of linguistic features that may be difficult (or impossible) to observe in monolingual data

Question 16

What influences the directionality of code-switching?

Answer 16

The prestige of languages and additional social factors change the directionality of the language (The more “valued” language socially will have more influence in the speech produced)

Question 17

What is ecological validity and how does it influence research?

Answer 17

Ecological validity refers to the natural form of a language spoken among speakers. Ensuring ecological validity in research can be a challenge, because researchers themselves can affect data collection (for example, individuals may speak differently to researchers they perceive as outsiders, affecting the data collected)

Question 18

Linguistic Consequences of Migration

Answer 18

1) Multilingualism, code-switching
2) Language shift - loss - death
3) Attrition (1st generation)
4) Regularisation of irregularity, structure shrinkage