W12: Bilingualism, learning a new language, digital language Flashcards
What is bilingualism?
Being fluent/competent in two languages
Is it normal to speak more than one language?
Yes - it is actually more common to speak more than one langauge
Being able to only speak one language is considered strange within most other countries
Explain asymmetry in terms of fluency
Fluency is usually asymmetric - if you speak 2 languages you are often better in one
How long does it take young children to pick up a new language?
They can pick it up within 6 months but it is really hard work
What are some examples of initial language mixing when picking up a new language?
- Morphology (e.g. ‘essing’ ess = eat in german but the ‘ing’ is an English ending)
- Word order (e.g. the dog of my friend - ‘my friends dog)
- Code-switching: within and between language utterances - switching between two languages in one utterance
Most initial language mixing errors disappear with age - which one may still be common within many communities?
Code-switching
Why do people code-switch?
May be a momentary error that may occur during stress etc
To fit in with others - self-identifying as part of a community
To speak in secret from listeners
To convey a thought in the most appropriate way
Lexical gaps - word doesn’t exist in one of the languages
Becoming bilingual is not easy and maintaining bilingualism requires…
Effort!
What are the arguments towards the costs of bilingualism?
- There is no obvious processing cost
- Interference: immigrant children with improving second language show reduced speed of access to first language
- High first language proficiency = high second language proficiency (initial delay but catch up)
What are the benefits of being bilingual?
Better metalinguistic awareness
More cognitive flexibility
More verbal fluency
Explain a study showing the benefits of being bilingual
‘I am going to call this frog ‘plane’ okay?’
Monolingual: ‘no!’
Bilingual: were more accepting - they see words as more of just arbitrary symbols of something else but the words do not change the thing.
What is the separate lexicon model of bilingual language processing?
Repetition priming is bigger and longer-lasting within languages than between languages
Bird (stimulus) - Bird is quick
Bird (stimulus) - wasal is slower as different languages
What is the shared lexicon model of bilingual language processing?
Words from each language are directly connected
Semantic priming produces facilitation between languages
Which bilingual language processing model has more evidence?
The shared lexicon view
How might there be a bit of both separate and shared lexicons in bilingual language processing?
May have separate stores for abstract words - choose either language depending on the situation
Common stores for common and concrete words
What is forward translation?
Conceptual mediation = accessing word meaning to translate it
Semantic factors have a large effect
L1-L2
What is backwards translation?
Word association - using direct links between items in lexicon
No effects of semantic factors
L2-L1
What is the contrastive hypothesis for learning a new language?
The learner will have the most difficulty where the first and second language differ
What are the methods of teaching a second language (5)?
Traditional Direct Audiolingual Immersion Submersion
What is the traditional method of teaching a second language?
Direct L1-L2 translation and grammar instruction
‘this is how you say X’
What is the direct method of teaching a second language?
All teaching is in the second language with a focus on conversation
What is the audiolingual method of teaching a second language?
Emphasis on speaking and listening more than reading and writing
What is the immersion method of teaching a second language?
The class is taught exclusively in L2
What is the submersion method of teaching a second language?
The learner is surrounded only by l2
Can you learn a language by traveling?
There is not as large of an effect now as even when traveling, thanks to social media you are engaging in your first language regularly with people at home instead of engaging in the second language
What does Krashen (1982) distinguish between?
Language learning - explicit knowledge
Language acquisition -implicit learning
What did Krashen (1982) emphasise the need for to succeed in learning another language?
Acknowledgment for the role of language learning but states you need language acquisition to succeed.
Aside from Krashen’s acquisition and learning distinction - there is also the monitor model. Explain
Says there is a natural order in acquisition - rules and errors acquired in same order in both languages
Monitor hypothesis - learning allows monitoring of output
Comprehensible input hypothesis - input must be understood to improve
Active filter hypothesis - attitude and emotion can help to determine learning
What are the 4 factors useful in learning a second language? (Carroll, 1981)
- Phonological coding: identifying and attempting new sounds
- Grammatical sensitivity: getting the rules and applying them
- Rote-learning ability
- Inductive learning skill: learning a rule and generalising it to other times it may apply
What 2 factors did Carroll (1981) not include that are very useful to language learning?
Working memory: hold forms in memory and manipulate them to fit the grammar
Motivation: makes a huge difference
How can we make it easier to learn a second language?
- Give learners time to be silent in learning: sometimes it is important to push them to have a go, but it is also important to process what you are learning
- Practice more than just in class
- Listening and talking to native speakers helps, especially if they give feedback
Errors are not… and are a sign of….
They are not bad, are a sign of progress
Errors and feedback allows for..
Re-organising knowledge
- better outcomes than just pre-teaching a rule
What are Sharpe’s 4C’s?
Communication -main point of language
Culture - more important than direct translation
Context - input makes more sense
Confidence - making errors, having a go
Sharpe’s 4C’s seem obvious, however..
They have been neglected in traditional grammar-based teaching
In a bilingual society, which factors influence which language is used?
Home background
Conversational partner
Politics/Power
Feeling of solidarity/distance
What do sociolinguistics do?
Look at language as it is acquired in the social context
Social value attached to a language often differs. Give examples
Children of immigrants to the US quickly learn English (in Spanish-English US kinders, spanish children learn english a lot faster than vice versa)
Can be due to stigmatisation - stigma around speaking spanish in the US
What is additive and subtractive bilingualism?
Subtractive - as you get better at a language, you lose some of your native language
Additive: you keep native language and just add bits of the other language to it
Being able to translate words, doesn’t always mean
That you translate the meaning
E.g. we must have lunch some time - some cultures would be then waiting for an invite wheras other cultures just see this as a polite thing to say
Learning a new language ultimately means…
Learning a new culture
By 2006, how many countries had surpassed 100% mobile phone ownership?
30 countries
Written English has remained very similar for centuries - what has happened over the space of a decade?
The way we write has changed quite rapidly
What is textese?
Informal/casual/modified writing style common in digital messages
What constraints allowed the development of textese?
Small phone screens, with 160 character limits on text messages
As well as an alphanumeric keyboard with multipress entry
Many of the textese developing constraints are gone now such as..
Having a bigger screen and messages are much longer, we have predictive text and QWERTY keyboards
Why do people still use textese?
Practical reasons: It is still quicker to type less
Social reasons: social statements, feelings of connectedness and building relationships, fun with language
What are the types of textese?
Contractives and expressives
What are contractives?
Where characters are removed for efficiency
(homophones, omitted words and punctuation, initialisms)
E.g. txt msg, 4 u, where you, tbh
What are expressives?
Characters are added for expression
emojis, kisses, laughing, extra letters
What are some other textese things?
Non-standard spelling (becuz)
Spelling errors
Omitted caps (esther)
What are some trends in textese use?
Did drop but going up again - more contractives now (expressives were always there)
Are there any gender differences in the use of textese?
Yes. Females use more textese - especially when it comes to expressives
Why might females use more textese?
They send more messages - easier to fit in textisms
Females use more language in general and express more emotion than men
What are some claims about womens use of language from the 1920’s?
Women have smaller vocabs, and stop sentences due to poor planning
Males dominate females with their use of language. Women use more tentative language
Women use rapport talk to establish and negotiate relationships - men use it to demonstrate knowledge, skill and status
Masculinity/femininity with textese?
Participants self-reported levels of masculinity and femininity and compared to textese use
Findings:
- No differences in contractives
- More expressives correlated with less masculinity and higher femininity ratings
