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Language and the Mind Prof. R. Hickey SS 06 Attitudes towards Bilingualism. Victoria Sirbu – Hauptstudium - LN MA Halil Olgun – Hauptstudium - LN LA Sek. I /II Eleonora Miguel – Hauptstudium - TN MA. Attitudes towards Bilingualism. Matched Guise Experiments
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Language and the Mind Prof. R. Hickey SS 06 Attitudes towards Bilingualism Victoria Sirbu – Hauptstudium - LN MA Halil Olgun – Hauptstudium - LN LA Sek. I /II Eleonora Miguel – Hauptstudium - TN MA
Attitudes towards Bilingualism Matched Guise Experiments Attitudes towards Code-switching A Case study in Attitudes towards Code-switching Language attitude questionaire: Panjabi in Britain Conclusion
Matched Guise Experiments Matched Guide Test – is used in obtaining evaluations to spoken language. First used by Lambert (1960): French/English bilinguals read a spoken text in French and English; Then French and English speakers had to evaluate the personality of the speakers in dimensions such as good/bad, friendly/unfriendly, educated/uneducated, etc.; The Judges did not know that they were evaluating the same speaker twice (in „matched guises“). As a result, the reaction to the same person differed depending on: the language used; the linguistic affiliation of the person making the judgement. Experiments like this found that: the differential power of particular social groups is reflected in language variation and attitudes towards this variability; the minority often „accept“ the stigma attached to their way of speaking by the socially dominant majority.
Attitudes towards Code-switching Code-switching is a term in linguistics referring to alternation between two or more languages, dialects, or language registers in the course of discourse between people who have more than one language in common. Sometimes the switch lasts only for a few sentences, or even for a single phrase. The attitude towards code switching can be either positive or negative:
The attitude towards code switching can be either positive or negative: Negative when some social stigma has been attached to this mode of speaking by both community as well as out-group members, e.g. Educators. Example: the comment of a visitor from Norway on Norway spoken by immigrants in the US; it is characterized then as lack of education, bad manners, or improper control of the two languages. Positive: when political ideology changes, attitudes towards code switching may change too. Code-switching is used then in order to help an ethnic minority community retain a sense of cultural identity. Example: the usage of Pocho and Calo tas a result of the rise in ethnic consciousness of the Spanish minority in California; seen as a legitimate form of informal talk.
A Case study in Attitudes towards Code-switching The case of Panjabi/English bilinguals. Following types of switch were registrated in both directions of switching Panjiari/English: Examples 1 and 2 illustrate Tag switching (Tag switching involves the insertion of a tag (e.g. you know, I mean, etc) in one language into an utterance that is otherwise entirely in another language); (1) Hon kai ingrezlog e jere sadia bolia sikhde e, right? (P/E) (2) Well, it depends, hana, on what you interests are? (E/P)
3, 4 – Intersentential switch (the switch occurs at a clause or sentence boundary where each clause or sentence is in one language or the other); (3) Sara dIn tusi te jao so kar a ke, you haven’t got time to spend with the children. (P/E) 5, 6, 8 – Intrasentential switch (switching of different types occurs within the clause or sentence boundary); (5) Family de nal, you just learn these things at home when you´re young. (E/P) 7 illustrates both Inter- + intrasentential switches. (7) As far as wsi concerned hege e, it doesn’t make any difference what people do. (E/P)
The evaluation of the characteristics of the speech and person speaking by answering a number of questions: Do you think this person speaks Panjabi most of the time? Do you think the language used in this person’s home is mostly Panjabi? Do you think this person expresses himself well? Do you find this person easy to understand? Do you think this person sounds more English than Panjabi? Do you think this person speaks more English than Panjabi? Do you think that this is English, or Panjabi or neither? Speaking in this way, do you think this person could be a teacher of Panjabi?
Conclusions The study revealed, that particularly intra-sentential code-switching evokes negative reaction. Both examples of inter-sentential switching, 3 and 4 rated high on intelligibility. The two intra-sentential types are lowest. Samples 8 and 4 were selected as the most likely to be associated with being a teacher of Panjabi. Although parts of sample 4 are in English, there is no intra-sentential switching. Conclusion: The results are in line with similar studies and show that the same person is evaluated in different ways depending on how he or she speaks.
Language Attitudes QuestionnairesPanjabi in Britain Halil I. Olgun
Questionnaires Language attitudes have been studied through the use of questionnaires, which elicit information on language evaluation, language preference, desirability of learning particular languages, self reports concerning language use, etc. Questionnaires have been widely used in various kinds of sociolinguistic research because they are relatively easy to distribute and collect.A greater number of people can be surveyed.
A case study in Language Attitudes: Panjabi in Britain Panjabi: a person from the Punjab area in NW India and Pakistan We will discuss a questionnaire devised to study attitudes to a range of issues, as part of a research in the Panjabi/English bilingual community in Britain. In this case bilingual interviewers went to the homes of bilingual families to obtain answers to the following questions (which were posed in Panjabi). The interviewers were already acquainted with the families through previous visits. Most informants replied in Panjabi, or a mixed Panjabi/ English.
1.If we stop using our language altogether, do you think we can maintain the culture and identity of our community?2.Is the maintenance of our languages the most important of all matters in our communities? Is it a difficult task?3.How can we maintain the fullest use of our languages in Britain? ( i. e. not just for the home or for religion).4.Our children will learn as much of our languages as they need to know from the family, so is there any need to set up special classes for teaching these languages?5.What do you think of supplementary schools?6.Without any help from the government, can our communities organize mother tongue classes?7.Do you think our languages should be taught in ordinary schools? Will that be sufficient?
8.Should out languages be taught separately as different subjects, or should other subjects such as Maths and science be taught in our languages?9.Would you encourage your children to take `O' level and `A' level Panjabi?10.Do you think it would be a good idea for our children to learn a South Asian language other than their own, e.g. Hindi?11.If the government is willing to Support one Asian language in schools, which one do you think it should be?12.Should the authorities produce versions of official letters, notices, forms and leaflets in out languages as well as in English?13.Should the government employ more doctors, teachers and social workers who speak out languages? 14.Should English people be encouraged to learn our languages? If so, why?15.What do you think of people who speak only English and never their own language?
language and cultural identity The first question concerns the community's attitudes towards the nature of the link between language and cultural identity.(If we stop using our language altogether, do you think we can maintain the culture and identity of our community?)This was asked to show that language and ethnicity are related in different ways in different contexts.
Some have consistently stressed their language as the principal carrier of their culture and relied on it as their main defence against assimilation.Sir James Henare, a Maori leader who died in 1989, expressed similar sentiments about Maori:“The language is the life force of our Maori culture and mana. If the language dies, as some predict, what do we have left to us? Then, I ask our own people who are we?”Without exception all Panjabi- and Urdu-speaking respondents said that language and culture were closely related and that culture could not be preserved without language.Another said that if you stop speaking your own language, then you leave your own culture and you cannot pass it on to your children.A man pointed out that it is an oversimplification of seeing language use as equivalent to identity. He stressed the importance of common attitudes and sentiments.
The connection between language and cultural identity was also an issue in the responses to question 15 about people who never used their own language. One informant said that such people had lost their identity. There was much discussion of the role played by language in the generation gap perceived bymany. One parent explained: 'in our society we attach a lot of importance to respect. Knowing our language would mean knowing respect. Lack of our own language would mean that the child has no understanding of respect of others in his own community’'.
One husband and wife cited the existence of respect terms in Panjabi, which were either not available or used in English, such as the T/V distinction (Panjabi: su/tusi), and the use of kinship terms like aunt, uncle, sister etc. to address elders, and honorifics like the suffix -ji attached to these and other items, e.g. panji `sister'.One parent noted his embarrassment at his children's use of English in front of older guests in the home, when asked why he thought some children replied in English when spoken to in Panjabi. He said:“It happens always. It happens in my own home as well. It can at times be very embarrassing, say if we have elderly guests and I address the children in Panjabi and they reply in English. The guests would then wonder and look at the parents. The embarrassment is felt by the parents and not the kids.”
A third party will always assume that the parents haven’t taught the kids anything.Some also mentioned the potential embarrassment felt by their children because they lacked self-confidence and did not speak in their own language for fear of making mistakes due to imperfect knowledge.
Conclusion- Bilingualism in not a unitary phenomenon when trying to understand the skills bilingual speakers have the varieties of social and other factors have to be taken into consideration- the parameters of what is a universal grammar (according to Chomsky) can hardly be fixed the very idealized conditions require homogeneous speech communities (even monolingual communities are not homogeneous)
- every language incorporates a periphery of borrowings, historical residues and innovations which hardly can be expected to incorporate within a principled theory of universal grammar- notions like interference when talking about code-switching depend on the knowledge of what the individual codes are the codes may unequally be developed
- the bilingual system is different from the monolingual's the perceptual norms operate differently
References Romaine, Suzanne (1989) Bilingualism. 2nd edition 1995 (Oxford: Blackwell) [nominated for the British Association of Applied Linguistics Book of the Year]
