#language attitudes

[atlantisrises]

I’m getting together some resources for my undergrads about Linguistic Discrimination and realized there might be folks on here who find this Ted Talk interesting or helpful.

Professor John Baugh breaks down his research on linguistic prejudice and housing discrimination in a really clear, easy to understand way here and it’s worth a watch.

[snaplanguage]

Video: Sociolinguistics (and the basics of language attitudes)

This video covers what sociolinguistics is and some of the language-related phenomena sociolinguists study. It includes a discussion of how language and language varieties trigger language attitudes and stereotyped perceptions of linguistic groups. [CC] English | Español | Português

Visit the Snap Language channel for more language- and linguistics-related videos.

[camlangsci]

I've got a good feeling about this

Do the languages you speak affect your well-being? By which I don’t mean, does speaking language X make you happier, on average, than speaking language Y? Nor am I thinking of the body of evidence – somewhat controversial and definitely complex – that there is a bilingual advantage for particular cognitive functions. Rather, in a particular linguistic context, how do language choices – which languages you learn, which languages you lose – influence life satisfaction?

Take Johannes. His parents are German but he’s been in the UK since he was just a tot. He feels more British than German and doesn’t want to waste time at the weekend at the community language school, or even to talk to his parents in German. After all, they can speak English, so even when they try to talk to him in German, he answers back in English, which is the language he uses with most of his friends. It can cause quite a bit of friction at home, and it does make trips to his grandparents trickier, but that doesn’t happen so often. Or what about Amira: she’s happy speaking Turkish with family and friends, but hasn’t learnt to read or write the language. Now she’s growing up, that makes it harder to investigate her questions about identity herself. And there’s Sandra: she only learned English at home, but school Spanish, and now degree, has given her experiences and friendships across the world.

These examples are made up, but perhaps you can identify with one. The recent OECD Pisa report looked at well-being in young people across the world for the first time, and found that one of the main predictors was communication within the family: where parents spent time just talking with their child, he or she was over 60% more likely to report high levels of life satisfaction. Likewise, in UK The Good Childhood Report 2013 found that talking with parents about things that matter, as well as seeing friends and extended family, were positively associated with well-being. Good communication and the relationships that it builds, of course, involve language. What happens when members of a family – or community – can no longer talk to one another, or not fluently?

There is some evidence that maintaining a home language – like speaking German, Turkish, Arabic or any of the hundreds of languages spoken in UK – as well as learning the language of the community – in our case English – can be beneficial for well-being, precisely through this crucial link between quality of relationships and well-being.1 Annick De Houwer talks about ‘harmonious bilingualism’, where “on the whole children and their families do not experience any interpersonal problems because of the language contact situation, or have a clearly positive experience with bilingualism” (2013:170).2 Of course, the picture is going to be a complex one, with the social characteristics of the community, prestige of the languages, and many other factors playing a role. However, these are fascinating and necessary questions to ask, in our increasingly multilingual society – and ones which are only just beginning to see research to answer them. Members of the Cambridge Bilingualism Network are hoping to lift the lid on some of the issues, so watch this space for more thoughts on multilingualism and well-being in the coming months!

1. E.g,. Tannenbaum, M., & Berkovich, M. (2005). Family relations and language maintenance: Implications for language educational policies. Language Policy, 4(3), 287–309.

2. De Houwer, A. (2015). Harmonious bilingual development: Young families’ well-being in language contact situations. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19(2), 169–184.

I’ve got a good feeling about this was originally published on CamLangSci

[snaplanguage]

Video: Sociolinguistics (and the basics of language attitudes)

This video covers what sociolinguistics is and some of the language-related phenomena sociolinguists study. It includes a discussion of how language and language varieties trigger language attitudes and stereotyped perceptions of linguistic groups. [CC] English | Español | Português

Visit the Snap Language channel for more language- and linguistics-related videos.

[snaplanguage]

Video: Sociolinguistics (and the basics of language attitudes)

This video covers what sociolinguistics is and some of the language-related phenomena sociolinguists study. It includes a discussion of how language and language varieties trigger language attitudes and stereotyped perceptions of linguistic groups. [CC] English | Español | Português

Visit the Snap Language channel for more language- and linguistics-related videos.

[snaplanguage]

Video: Sociolinguistics (and the basics of language attitudes)

This video covers what sociolinguistics is and some of the language-related phenomena sociolinguists study. It includes a discussion of how language and language varieties trigger language attitudes and stereotyped perceptions of linguistic groups. [CC] English | Español | Português

Visit the Snap Language channel for more language- and linguistics-related videos.

[camlangsci]

Singular 'they' is the new black

After singular they was declared word of the year for 2015, the word attracted unprecedented strong online reaction. Despite the split opinions seen and heard on and outside the Internet, my recent research in Australia found that the use of they as a singular pronoun is gaining approval as a ‘correct’ way to speak.

277 people across all different age groups were asked to provide their evaluation of ‘correct/ incorrect/ I don’t know’ over 5 sentences, condensed in the form of a listening task and a written task. Results show an interesting contrastive trend for spoken and written data. While most participants judged singular they as ‘Correct’ in spoken discourse, the opinion is divided among native speakers and non-native speakers when it comes to written sentences, as illustrated in Figure 1:

Figure 1: Assessment of Singular They by native and non-native speakers in written discourse

Such even split proportion across both groups of speakers is perhaps the evidence of a linguistics feature in transition, a point where a part of society is less resistant, and others are more so towards the change. In other words, singular they stays ‘below the radar’ but is still more or less noticeable.

Interestingly, almost 80% of participants recognised singular they (and its genitive form) as a preference to stay ‘politically correct’. When being asked to assess the supposedly correct form of pronoun in  the sentence ‘Each student must write his ID number on the exam’, speakers’ discomfort with the ‘sexist implication’ in the word ‘his’ was prevalent and clearly expressed. Many respondents suggest ‘their’ as a ‘better way to say it’, or unless ‘it is a room full of boys’. The use of singular they then can be seen as speakers’ solution to the inherent lack of a singular, gender-neutral third person pronoun in English. The need becomes even more pronounced in wake of the ongoing social and global effort to advocate for gender inclusion and equality. It is also quite interesting that the speakers’ uncertainty about Singular they (manifested in their answer ‘I don’t know’ ) is most observed within the middle pack of the Age groups (18-30 & 31-65), while being completely absent in the other two ends of the spectrum (Under 17 and 66 plus). How come? I am inclined to hypothesise that speakers who are within their socially active period (working, adult life) are more likely to be flexible in their judgement of what constitutes linguistically ‘standard’, possibly due to their ongoing, consistent exposure to various ways of speaking and writing.

As one of my participants neatly summarised, ‘Everyone does that [i.e. using they and its genitive form as singular pronouns], even though they don’t know they do.’  The use of singular they in particular, and the ‘standard form’ of English generally, then perhaps should be seen as a fluid, relative concept rather than a hard and fast set of rules that dictate language use. Many grammar prescriptivists may still disagree, but of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Singular ‘they’ is the new black was originally published on CamLangSci

[linguisten]