Languages, Volume 6, Issue 2 (June 2021) – 52 articles

A need exists to address how the availability of digital platforms plays a role in collaborative writing. Further, interest has emerged to understand heritage language (HL) learners’ writing as a result of task-based peer interactions with either second language (L2) or HL learners across face-to-face (FTF) and synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) modes. However, it remains unknown how pair type and interaction mode can influence advanced learners’ lexical performance on written texts through measures of lexical richness. Therefore, this study tested 13 HL–L2 and 16 HL–HL dyads enrolled in advanced Spanish content courses who completed two writing tasks across FTF and SCMC modes. The writing tasks consisted of the hiring (Task A) and laying off (Task B) of an individual for known Spanish companies. The written texts were analyzed for lexical richness through lexical density, lexical sophistication, and lexical diversity indices. The main results revealed that the HL–L2 pairs significantly produced a higher ratio of lexical density in their written texts. No significant results were found for lexical diversity or lexical sophistication across pair types and interaction mode. These results imply that HL–L2 pairs distinguished the register of the writing task more so than HL–HL pairs. Full article

University Spanish courses designed specifically for heritage language learners (HLLs) are becoming more common, and researchers have indicated that empirical research is needed to evaluate their effectiveness. This longitudinal study investigates the writing development of 24 HLLs as a result of instruction over the course of the semester. Nine were enrolled in a heritage-only section of a Spanish composition course, and the remainder were from mixed HL/L2 sections of the same course. Both section types were taught online. The major assignments the students produced were two 500-word essays, and students also completed bi-weekly forum posts. We examined the development of lexical density, sophistication, and diversity as well as syntactic complexity and accuracy by comparing each student’s first and final essay and forum posts. Findings indicate that there were significant differences between the scores received on the forum posts in comparison to the essays. However, there were no significant developmental differences in terms of group. Implications, avenues for future research, and pedagogical suggestions are discussed. Full article

The lenition of Spanish intervocalic voiced stops, commonly grouped as /bdg/, has increasingly been examined within Spanish as a Heritage Language research. This study seeks to identify social, phonetic, and lexical factors that predict the degree of lenition of /bdg/ among heritage speakers of Spanish. We analyzed 850 intervocalic productions of /bdg/ by 20 adult Spanish heritage speakers of various generations in an oral word list production task. Using spectrographic analyses, productions were categorized as full approximant, tense approximant, and occlusive. Results from linear mixed-effects models indicated that the phonetic context and the number of family generations residing in the US significantly predicted the degree of lenition of intervocalic voiced segments while age of acquisition of Spanish, current contact hours, and cognate status did not predict changes in the degree of lenition. Specifically, as the speaker’s number of family generations residing in the US increased, fewer segments were lenited. We conclude that variations in /bdg/ lenition among heritage speakers of Spanish reflect the changes in pronunciation of other segments of heritage speakers over generations. Full article

Phonological awareness is a skill which is crucial in learning to read. In this paper, we report on the challenges encountered while developing a digital application (app) for teaching phonological awareness and early literacy skills in Dhuwaya. Dhuwaya is a Yolŋu language variety spoken in Yirrkala and surrounding areas in East Arnhem Land. Dhuwaya is the first language of the children who attend a bilingual school in which Dhuwaya and English are the languages of instruction. Dhuwaya and English have different phonemic inventories and different alphabets. The Dhuwaya alphabet is based on Roman alphabet symbols and has 31 graphemes (compared to 26 in English). The app was designed to teach children how to segment and blend syllables and phonemes and to identify common words as well as suffixes used in the language. However, the development was not straightforward, and the impact of the linguistic, cultural and educational challenges could not have been predicted. Amongst these was the inherent variation in the language, including glottal stops, the pronunciation of stops, the focus on syllables as a decoding strategy for literacy development and challenges of finding one-syllable words such as those initially used with English-speaking children. Another challenge was identifying culturally appropriate images which the children could relate to and which were not copyrighted. In this paper, we discuss these plus a range of other issues that emerged, identifying how these problems were addressed and resolved by the interdisciplinary and intercultural team. Full article

Mixed languages combine significant amounts of grammatical and lexical material from more than one source language in systematic ways. The Australian mixed language, Light Warlpiri, combines nominal morphology from Warlpiri with verbal morphology from Kriol (an English-lexified Creole) and English, with innovations. The source languages of Light Warlpiri differ in how they encode reflexives and reciprocals—Warlpiri uses an auxiliary clitic for both reflexive and reciprocal expression, while English and Kriol both use pronominal forms, and largely have separate forms for reflexives and reciprocals. English distinguishes person and number in reflexives, but not in reciprocals; the other source languages do not distinguish person or number. This study draws on naturalistic and elicited production data to examine how reflexive and reciprocal events are encoded in Light Warlpiri. The study finds that Light Warlpiri combines near-maximal distinctions from the source languages, but in a way that is not a mirror of any. It retains the person and number distinctions of English reflexives and extends them to reciprocals, using the same forms for reflexives and reciprocals (like Warlpiri). Reflexives and reciprocals occur within a verbal structure (perhaps under influence from Warlpiri). The results show that a mixed language can have discrete contributions from three languages, that the source languages can influence different subsystems to different extents, and that near-maximal distinctions from the source languages can be maintained. Full article

This paper focuses on the way in which small and medium-sized businesses in Flanders adapted communication with their customers during the economic lockdown in March–May 2020. It documents, more specifically, how shops tried to maintain, re-establish, or even re-invent communication with their customers during this two-month period. Based on pictures of shop windows in a Flemish city, we analyze the (semi-)commercial messages that appeared in this setting during this period. This analysis adopts an interdisciplinary perspective, in which a cognitive linguistic approach is integrated with analyses and practical advices by marketing agencies. Despite their orientation towards distinct, theoretical and practical goals, both approaches share an analytical interest in mapping participants and their mutual relationship as part of a communicative interaction. In the period of economic lockdown, marketers urged shop owners to ‘humanize’ their business strategy by downplaying content-related issues in favor of maximal social outreach towards customers. Considering this advice, it was hypothesized that under these circumstances participants in commercial transactions would be construed much more prominently, presenting themselves and each other as unprecedented empathetic business personas. Much of our data comply with this expectation, thus providing empirical evidence of a subjectified communicative ground, in which both buyer and seller personas figure with augmented prominence as parts of the object of conceptualization. Messages include, among other things, expressions of empathy, solidarity, combativity, but also creativity and humor thus incorporating a new type of humanized business communication. With respect to the analysis of marketing strategies, the collected data at the same time instantiate and legitimize marketers’ communication advice about humanizing one’s business exchange. Full article

There are important efforts being made to revitalise Aboriginal languages in Australia, which are both pedagogically and culturally appropriate. This research seeks to expand the current knowledge of the effectiveness of gesturing as a teaching strategy for young children learning the Gathang language. An experimental method was used to investigate the effectiveness of gesture by employing a context in which other variables (e.g., other teaching pedagogies) could be held constant. Participants, age range 4–5.2 years, were taught Gathang nouns with gesture and without gesture, alongside verbal and pictorial instruction. After the teaching sessions, each child was assessed for their receptive and expressive knowledge of the Gathang nouns, at two time points, two days after instruction (post-test 1) and one week after (post-test 2). At post-test 2, children had stronger receptive knowledge for words they had learned with gesture than without. These findings contribute to a growing body of research attesting to the effectiveness of gesture for improving knowledge acquisition amongst learners. In the context of Aboriginal language revitalisation, gesture also aligns with traditional teaching practices and offers a relatively low-cost strategy for helping teachers assist their students in acquiring Aboriginal languages. Full article

Literacy is a broad term that includes reading and writing abilities, as well as cognitive skills that are socially and culturally constructed. Thus, it is essential to take the family context and home literacy environment (HLE) into consideration when discussing literacy. HLE affects reading and writing development via (in)formal literacy experiences focused on the development of oral language and code skills via exposure, child-centered and instructed activities. In this study, we investigated the effect of the family type (intermarriage/exogamous and co-ethnic/endogamous) and HLE on the development of literacy in bi-/multilingual children in Cyprus. The results of the study, which was based on qualitative methodology (questionnaires, interviews and observations), showed that there was a close relationship between the family type, family language policy (FLP), the HLE and the development of children’s language and literacy skills which, in addition, depended on their socioeconomic status (SES), the level of the parents’ education, life trajectories and experience, linguistic and cultural identities, status in the society, future plans for residency, and the education and careers of their children. Overall, Russian-speaking parents in immigrant contexts realized the importance of (early) child literacy experiences at home, as well as of multiliteracy and multimodality, and attempted to enhance these experiences both in Russian and in the majority language(s), mainly via formal, didactic activities focused on code skills. Full article

Emerging in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the ground-breaking work of Stephen Pit Corder, followed by Larry Selinker’s (1972) conceptualisation of ‘interlanguage’, second language acquisition (SLA) has developed into a highly buoyant independent field within the wider terrain that is applied linguistics [...] Full article

There is a longstanding debate in the literature about if, and where, recursion occurs in prosodic structure. While there are clear cases of genuine recursion at the phrase level and above, there are very few convincing cases of word-level recursion. Most cases are—by definition—not recursive and instead best analyzed as different constituents (e.g., the Composite Group, Prosodic Word Group, etc.). We show that two convincing cases of prosodic word-level recursion can easily be reanalyzed without recursion if phonology and prosody are evaluated cyclically at syntactic phase boundaries. Our analysis combines phase-based spell-out and morpheme-specific subcategorization frames of Cophonologies by Phase with Tri-P Mapping prosodic structure building. We show that apparent word-level recursion is due to cyclic spell-out, and non-isomorphisms between syntactic and prosodic structure are due to morpheme-specific prosodic requirements. Full article

Changes to the global infrastructure have contributed to the growing (linguistic) diversity of large metropolises. However, there have been calls from scholars to explore “emerging superdiversity” (DePalma and Pérez-Caramés 2018) in peripheral regions in order to fully understand the complexities and nuances of the sociolinguistics of globalisation (Wang et al. 2014; Pietikäinen et al. 2016). This article, therefore, explores language ideologies among a purposive sample of five young adults of Cape Verdean origin living in the peripheral region of Galicia, Spain, and draws on interview data to examine the ways in which multilingual migrants engage with the language varieties in their linguistic repertoire. In studying immigration from a former African colony to a bilingual European context, we can see how language ideologies from the migrant community are reflected in local ones. The sociolinguistic dynamics of Cape Verde and Galicia share many similarities: both contexts are officially bilingual (Galician and Spanish in Galicia, Kriolu and Portuguese in Cape Verde), and questions regarding the hierarchisation of languages remain pertinent in both cases. The ideologies about the value and prestige of (minority) languages that Cape Verdean migrants arrive with are thus accommodated by local linguistic ideologies in Galicia, a region which has a history of linguistic minoritisation. This has important implications for the ways in which language, as a symbolic resource, is mobilised by migrants in contexts of transnational migration. The findings of this study show how migrants are key actors in (re)shaping the linguistic dynamics of their host society and how, through their practices and discourses, they challenge long-standing assumptions about language, identity and linguistic legitimacy, and call into question ethno-linguistic boundaries. Full article

The paper discusses the implementation of a bilingual education language policy in the context of endangered indigenous sign language—Icelandic Sign Language (íslenskt táknmál, ÍTM). Unlike other indigenous endangered languages (e.g., Sámi), or other sign languages (e.g., American Sign Language, ASL), ÍTM has received certain recognition typically associated with equitable language policy—by law, it is considered the “first language” of the deaf/hard of hearing Icelanders; further, Iceland overtly states that ÍTM-signing children must be educated bilingually. However, we show that as a country that has committed itself to linguistic equality as well as the support of indigenous languages under the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, Iceland still has a way to go—both in terms of language attitudes and the associated implementations. We analyze the current situation focusing on the issues of bilingualism and biliteracy (vis-à-vis indigeneity and endangerment), explain the reason for the state of affairs by contextualizing the barrier to both for signers, and offer an explicit path forward which articulates the responsibilities of the power structures as well as potential outcomes related to revitalization, should these responsibilities be fulfilled. Full article

It is well known that cross-linguistic interactions can exist between the two languages in a bilingual speaker’s repertoire. At the level of phonetics and phonology, this interaction may result in the transfer of a feature from one language to the other or the ‘merging’ of phonetic properties between languages. Although there are numerous studies of bilingual speakers which show such interactions, relatively little is known about the nature of transfer in communities of long-term bilingualism. The current study investigates phonological transfer of /r/ in Welsh-English bilinguals’ speech in north Wales. Specifically, it compares the influence of speaker gender, home language, and speech context on the production of /r/ in both English and Welsh in two communities which differ in the extent to which Welsh is spoken as a community language. It is commonly assumed that the alveolar trill [r] and alveolar tap [ɾ] are the variants of /r/ in Welsh. In English, the alveolar approximant [ɹ] is typical across Wales, but the trill and tap are reported in areas where a high proportion of the population speaks Welsh. Data in both languages were collected from 32 Welsh-English bilinguals (aged 16–18) via sociolinguistic interview and wordlist tasks. The sample was stratified equally by speaker gender, home language, and area (predominantly Welsh-speaking vs. predominantly English-speaking). The results show areal differences in the production of /r/ in both languages, which, I argue, could be attributed partly to differing social structures in the communities under investigation. Consequently, the results showed evidence of bi-directional phonological transfer, which is community-specific and influenced by a number of social factors. Full article

Previous research has shown that the two languages of early bilingual children can influence each other, depending on the linguistic property, while adult bilinguals predominantly show influence from the majority language to the minority (heritage) language. While this observed shift in influence patterns is probably related to a shift in dominance between early childhood and adulthood, there is little data documenting it. Our study investigates the perceived global accent in the two languages of German-Russian bilingual children in Germany, comparing 4–6-year-old (preschool) children and 7–9-year-old (primary school) children. The results indicate that in German the older children sound less accented than the younger children, while the opposite is true for Russian. This suggests that the primary school years are a critical period for heritage language maintenance. Full article

This study aims to compare the discursive construction of Chilean migrants who arrived in Sweden from the 1970s until recently regarding their own linguistic trajectories at the micro level of social activity, the meso level of sociocultural institutions and communities and the macro level of ideological structures. The analysis of the latter level is based on Critical Discourse Studies, in particular, the strategies of de/legitimisation and the macro strategies of perpetuation or transformation The research questions concern (a) the semiotic resources used in multilingual contexts of action and interaction (at a micro level), (b) expressions of belonging and language identity (at a meso level) (c) and the de/legitimisation of events, processes and social actors in the construction of different ideologies (at a macro level). The method is qualitative and interpretative and is based on critical discourse analysis. The findings showed that the de/legitimisation of policies is associated with access to and acquisition of L2 (Swedish) and maintenance of L1 (Spanish). Well-prepared teachers, the communicative setting of the multicultural language classroom and the linguistic mediators were legitimised, while the process of adaptation and volunteers without sufficient preparation were delegitimised. Societal changes were identified as macro strategies that resulted in the transformation or perpetuation of what was being legitimised or delegitimised. Full article

This paper investigates how language awareness influences the writing abilities of bilingual heritage language speakers. The study includes 175 bilingual 9th and 10th graders with Italian, Greek, or Turkish as their L1 and German as an early L2. The analysis is based on a corpus of narrative and argumentative texts in L1 and L2 and a language awareness test to explore semantic, pragmatic, and textual knowledge that was administered in both languages. We found that the students’ writing abilities in both languages were highly interdependent and there was a significant correlation between achieving high scores in the heritage language test and achieving equally high (or even higher) scores in the L2 test. The results further point to a significant correlation between metalinguistic awareness and writing abilities. However, there was a higher correlation between metalinguistic awareness and text level scores in the heritage language, which shows that writing abilities in this language are more dependent on metalinguistic awareness than in the language of schooling. Moreover, differences were found between the respective language groups and different school types. Based on these results, it is argued that the fostering of language awareness ought to be implemented more intensively in the language classroom. Full article

Despite experiencing a relatively positive revival in the digital age, Esperanto and the assessment of its language vitality is often problematic and prone to gross errors; therefore, a theoretical reflection is required. Unlike other lesser-used languages, Esperanto is intergenerationally transmitted mainly outside the family, and so Fishman’s GIDS and subsequent scales such as the EGIDS cannot be applied straightforwardly for language vitality diagnosis and estimation. In particular, it is the social movement of language activists who have guaranteed Esperanto’s vitality and development for more than a century. A key aspect is the digital domain, where, paradoxically, the relatively good positioning of Esperanto in terms of new users does not imply a parallel increase in the number of activists. This paper critically assesses the digital language vitality of Esperanto on the basis of its language ideology and other sociolinguistic data as a starting point for a discussion to overcome the limits of Blanke’s (2006) scale of language vitality of Esperanto and its rivals (in the sense of Garvía 2015). This assessment eventually leads to a more general reflection on the role of ‘coolification’, i.e., positive effects on language attitudes and development due to digital visibility, its limits and the issue of placing it in the context of language vitality in general. Full article

This study examines how during COVID professionals in the financial sector in Hong Kong experienced adaptations to previous ways of networking and what the material outcomes were. Becoming acquainted traditionally relies heavily on face-to-face interaction to advance and cement feelings of trust that eventually lead to successfully concluded transactions. Using linguistic ethnography, I interviewed 36 professionals about networking during COVID. For all three aspects of networking (creating, cultivating, and utilizing relationships for attaining professional goals), participants indicated significant changes as embodied co-present interactions all but ceased and were replaced by computer-mediated communication, including video platforms such as Zoom. Many, but not all, participants indicated that they had made either no new, or a greatly decreased number of new professional acquaintances, compared to pre-COVID times. The cues that would be present in face-to-face interaction were largely viewed as essential for establishing trust in deepening relationships and achieving professional goals such as concluding transactions. There were some compensatory affordances such as more ‘objective’ evaluations and equalization for those in more peripheral geographic locations. The material outcomes were that, for most, new relationships were significantly handicapped, resulting in networks in a state of stasis, a situation that privileged extant connections and those with strong professional networks. Full article

Many heritage speakers, starting particularly from the second generation, return to the practice of their heritage languages so as to build or rebuild their diasporic and heritage identities. Within an urban context such as in Montreal (Quebec), multilingual behaviour exists. This is due to the presence of multiple languages and dialects, as well as the bilingual reality of this city, where both French and English are dominant. Such conditions provide evidence of how determinant in-group ideologies and stereotypical attitudes are concerned with communities and languages (standard and vernacular) and how they function in the process of linguistic integration within the group and the Canadian city. Focusing on recent research that compares heritage speakers of Portuguese and Italian origin in Montreal, this contribution addresses whether identifying places have an important role in the process of integration within the group, in shared spaces of language or dialect practice, both private and public. Moreover, questions arise as to how standard languages are valued within both communities (mainly in schools) and how competency and legitimacy have been evaluated and by whom, in this process of integration. The two communities observed are very different, given the practice and behaviour as well as in-group ideologies of inclusion. This contribution argues that, as a consequence of our ‘global’ societies, there is an extension of new identities during the process of development where multilingual behaviour is reviewed and analysed for the dynamicity in the repertories of new generation speakers. Our comparison brings to light a central ideology of language purism, and the ways in which it is institutionalized and/or contested across the two groups. Full article

In Maningrida, northern Australia, code-switching is a commonplace phenomenon within a complex of both longstanding and more recent language practices characterised by high levels of linguistic diversity and multilingualism. Code-switching is observable between local Indigenous languages and is now also widespread between local languages and English and/or Kriol. In this paper, I consider whether general predictions about the nature and functioning of code-switching account for practices in the Maningrida context. I consider: (i) what patterns characterise longstanding code-switching practices between different Australian languages in the region, as opposed to code-switching between an Australian language and Kriol or English? (ii) how do the distinctions observable align with general predictions and constraints from dominant theoretical frameworks? Need we look beyond these factors to explain the patterns? Results indicate that general predictions, including the effects of typological congruence, account for many observable tendencies in the data. However, other factors, such as constraints exerted by local ideologies of multilingualism and linguistic purism, as well as shifting socio-interactional goals, may help account for certain distinct patterns in the Maningrida data. Full article

Grammatical variation has often been said to be determined by cognitive complexity. Whenever they have the choice between two variants, speakers will use that form that is associated with less processing effort on the hearer’s side. The majority of studies putting forth this or similar analyses of grammatical variation are based on corpus data. Analyzing preposition stranding vs. pied-piping in English, this paper sets out to put the processing-based hypotheses to the test. It focuses on discontinuous prepositional phrases as opposed to their continuous counterparts in an online and an offline experiment. While pied-piping, the variant with a continuous PP, facilitates reading at the wh-element in restrictive relative clauses, a stranded preposition facilitates reading at the right boundary of the relative clause. Stranding is the preferred option in the same contexts. The heterogenous results underline the need for research on grammatical variation from various perspectives. Full article

Bininj Kunwok is a Gunwinyguan language (a non-Pama-Nyungan) spoken in west Arnhem Land and Kakadu National Park, NT, Australia. With around 2500 speakers and children learning it as a first language, Kunwok is one of the strongest Indigenous languages in Australia. Despite its small speech community, it exhibits considerable variation, much of which has been the subject of recent research. One of the primary findings from this study into variation in Kunwok is the rich interspeaker diversity, particularly between different generations of Kunwok speakers. Comparing the speech of young adults and children with that of their elders through a multigenerational corpus has revealed a language change in progress (demonstrated both in real time and apparent time). This paper will discuss three of the key differentiating features of young people’s Kunwok: word-initial engma production, pronominal forms and paradigms and loanwords. We will also examine community members’ perspectives on young people’s Kunwok on the basis that they provide insight into the ideological frameworks that support the linguistic variation and change documented in the community. In conclusion, the paper will summarise the findings, outlining the main features of young people’s Kunwok, and then reflect on the trajectory of Kunwok and the contributions of this study to our understanding of language change in the Australian Aboriginal context. Full article

This study presents a systematic literature review of the monophthongization of the diphthong <ei> in Brazilian Portuguese. Monophthongization is a sound change by which a diphthong becomes a single vowel. Thus, the output of, for example, the word beira (‘edge’) can be b[eɪ̯]ra or b[e]ra. Our primary sources, 10 Master’s theses that analyzed this phenomenon using quantitative sociolinguistic methodologies, focus on individually describing a region’s variety of Portuguese. However, the results were never systematically related to each other. Consequently, these works do not present a comprehensive overview of the production of <ei> in Brazilian Portuguese. Therefore, this systematic review gathers and unifies information dispersed in these studies, aiming to offer an overview of this optional phenomenon. The overall results demonstrate that the following context was the relevant linguistic variable, while the speaker’s educational level and dialect variation are the relevant non-linguistic variables for the application of the monophthongization rule. Full article

This study examines the experiences of adult new speakers of Welsh in Wales, UK with learning pronunciation in Welsh. Questionnaire data were collected from 115 adult L2 speakers with English as an L1 located in South Wales. We investigated self-reported perceptions of accent and pronunciation as well as exploring which speech sounds were reported to be challenging for the participants. We also asked participants how traditional native speakers responded to them in the community. Perceptions of own accent and pronunciation were not rated highly for the participants. We found that speaker origin affected responses to perceptions of accent and pronunciation, as well as speaker learning level. In terms of speech sounds that are challenging, the results show that vowel length as well as the consonants absent in the L1 (English) were the most common issues reported. A range of responses from traditional native speakers were reported, including speaking more slowly, switching to English, correcting pronunciation or not responding at all. It is suggested that these results indicate that adult new speakers of Welsh face challenges with accent and pronunciation, and we discuss the implications of this for language teaching and for integration into the community. Full article

How does bimodal bilingualism—a signed and a spoken language—influence the writing process or the written product? The writing outcomes of twenty deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children and hearing children of deaf adults (CODA) (mean 11.6 years) with similar bimodal bilingual backgrounds were analyzed. During the writing of a narrative text, a keylogging tool was used that generated detailed information about the participants’ writing process and written product. Unlike earlier studies that have repeatedly shown that monolingual hearing children outperform their DHH peers in writing, there were few differences between the groups that likely were caused by their various hearing backgrounds, such as in their lexical density. Signing knowledge was negatively correlated with writing flow and pauses before words, and positively correlated with deleted characters, but these did not affect the written product negatively. Instead, they used different processes to reach similar texts. This study emphasizes the importance of including and comparing participants with similar language experience backgrounds. It may be deceptive to compare bilingual DHH children with hearing children with other language backgrounds, risking showing language differences. This should always be controlled for through including true control groups with similar language experience as the examined groups. Full article

In our paper, we deal with the Germanic–Romance language contact, focusing on Cimbrian, a Germanic minority language spoken in Northern Italy. Specifically, we focus on the violation of the well-known that-trace filter, as it appears to be an interesting case of the superficial convergence that we ascribe to the status of T, which is either too rich (model language) or too weak (replica language) to represent a viable landing site for subject extraction. Full article

The starting point of most experimental and clinical examinations of bilingual language development is the choice of the measure of participants’ proficiency, which affects the interpretation of experimental findings and has pedagogical and clinical implications. Recent work on heritage and L2 acquisition of Russian used varying proficiency assessment tools, including elicited production, vocabulary recognition, and in-house measures. Using such different approaches to proficiency assessment is problematic if one seeks a coherent vision of bilingual speaker competence at different acquisition stages. The aim of the present study is to provide a suite of validated bilingual assessment materials designed to evaluate the language proficiency speakers of Russian as a second or heritage language. The materials include an adaptation of a normed language background questionnaire (Leap-Q), a battery of participant-reported proficiency measures, and a normed cloze deletion test. We offer two response formats in combination with two distinct scoring methods in order to make the testing materials suited for bilingual Russian speakers who self-assess as (semi-) proficient as well as for those whose bilingualism is incipient, or declining due to language attrition. Data from 52 baseline speakers and 503 speakers of Russian who reported dominant proficiency in a different language are analyzed for test validation purposes. Obtained measures of internal and external validity provide evidence that the cloze deletion test reported in this study reliably discriminates between dissimilar target language attainment levels in diverse populations of bilingual and multilingual Russian speakers. Full article

In German, the subject usually precedes the object (SO order), but, under certain discourse conditions, the object is allowed to precede the subject (OS order). This paper focuses on main clauses in which either the subject or a discourse-given object occurs in clause-initial position. Two acceptability experiments show that OS sentences with a given object are generally acceptable, but the precise degree of acceptability varies both with the object‘s referential form (demonstrative objects leading to higher acceptability than other types of objects) and with formal properties of the subject (pronominal subjects leading to higher acceptability than non-pronominal subjects). For SO sentences, acceptability was reduced when the object was a d-pronoun, which contrasts with the high acceptability of OS sentences with a d-pronoun object. This finding was explored in a third acceptability experiment comparing d-pronouns in subject and object function. This experiment provides evidence that a reduction in acceptability due to a prescriptive bias against d-pronouns is suspended when the d-pronoun occurs as object in the prefield. We discuss the experimental results with respect to theories of German clause structure that claim that OS sentences with different information-structural properties are derived by different types of movement. Full article

Spoken languages make up only one aspect of the communicative landscape of Indigenous Australia—sign languages are also an important part of their rich and diverse language ecologies. Australian Indigenous sign languages are predominantly used by hearing people as a replacement for speech in certain cultural contexts. Deaf or hard-of-hearing people are also known to make use of these sign languages. In some circumstances, sign may be used alongside speech, and in others it may replace speech altogether. Alternate sign languages such as those found in Australia occupy a particular place in the diversity of the world’s sign languages. However, the focus of research on sign language phonology has almost exclusively been on sign languages used in deaf communities. This paper takes steps towards deepening understandings of signed language phonology by examining the articulatory features of handshape and body locations in the signing practices of three communities in Central and Northern Australia. We demonstrate that, while Australian Indigenous sign languages have some typologically unusual features, they exhibit the same ‘fundamental’ structural characteristics as other sign languages. Full article