Languages, Volume 9, Issue 7 (July 2024) – 13 articles

This paper explores a constructionist and corpus-based approach to Old English formulaic language through an analysis of the “maþelode system” of speech introductions. The analysis is performed on a section of the York-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Poetry, comprising the poems Beowulf, Battle of Brunanburh, and Exodus. The results show that most instances of the maþelode system belong to a well-attested construction continuum, structured by the widespread Old English (and ultimately Germanic) poetic devices of variation and kenning. This continuum ranges from more fixed repetitions that exclusively involve the verb maþelian to more schematic patterns that are also attested by other speech verbs, by verbs of giving, as well as by a number of further verbs of various semantic types. The particularly high frequency of this pattern with speech verbs and verbs of giving matches the prominent role, highlighted by previous studies, of both word-exchange and gift-exchange within Old English heroic ideology, and suggests that these formulaic patterns served the purpose to characterize the protagonists of speech or giving events as heroic and/or lordly figures. Full article

Fraud exists on both legitimate e-commerce platforms and illicit dark web marketplaces, impacting both environments. Detecting fraudulent vendors proves challenging, despite clients’ reporting scams to platform administrators and specialised forums. This study introduces a method to differentiate sellers reported as scammers from others by analysing linguistic patterns in their textual traces collected from three distinct cryptomarkets (White House Market, DarkMarket, and Empire Market). It distinguished between potential scammers and reputable sellers based on claims made by Dread forum users. Vendor profiles and product descriptions were then subjected to textometric analysis for raw text and N-gram analysis for pre-processed text. Textual statistics showed no significant differences between profile descriptions and ads, which suggests the need to combine language traces with transactional traces. Textometric indicators, however, were useful in identifying unique ads in which potential scammers used longer, detailed descriptions, including purchase rules and refund policies, to build trust. These indicators aided in choosing relevant documents for qualitative analysis. A pronounced, albeit modest, emphasis on language related to ‘Quality and Price’, ‘Problem Resolution, Communicationand Trust’, and ‘Shipping’ was observed. This supports the hypothesis that scammers may more frequently provide details about transactions and delivery issues. Selective scamming and exit scams may explain the results. Consequently, an analysis of the temporal trajectory of vendors that sheds light on the developmental patterns of their profiles up until their recognition as scammers can be envisaged. Full article

In this paper, we investigate whether Mandarin short passives contain an implicit external argument (EA; such as an agent or experiencer). Syntactic tests yield inconclusive results in Mandarin. We employ intervention effects as a diagnostic tool and demonstrate that, unlike English, Mandarin short passives do not syntactically project an implicit EA. Our findings are based on spontaneous language data from the CHILDES corpora, encompassing 1182 children aged 2–6 years, and experimental data from 78 Mandarin-speaking children aged 3–6 years. This cross-linguistic structural difference explains the earlier acquisition of short passives in Mandarin compared to English and also raises a learnability question, which we briefly address: how do children know to project an implicit EA or not in their language? Full article

Transcription is an important component of the writing process that affects the quality of children’s compositions. However, little is known about how transcription mode influences productivity or spelling accuracy, two word-level markers of compositional quality, among children learning to write in an additional language. To address this issue, we compared the effects of handwriting and keyboarding on text length and spelling in the compositions of L2 French learners. Grade 2 to 4 students (n = 48) in French Immersion were given two writing prompts and asked to produce one text on paper and one using a keyboard. The prompts were counterbalanced across the two writing conditions. The total number of words, total number of words spelled correctly, and proportion of correctly spelled words were calculated. A series of repeated measures ANOVAs revealed an advantage in both the average number of correctly spelled words and the proportion of correctly spelled words in the students’ compositions favouring the keyboarding condition. Conversely, the total number of words across conditions was not significantly different. Our findings suggest that keyboarding may offer an advantage over handwriting with respect to spelling accuracy in the context of L2 composition in the elementary years. Full article

The present study reports tongue configuration data recorded with ultrasound for two sets of consonant sequences uttered by five native Catalan speakers. Articulatory data for the onset cluster pairs [kl]-[ɣl] and [kɾ]-[ɣɾ], and also for [l#k]-[l#ɣ] and [r#k]-[r#ɣ], analyzed in the first part of the investigation revealed that, as a general rule, the (shorter) velar approximant is less constricted than the (longer) voiceless velar stop at the velar and palatal zones while exhibiting a more retracted tongue body at the pharynx. These manner of articulation-dependent differences may extend into the preceding liquid. Data for [k#l]-[kl] and [k#r]-[kɾ] dealt with in the second part of the study show that the velar is articulated with more tongue body retraction for [k#l] vs. [kl] and for [k#r] vs. [kɾ], and with a higher tongue dorsum for [k#l] vs. [kl] and the reverse for [k#r] vs. [kɾ]. Therefore, clusters are produced with a more extreme lingual configuration across a word boundary than in syllable-onset position, which at least in part may be predicted by segmental factors for the [k#r]-[kɾ] pair. These articulatory data are compared with duration data for all sequence pairs. Full article

Lexical bundles (LBs) are crucial in L2 oral proficiency, yet their complexity in terms of length is under-researched. This study therefore examines the relationship between longer and shorter LBs and oral proficiency among 150 L2 learners of varying proficiency levels at a UK university. Through the analysis of oral presentation data (scores ranging from intermediate to advanced) and employing a combined text-internal and text-external approach (two- to five-word bundles), this study advances an innovative text-internal LB refinement procedure, thus isolating the unique contribution of LB length. Robust regression, dominance analysis, and random forest statistical techniques reveal the predictive power of bigram mutual information (MI) and longer three-to-five-word sequences on higher proficiency scores. Our results show that learners using higher MI score bigrams tend to perform better in their presentations, with a strong positive impact on scores (b = 14.38, 95% CI [8.01, 20.76], t = 4.42; dominance weight = 58.63%). Additionally, the use of longer three-to-five-word phrases also contributes to better performance, though to a lesser extent (dominance weight = 18.80%). These findings highlight the pedagogical potential of a nuanced approach to the strategic deployment of LBs, particularly bigram MI, to foster oral proficiency. Suggestions for future LB proficiency research are discussed in relation to L2 speech production models. Full article

The quantity of language input is a relevant predictor of children’s language development and is frequently used as a variable in child bilingualism research. Studies use various methods to measure bilingual language input quantity, but it is currently unknown what the optimal method is. We investigated the bilingual language input estimates of 31 Turkish–Dutch and 21 Polish–Dutch 3- to 5-year-old bilingual children, obtained via the questionnaire for Quantifying Bilingual Experience (Q-BEx) and day-long audio recordings made with Language Environment Analysis (LENA), and proposed a combined method that could overcome several shortcomings of the individual methods. The three methods are compared to each other in their correlation strength with receptive and expressive vocabulary scores. Each individual method correlated significantly with vocabulary scores, regardless of modality or language. Contrary to our hypothesis, the combined method did not correlate stronger with vocabulary outcomes than the Q-BEx and LENA individually did. The latter two did not differ significantly from each other in their correlational strength with vocabulary outcomes. These findings show that both the Q-BEx, LENA, and combined method can be deemed reliable to measure bilingual language input quantity. Future studies can make more informed decisions about their methodology in children’s bilingualism research. Full article

In Spain, the learning of foreign languages has become one of the most interesting educational challenges in recent decades. Regulatory changes have been proposed to align with the Council of Europe’s language policy, which aims to promote plurilingualism and pluriculturalism among European Union citizens. Although the development of plurilingual competence in students has become a key goal, there is little evidence regarding the beliefs of current teachers, especially in monolingual contexts, where multilingualism is mainly developed through instruction. This study involved 307 teachers who taught languages or subjects in a foreign language. The results reveal beliefs about the promotion of plurilingualism, the objectives of language learning, the importance of plurilingual competence, and its characterization that at times do not align with the European language policy and its approach to plurilingualism, though there is agreement on other issues. Among the variables analyzed, two variables—academic training and the number of languages known—were found to significantly influence the beliefs revealed. Full article

Many musicologists and researchers of popular music have recently stressed the omnipresence of covers in today’s music industry. In the sociolinguistics of music, however, studio-recorded covers and their potential differences from ‘original’ compositions have certainly been acknowledged in passing, but very few sociolinguists concerned with the study of song seem to have systematically explored how language use may differ in such re-imagined musical outputs. This article reports on a study which examines the language use of 45 blues artists from three distinct time periods (viz., 1960s, 1980s, and 2010s) and three specific social groups (viz., African American; non-African American, US-based; and non-African American, non-US based) distributed over 270 studio-recorded original and cover performances. Through gradient boosting decision tree classification, it aims to analyze the artists’ use of eight phonological and lexico-grammatical features that are traditionally associated with African American English (viz., /aɪ/ monophthongization, post-consonantal word-final /t/ deletion, post-consonantal word-final /d/ deletion, alveolar nasal /n/ in <ing> ultimas, post-vocalic word-final /r/ deletion, copula deletion, third-person singular <s> deletion, and not-contraction). Our analysis finds song type (i.e., the distinction between covers and originals) to have no meaningful impact on artists’ use of the examined features of African American English. Instead, our analysis reveals how performers seem to rely on these features to a great extent and do so markedly consistently, regardless of factors such as time period, socio-cultural background, or song type. This paper hence builds on our previous work on the language use of blues performers by further teasing out the complex indexical and iconic relationships between features of African American English, authenticity, and the blues genre in its various manifestations of time, place, and performance types. Full article

This paper presents an initial study of the acceptability of differential object marking (DOM) by Galician–Spanish bilinguals in Galicia. The research explores judgments provided by these bilinguals (n = 69) on DOM in both Galician and Spanish and it also explores data from a monolingual Spanish control group (n = 12). The surveys target contexts covering key syntactic and semantic–pragmatic contexts for DOM in Galician and Spanish, based on the existing literature. The Galician data reveal a tendency towards reduced acceptability of DOM compared to Spanish, but without a generalized rejection of DOM in any of the contexts. The Spanish data show variability in both groups. The study contributes insights from an under-studied language pair and aims to open avenues for further work. More generally, it enhances our understanding of DOM in bilingual grammars, particularly in microcontact situations. Full article

Working chiefly within the tenets of Cultural Linguistics (CL), this study examines the cultural and cognitive motivations that underlie selected death-oriented personal names among the Igbo of South-eastern Nigeria. Based on the cultural linguistic perspective, the analytical tool for the study is shaped by insights from cultural schemas, cultural categories and cultural metaphors as signifiers of ideation and social meaning. The cultural frames enable the language user to have a better understanding of the cultural and cognitive motivations that underlie the conceptualization of names and naming among the Igbo. Much has been done on the structure and sociological forms of Igbo personal names and their meanings, but only a few studies have been undertaken on the names that express the notions of death and dying in Igbo. More importantly, no previous study has used insights from Cultural Linguistics (CL) or the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) to explain the motivations for the preponderance of death-oriented names among the Igbo people. Thus, this study specifically aims to address the lacuna. The study reveals that the Igbo, like most African and other human societies, recognize and accept the inevitability of death. Consequently, they use language in diverse forms and contexts to express their perceptions of the horrors and pains associated with the inevitability of death. Songs, proverbs and ritual practices are some of the verbal and social semiotic forms through which the Igbo express their knowledge of and attitude toward death and dying. However, names and naming are the most vivid cultural cognitive patterns by which the Igbo show their understanding of the nature of death and dying and their psychological effects on the living. Constrained by space and scope, this study identified and classified six major death-oriented names among the Igbo, as follows: names that depict the overwhelming power of death; names that make an appeal to death; names that depict death as wicked/evil/terror; names that depict death as no respecter of wealth/social class; names that challenge/mock the assumed power of death; and names that depict death as an insensitive entity. Thus, the above frames constitute the major paradigms by which the Igbo express their knowledge of and attitudes toward death and dying. Full article

The prosodic marking of the wh-scope has been a good testing ground to shed light on syntax-prosody mapping. Many accounts have been proposed based on various theoretical models, including the E-feature agreement system, the Multiple Spell-Out Model, Contiguity Theory, and the Wrap-XP Model. However, most previous studies focused on the constructions with a single wh-phrase, and few studies paid attention to multiple wh-questions. This paper presents novel data from production experiments to show the prosodic patterns of multiple wh-questions in Korean, for which none of the previous accounts makes correct predictions. This study proposes a new alignment constraint considering the scope relations between wh-words. The necessity of such a constraint suggests that the prosodic structures for wh-scope interpretations are not the direct outcome of syntax and phonology but the aggregation of syntax, phonology, and semantics. Full article

The article deals with family language policy (FLP) among Estonian families in Finland. The focus is on language beliefs concerning maintenance of Estonian and Estonian home language (HL) classes provided by municipalities free of charge. Using the classical three-component model of FLP by Spolsky (language beliefs, language management, language practices), the analysis concentrates on language beliefs (the importance of Estonian and HL education) and management (real actions that enable children’s involvement in HL classes). The data were collected from eight Estonian families via semi-structured interviews. The caregivers have higher education and stable incomes. All participants emphasized the importance of proficiency in Estonian for their ethnolinguistic identity and the beneficial aspects of HL classes. However, we found discrepancies between beliefs and actual behavior: the children do not attend Estonian HL classes because of complicated logistics and, according to the caregivers, poor language teaching methods (this claim is not supported by any evidence). Such discrepancies between beliefs and management have been attested in various recent studies of other minorities. Full article