This paper problematizes the assessment of speakers’ proficiency in endangered language communities. We focus in particular on processes of lexical production and elicitation as proxies for full proficiency assessment. Among linguists, it is standard to assess a speaker’s knowledge of specific lexical items in order to set a baseline for further data collection and research. Yet, as we argue in this paper, such tests can give the false impression that speakers do not know their language, since such tests do not distinguish between what speakers can recall in a particular moment and what they do not know because they did not acquire it. The endangered language context in particular calls for a more fine-tuned interpretation of lexical knowledge, given the high degree of idiolectal variation and lack of a community-based standard language. Drawing on fieldwork with Chukchi and Even Indigenous communities in northeastern Russia, we analyze lexical items that speakers claim to not remember. We then distinguish different reasons that are given for not remembering and consider their implications for speakers’ proficiency. Finally, we conclude with two recommendations for improving elicitation and language assessment tests.
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Language variation in a shifting community: Different patterns of noun incorporation in Modern Chukchi
This study asks whether an interface phenomenon such as noun incorporation (NI) displays meaningful socially conditioned variation in the endangered polysynthetic language, Chukchi, by investigating whether speakers of all levels of experience or proficiency make use of NI in a consistent, rule-governed way.
This study compares production data from small groups of speakers of a moribund language. Study tasks include a controlled production task in which speakers are asked to construct sentences using provided lexical items. The lexical items were conditioned so as to trigger NI in certain stimuli (on the basis of verbal valency and argument animacy).
The production data was transcribed and coded for the occurrence and structural type of NI (compounding vs. syntactic incorporation). The results were compared across three groups of speakers: conservative older speakers, younger attriting speakers, and new speakers.
NI frequency and productivity clearly differ among the three groups. CSs use incorporation frequently and productively in the expected contexts, while ASs use productive incorporation only in familiar contexts, followed by NSs who make little to no use of incorporation. All speaker groups display knowledge of the appropriate circumstances in which to use incorporation.
This study makes use of a novel experimental methodology in studying several under-researched areas: variation in traditional Chukchi, shift-induced variation in a polysynthetic language, and NI as a locus of variation.
This study contributes to our understanding of the behavior of non-normative speakers of endangered languages and demonstrates that they play a role in language preservation. The study shows that the diffuse nature of the Chukchi speech community is different from comparatively well-studied shift settings (especially in the North American and European contexts) in its lack of a community of use or practice, which presents unique challenges in language maintenance.
- Award ID(s):
- 1761551
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10371654
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE Publications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of Bilingualism
- Volume:
- 26
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 1367-0069
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 620-638
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Issues of intelligibility may arise amongst English learners when acquiring new words and phrases in North American academic settings, perhaps in part due to limited linguistic data available to the learner for understanding language use patterns. To this end, this paper examines the effects of Data‐Driven Learning for Pronunciation (DDLfP) on lexical stress and prominence in the US academic context. 65 L2 English learners in North American universities completed a diagnostic and pretest with listening and speaking items before completing four online lessons and a posttest on academic words and formulas (i.e., multi‐word sequences). Experimental group participants (
n = 40) practiced using an audio corpus of highly proficient L2 speakers while comparison group participants (n = 25) were given teacher‐created pronunciation materials. Logistic regression results indicated that the group who used the corpus significantly increased their recognition of prominence in academic formulas. In the spoken tasks, both groups improved in their lexical stress pronunciation, but only the DDLfP learners improved their production of prominence in academic formulas. Learners reported that they valued DDLfP efforts for pronunciation learning across contexts and speakers. Findings have implications for teachers of L2 pronunciation and support the use of corpora for language teaching and learning. -
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Aims and objectives: This paper analyzes the extent to which new speakers are participating in an ongoing phonological change in Diné Bizaad (Navajo). The implications of these patterns are discussed as they relate to theories of new speakers and language change.
Methodology design: I apply a variationist methodology to analyze the pronunciation of lateral affricates from speakers representing different generations and language learning contexts. I focus on comparing new speakers, who report acquiring the language primarily through school or in a language program, with their age-equivalent peers.
Data and analysis: The data come from interviews recorded with 51 bilingual Diné Bizaad-English participants, ages 18–75. This includes four new speakers. The analysis focuses on variation in the lateral affricates in connected speech samples and an oral translation task.
Findings/conclusion: Results reveal that new speakers diverge from other younger participants in their lack of participation in an ongoing change in the affricates. Instead, new speakers more closely resemble middle-aged and older speakers.
Originality: This study applies the new speaker framework to an Indigenous North American language, an under-represented sociolinguistic context within the literature. These findings provide a counterexample to the more frequent finding of new speakers linguistically diverging from older, traditional speakers.
Significance/implications: These results are interpreted as arising due to literacy practices, language usage networks, and community values. The orthographic representation of the affricates is thought to inhibit sound change. At the same time, due to their more formal language learning background, new speakers have developed a self-monitored speech style oriented toward the prestigious, older speakers. A lack of peer group language usage is thought to prevent the development of linguistically or ideologically distinct new speaker varieties. The confluence of these factors means that instead of constituting agents of language change, new speakers are more similar to older participants.
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Methodology and design: Trilingual speakers (Quichua, Media Lengua, Spanish) participated in four interactive tasks: speeded translation, speeded acceptability judgments, language classification, and lexical decision.
Data and analysis: For each task, the calculated rate of separation of Quichua and Media Lengua was the response variable for a series of linear mixed-effects models, with community (and when appropriate, age group) as a fixed effect.
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