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1. Sociolinguistics and language shift: toward understanding the processes of shift through the prism of speakers

   https://doi.org/10.37892/2713-2951  

   Lenore Grenoble ( January 2021 , Sociolingvistika)

   The study of language shift, the replacement of one language by another in a community, or subgroup of a speech community, is a prime topic for sociolinguistic analysis: shift is almost always the result of social factors. This paper argues for focusing research on the study of shift in process and, to that end, studying the different kinds of speakers in shifting communities. The prevalent response to massive, global language shift by linguists is language documentation. Although the need for documentation is clear, there have been inadvertent consequences: valorizing last speakers, promoting linguistic purism, and devaluing L2 language learners who, in many communities, represent the future of the language. The urgency of documenting and describing languages with relatively small numbers of elderly speakers has led the linguistic community to focus almost exclusively on such groups and ignore both larger speech communities in earlier stages of shift, and overlook the wide range of speaker types in shift communities. From a social standpoint, the result is that we are often failing to do the language work in precisely those communities where reversing language shift is still relatively easy. From a scientific standpoint, we are missing the opportunity to study language change in process, and missing the chance to study speaker variation in a shift situation. Variation in proficiency and performance across shifting speakers is not random but systematic and correlates with a set of social and cognitive factors. 

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2. Complexity and Simplification in Language Shift

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.638118  

   Kantarovich, Jessica ; Grenoble, Lenore A. ; Vinokurova, Antonina ; Nesterova, Elena ( September 2021 , Frontiers in Communication)

   This paper examines the question of linguistic complexity in two shift ecologies in northeastern Russia. It is frequently claimed that language shift results in linguistic simplification across a range of domains in the grammars of shifting speakers ( Campbell and Muntzel 1989 ; Dorian 1989 ; O’Shannessy 2011 ). We challenge the breadth of this claim, showing that while there are undoubtedly patterns that can be described as a simplification of some grammatical domain, the overall grammars of these speakers cannot be said to be “simple,” as simplification in one part of the grammar often corresponds to complexification in other parts (“complexity trade-offs”). Furthermore, patterns that are deemed loss or simplification are often presented in such a way because they are being compared to earlier varieties of the shifting languages; however, such patterns are entirely typologically expected, are consistent with other languages of the world, and can be seen as more or less complex depending on one’s locus of measurement. In this paper, we present incipient changes taking place in Chukchi (Chukotko-Kamchatkan, ISO ckt) and Even (Tungusic, ISO eve) stemming from the modern language shift context. We evaluate these changes against different notions of complexity to demonstrate that a more nuanced approach to morphosyntactic change in language obsolescence is warranted. While morphological simplification is expected in these scenarios, other changes in these speakers’ systems (occurring as potential adaptations in light of simplification) provide a more enlightening avenue for research on shifting varieties. 

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3. Knowing and remembering: Rethinking lexical recall as a measure of proficiency in endangered language communities

   Boltokova, Daria ; Grenoble, Lenore A. ; Kantarovich, Jessica ; Pupynina, Maria J. ( July 2022 , Language documentation and conservation)

   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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4. Language variation in a shifting community: Different patterns of noun incorporation in Modern Chukchi

   https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221110406  

   Kantarovich, Jessica ( August 2022 , International Journal of Bilingualism)

   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.

    

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5. Evidence of syntactic convergence among Russian–Sakha bilinguals

   https://doi.org/10.22210/suvlin.2019.087.05  

   Grenoble, Lenore A. ; Kantarovich, Jessica ; Khokholova, Irena ; Zamorshchikova, Liudmial ( July 2019 , Suvremena lingvistika)

   This paper illustrates the implementation of two basic experiments to test word order changes in Russian and Sakha, languages in long–standing contact. We hypothesize that changes in word order may correlate with deeper structural changes and la nguage shift. The experiments show that some speakers are shifting from Sakha to Russian: 4 from a sample of 30 speakers could not produce texts in Sakha, and one third of the sample produced sentences with some errors. At the same time, there were a significant number of mistakes in the Russian production experiments, indicating interference from Sakha and/or imperfect learning. A sociolinguistic questionnaire showed a high level of accuracy between speakers’ self–assessment of their proficiency in each of the target languages as measured by the experiments shown here. Moreover, the simple experiments themselves revealed a number of other production errors and proved to be a reasonable indicator of less than fluent proficiency and of at least the initial stages of language shift. 

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