CULTURE AND LANGUAGE LECTURE WEEK 1 06-02-2024
Midterm exam: 30%
final exam: 30%
tutorial grade: 40%
defining key concepts
● what and where is Latin America
- colonised by Portugal or Spain, so with Portuguese or Spanish as
dominant language
● Latino
- Spanish speakers from Latin - America + Caribbean, cultural, not racial
- → what about people from Brazil, or migrants?
Language in Latin America
● 7.168 known living languages in the world
- 40% of this is endangered
- 23 languages account for half the world’s population
- Spanish is 4th worldwide
Language diversity South America
● 108 language families, incl 55 isolates
● 42 small languages families
● 420 languages still spoken
Consequence: bilingualism and multilingualism
● Sequential bilingualism: learning another language later on in life
CULTURE AND LANGUAGE LECTURE WEEK 2 13-02-2024
Multilingualism is the norm
● Even within borders
● Manchester is multilingual: over 150 languages
● Multilingualism is not exclusive to urban settings
- Also present in rural settings
, ● Muysken feels like we still see languages as separate entities
Language crossing
● Multilingual speakers mix their languages
- Suriname
- Belize
→ intense code-switching because of relative absence of normative pressure
Code-switching
● Can be stigmatised / misunderstood but it is usually a sign of high proficiency in
the languages spoken
● Spanglish
● It is not haphazard, but rule-governed
● Labov: irregular mixture of two distinct systems
- Research since 1971 shows that code-switching is a highly developed skill
● Intersentential vs intrasentential (in the same sentence)
The most prestigious language gets the
noun
CULTURE AND LANGUAGE LECTURE WEEK 3 20-02-2024
WEIRD
● Western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic
● Non-weird countries: Africa, Asia, Latin-America, and the Middle East
Theoretical proposals
, At the crossroads
● “Culture of example and counterexample”
- Different methodologies
- Different communities
- Different bilingualism types
- Limited attention to extra-linguistic factors
● Tension between theories vs. describing the diversity attested
● Reconcile tension with attention to patterns in variation
● Different choices across communities and …
Key issue: uniformity vs. variability
● What code-switching patterns are uniform/variable across communities and
language combinations
● Combine ecological validity and experimental concerns
- bilingual/multilingual researcher
- bilingual/multilingual participants, habitual code-switchers
- Multi-task approach
Interactive → individual
Spontaneous → controlled
Non restrictive → restrictive
Naturalistic → semi-experimental → experimental
● Three parts to code-switching
1. Uniformity and variability: code-switching conforms to community-specific
norms
2. Child acquisition of code-switching and community-specific norms
3. Corpus-to-cognition approach
1. UNIFORMITY AND VARIABILITY: CODE-SWITCHING CONFORMS TO
COMMUNITY-SPECIFIC NORMS
What is uniform/variable in code switching?
● Nominal Det N Adj
1. Asymmetries → the casa
2. Conflict sites → big casa
● Verbal mixed verbs
3. Creativity
● Multimethod, comparative approach. Code-switchers…
- Produce strings that can be seen as having similar structure
Midterm exam: 30%
final exam: 30%
tutorial grade: 40%
defining key concepts
● what and where is Latin America
- colonised by Portugal or Spain, so with Portuguese or Spanish as
dominant language
● Latino
- Spanish speakers from Latin - America + Caribbean, cultural, not racial
- → what about people from Brazil, or migrants?
Language in Latin America
● 7.168 known living languages in the world
- 40% of this is endangered
- 23 languages account for half the world’s population
- Spanish is 4th worldwide
Language diversity South America
● 108 language families, incl 55 isolates
● 42 small languages families
● 420 languages still spoken
Consequence: bilingualism and multilingualism
● Sequential bilingualism: learning another language later on in life
CULTURE AND LANGUAGE LECTURE WEEK 2 13-02-2024
Multilingualism is the norm
● Even within borders
● Manchester is multilingual: over 150 languages
● Multilingualism is not exclusive to urban settings
- Also present in rural settings
, ● Muysken feels like we still see languages as separate entities
Language crossing
● Multilingual speakers mix their languages
- Suriname
- Belize
→ intense code-switching because of relative absence of normative pressure
Code-switching
● Can be stigmatised / misunderstood but it is usually a sign of high proficiency in
the languages spoken
● Spanglish
● It is not haphazard, but rule-governed
● Labov: irregular mixture of two distinct systems
- Research since 1971 shows that code-switching is a highly developed skill
● Intersentential vs intrasentential (in the same sentence)
The most prestigious language gets the
noun
CULTURE AND LANGUAGE LECTURE WEEK 3 20-02-2024
WEIRD
● Western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic
● Non-weird countries: Africa, Asia, Latin-America, and the Middle East
Theoretical proposals
, At the crossroads
● “Culture of example and counterexample”
- Different methodologies
- Different communities
- Different bilingualism types
- Limited attention to extra-linguistic factors
● Tension between theories vs. describing the diversity attested
● Reconcile tension with attention to patterns in variation
● Different choices across communities and …
Key issue: uniformity vs. variability
● What code-switching patterns are uniform/variable across communities and
language combinations
● Combine ecological validity and experimental concerns
- bilingual/multilingual researcher
- bilingual/multilingual participants, habitual code-switchers
- Multi-task approach
Interactive → individual
Spontaneous → controlled
Non restrictive → restrictive
Naturalistic → semi-experimental → experimental
● Three parts to code-switching
1. Uniformity and variability: code-switching conforms to community-specific
norms
2. Child acquisition of code-switching and community-specific norms
3. Corpus-to-cognition approach
1. UNIFORMITY AND VARIABILITY: CODE-SWITCHING CONFORMS TO
COMMUNITY-SPECIFIC NORMS
What is uniform/variable in code switching?
● Nominal Det N Adj
1. Asymmetries → the casa
2. Conflict sites → big casa
● Verbal mixed verbs
3. Creativity
● Multimethod, comparative approach. Code-switchers…
- Produce strings that can be seen as having similar structure
