Variation in Language Acquisition: ABSTRACTS

DRAFT, Dec. 21, 2011

High dialect contact, the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation, and the role of

a standard variety: the case of a Japanese New Town

Yoshiyuki Asahi (NINJAL)

In Japan, since 1950s, urbanization and industrialization increased a degree of the demographic

mobility. In fact, we witnessed a rapid grow of the population especially in large cities. So as to

solve the population problem, new towns were designed and established primarily in their

suburbs. New town, therefore, have received a number of immigrants with various dialectal

backgrounds. Sociolinguistically speaking, a high dialect contact situation emerged for several

decades.

This paper reports findings from my sociolinguistic surveys conducted between 1999 and 2003 at

a Japanese New Town in Kobe, called, ‘Seishin New Town.’ The survey aimed two generations:

(1) immigrant generation, who migrated into this new town since 1980s and whose age ranges

from 30s to 50s, and (2) new town generation, who are the first native teenagers. As a baseline

data, another sociolinguistic survey was conducted at one of the neighbor, rural, and agriculture-

based communities, called ‘Hazetani-cho.’ Their spontaneous speech of 12 New Town residents

and 9 Hazetani-cho residents were collected. 13-hour recordings were used as a data. Two

variables (verb negation, and complementizer) were analyzed.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the degree of (1) how immigrant generation create their

sociolinguistic variation through their interactions with their neighbors, friends, and colleagues at

their workplace, if any, and (2) how new town generation acquire the sociolinguistic variation,

and utilize it in their interaction with their peer group. As mentioned earlier, a baseline data from

Hazetani-cho will be analyzed to measure the differences from Seishin new town residents.

The result shows that immigrant generation has a frequent use of non-dialectal form both for verb

negation and complementizer, which clearly differs from Hazetani-cho residents whilst new town

generation has a frequent use of the dialectal form (especially in verb negation) instead of the

non-dialectal form. The frequent use of this form can be found in Hazetani-cho residents.

Based on the analysis, this paper will consider how standardization of Japanese language impact

upon the use of the two variables both in immigrant and new town generations. Generally

speaking, a standard variety in Japanese has been heavily influential. This paper will state that

standardization did observed generally in Hazetani-cho, whereas a different kind of

standardization process was observed in Seishin new town residents.

Regional Accent Perception in Children: The Acoustic and the Meta-

Linguistic

Erica Beck (University of Michigan, Linguistics)

Part of sociolinguistic competence is recognizing social categories indexed in speech. Studies

show that the more exposure a person has to different regional accents in childhood, the better

they are as adults in discriminating and identifying them (Clopper and Pisoni, 2004). However,

the few studies that exist on young children’s ability to discriminate regional accents have shown

them to be poor at the task. The problem has been attributed to still-developing phoneme

categories, and the relative difficulty of perceiving vowels categorically (Girard, Floccia et al.

2008; Floccia, Butler et al. 2009). I contend that the difficulty doesn’t lie in poor perceptual

ability, but the still-developing meta-linguistic knowledge about regional variation and as well as

abstract geographical-spatial concepts needed to make sense of geographically-based variation

My experimental work with children addresses what role meta-linguistic awareness and prior

exposure to regional variation plays in developing the ability to perceive regional accents. First, I

simplified previous accent discrimination tasks to increase the likelihood that 5-year-olds are

successful in them. Second, I look at whether meta-linguistic awareness and prior exposure to

different regional accents correlate with accuracy in discriminating regional accents. Finally, I

ask how aware children are about their own accent and speech variety, to see if they make

accurate comparisons between their own speech and that of others, or if they have inaccurate

mental representations.

This study is currently being conducted near Philadelphia, PA, USA, with about 200 5-year-olds

enrolled in a public school. This study should demonstrate that non-linguistic factors play at least

as much a role in the development of accent perception as do the cognitive-linguistic ones, and

that children do not have accurate representations of their native variety at the age of 5.

This study will further our understanding of what children know about their native language, how

their awareness of accent develops and how accurate their representations of their own speech are

in the early school years. In turn, this can inform our understanding about how children begin to

form stereotypes and generalizations about speakers of other languages, which can affect their

interactions with speakers of other dialects later in life (Purnell, Idsardi et al. 1999), and what role

overt knowledge about social groups and categories plays in perception and learning of the native

language.

References

Clopper, C. and D. B. Pisoni (2004). "Homebodies and army brats: Some effects of early linguistic

experience and residential history on dialect categorization." Language Variation and Change 16: 31-

48.

Clopper, C. and D. B. Pisoni (2004). "Some acoustic cues for the perceptual Floccia, C., J. Butler, et al.

(2009). "Categorization of regional and foreign accent in 5- to 7-year old British children."

International Journal of Behavioral Development 33(4): 366-375.

Girard, F., C. Floccia, et al. (2008). "Perception and awareness of accents in young children." British

Journal of Developmental Psychology 26: 409-433.

Purnell, T., W. Idsardi, et al. (1999). "Perceptual and phonetic experiments on American English dialect

identification." Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18(1): 10-30.

The effects of social diversity on the acquisition of stylistic variation

Laurence Buson

The notions of interaction density and social network density/multiplexity have long been

invoked to explain language use convergence phenomena and the reinforcement of local norms

within certain communities (Milroy, 1980; Labov, 2001). Nevertheless, the comparative effects

of homogenous and heterogeneous socialization contexts on the development of communication

skills in children are still poorly understood. To help remedy this situation, we decided to explore

the influence of the composition of the social networks of eight 10-year-old girls from working-

class families, socialized in either homogeneous (working-class) or heterogeneous (socially

mixed) social environments. We first examined the girls’ repertoires by analyzing two variables:

the discursive markers hein and oh, which are more frequently used in informal situations. We

then used qualitative analyses of stylistic variation in ordinary interactions and utterances, in

order to provide more information about certain global results and thereby examine processes that

are difficult to measure using quantitative approaches (e.g., stylisation, see Snell, 2010). We

obtained four main results:

1) All the girls in our sample use stylistic variation;

2) Although ways of addressing peers were globally equivalent between the two socialization

environments, the girls socialized in a socially heterogeneous environment used fewer informal

discursive markers when addressing adults in their entourage (mostly teachers addressed while

we were collecting data) than the girls socialized in a socially homogeneous environment;

3) The stylistic variation characteristics of the children’s spontaneous and elicited speech also

differed according to their socialization environment. These differences included perceptions of

the we-code and the they-code (to draw a parallel with the language-contact situations described

by Gumperz, 1982);

4) The register and style of the language adopted by the girls’ teachers, who are the traditional

sources of standard language forms, differed according to the socialization environment. In the

socially homogenous school with students from working-class backgrounds, the absence of adult

models who strongly incarnate standard practices may partly explain the children’s more

homogenous use of style. In fact, the stabilization of adult speech and the parody of stereotypical

social roles are reinforced by children’s games, and these games play a major role in the

acquisition of variation (Maybin, 2006).

References

GUMPERZ, J. J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge University Press.

LABOV, W. (2001). Principles of linguistic change, vol. 2: social factors. Blackwell.

MAYBIN, J. (2006). Children's voices. Talk, knowledge and identity. Palgrave Macmillan.

MILROY, L. (1980). Language and social networks. Blackwell.

Early Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Variation: Bringing Together Social and

Cognitive Issues

Jean-Pierre Chevrot (Université de Grenoble)

Variationist sociolinguistics and cognitive psycholinguistics have rarely been associated together.

Two cultural models in place in the western world – the rationalist model that sees language as a

tool and the romantic model that considers it as an identity marker (Polzenhagen & Dirven, 2008)

– seem to have been opposed within the field of language sciences. But new elements within the

general scientific field have encouraged the convergence of social and cognitive sciences: the

development of the connectionist paradigm opening towards non determinist aspects of

cognition, the recent directions taken by ethology and neuroscience for exploring the cognitive

and cerebral basis of links between communication and social life, the current place, in science in

general, of the intrinsic relationships between variation and stability.

Our approach to acquisition of sociolinguistic variables takes place in this general context, which

gave rise to the emerging fields of Cognitive Sociolinguistics (Kristiansen & Dirven, 2008) and

Sociolinguistic Cognition (Campbell-Kibler, 2010 http://sociolinguisticcognition.blogspot.com/).

We aim to show that taking into account cognitive issues such as the way of learning variation

(indexical values and variable linguistic units and constructions) or the online processes involved

in the production/perception of the variants (Ghimenton & Chevrot, submitted; Chevrot, 1994)

would be to the advantage of sociolinguistics. Conversely, for the sake of descriptive adequacy,

acknowledging that the child learns to speak in a highly variable linguistic environment,

structured by social factors would benefit psycholinguistics greatly.

We will defend the idea that the cognitive mechanisms underpinning the acquisition of

sociolinguistic variables must be taken into account in order to explore certain questions the

answers to which remain unsatisfactory in the context of a strictly linguistic approach. One of the

most persistent questions in the field of sociolinguistics is that of the social determinism of usage,

connected to a wider examination of the rationality of social actors: To what extent does the

speaker choose his usage according to pragmatic issues and to what extent is this usage

determined by his social origin and the communicative context?

By taking into account the course of acquisition and by exploring the cognitive mechanisms

underpinning its dynamics, we are able to tackle these issues from a new point of view. More

precisely, we will review the available data concerning the acquisition of the stylistic ability and

the appearance of gender- and SES-related differences (Chevrot, Nardy & Barbu, 2011, Nardy,

Chevrot & Barbu, submitted) in order to answer two questions: (1) Are these patterns of variation

firmly established in the first stages of acquisition, which would mean that they are automatically

inherited from the early interactions in the child environment? (2) Alternatively, are these

patterns acquired or modified later in the course of development, indicating more complex

influences including the formation of identity and the construction of social roles?

An affirmative answer to the first question would be more compatible with the view that the

acquisition of variation is based on the implicit learning of regularities (statistical learning)

whereas an affirmative answer to the second one would suggest that the acquisition is guided by

cultural learning (norms, identity strategies). A close examination of these options should

however take into account the fact that social life is guided by non-conscious automatic processes

(Bargh & Williams, 2006) whereas sociolinguistic cognition, as other parts of cognition, becomes

more flexible and accessible to consciousness in the course of acquisition, due to metalinguistic

development (Buson & Billiez, submitted).

References

Bargh, J.A., & Williams, L.E. (2006). The automaticity of social life. Current Directions in Psychological

Science, 15, 1-4.

Buson, L. & Billiez, J. (soumis). Representations of Stylistic Variation in 9-11 year-olds: Cognitive

Processes and Salience.

Campbell-Kibler, K. (2010). New directions in sociolinguistic cognition. University of Pennsylvania

Working Papers in Linguistics, 15(2), 31-39.

Chevrot, J.-P. (1994). La variation phonétique : point de vue cognitif, Langage et Société, 70, 5 33.

Chevrot, J.-P., Nardy, A. & Barbu, S. (2011). Developmental dynamics of SES-related differences in

children's production of obligatory and variable phonological alternations. Language Sciences, 33, 180-

191.

Ghimenton, A. & Chevrot, J.-P. (submitted). Language choice adjustments in child production during

dyadic and multiparty interactions: a quantitative approach to multilingual interactions.

Nardy, A., Chevrot, J.-P. & Barbu, S. (submitted). The acquisition of sociolinguistic variation: looking

back and thinking ahead.

Kristiansen, K., & Dirven, R. (2008). Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Language Variation, Cultural Models,

Social Systems. Mouton de Gruyter.

Polzenhagen, F. & Dirven, R. (2008). Rationalist or romantic model in globalisation ? in Kristiansen, G. &

Dirven, R. (eds), Cognitive Sociolinguistics : Language Variation, Cultural Models, Social Systems,

Berlin, New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 237–300.

The acquisition of variable word order in two-verb clusters in regional Dutch

Leonie Cornips (Meertens Instituut/KNAW & Maastricht University)

Standard Dutch and its regional varieties displays variable word orders in the verb clusters,

although the order of the verbs is never random, and some orders are never found (Zwart 2001,

Barbiers 2005). In Dutch a distinction must be made between participial and infinitival

constructions. With respect to two-verb clusters, standard Dutch allows 1-2 and 2-1 order in the

participle construction but only 1-2 order in the infinitival construction. The hierarchically

highest verb has index 1, the second highest verb has index 2.

The empirical study discussed consists of a sociolinguistic study of a regional Dutch variety in

which 67 adult speakers were recorded resulting in 33,5 recorded hours of spontaneous speech.

This corpus yields a bewildering variety of word orders at the level of the group (‘community’

grammar) of speakers and the individual (grammar). The 67 speakers produce 558 tokens of a

verbal cluster containing a perfective or passive auxiliary combined with a past participle and 554

tokens of a two verb-cluster involving a modal combined with an infinitive, presented below:

participle two-verb cluster infinitival two-verb cluster

order tokens % tokens %

2-1 376 67,4 14 .03

1-2 182 32,6 540 99,97

total 558 554

Crucially, it is not the case that the variable word order in the participle construction is due two

homogeneous subgroups of speakers exclusively using order 2-1 or 1-2. Instead, 50 out of 67

speakers use both orders reveal optionality, thus the variation is present at the level of the

individual speaker as well. Remarkably, the two word orders do not show social stratification

according to age, level of education and language background of the speakers.

The general question now arising is how do children in the same community deal with the word

order variability in the participle construction in the input? to be more specific, (i) is the variable

order in the participle construction acquired from the beginning? (ii) are the linguistic

conditionings (morphology of the deepest embedded verb and type of auxiliary) of the participle

and infinitival construction acquired and at what age? (cf. Smith et al 2007)

In order to answer these questions, we conducted a question answering task (elicited production),

regarding 30 pictures (taken from Zuckerman (2001)) presented to 20 children growing up in the

same village as the adults described above. The children were divided in two age groups (2:8

through 3;10 and (5;0 through 5;11). The developmental stages are:

(i) The children start out with the acquisition of the infinitival construction,

followed by the participle one;

(ii) The children start out with the 1-2 order for both types of clusters, followed by

the 2-1 order at a later age for the participle construction

(iii) The children first start out with particle inclusion, followed by particle split

It is remarkable that the children start out with (i) categorical orders in the participle construction

where there is variability in the adult community and (ii) the order is the least frequent one in the

adult ‘community’ grammar i.e. the 1-2 order.

The objectives of this talk are to discuss in detail what kinds of considerations influence the

choices of the children, to be more specific, what are the exact linguistic and social conditionings

of the participle and infinitival construction and when and how they are acquired.

References

Adger, D. and Smith, J. 2005. Variation and the Minimalist Program In: L. Cornips & K. Corrigan (eds.),

Syntax and Variation. Reconciling the Biological and the Social. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John

Benjamins, 149-179.

Barbiers, S. 2005. Theoretical restrictions on word order variation in three-verb clusters. In: L. Cornips &

K. Corrigan (eds.), Syntax and Variation. Reconciling the Biological and the Social.

Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 233-264.

Cornips, L. 2009. Empirical syntax: idolectal variability in two- and three-verb clusters in regional

standard Dutch and Dutch dialects. In A Dufter, J Fleischer & G Seiler (Eds.), Describing and

modeling variation in grammar: 203-224. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Smith, J. M. Durham & L. Fortune. 2007. ‘Mam, my trousers is fa’in doon! Community, caregiver and

child in the acquisition of variation in a Scottish dialect. Language Variation and Change 19: 63-99.

Wurmbrand, S. 2006. Verb clusters, verb raising, and restructuring. In The Blackwell Companion to

Syntax, vol. V, Martin Everaert and Henk van Riemsdijk (eds.), 229-343. Blackwell Publishing: UK.

Zuckerman, S. 2001. The acquisition of “optional” movement. PhD Groningen University.

Zwart, C. J-W. 1996, Verb clusters in Continental West Germanic dialects. In: James R. Black, Viginia

Motapanyane (eds) Microparametric syntax and dialect variation, Amsterdam: Benjamins.

What is the target variety? Acquisition of dialectal variation by adult second

language learners

Andrea Ender (FRIAS Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, Freiburg i. Br.)

"If structure is at the heart of language, then variation defines its soul" (Wolfram 2006: 333).

Sociolinguistic variation is an integral part of everyday life communication, which means that

variation is present in situations that can serve as stimuli for learning in an untutored context.

Even though adult learners are able to reproduce variation present in the input (cf. Hudson

Kam/Newport 2005, 2009), the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation in a target language and

the development of the capacity to alternate between speech styles does not seem to be

straightforward (cf. Rehner, Mougeon and Nadasdi 2003; Romaine 2004). In the German-

speaking part of Switzerland, learners are constantly confronted with the coexistance of two

varieties – local dialect(s) and the standard variety – in everyday spoken and written

communication (Berthele 2004; Werlen 1998). The use of the two varieties is highly influenced

by interactional and sociolinguistic aspects of the situation of communication and a considerable

linguistic and social flexibility is required from second language learners and users.

Second language learners have different attitudes towards dialectal variation and their acquisition

process is shaped by different individual and environmental factors (personal and professional

network, amount of language instruction etc.). As a consequence, learners differ with respect to

the definition of a target variety in the acquisition process. In this paper, I want to focus on the

question why and how the learners "choose" to learn either one or the other variety or do not

strictly separate in a situation with dialectal variation in the input. The analyses are based on

second language learners' free speech from a conversation with a dialect and with a standard-

variety speaking person, on prompted linguistic data and on metalinguistic statements. They will

provide insights into the question in how far the standard and the dialectal variety and the

variation involved in their usage are part of their linguistic competence. How learners incorporate

the two varieties in their language capabilities and their interlanguage grammar can improve our

understanding of the dynamics of linguistic, cognitive and sociolinguistic factors that might

influence the acquisition of variation.

References

Berthele, Raphael (2004): Vor lauter Linguisten die Sprache nicht mehr sehen – Diglossie und Ideologie

in der deutschsprachigen Schweiz. In: Christen, H. (ed.): Dialekt, Regiolekt und Standardsprache im

sozialen und zeitlichen Raum. Vienna: Edition Praesens, 111–136.

Hudson Kam, Carla L. & Elissa L. Newport (2005): Regularizing unpredictable variation: The roles of

adult and child learners in language variation and change. Language Learning and Development 1:

151–195.

Hudson Kam, Carla L. & Elissa L. Newport (2009): Getting it right by getting it wrong: When learners

change languages. Cognitive Psychology 59: 30–66.

Rehner, Katherine, Raymond Mougeon & Terry Nadasdi (2003): The learning of sociolinguistic variation

by advanced FSL learners: The case of nous versus on in immersion French. Studies in Second

Language Acquisition 25: 127–156.

Romaine, Suzanne (2004): Variation. In: Doughty, Catherine & Michael H. Long (eds.): The Handbook of

Second Language Acquisition. Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 409–435.

Werlen, Iwar (1998): Mediale Diglossie oder asymmetrische Zweisprachigkeit? Mundart und

Hochsprache in der deutschen Schweiz. Babylonia 1: 22–35.

Wolfram, Walt (2006): Variation and Language: Overview. In: Brown, Keith (ed.): Encyclopedia of

Language & Linguistics. 2nd

edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 333–341.

Effects of school demographics on child and adolescent morphosyntactic and

phonetic variation: A longitudinal analysis

Charlie Farrington (North Carolina State University), Mary Kohn (University of North Carolina

at Chapel Hill) & Jennifer Renn (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

The social structure provided by schools may play a significant role in shaping the speech

varieties of children and adolescents by contributing to processes of leveling (Britain 1997,

Trudgill 1998). When dialects undergo leveling, marked features are frequently lost in favor of

features that are not overtly indexed with social information. Although typically associated with

regional dialect contact, leveling may also affect ethnic variants as children in more integrated

schools have been found to use fewer African American Vernacular English (AAVE) forms than

those who attend less diverse schools (Craig and Washington 2004, Terry, Conner, Thomas-Tate,

and Love 2010). Whether or not leveling processes can explain the effect of school demographics

on dialect has yet to be explored. A longitudinal analysis of children who change school

environments could clarify whether the correlation between school demographics and dialect use

is attributed to the process of leveling, or simply reflects the child’s home language.

This current analysis uses longitudinal data to explore the role of demographic makeup in

determining trajectories of dialect development among African American school children in

central North Carolina. 67 children participated in a longitudinal study of language and over the

course of 18 years. In order to operationalize dialect use over time, a dialect density measure

(DDM) consisting of a features per utterance count is used to assess overall morphosyntactic

vernacularity for each child at three different time points: at approximately ages 7, 11, and 13. In

addition, the full vowel spaces of a subset of ten speakers at ages 9 and 13 are included to

compare trajectories of different dialect levels.

Within the region, children matriculate into different intermediate and secondary schools around

ages 11 and 14. For some of the participants in our study, this change represents a shift from a

school with a predominantly African American population to a school with a significant

proportion of European American students as well. For other students, the proportion of African

American students in their new schools is similar to that of their old schools. To explore the

correlation between vernacularity and school demographics, we conducted linear regressions

predicting either vowel height for the front vowels or the DDM measure using the independent

variables of age, sex, and percent African Americans in the school. Initial results indicate that

while the percentage of African American students in the school is a significant predictor for

front tense vowel lowering, in accordance with the Southern Vowel Shift (Labov 1991), the

effect is only apparent between speakers. This suggests that while demographics may influence

the use of vocalic features, dramatic shifts in demographics do not affect overall vowel quality.

The DDM shows within speaker effects for school demographics, indicating that changing school

environments influences the use of AAVE morphosyntactic features. School demographics

appear to affect acquisition of regional AAVE variants on both the phonetic and morphosyntactic

level. However, phonetic variables appear more stable in the face of changing educational

environments.

References

Britain, David. 1997. Dialect contact, focusing and phonological rule complexity: The koineisation of

Fenland English. In C. Boberg, M. Meyerhoff and S. Strassel (eds.), A Selection of Papers from

NWAVE 25. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 4: 141-170.

Craig, Holly K. and Julie A. Washington. 2004. Grade-Related Changes in the Production of African

American English. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 47: 450-463.

Labov, William. 1991. The three dialects of English. In Penelope Eckert (ed.), New Ways of Analyzing

Sound Change. New York: Academic Press, 1-44.

Terry, Nicole Patton and Carol McDonald Connor, Shurita Thomas-Tate, and Michael Love. 2010.

Examining Relationships Among Dialect Variation, Literacy Skills, and School Context in First Grade.

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 53: 126-145.

Trudgill, Peter. 1998. The chaos before the order: New Zealand English and the second stage of new-

dialect formation. In E. H. Jahr (ed.), Advances in Historical Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 1-

11.

Acquisition of variation in multiparty interactions in Veneto (Italy): evidence

from the weaker language

Anna Ghimenton (University of Fribourg - Institut de Plurilinguisme)

Family network helps the child scaffold her language construction, transmitting style and

variation through language choice and usage, in order to become a competent speaker of her

community (Ochs 2002). The linguistic contrast generated by multilingualism may elucidate

important aspects of the way in which children acquire variation.

This case study took place in Veneto (Italy), where children grow up in contact with the dialect

varieties and Italian, the national and official language. Dialect in Veneto is still very vital and

benefits from a prestigious cultural heritage (Cortelazzo and Paccagnella 1997). Adopting a

(psycho)sociolinguistic approach to our corpora, we observed the language production of a young

child, Francesco (17-30 months) when participating in multiparty interactions with his nuclear

and extended family members.

All utterances were transcribed and coded. Each word was placed in a language category: Italian,

dialect and cognates (words which are used in both langauges). We compared the proportions of

lexical frequencies in utterances addressed directly to Francesco to those addressed to other

adults.

We also examined how Francesco interacts in this variable environment, given the presence of

Italian and dialect and the increased number of participants.

The general results show that: 1) adults prefer Italian when speaking to Francesco; 2) the child

uses mainly Italian; 3) the lexical choices in the multiparty interactions show that the child uses

dialect, especially when interacting with speakers who generally produce more dialect.

Through a quantitative and qualitative approach to the data, we discuss the ways in which the

acquisition of the minority language – the Veneto dialect – may shed light on the more general

processes linked to the acquisition of variation.

References

Cortelazzo, M. et Paccagnella, I. (1997). Il Veneto. In F. Bruni (ed.), L'Italiano nelle regioni: Volume 1

lingua nazionale e identità regionali (2 ed., Vol. 1). Torino: Utet, pp. 220-281.

Ochs, E. (2002). Becoming a speaker of culture. In C. Kramsch (ed.), Language acquisition and language

socialization : ecological perspectives. London, New York: Continuum, pp. 99-120.

The Socio-Syntactic Development of Cypriot Greek Clitic Placement

Kleanthes K. Grohmann (Universty of Cyprus) & Evelina Leivada (Universita Autònoma de

Barcelona)

Studying language acquisition in a context that involves the simultaneous use of a non-codified

variety (L) that lacks official status and an official language (H) that is closely related to L

requires paying close attention to sociolinguistic factors such as the existence of linguistic

continua, the manifestations of linguistic insecurity that eventually give rise to enhanced

metalinguistic awareness, and the gradient nature of certain (morpho)syntactic phenomena.

The linguistic reality of Cyprus is often described as demonstrating a state of bidialectism (e.g.,

Yiakoumetti et al., 2005; Tsiplakou et al., 2006; Papapavlou & Kouridou, 2007), where the

sociolinguistically L Cypriot Greek (CG) co-exists with the H Standard Modern Greek (SMG),

which is also the standardized, official variety spoken in Greece. The two varieties show many

differences in all domains of language, even within grammar and morphosyntax, with one of the

more studied ones being the different patterns of placement of pronominal object clitics. This

paper draws insights from the findings of two recent studies that investigate the acquisition of

direct object clitic placement in CG (see Grohmann, 2011; Grohmann et al., in press; Grohmann

and Leivada, to appear) in order to discuss:

(i) the existence of metalinguistic awareness, but also concomitantly linguistic insecurity,

that derive from the schooling environment, which makes use of a language (SMG)

different from the one children are exposed to at home (CG) and discourages the use of the

former;

(ii) the dynamics of the interplay between competing motivations (Du Bois, 1985) as well

as competing grammars in the sense of Tsiplakou (2007), which frame language acquisition

in linguistic environments such as the one observable in Cyprus;

(iii) the phenomenon of gradience in grammar approached through the perspective of

syntactic variants existent within and affected by a dialect–standard continuum (for such a

discussion of Heerlen and Standard Dutch, for example, see Cornips, 2006).

Recent inquiries into the field of ‘socio-syntactic’ research claim that sociolinguistically

determined functions may facilitate the process of choosing between syntactic variants, thus

somewhat blurring the traditional distinctions between sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and

theoretical syntax (Grondelaers et al., 2009). The necessity to advocate an interdisciplinary

approach has recently been formulated by Cornips & Corrigan (2005: 20), who predict “the

coming-of-age of ‘Socio-Syntax’ as a discipline in its own right”.

This paper can be seen as a contribution to this new type of interface study, the role and relevance

of social and sociolinguistic factors in first language acquisition and development. Findings of a

picture-based elicitation task (from COST Action A33; Varlokosta et al., to appear) administered

to different populations residing in Cyprus shed light on the different stages of the process of

constructing a socio-syntactic repertoire in diglossic environments such as the one discussed here,

in a manner that goes beyond assuming mere diglossia or engaging into the issue of bidialectism

vs. bilingualism. The cover term chosen here and in related work is “bi-x”, an umbrella for

(quasi-)bilingual settings that involve two very closely related varieties. In this context, the cover

term “bi-x” is introduced and tied in with the process of constructing a sociosyntactic repertoire.

Aiming to bring together the different factors that affect the process of language acquisition in the

case of Cyprus, the Socio-Syntax of Development Hypothesis (Grohmann, 2010) is discussed in

relation to the acquisition of direct object clitic placement. It specifically relates the grammar of

CG with the continuum that informs, but also affects, the process of first language acquisition in

a dialectal context.

Didaktisierung des Klammerverfahrens im L2-Erwerb, dialektale Varianten

und Restriktionen der Satzklammer

Claudia Grümpel (Universidad de Alicante)

Zur Didaktisierung des Klammerverfahrens wurde bei der theoretischen Beschreibung der Syntax

im L2-Erwerb des Deutschen davon ausgegangen, die Klammer bestehe aus syntaktisch und

funktional zusammengehörigen Elementen, die in Distanzstellung zueinander treten (vgl. Nübling

et al. 2008:92) . In diesem Sinne wurde die Hauptsatzklammer zunächst nach Nominal-, Lexikal-,

Kopula- und Verbalklammer eingeführt. Der Übergang zum deutschen Nebensatz wurde durch

zwei Signalelemente erklärt:. Die Konjunktion bildet den grammatischen Teil und das Finitum

die lexikalische Information.

Im Laufe der Progression des L2-Erwerbs werden neue syntaktische Elemente zur Verfestigung

des Klammerverfahrens eingeführt. Die erste nachvollziehbare Klammer ist für den L2-Lerner

das trennbare Verb (1) oder das kopulative Verb (3). Nach der Lexikalklammer erwirb der L2-

Lerner die Verbalklammer, deren Spannungsbogen einerseits das Modalverb und das Finitum

bilden (2a.) und am Ende der Hauptsatzklammer das Perfek (2b.).

(1) Lexikalklammer : Er [VP bringt [NP (seinen Hund) [V runter, raus, weg oder...um.

(2) Verbalklammer:

a. Er möchte nach der Bratwurst mit Senf und dem Bier noch den Lebkuchen essen.

b. Er hat den Kuchen (in zwei Sekunden ohne zu kauen) verschlungen.

(3) Kopulaklammer: Er ist (seit vielen Jahren) Lehrkraft.

Die relativ frühe Einführung der Nominalklammer als solche kann von den Lernenden erst mit Einführung vorangestellter Attribute nachvollzogen werden (vg. 4-5), ebenso die Negierung einer solcher Klammer.

(4) der (gern gesehene ) Gast. - der [AP gern [A gesehene ] [N Gast.]

(5) ein gern gesehener Gast

(6) kein gern gesehener Gast.

Die klitische Negierung mit “nicht” wird häufig fälschlicherweise als Klammersignal in

Hauptsatzstrukturen gedeutet (7). Doch die klitische Negation ist weder klammer-noch

vorfeldfähig (8). Solche Eigenschaften müssen durch Restriktionen des Klammerverfahrens, wie

über referentielle, prosodische und phonetische Merkmale verdeutlicht werden.

(7) Wir haben uns nicht gesehen (*Wir haben uns gesehen nicht)

(8) *Nicht war sie gestern zu Hause (Sie war gestern nicht zu Hause)

Dialekte und regionale Varianten im Deutschen können auch zur Verfestigung der Satzklammer

angeführt werden, wie zum Beispiel im Norddeutschen bei Adverbialpronomen (vgl.9-10) oder

auch bei Fragenpronomen (vgl. 11-12).

(9) Da weiss ich nichts von! (Da weiss ich nichts davon).

(10) Da kann er doch nichts für! (Da kann er doch nichts dafür)

(11) Wo geht die Reise hin? (Wohin geht die Reise?) –

(12) Wo hast du das Geld her? ( Woher hast du das Geld?)

Literaturverzeichnis.

CARDINALETTI, A. & STARKE, M. «The typology of structural deficiency: A case study of the three classes

or pronouns», en: Riemsdijk Henk van (Hg.), Clitics in the languages of Europe. Berlin/New York: de

Gruyter 1999, 145-233.

CARDINALETTI, A.«Subject/Object Asymmetries in German Null-Topic Constructions and the Status of

SpecCP», en: MASCARÓ, J.v.Nespor. M..(Hg.), Grammar in Progress. Glow Essays for Henk van

Riemskdijk. Dordrecht: Foris, 1990, 75-84.

CINQUE, G., Adverbs and functional heads: A cross-linguistic perspective.. Oxford: Oxford University Press

1999.

DRACH, E., Grundgedanken der deutschen Satzlehre. Frankfurt/Main: 1937.

DUDEN., Die Grammatik. Mannheim: 2005.

ENGEL, U., Deutsche Grammatik. Heidelberg: 1996.

KAYNE, R.S., The Antisymmetry of Syntax. MIT Press 1994.

LENERZ, J., «Klammerkonstruktionen», en: Jacobs, J. et. al..(Hg.), Syntax. Ein internationales Handbuch

zeitgenössischer Forschung. Berlin/New York 1995.

NÜBLING, D., DAMMEL, A. DUKE, J., SZCZEPANIAK, R., Historische Sprachwissenschaft des

Deutschen. Tübingen: Narr 2008. (2.überarbeitete Auflage)

OPPENRIEDER, W/THURMAIR, M., «Kategorie und Funktion einer Partikel. Oder: Was ist eigentlich

‘eigentlich’ EIGENTLICH?.» Deutsche Sprache 17, 1989, 26-39.

RONNEBERGER-SIEBOLD, E., «Konservative Nominalflexion und “klammerndes Verfahren” im

Deutschen», en: KÖPKE, K.-M.(Hg.), Funktionale Untersuchungen zur deutschen Nominal- und

Verbalmorphologie. . Tübingen 1994, 115-130.

THURMAIR, M., «Nicht ohne meine Grammatik! Vorschläge für eine Pädagogische Grammatik im

Unterricht des Deutschen als Fremdsprache», Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache 23 (1997), 25-45.

ZWART, J.W., Dutch Syntax. A Minimalist Approach. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1997.

Examining Children’s Learning of Variation in a Miniature Artificial

Language

Carla L. Hudson Kam (University of British Columbia)

Most research in language acquisition is concerned with aspects of language that are consistent,

deterministic, and perfectly predictable once the correct generalization or exception to a pattern

has been learned (e.g. past tense form in English). However, not all aspects of language can be

described in this way; sometimes patterns in the language are variable. Sometimes these variable

patterns are stable across generations (or exhibit only minor differences between speakers of

different ages), other times variation in language is changed by children as they learn it, e.g.,

variation present in newly emerging languages. The research reported here is concerned with

understanding why children sometimes change variation but sometimes are able to learn it.

To investigate this I exposed 27 child learners aged 5-7 to one of several miniature artificial

languages (MAL) containing a probabilistically occurring grammatical morpheme (the article). In

one MAL (unconditioned variation) the article occurred randomly in sentences in the children’s

input. Overall, it appeared with 60% of the noun tokens. This was consistent across syntactic

position (subject, object) and sentence type (transitive, intransitive), so that, e.g., 60% of the

subject nouns occurred with articles, and the same for objects. In the other MAL (conditioned

variation) the occurred more often with subject than with object nouns. Importantly, in neither

language was the occurrence of the determiner completely predictable in any sentence or with

any noun – it was always variable. What differed between the two input languages was the

presence of conditioning; in the first language all nouns were equally likely (or unlikely) to take a

determiner, in the second, nouns in one syntactic position were more likely to occur with

determiners than nouns in another syntactic position.

Exposure took place over 6 sessions, each lasting 15-20 minutes. In each session, the child saw a

series of scenes (live act-outs of a meaning), and heard spoken sentences in the artificial language

describing each scene. Scenes and sentences were presented one by one, and the children were

asked to repeat each sentence as they heard it. In an additional test session children were asked to

produce their own, sentences describing novel scenes. Productions were recorded and analysed

for article use.

In general, children exposed to the first MAL did not learn the probability associated with the

article. Instead, they imposed strict rules on article occurrence. In contrast, although the second

MAL seems like it should be harder to learn since there were multiple probabilities associated

with the article, many children did learn conditional probabilities of occurrence for the

determiners, as evidenced by their production of determiners in novel sentences. Interestingly,

however, the data suggests that they might have learned the probabilities associated with sentence

types (transitive and intransitive) rather than syntactic position (subject and object).

Results then suggest that children can learn conditioned variation in a MAL, just as in natural

language acquisition, when there is conditioning on the variation. Therefore, the regularization

found in previous MAL studies is likely not just an artifact of experimental methods. Moreover, it

suggests that change will be imposed whenever variation is too general, i.e., when there is no real

linguistic conditioning, as is the case in language contact situations.

Acquisition of regional variation

Matthias Katerbow (Philipps‐Universität Marburg - Forschungszentrum Deutscher Sprachatlas)

For decades, an understanding of the acquisition of (regional) variation has been keenly sought,

first by Schultze 1880 and most recently by Schmidt/Herrgen 2011. Research in the field began

in the mid 1990s, with work by Julie Roberts and William Labov, and is still growing rapidly, but

there are as yet no detailed studies of the acquisition of regional language variation in German

aside from the work of Scholten (1988) and Berthele (2000). The causes for the neglect of the

acquisition of variation in German can be traced to a traditional dialectological perspective on

variation and equally to a Chomskian perspective on acquisition. On the one hand, canonical

acquisition theories were restricted to homogeneity, while on the other, theories of regional

variation mostly focused on NORMs rather than children.

The talk’s aim is to contribute empirical data and key theoretical features to address this deficit of

research into the acquisition of regional variation in German. The work is based on a

phonetic/phonological analysis of the acquisition process of a Moselle‐Franconian regional

language. The term regional language is defined in the linguistics dynamic approach of

Schmidt/Herrgen 2011, which provides the theoretical framework for this paper. A regional

language is a bundle of local varieties which can be said to compose the vertical spectrum

between a local dialect and the standard variety. The data basis is a collection of the spontaneous

speech of 23 children in different natural communication contexts, i.e., children interacting with

their mother, with a friend and with a stranger (the author). The corpus includes real‐time and

apparent‐time data. The speech data were transcribed phonetically and analysed using different

modern variation‐linguistic methods. In this talk I will discuss the main findings concerning the

factors >age<, >situation< and >individuality<. The influence of these factors will be examined

from two perspectives: firstly that of the dynamic of the sounds in the acquisition of regional

variation, and secondly, that of the individual acquisition processes and the gaining of shifting or

switching competence. Based on the findings, I present some essential characteristics of the

process of acquisition of a regional language.

References

Berthele, Raphael (2000): Sprache in der Klasse. Eine dialektologisch‐soziolinguistische Untersuchung

von Primarschulkindern in multilingualem Umfeld. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Labov, William (2010): What is to be learned? – In: LAUD Linguistic Agency. Preprints Series A:

General and Theoretical, 765, S. 1‐27.

Roberts, Julie / Labov, William (1995): Learning to talk Philadelphian. – In: Language Variation and

Change, 7, S. 101‐122.

Schmidt, Jürgen Erich / Herrgen, Joachim (2011): Sprachdynamik. Eine Einführung in die moderne

Regionalsprachenforschung. Berlin: ESV.

Scholten, Beate (1988): Standard und städtischer Substandard bei Heranwachsenden im Ruhrgebiet.

Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Schultze, Fritz (1880): Die Sprache des Kindes. Eine Anregung zur Erforschung des Gegenstandes. – In:

Darwinistische Schriften, 10, S. 1‐46.

Impact of Social Background on the Evaluation of Sociolinguistic Variables in

French-speaking Children Aged 4 to 6

Aurélie Nardy (LIDILEM, University of Grenoble, France)

Different studies in adults have shown that speakers of the same speech community share

identical evaluations of sociolinguistic variables, whereas use of the latter is socially stratified

(Labov, 1966, 1972, 2001; Trudgill, 1974). Although research has been carried out on the

evaluation of variants in children, few studies have sought to verify the Principle of Uniform

Evaluation (Labov, 2001). The aim of our study is therefore to examine the impact of social

background upon the evaluation of different sociolinguistic variants – phonological,

morphological and syntactical – in French.

One hundred and fifty children aged between 4 and 6 participated in the study. They were divided

into two age groups (4-5 years old and 5-6 years old) and into three social backgrounds (high-

SES, middle-SES and low-SES). In order to determine the children’s social background, we

ascribed a score to the profession of each of the two parents based on the French National

Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies’ classification of professions and socio-professional

categories (Insee & Dares, 2003). Score 1 was given to occupations within the unskilled workers’

category, score 2 to those belonging to the category of intermediate professions and employees,

and score 3 to managers and knowledge workers. We then calculated the average score of both

mother and father. The children whose parental SES-index was 2.5 or 3 were placed in the

category that we entitled high-SES. Those with a parental SES-index of 2 were classified

amongst the mid-SES category. And those with a parental SES-index of 1 or 1.5 were placed in

the low-SES category.

In order to allow the sociolinguistic variants to be evaluated, we implemented a judgment of

acceptability task. In this task, children had to determine which one of the two linguistic forms

(standard versus non standard variant) they heard was correct. The two forms were produced by

the experimenter, who made two puppets talk, and the children had to indicate which puppet had

spoken correctly.

Firstly, we can observe that the percentage of judgments in favour of the standard variants

increases significantly between 4-5 and 5-6 years of age. Secondly, we can note the social

stratification of children’s judgments: the mid-SES children produce more judgments in favour of

the standard variants than the low-SES children, and less than the high-SES children. In statistical

terms, however, this difference is a tendency. Analyzing separately the impact of the mother and

father’s SES on children’s judgments shows that only the mother’s SES has a statistically

significant influence on judgments in favour of the standard variants.

Our results in children run counter to the idea according to which judgments are directed by the

uniform standard of the speech community (Labov, 2001). Given that children’s judgments are

influenced by the SES of their mother, main source of input for the child, it would seem rather

that these judgments are the result of the frequency with which they encounter certain sequences

in their environment. Thus, at an early age, greater familiarity with certain sequences would lead

the latter to be evaluated more favourably. Then during development, and as the child enters the

school system, a marked preference for standard variants would take root in all children,

independently of their social background, as shown by Chevrot (1991), Lafontaine (1986) and

Martino (1982).

References

Chevrot, J.-P. (1991). La Variation Phonétique chez des Enfants de 6 à 12 ans: Aspects

Développementaux et Incidence des Apprentissages Alphabétiques. PhD thesis, Université Stendhal,

Grenoble.

Insee & Dares (2003). Nomenclature des Professions et Catégories Professionnelles des Emplois Salariés

d'Entreprise PCS - ESE 2003.

http://www.insee.fr/fr/nom_def_met/nomenclatures/pcs/pages/Brochure_PCS_ESE_2003.pdf

Labov, W. (1966). The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington DC: Center for

Applied Linguistics.

Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic Patterns. Oxford: Blackwell.

Labov, W. (2001). Principles of Linguistic Change, vol. 2: Social Factors. Oxford: Blackwell.

Lafontaine, D. (1986). Le Parti Pris des Mots. Bruxelles: Mardaga.

Martino, J. (1982). The Phoneme /θ/ and its Alternative Realization as /f/: a Study of Variation in

Australian English among Primary School Boys, According to Socio-Economic Background. Working

Papers in Linguistics, 8, 39-42.

Trudgill, P. (1974). The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

The role of salience in Second Dialect Acquisition

Kathy Rys (University of Antwerp), Gert De Sutter (Ghent University College) & Steven Gillis

(University of Antwerp)

This paper addresses the role of language-internal and language-external factors in the process of

second dialect acquisition. We use the notion of second dialect acquisition to indicate the

acquisition of a vernacular variety outside the home environment and chronologically later than

the acquisition of the standard variety, which is acquired at home. We particularly focus on the

role of salience. By salience, we mean “a property of a linguistic item or feature that makes it in

some way perceptually and cognitively prominent” (Kerswill and Williams 2002: 81).

In the literature, it has been observed that salient dialect variables are the first to be given up

when dialect speakers accommodate to the standard language (Thelander 1982; Hinskens 1986,

1992; Auer et al. 1998; Taeldeman 2006). Further, it has been predicted that salient variables will

be acquired first in dialect acquisition processes (Auer 1997; Auer et al. 1998), but almost no

empirical evidence is at our disposal. We aim to fill this gap with our study into the acquisition of

phonological variables of the Maldegem dialect (East-Flanders, Belgium) by children who were

raised in a standard variety by their parents.

We define salience in terms of geographical distribution, lexicalization and phonemicity. We

investigate the effects of these factors on the degree to which individual dialect variables are

acquired, starting from the hypothesis that salient variables will be acquired better. These effects

are estimated in a set of spoken responses to a word list that was administered to 128 children of

nine, twelve or fifteen years old, who were living in the Flemish village of Maldegem and who

only came into contact with the local dialect outside their home environments.

In this study, the prediction that salient dialect variables are acquired better is not corroborated.

There are indications that the factor of lexicalization overrules salience.

References

Auer, Peter. 1997. Führt Dialektabbau zur Stärkung oder Schwächung der Standardvarietät? Zwei

phonologische Fallstudien. In Klaus J. Mattheier & Edgar Radtke (eds.), Standardisierung und

Destandardisierung, 129-162. Frankfurt: Lang.

Auer, Peter, Birgit Barden & Beate Grosskopf. 1998. Subjective and objective parameters determining

‘salience’ in long-term dialect accommodation. Journal of sociolinguistics 2(2). 163-187.

Hinskens, Frans. 1986. Primaire en secundaire dialectkenmerken; een onderzoek naar de bruikbaarheid

van een (vergeten?) onderscheid. In Jon Creten, Guido Geerts and Koen Jaspaert (eds.) Werk-in-

uitvoering. Momentopnamen van de sociolinguïstiek in België en Nederland, 135-158. Leuven &

Amersfoort: Acco.

Taeldeman, Johan. 2006. Polarisation revisited. In Frans Hinskens (ed.), Language variation, European

perspectives, 233-248. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Thelander, Mats. 1982. A qualitative approach to the quantitative data of speech variation. In Suzanne

Romaine (ed.), Sociolinguistic variation in speech communities, 65-83. London: Edward Arnold.

“Me encantan los niños…un día les llevé al Parque de Campo Grande y ellos

se divirtieron muchísimo…”: The Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Variation by

Advanced Second Language Learners of Spanish in a Study Abroad Context

Francisco Salgado-Robles (University of Kentucky)

It is generally believed that study abroad (SA) is the most efficient and successful way to acquire

proficiency in a second language (L2). SA is a crucial component of L2 learners’ or nonnative

speakers’ (NNSs) process, for it puts them in situations in which they can use the language on a

daily basis and interact with native speakers: intercultural communication.

Although previous empirical research on learners in SA programs has shown that immersion in

the target culture has a strong positive effect on the development of fluency, morphosyntax,

phonology, and cultural competence (e.g. Collentine, 2004; Díaz-Campos, 2004; Freed, 1995;

Lafford & Collentine, 2006; Lord, 2010; Segalowitz, Freed, Collentine, Lafford, Lazar, & Díaz-

Campos, 2004; inter alia), this research has focused on NNSs’ acquisition of features of the

target language, typically measured by categorical, as opposed to variable, standards.

Consequently, many questions pertaining to the acquisition of patterns of language variation

common to a particular community in a SA context remain unanswered (Geeslin, García-Amaya,

Hasler-Barker, Henriksen, & Killam, 2010; Salgado-Robles, 2010).

This present research explores the extent to which NNSs of Spanish (#20) acquire variable

structures of language –specifically, the leísmo phenomenon, i.e., the use of the dative pronoun

le(s) instead of the accusative pronouns lo(s) and la(s) as direct objects– while participating in a

study abroad immersion program in Valladolid (Spain) –a speech community characterized by

the salience of this linguistic variation. In addition, baseline data from native speakers (NSs)

(#20) is compared to that of the NNSs. The work is a quantitative and qualitative longitudinal

investigation of oral (i.e., sociolinguistic interviews) data which are respectively elicited through

sociolinguistic interviews with participants (#40).

The results suggest that SA learners do in fact develop an awareness of non-standard forms of the

target language, which are, to a certain degree, incorporated into their sociolinguistic

competence. In sum, this project contributes to an extensive body of research on the SLA of

object pronouns by adding qualitative and quantitative longitudinal data, and helps to add further

knowledge about the development of L2 linguistic competence during a sojourn abroad, and to

fill a gap in the new strand of studies on the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation due to L2

learners' exposure to the target speech community.

References

Collentine, J. (2004). The effects of learning contexts on morphosyntactic and lexical development.

Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 229–50.

Díaz-Campos, M. (2004). Acquisition of sociolinguistic variables in Spanish: Do children acquire

individual lexical forms or variable rules? In Timothy Face (Ed.), Laboratory approaches to Spanish

phonology (pp. 221-236). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Freed, B. (1995). What makes us think that students who study abroad become fluent? In B. Freed (Ed.),

Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context (pp. 123-148). Amsterdam/Philadelphia:

John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Geeslin, K.L., García-Amaya, L, Hasler-Barker, M., Henriksen, N., & Killam, J. (2010). The SLA of

Direct Object Pronouns in a Study Abroad Immersion Environment Where Use Is Variable. In C.

Borgonovo, M. Español-Echevarría, & P. Prévost (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 12th Hispanic

Linguistics Symposium (pp. 246-259). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Lafford, B.A. & Collentine, J. (2006) The effects of study abroad and classroom contexts on the

acquisition of Spanish as a second language: From research to application. In B. Lafford and R.

Salaberry (Eds.), Spanish Second Language Acquisition: From Research Findings to Teaching

Applications (pp. 103-126). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Lord, G. (2010). The Combined Effects of Immersion and Instruction on Second

Language Pronunciation. Foreign Language Annals 43 (3), 488-503.

Salgado-Robles, F. (2010). ‘¿Había muchas personas o habían muchas personas? Aquí siempre escucho

habían’. Adquisición de la variación sociolingüística por aprendices de español en un contexto de

inmersión de estudios en el extranjero. Interlingüística, 21, 110-133.

Segalowitz, N., Freed, B., Collentine, J., Lafford, B.A., Lazar, N., & Díaz-Campos, M. (2004). A

Comparison of Spanish Second Language Acquisition in Two Different Learning Contexts: Study

Abroad and the Domestic Classroom. Frontiers, 10, 4, 21-38.

Developmental stages in the acquisition of variation in English /t/

Erik Schleef (University of Manchester)

This study investigates the patterns of variation in the speech of teenage migrants in London,

focusing on intervocalic and word-final (t) with its released and glottaled variants. Data analysis

is based on conversations from 21 Polish and 24 locally-born teenagers, which we use as a

benchmark for establishing the norms of variation the Polish kids have the most frequent

exposure to. Among native Londoners variation is affected by the constraints of preceding and

following segment as well as style and lexical frequency in word-final position. In word-medial

position, these as well as grammatical category are the significant factor groups constraining

glottal replacement of /t/.

This talk pursues two questions. First, are these constraint hierarchies acquired by non-native

speakers and if so when? Second, at what point are non-native speakers able to use glottal

replacement of /t/, a highly-salient English variant with links to youth language, as a stylistic

resource? To answer these questions, the non-native speakers have been subdivided into three

groups and their acquisition progress is analysed by length of time spent in London. Results

indicate that the Polish teenagers do not replicate native constraints all at once but one by one,

adding and replacing constraints as they acquire glottal variation in /t/, guided, to a certain extent,

by input frequencies of native speakers. The results of our study raise several questions regarding

order of constraint acquisition and the role of frequency. We speculate that some constraints are

more readily acquired than others, and we explain why lexical frequency plays a very important

role in the acquisition process.

Incomplete acquisition of anticausatives in heritage speakers of Spanish-Greek

and English-Greek bilingual adults

Katerina Zombolou (University of Stuttgart) & Artemis Alexiadou (University of Stuttgart)

Minority and host languages (HL) are in permanent contact and thus may influence each other by

adopting lexical and grammatical forms or structures (Language Interference). Despite this

situation, non-target performance in minority languages (ML) has been argued not to be related to

transfer from HL. Instead, it has been shown that it is similar to the non-target performance

observed in monolingual child acquisition, displaying a simplification of the morpho-syntax of

the minority languages, which is “frozen” in the early childhood of the heritage speakers (HS)

when HLs become dominant and the input of MLs decreases significantly (Incomplete

Acquisition; Montrul and Bowles, 2009; Polinsky, 2011; Silva-Corvalán, 2003; and references

therein).

We examined spontaneous speech data (autobiographical interviews, 45-60 min. approx. 4,000

words spoken by each participant) of 10 Spanish-Greek as well as 10 English-Greek adult

bilinguals aged 18-60. These revealed that HS of Greek overused the ACT instead of the NACT

in forming anticausatives (e.g. *ekopse i grami ‘the line broke’; 27% and 21% non-target forms

respectively, p < 0,001). Similar deviant performance is observed in both L1 children aged 2;0-

4;3 (Unsworth et al., 2011; Zombolou et al., 2010) and L1 Turkish-L2 Greek adolescents (12-16)

(Ampati et al., 2004; Tsimpli, 2006). Spanish and Turkish Interference would predict different

error patterns, since both languages form anticausatives with reflexive morphology, which in

Greek is syncretic with the non-active.

We concluded that Greek HS are incomplete acquirers. This is because of the high morpho-

syntactic complexity of the Greek Voice system, in the sense of Babyonyshev et al. (2001) &

Jakubowitz and Nash (2001). This complexity explains the incomplete acquisition of the HS:

anticausatives are not fully acquired at the time of schooling (5-6 years of age), as L1 data show,

and because Greek input decreases significantly anticausatives remain incompletely acquired.

References

Babyonyshev, M., J. Ganger, D. Pesetsky and K. Wexler. 2001. The Maturation of Grammatical

Principles: Evidence from Russian Unaccusatives. Linguistic Inquiry 32(1):1-44.

Jakubowitz, C. and L. Nash. 2001. Functional categories and syntactic operations in (ab)normal language

acquisition. Brain and Language 77, 321-339.

Montrul, S. and M. Bowles. 2009. Back to basics: Incomplete knowledge of differential object marking in

Spanish heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12 (3), 363-383.

Polinsky, M. 2011. Reanalysis in adult heritage language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 2011,

3:305-328.

Tsimpli, I.M. 2006. The acquisition of voice and transitivity alternations in Greek as native and second

language. In S. Unsworth et al. (Eds.), Paths of Development in L1 and L2 Acquisition, pp.15-55.

Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Unsworth, S., F. Argyri, L. Cornips, A. Hulk, A. Sorace, and I. Tsimpli. 2011. Bilingual Acquisition of

Greek Voice Morphology and Dutch Gender: What Do They Have in Common? Nick Danis, Kate

Mesh, and Hyunsuk Sung (eds.) BUCLD 35 Proceedings, pp. 590-602.

Zombolou, K., S. Varlokosta, A. Alexiadou and E. Anagnostopoulou. 2010. Acquiring Anticausatives

versus Passives in Greek. Proceedings of the 34th annual Boston University Conference on Language

Development 2009, Vol. 2, pp. 515-524. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.