Rapallo (Italy)
25-26 September 2014
1st International Conference on the
Sociolinguistics of Immigration
ABSTRACT HANDBOOK
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the following institutions:
Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere e Culture Moderne, University of Turin (Italy)
Comune di Rapallo (Genova), Italy
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1st International Conference on the Sociolinguistics of Immigration
Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere e Culture Moderne
University of Turin (Italy)
Organising committee
Gerardo Mazzaferro (University of Turin)
Patricia Kottelat (University of Turin)
Antonio Romano (University of Turin)
Scientific Committee
Cecilia Andorno (University of Turin)
Peter Auer (University of Freiburg)
David Britain (University of Bern)
Chiara Celata (Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa)
Jean Michel Eloy (University of Picardie Jules Verne)
Federica Guerini (University of Bergamo)
Michol F. Hoffman (York University, Toronto)
Patricia Kottelat (University of Turin)
Gerardo Mazzaferro (University of Turin)
Pieter Muysken (Radboud University Nijmegen)
Naomi Nagy (University of Toronto)
Virginia Pulcini (University of Turin)
Antonio Romano (University of Turin)
Mark Sebba (University of Lancaster)
Cyril Trimaille (University of Grenoble III)
Alessandro Vietti (University of Bolzano/Bozen)
James Walker (University of Toronto)
Conference Venue
Villa Queirolo, via Aurelia Ponente 1 – 16035 Rapallo (Italy)
Social Programme
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Dinner on Thursday evening, September, 25, 2014, 8.15 pm: Ristorante Monique, Lungomare V. Veneto, 5.
Conference trip to San Fruttuoso di Camogli and Portofino, Saturday September, 26, 2014.
http://www.dipartimentolingue.unito.it/slimig2014
slimig2014.lingue@unito.it ++0039 347 976 1236
Copyright © 2014 slimig2014 - All Rights Reserved
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Keynote Speeches (Plenary sessions)
Ordered by speakers’ last name
From marginal languages to mobile resources – English-lexifier pidgins and creoles on the World
Wide Web and in the global cities
Christian Mair, University of Freiburg
When pidgin and creole languages first attracted the attention of linguists, they did so as “marginal languages”
(Reinecke 1937) – marginal in geographical space, and marginalised in social status. Meanwhile several of them
have been dispersed around the globe through currents of migration, gained prominence in the media and been
turned into economic commodities by the entertainment industry. To use Appadurai’s (1996) terminology, they
have firmly become part of the global ethnoscape, technoscape and mediascape. In my presentation I shall argue
that the new research paradigm of the “sociolinguistics of globalisation” (Blommaert 2010, Coupland, ed. 2010)
provides a suitable framework for World Englishes research to confront these new challenges.
To make this point, I will analyse large amounts of multidialectal and multilingual data obtained from
diasporic web forums from the Caribbean and (Anglophone and Francophone) West Africa. They show how
resources from standard and nonstandard English and French, from English-lexifier pidgins and creoles, and
from indigenous and other languages are mobilised to become part of digital / visual “ethnolinguistic
repertoires” (Benor 2010). In addition, data from computer-mediated communication will be shown to open
natural windows on the changing sociolinguistic landscape of the world’s global cities.
Biographical information
Christian Mair is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Freiburg (Germany) since 1990 (formerly he was
Associate Professor in the English Dept. of the University of Innsbruck, Austria). He has been involved in the compilation
of several linguistic corpora (among them, F-LOB, Frown and the Jamaican component of the International Corpus of
English). His research focused on the corpus-based description of modern English grammar and regional variation and
ongoing change in standard Englishes world-wide. He published several monographs and more than 60 contributions to
scholarly journals and edited works and held guest professorships at the Universities of Massachusettes at Amherst,
Santiago de Compostela and Zurich.
Les tests linguistiques dans le cadre du processus de naturalisation:
un schibboleth moderne?
Marinette Matthey, Université Grenoble-Alpes
Si dans les Trente Glorieuses les migrants en Europe du nord parvenaient à s’intégrer par le travail et si nul ne
s’intéressait à leurs compétences langagières dans la langue locale du pays de résidence, il n’en va plus ainsi
aujourd’hui. En effet, la parole étatique de nombreux pays de l’Union européenne développe une argumentation
visant à rendre évident le lien entre maitrise de la langue locale et intégration.
Dans plusieurs pays européens, on demande maintenant aux personnes qui veulent obtenir la nationalité de
leur pays de résidence de prouver leur maitrise de la langue locale avant d’entamer la procédure proprement dite.
En me basant sur le récit des évènements qui amènent progressivement la mise en place de tests linguistiques
dans le canton de Berne en Suisse, j’analyserai les arguments politiques qui visent à rendre évidente et normale
cette exigence et les outils qui s’élaborent pour la mettre en place.
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Je proposerai une analyse critique de la mise en place de cette chicane (puro cavillo?) dans l’accès à la
citoyenneté, en me basant sur une interprétation de la conception de l’idéologie proposée par Althusser. En effet,
ces tests, présentés par l’autorité politique comme une reconnaissance certifiée des compétences linguistiques
des postulants, et donc de leur intégration, visent en fait selon moi à interpeler les candidats à la citoyenneté en
les forçant à se ranger dans la catégorie du "bon migrant" ou à s’auto-exclure du processus de naturalisation.
Notice biographique
Marinette Matthey est professeure de sociolinguistique à l’Université de Grenoble, directrice du laboratoire LIDILEM
(Linguistique et didactique des langues étrangères et maternelles). Elle a enseigné auparavant aux universités de Neuchâtel,
Genève et Lausanne (Suisse) et à l’université Lyon 2. Ses travaux de recherche et son enseignement concernent différentes
thématiques des sciences du langage, tels que les théories de l’acquisition des langues secondes, la sociolinguistique des
contacts de langues et les aspects langagiers de la migration.
Language Change and Shift in Urban China
Hans van de Velde, University of Utrecht
The presentation will deal with language change and language shift in present day China, with special attention
for the effects of massive migration and rapid urbanization.
Biographical information
Hans Van de Velde obtained his master’s degree at the University of Ghent (1991) and his PhD at Radboud University
Nijmegen (1996). Then, he worked at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and, as a senior lecturer in sociolinguistics, at
Utrecht University. His research is grouped around four axes: variationist sociolinguistics, language policy, multilingualism
and the characteristics of Dutch spoken by francophones. His variationist work mainly focuses on phonetic variation and
change, the patterns of convergence and divergence in the Dutch language area and the formation of new regional language
varieties. Since a couple of years, he has been in involved in studies on language variation and change in China and is the
coordinator of the network on Industrialization, Language Contact and Identity Formation in China and Europe.
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Session Paper Abstracts
Ordered by the first author’s last name
Pratique du français par les jeunes Ibo du Bénin issus de l’immigration nigériane : phénomènes d’alternance
codique et d’interférences phonologiques à travers l’usage du franco-anglais
Moufoutaou Adjeran, Université d’Abomey-Calavi (FLASH/Aplahoué, Bénin)
L’igbo, langue nigériane de la famille niger-congo et de la branche benue-congo, est parlé par les Ibo. Cette communauté
linguistique s’est installée au Dahomey, actuel Bénin, en 1970 après la guerre de Biafra. Ce travail est focalisé
essentiellement sur les échanges français truffés de mots ou expressions anglaises. Cette alternance de codes, français et
anglais, est le résultat de la recherche identitaire qui se produit chez tous les jeunes Ibo. La pratique du français par ces
jeunes fournit également des illustrations intéressantes à travers des phénomènes d’interférences phonologiques.
Nous avons observé et enregistré une population-échantillon dans la ville de Cotonou. Cette population-échantillon
représente ces jeunes Ibo nés sur le sol béninois, mais à la quête d’un héritage socioculturel et linguistique n’appartenant ni
à leurs parents seuls, ni à la terre d’accueil toute seule : un héritage bilingue complexe. Quelles sont les raisons qui ont soustendu l’immigration des Ibo vers le Bénin ? Quelles sont les caractéristiques du français pratiqué par les jeunes Ibo ? Autant
de questions que cette communication tente d’éclairer.
Modes de transmission de la LCO aux descendants de l’immigration algérienne en France : des pratiques
langagières intrafamiliales à la mobilité régulière vers le pays d’origine
Mohammed Zakaria Ali-Bencherif, laboratoire Dylandimed - Université de Tlemcen
Nous nous proposons dans cette communication de nous interroger sur les modes de transmission de la langue-culture
d’origine (LCO) ou héritée aux descendants de l’immigration algérienne en France. Nous focaliserons notre attention sur le
parcours migratoire des parents et sur leur rôle en tant que premiers acteurs de la transmission (parents transmetteurs) de la
LCO-H ; mais aussi sur le rôle de la mobilité régulière des enfants vers le pays d’origine des parents. Cette mobilité, qui
permet de mettre les enfants en contact « direct » avec la LCO est souvent vécue comme un projet concrétisant la
« politique linguistique familiale ». Nous faisons l’hypothèse que ces va-et-vient réguliers jouent un rôle non négligeable à
la fois dans le développement des répertoires verbaux (bi-plurilingues), dans l’acquisition d’un « smic » culturel et dans la
dynamique d’une identité plurilingue. Notre étude est basée sur une enquête réalisée auprès de quinze familles observées
lors de séjours passés en Algérie (vacances d’hivers, de printemps et d’été) entre 2011 et 2012. Nous avons choisi comme
méthodologie d’enquête l’entretiens semi-directif et le questionnaire (un questionnaire destiné aux parents et un autre
destiné aux enfants), et ce dans le but d’explorer, de décrire et de comprendre ce qui ressort de leurs discours sur les
différents modes de transmission / acquisition de la LCO. Ces premières données seront appuyées par l’analyse de quelques
extraits de conversations enregistrées avec les enquêtés.
Italian roots in Australian soil: dialect as heritage language in first and second generation bilinguals
Cinzia Avesani, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione – CNR, Padova
Catherine Best, MARCS Institute, University of Western Sydney, Sydney – Australia
Bruno Di Biase, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney, Sydney
Vincenzo Galatà, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione – CNR, Padova
Mario Vayra, Dipartimento di Filologia Italiana e Italianistica, Università di Bologna
In this study we will report the preliminary results of a research project carried out in order to trace L1 regional features
in the speech of first and second generation Italians who migrated to Australia as adults or in their early childhood.
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While prior studies of the Italian-Australian community have examined maintenance, shift and/or loss of lexical,
grammatical and other higher-level characteristics in their regional Italian and dialects, the regionally-differentiated speech
characteristics of Italian-Australian bilinguals have been neglected. Traces of the native phonetic and phonological system
shape the L2 of bilinguals even at a high proficiency level; but recent findings suggest that also speech produced by
immigrants’ children and even by their grandchildren may display fine-grained traces of the family heritage language.
Understanding how these traces of linguistic heritage are maintained and/or transformed across generations in the speech of
such communities can yield pivotal new insights for theories of first and second language acquisition; of bilinguals’ ability
to adapt their speech to each of their languages; and of the factors affecting sound change over time and space. To this aim
we have selected two groups of speakers originating from regions in Italy which greatly diverge in their consonantal system:
Veneto and Calabria. We restricted our analysis to a set of coronal consonants, that differ phonologically and phonetically
between the two Dialects and with respect to English. Coronal consonants are especially useful for cross-language and
cross-generation comparison, since they show a wide range of variation in fine-grained details across languages and
regional accents. The data elicitation protocol and acoustical analyses of the frication noise of such consonants (duration,
RMS, Center of Gravity, spectral moments) will be reported. The results will help us determining:
1) whether the specific speech features of each region remain evident in the Dialects of 1st generation even after 4-5
decades of living in Australia; 2) whether those regional Dialect differences are also evident in their spoken Italian; and 3)
the extent to which the region-specific features of Dialect and Italian are transmitted to the second generation, or whether
their Dialect and Italian speech instead drifts toward English features. The results of our analyses will allow to test different
hypotheses about cross-language and cross-generational changes in the speech of Italian-Australians: Assimilation to the
new language; Conservation of Features; Convergence and Interlanguage Influence.
Language attitudes and language identity among minorities in Crimea: the case of Kerč’ Italians
Paola Bocale, University of Milan, Dipartimento di Scienze della Mediazione Linguistica e di Studi Interculturali
The study of language attitudes in minority contexts is key to understanding not only how minority language speakers
relate to their community language and to the dominant language of wider communication, but also how community
languages may become a valued component of the minority speakers’ identities. As a multilingual and multicultural entity,
characterized by a complex ethno-political and ethno-linguistic situation, the Crimea offers a privileged vantage point from
which to explore issues of identity and cultural and linguistic belonging among members of minorities. This research uses
attitudinal questionnaires and interviews to investigate the importance that the Crimean Italian community attaches to their
minority language as a symbol of ethnic self-identification and culture. The study explores the participants’ attitudes
towards Italian as they are involved in the project of reviving the Italian community in the coastal town of Kerč’. It
examines the concepts of linguistic identification and cultural belonging by asking what place does the knowledge of Italian
occupy in the project of ethnic revival of the community? What is the role of learning an ancestors’ language in the process
of reaffirming their ethnic identity? How does the revival of the Italian language interact with Russian, the majority
language spoken in the area? What are the possible tensions and conflicts between the minority’s present heritage culture, as
it developed in the Crimea and in the countries where they were deported and lived prior to returning to Kerč’, and the
culture of Italy’s mainland? Data show that members of this minority group hold very positive attitudes towards Italian and
feel very close to it even if only about 30% of those surveyed can speak the language. There is a mismatch between
language attitudes and language competence, with the minority language more a symbol of ethnocultural identity than a tool
for communication. Results thus confirm that, beyond its instrumental value, a language can be a strong cultural symbol
which reflects matters relating to identity and intergroup relations. The high symbolic status of Italian among members of
the minority and the prestige enjoyed by the language in the mainstream community are among the factors driving the
growth of interest in reviving the Italian language among the younger generations.
Processi di translanguaging nelle comunità ispanofone immigrate in Italia
Milin Bonomi, Università degli Studi di Urbino ‘Carlo Bo’
Il presente lavoro analizza i processi di translanguaging che si creano all’interno delle comunità ispanofone immigrate in
Italia. Il concetto di translanguaging parte da un modello di bilinguismo dinamico che, superando la visione dicotomica che
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contrappone la presenza di due o più sistemi separati, contempla l’esistenza di un unico repertorio linguistico al quale i
parlanti attingono, selezionando gli elementi linguistici secondo un principio di efficacia comunicativa.
Si partirà da un corpus di interviste basate sul modello delle storie di vita a giovani ispanofoni per analizzare le pratiche
discorsive con le quali i parlanti costruiscono e modificano coscientemente e costantemente le identità transculturali
attraverso la lingua. Ci si soffermerà, in particolar modo, sul ruolo della pragmatica e dei segnali discorsivi nei processi di
selezione lessicale. La scelta di un elemento lessicale all’interno di un repertorio bilingue risponde ad esigenze di tipo sia
concettuale sia funzionale. Si dimostrerà, soprattutto nel secondo caso, la tendenza da parte degli ispanofoni a optare per alti
livelli di ibridazione linguistica, in virtù sia di fattori linguistici – così, ad esempio, la vicinanza tipologica tra italiano e
spagnolo –, sia di fattori extralinguistici, in grado di influenzare fortemente le scelte dei parlanti in situazioni di contatto
linguistico, in particolar modo, il concetto di identità e di percezione.
Entre les Pouilles et l’Isère : considérations phonétiques et phonologiques sur les variétés de la diaspora coratine
Jonathan Bucci, Elisabetta Carpitelli, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis – Laboratoire Bases, Corpus, Langage UMR 7320
Antonio Romano, LFSAG – Dip. di Lingue e L.S. e C.M. – Università degli Studi di Torino
La littérature sur les variétés dialectales de l’émigration est beaucoup moins abondante que celle sur l’italien des émigrés.
Parmi les aspects qui demandent un approfondissement figurent les processus de changement phonologique non seulement
entre les variétés des aires d’origine et celles qui évoluent au sein des communautés émigrées dans les différents pays de
destination, mais aussi entre les différentes générations de l’émigration et entre les émigrés des différentes communautés de
la même région résidant dans un pays étranger. Quels processus de changement se développent alors loin de l’évolution des
variétés d’origine et notamment loin des phénomènes de koïnéisation régionale et de contact linguistique qui ont intéressés
les dialectes en Italie ? Quels sont les éléments de conservation et en même temps les processus d’innovation qui se mettent
en place loin du contact constant avec l’italien régional et les autres variétés dialectales typologiquement proches ?
Certaines communautés, comme celle des Coratins de la région grenobloise, choisissent de maintenir dans leur répertoire
linguistique l’usage du dialecte, du moins lors des échanges informels au sein de la communauté, en famille ou dans les lieu
de rencontre : cet usage apparaît comme stratégique et destiné à pérenniser d’autres aspects de la culture coratine, en
marquant ainsi, lors du contact avec les autres communautés urbaines, l’appartenance à une communauté circonscrite mais
en même temps ouverte au contact avec les autres groupes. À cet usage symbolique s’ajoute une pratique que l’on peut
définir plus cultivée qui induit à un emploi quasiment « normatif » du dialecte, inspiré des dictionnaires de coratin ainsi que
d’autres matériaux plurilingues qui circulent dans la communauté. La recherche que nous nous proposons d’effectuer à ce
sujet a reçu récemment un financement de l’Université Franco-italienne et trouve son point de départ dans les travaux
phonologiques menés par l’équipe niçoise et le dépouillement des données dialectales qui s’est déroulé auprès du
Laboratoire de Phonétique Expérimentale ‘Arturo Genre’ de Turin, avec un certain nombre de résultats intéressants sur la
plan de l’évolution historique et de l’analyse acoustique de phénomènes de diphtongaison.
A verbal-guise experiment on non-native Italian accents
Silvia Calamai, Alessia Pasqui, Università degli Studi di Siena
Although some shortcomings of the matched- and verbal-guise techniques have been observed by several scholars, the
two methodologies still represent a precious instrument to analyse linguistic attitudes and to obtain reliable results on
language as a marker of group identity. To our knowledge, only few scholars in Italy have made use of them investigating
the evaluation of local and standard varieties in the Peninsula, whereas the issue of attitudes towards non-native Italian
accents still needs to be discussed as it presents some critical and controversial aspects.
The present research focuses on the eastern area of Tuscany (namely, the town of Arezzo) and aims at verifying two
working hypothesis:
a)
non-native speakers are negatively evaluated on measures of solidarity as well as status;
b)
certain non-native Italian speakers (i.e. Albanian) appear to be less stigmatised than others (i.e. Rumanian)
The experimental design was conceived as follows. A verbal guise test was built with the following samples: Standard
Italian and three different samples of non-native Italian (namely, American English, Albanian, Rumanian). The out-group
voices were Albanian and Rumanian (with the American English as the distractor), while the in-group voice was obviously
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the Standard Italian. Short speech samples (about 16 sec. each one) were collected from interviews made by the second
author relating trivial topics such as parking in the town of Arezzo. The verbal guise test was run in three different
conditions, with high school students as respondents. In all the conditions they were asked to answer to some questions
related to the liking of the different varieties, the socioeconomic condition of the speakers, together with their personality
traits. The crucial point of the design was the speaker ethnicity: in the first condition, respondents were asked to identify
speaker ethnicity (among a list of possible choices); in the second condition, the speaker ethnicity was erroneously given
(with the Anglo-American labelled as ‘British English’, the Albanian labelled as ‘Rumanian’, and the Rumanian labelled as
‘Albanian’); while in the third condition, the speaker ethnicity was declared.
From the final results, it seemed to be clear that the speaker ethnicity played an important role in the respondents
judgements. The explicitation of speakers nationality influenced the listeners attitudes: the same voice was differently
judged depending on its origins. The Rumanian speaker appeared to be the most stigmatised concerning the socioeconomic
condition and the professional reliability. His negative profile was reinforced in the third condition where the true voice
ethnicity was declared and further confirmed in second condition with the false ethnicity (the Albanian labelled as
‘Rumanian’). The Italian voice was the most positively judged, apart from solidarity inasmuch it resulted to be unpleasant.
The evaluations about the Anglo-American speaker led us to interesting and unexpected results. From the analysis, two
different portraits of the same speaker came out, as the attitudes expressed toward the voice tagged as ‘British’ were
different from the attitudes expressed toward the voice tagged as American: the ‘British’ speaker was more positively
evaluated from the cultural point of view, while the ‘American’ speaker gained in terms of cordiality and sociability. The
activation of particular stereotypes appeared to be closely related to the speaker ethnicity which awoke on the respondents
different attitudes and feelings.
Contatto linguistico e costruzioni identitarie nelle seconde generazioni di ispanofoni in Italia
Maria Vittoria Calvi, Università degli Studi di Milano
I recenti flussi migratori dall’America Latina verso l’Italia hanno prodotto una nuova situazione di contatto tra spagnolo e
italiano, speculare a quelle prodottesi in passato, ad es., a seguito dell’emigrazione italiana in Argentina, con analoghi esiti
di ibridazione linguistica, come emerge dalle ricerche finora effettuate sia sull’italiano degli ipanofoni in Italia, sia sui
processi di variazione nella L1, che si mostra permeabile al contatto con l’italiano a diversi livelli. Rispetto ad altre
comunità migranti, del resto, gli ispanofoni si contraddistinguono per comportamenti di mediazione tra la fedeltà alla lingua
d’origine e l’apertura alla L2.
Il presente contributo si propone di analizzare, nel quadro della linguistica della migrazione, un campione di 25 interviste
semistrutturate, effettuate in lingua spagnola, rivolte a giovani ispanofoni di diversa anzianità migratoria (comunque minori
al momento della migrazione), residenti a Milano e Lombardia. Mediante un’analisi di tipo qualitativo, saranno studiati usi
e atteggiamenti linguistici, con particolare riguardo per le funzioni discorsive del code switching, inteso come risorsa per la
costruzione discorsiva dell’identità .
Modelli di uso linguistico di giovani immigrati di seconda generazione in Lombardia: il ruolo crescente delle scelte
bilingui / Patterns of young second generation immigrants’ language use in Lombardy: the growing role of bilingual
language choices
Marina Chini, Università di Pavia
Paola Versino, Università di Milano
I contesti migratori offrono molteplici punti di osservazione sul rapporto fra repertori e usi linguistici, spesso
multilingui, di gruppi di parlanti alloglotti e loro dinamiche socioculturali e identitarie. Un aspetto spesso studiato, in
particolare in contesti a lunga tradizione immigratoria (Stati Uniti, Australia, Europa centro-settentrionale), riguarda il tema
del mantenimento delle lingue del repertorio di origine (per brevità L1) o il loro abbandono progressivo (shift) in vari
domini del contesto di arrivo, fenomeni accompagnati spesso da trasformazioni socioculturali e relazionali e correlati a
fattori di vario genere, studiati a partire da Kloss (1966).
Indagini quantitative si soffermano poco sulle scelte bilingui degli immigrati, un possibile esito transitorio prima di uno
shift completo verso il repertorio del Paese d’arrivo. Nei contesti migratori sono più studiate, ma a livello qualitativo,
pratiche di code switching e code mixing, con le relative funzioni e restrizioni formali. Se linguisti e sociologi hanno inoltre
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spesso evidenziato gli effetti del bilinguismo su sviluppo cognitivo, performance scolastica e autostima, sono invece rimasti
maggiormente sullo sfondo i fattori favorenti scelte comunicative plurilingui, pratiche che, tra l’altro, andrebbero lette alla
luce di un’ottica aggiornata sul multilinguismo, coerente con un mondo sempre più interconnesso, mobile e globalizzato e
con i modelli migratori contemporanei (es. transnazionali).
Nel contributo proposto si intende focalizzare l’attenzione sul multilinguismo di un settore della popolazione di origine
immigrata residente in Lombardia, dinamico e di particolare interesse, quello costituito da scolari fra i 10 e i 15 anni, e sulle sue
quotidiane scelte di lingua nei domini familiare e amicale. Una ricerca condotta nella Provincia di Pavia nel 2002 su questa
sotto-popolazione evidenziava, accanto ad un massiccio uso esclusivo di L1 nel dominio familiare (50%), una quota importante
di comportamenti (intraetnici) bilingui (27-33%), favoriti da alcuni fattori (fra cui: sesso, luogo di residenza, aree di
provenienza). In questa proposta prenderemo in considerazione i dati di un’indagine quantitativa (550 casi) ripetuta nello stesso
contesto dieci anni dopo (2012), concentrandoci sul segmento delle seconde generazioni (in forte crescita rispetto al 2002: dal
6.5% al 40% del campione). Le loro scelte bilingui nei diversi contesti relazionali saranno analizzate alla luce di una platea di
fattori sociolinguistici potenzialmente favorevoli o ostanti, anche al fine di ottenere una proiezione realistica circa gli sviluppi a
medio termine del repertorio e degli usi plurilingui di soggetti di origine immigrata nell’area studiata.
“People that only have one language - it’s like they don’t have a limb”: The consequences of recent migratory trends
for the linguistic landscape of Northern Ireland
Karen P. Corrigan, Nicholas S. Roberts and Jennifer Thorburn, Newcastle University, UK.
This paper presents new research exploring the social and linguistic consequences of recent population movements into
Northern Ireland. Investigations that have focused on the acquisition of local variants by young migrants in England,
Scotland and the Irish Republic has generated interesting results. One such finding is that ethnic minority speech can pattern
differently from that of indigenous peer groups. The variation observed depends on numerous factors including the first
language of the migrant and the extent to which they view its retention to be a priority, as the young Russian woman quoted
in our title suggests it to be.
This research examines the extent to which young migrants acquire sociolinguistic competence in both local and global
features typical of the dialects spoken by native teens and pre-teens in Northern Ireland. We adopt a comparative
sociolinguistic framework to determine the extent to which the indigenous constraint systems of a range of linguistic
variables also hold in the L2 speech of young migrants.
We report on variation in two sociolinguistically balanced corpora of Northern Irish English. The first comprises a
sample of Catholic teens and pre-teens, all of whom originate in one of 3 locations across the region (Armagh, Belfast or
Donaghmore) and were interviewed in 2012–2014. The second consists of speakers who are bilingual in some dialect of
Northern Irish English and one or more of a range of other languages (including Filipino, Italian, Lithuanian, Malayalam,
Mandarin, Polish and Russian). They represent recent migrants arriving as a result of the lure of the 1993 Peace Process and
their English has been learned through immersion in the local L1 speech community.
We will present variationist analyses examining the variable use of certain local features. Some of these are unique in
the English-speaking world since they ultimately derive from contact between English and Ulster Gaelic (like the use of
epenthetic [ə] in the context of clusters containing /ɾˠ, ɾʲ/, /lˠ, lʲ/, or /nˠ, nʲ/ followed by a labial or dorsal consonant.
Similarly, we examine the usage in these communities by L1 and L2 speakers of supralocal variables, e.g. quotative BE
LIKE, which furthers our understanding of the local consequences of linguistic globalization. Sophisticated statistical
analyses highlight the complex set of linguistic and social factors governing variant choice in both L1 and L2 speech.
Furthermore, results indicate that attitudinal disposition is indeed implicated in the choice of variants that L2 speakers make,
which will no doubt have a bearing on the future development of English dialects in Northern Ireland.
Identité et « parler jeune ». Le cas du Camfranglais en Italie / Identity and youth language. The case of Camfranglais
in Italy
Giuseppina Cutrì, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis / Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”
We live in a historical period that witnesses social vitality and contact between people with different languages as a
central topic; it is therefore interesting to discover how linguistic varieties can change themselves after arriving in another
country, and how they can achieve a real integration with the new environment, in order to represent new realities.
9
The Camfranglais or Francanglais, a “youth language” that has been developing in Cameroon among the young
(especially in Yaoundé and Douala) since the 1970’s, is continuing to evolve
constantly. In a country where more than 250 Cameroonian languages, pidgin-English, French and English (the last two
also being the official languages) co-exist, Camfranglais enables French-speaking Cameroonians to claim a youthful as well
as a Cameroonian identity.
The recent immigration from Cameroon to Italy created a new contact contest between Italian and Camfranglais and the
linguistic research in the diachronic variant will be developed with an ethno-sociolinguistic view.
This linguistic phenomenon, which also occurs in other countries due to the migration of Cameroonians, leads to a large
amount of loanwords.
In this paper, I propose to present some of these phenomena of lexical borrowing. The transcription of a spontaneous
speech corpus of approximately 9 hours recorded in Turin in 2012/2013 allowed me to analyze the collected data and to
realize an inventory of most used terms by young people. These words are different not only from standard French but also
from the “Français ordinaire” usually used in Cameroon, although the syntax of Camfranglais, as used by this Cameroonian
community is French. From an analysis of the corpus, statistical data will be obtained with a focus on the semantic fields
where the impact of Italian is strongest and the grammatical classes most frequently involved in loanwords. We will address
such questions as: What defines the position of these “borrowings” inside the sentence? Could these “borrowings” be
considered part of Camfranglais?
Phonetic changes in the language spoken by three generations of Italian emigrants in Germany
Anna De Marco, Mariagrazia Palumbo, Università della Calabria
Languages spoken in a migration context are the outcome of the interweaving of macro- (discourse setting) and micro(age, generation) sociolinguistic factors. The paper will focus on the languages spoken by three different generations of
Calabrian emigrants in Munich, which constitute one of the long and ancient tradition of migrants in Germany.
Our research questions are:
1. Which kind of changes can be observed in the emigrants’ languages (including dialects) at a phonetic level?
2. Are there systematic changes at an intergenerational level?
The rationale for the study is the relevance of attrition phenomena in a migratory context and at an intergenerational level.
The most powerful motor of variational dynamics is the contact with the standard language. For this reason it is possible to
suppose that from the second generation onwards the Italian and the dialect of Calabrian emigrants change and that these
changes are influenced by the phonetic system of German. The same changes are to be expected to persist over the
generations.
Data have been collected through semi-structured interviews conducted in Munich with four Calabrian familiar groups
belonging different generation of speakers. Phonetic data have been analyzed through the use of Praat software.
In particular, data analysis has shown that:
1. The first generation of emigrants shows the presence of Calabrian archaic phonetic phenomena as the aspiration of the
plosives: such as in “Catanzaro”, [kʰ atʰ anˈ tsʰ aː ro].
2. From the second generation onward, the Calabria phonemes/phones which are not part of the German system
(geminates, retroflexes) get lost.
We hypothesize that phonetic changes may affect the identity of Italian emigrants, i.e. their identification with the
German or the Calabrian community, as well as their choices linked to endogamous or exogamous marriage.
LI.LO.: una ricerca-azione per il mantenimento della lingua d’origine e lo sviluppo della CALP
Elena Firpo, Laura Sanfelici, Università di Genova
Il progetto LI.LO. nasce dall’osservazione della realtà degli alunni stranieri nella scuola di oggi che presenta non più
l’urgenza dell’accoglienza del recente studente immigrato, bensì la presenza di alunni nati in Italia o arrivati nel nostro
paese in età prescolare. I dati del Miur e i dati raccolti dalla ricerca in oggetto coincidono nell’evidenziare uno stretto
rapporto di alcune variabili comuni: innanzitutto gli alunni con cittadinanza non italiana hanno risultati scolastici inferiori
rispetto agli italiani, in particolare nella scuola secondaria di primo grado, dove la percentuale più alta di insuccesso
scolastico è attribuita proprio a loro. In secondo luogo l’osservazione è rivolta all’orientamento alla fine del primo ciclo di
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scuola secondaria: gli alunni stranieri continuano gli studi prevalentemente presso Istituti Tecnici e Professionali. In ultimo,
dopo aver effettuato un test di screening in una scuola elementare Cantore di Genova ed aver analizzato i dati, è emerso che
gli studenti stranieri esaminati hanno punteggi inferiori sia rispetto ai loro compagni italiani, sia rispetto alla competenza
linguistica e accademica nella loro Lingua di Origine.
Da febbraio 2014 è iniziata la sperimentazione presso la Scuola Media di secondo grado Sampierdarena. Si tratta di
un’evoluzione del progetto Español Lengua de Herencia portato avanti da diversi anni nella scuola Don Milani con la
collaborazione dell’Heritage Language Cooperative dell’Università dell’Illinois a Chicago. Heritage Language Learners è
il termine utilizzato per designare, in ambito educativo statunitense, tutti gli studenti esposti a una lingua che non è
l’inglese. La priorità è il mantenimento evolutivo dello spagnolo, attraverso strategie di trasferimento delle loro abilità nella
produzione orale alla produzione scritta. Per favorire esiti di bilinguismo ascendente il nuovo progetto punterà a migliorare
le CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency) degli Heritage Language Learners di origine ispanofona sia in
spagnolo sia in italiano con l’ausilio delle nuove tecnologie. Il progetto LI.LO. si inserisce inoltre all’interno di un progetto
di ricerca di dottorato in LCTIC (Università di Genova) ed è effettuato in modalità blended attraverso l’uso di una
piattaforma di e-learning che contiene i materiali didattici, un modulo di accoglienza, un blog e tutorials per l’uso della TIC
consultabili sia dagli studenti che dai docenti.
Alla base della struttura del corso sono stati previsti due modelli operativi: il primo fa riferimento al sillabo delle abilità
di studio creato in funzione di uno sviluppo delle competenze linguistico-comunicative previste dal Quadro di Riferimento;
il secondo segue le Indicazioni nazionali per il curricolo della scuola d’infanzia e del primo ciclo di istruzione (MIUR,
2012). Attraverso una ricerca-azione LI.LO. opera da un lato su alcune discipline per sviluppare abilità comunicativolinguistiche sulla lingua dello studio, mentre dall’altro vuole promuovere un dialogo e un confronto di integrazione
attraverso la valorizzazione del bilinguismo.
Language contact on Facebook. The case of the Nigerian community in Italy
Enrico Giai, Department of Foreign Languages and Modern Cultures, University of Turin
Recent developments in IT have enabled researchers to retrieve language contact data by means of computer-mediated
communication technologies. For instance, online social media are virtual, multilingual communities, where language
contact phenomena such as code-switching frequently occur.
Our research aims at investigating how language contact happens in the context of computer-mediated communication.
In particular, we focused on the messages written on the social networking website ‘Facebook’ by a group of Nigerian
immigrants now residing in Italy. This analysis was carried out to understand whether evidences of interference between
English, Pidgin English, Italian and Nigerian languages could be identified. To our knowledge, the Nigerian community in
Italy has not been analysed yet in relation to their use of the language on the Web.
Our investigation was based on a corpus of 1,000 Facebook messages written by a sample of 20 people. These
messages were analysed in relation to social variables such as gender, place of origin, place of residence, level of education,
linguistic knowledge, employment, marital status, and partner’s nationality. The latter were complemented with further
information on the type of message, the addressee, and the presence of code-switching. Then, two types of analyses were
performed. Firstly, a descriptive statistical analysis was carried out by SPSS. Secondly, the corpus was lemmatised and
POS-tagged by means of TreeTagger. The former provided us with quantitative figures on the sample of users; the latter
with further details on the grammatical structure of the messages.
From our data it emerges that occurrences of code-switching can be found in almost 45% of the messages. In
particular, language contact phenomena seem to take place with a higher frequency between English, Pidgin English and
Nigerian languages. Instances of code-switching between Italian and English can be found as well. By contrast, only one
episode of hybridisation between these two languages can be found. Male members, married to a Nigerian and with children
show a higher tendency to code-switch. Despite common belief, people with an academic education tend to be more
influenced by linguistic interferences than people with a secondary education. Finally, as far as language use is concerned,
our research shows that English and Pidgin English are the most used languages in this virtual environment. On the other
hand, Italian is mainly used by female members of the community. In particular, it is used when writing to Italians and other
Nigerians living in Italy.
To conclude, it is clear that further research on this issue is still needed. The Nigerian community in Italy is growing in
numbers every year. Therefore, we believe that analysing a higher amount of data could be useful to understand the effects
of language contact on this community in a virtual context.
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Naturalistic acquisition of Italian L2: case of copula omission
Ekaterina Golovko, Università degli Studi di Bologna, LILEC.
This presentation will focus on the acquisition of sentences with the verb to be (adopting a wide definition of copula):
equative, attributive, locative and existential. I will investigate which factors favor copula use and which factors favor
copula omission in the speech of naturalistic learners of L2 Italian. During the presentation I will try to answer on the
following questions:
Variation in the use of the verb to be is due to
- the crosslinguistic simplification typical for L2 learning?
- is due to the influence of the language of substrate?
How linguistic variation can be related to extralinguistic factors?
The examined corpus consists of informal speech of 8 female migrant workers (badanti) with Russian L1 residing in
Italy for approximately 10 years with no formal instruction in Italian. The variety they speak is a fossilized (on different
stages) variety of Italian L2. In particular 1454 entries with or without copula were analyzed using GOLDVARB X
software.
The data analysis will focus on the correlation of linguistic and social factors. Among the considered linguistic factors
are: semantics of non-verbal predicates, frequency and theory of parts of speech. Extralinguistic factors considered in this
study are: age upon arrival, languages spoken (bilingual vs monolingual), level of education, integration to the Italian
society.
In this presentation I will show that variation even in a very non-stable and highly fossilized variety of interlanguage
can be modeled using quantitative tools and can be explained from the point of view of sociolinguistics; that copula verb is
rather particular and its acquisition is characterized by a different developmental path compared to full lexical verbs.
Language transmission among Arabo-Turkish migrant families in France
Suat Istanbullu, INALCO - CNRS UMR 8202 - SeDYL
Isabelle Leglise, CNRS, UMR 8202 - SeDYL
Quantitative studies on migrant languages in France show that, due to an aggressive linguistic policy towards integration, a
language shift phenomenon to French is generally completed within 3 generations. Contrary to this tendency, few studies show the
knowledge of Arabic, Berber, Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic among families with a North African descent.
Previous literature on language transmission among migrant families in Europe focuses mainly on the transmission of one socalled heritage language vs. the official language of the host country. On the other hand, the acquisition by speakers of the majority
language of some knowledge of immigrant languages has been well documented in Great Britain and Germany and discussed as a
possibly phenomenon of crossing.
Families from Turkey were considered in the late 1990 as the last arrived community in France; this “new migration wave”
only begun in the 1970’s and represented around 250 000 people in 1996 and 450 000 in 2008 (INSEE 2012). The families we are
working with come from the South of Turkey where they already were in a situation of language shift between Arabic and
Turkish. Considering the numeric importance of Arabic language in France (4 million of speakers), we would like to rethink the
first language shift situation towards Turkish and show how it may turn towards French and some other minority languages. We
would also like to question linguistic ideologies among these families in the light of their mobility through various European cities.
The superdiversity that follows from the increase of mobility within populations encourages us to follow a multi-sited
ethnographic approach. Our study is based on a qualitative observation of language transmission and identity construction among
these families. In this paper, after presenting some context and methodology, we will focus on the multilingual linguistic practices,
language ideology and identity construction of second and third generations (the first generations being born in France). We will
show various conflicts actually at stage among the third generation and the development of new speakers of Arabic and Turkish.
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Language brokering and translanguaging in the Barcelona of today: the case of plurilingual young immigrant-origin
students
Julia Llompart, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
As a result of the migration, globalization and mobility phenomenon schools and secondary schools in Barcelona today
are multilingual and multicultural and some of them have a percentage of immigrant origin students of around ninety per
cent. The new sociolinguistic reality of the Catalan context, that enters the paradigm of superdiversity, caused changes in
the language practices and in the dynamics of language transmission. On one hand, the language practices of plurilingual
students are examples of what has been called translanguaging, multiple discursive practices in which plurilinguals involve
in order to construct meaning in different contexts and situations. On the other hand, new dynamics of inter- and
intragenerational language transmission appear among students and students and their relatives. Some results show that the
bidirectionality of language trasmission (the language of the parents is transmitted to the children and children are
responsible for transmitting the local language to their parents) presents specific charateristics and consequences. In this
sense, some children and young adults of first, 1.5 and second generation of immigrants (language brokers) acquire a vital
role for the communication between their parents (specially their mothers) and other members of the society by translating
and interpreting for their families, members of their extended families, teachers and other adults.
The objective of this paper is to present some results of a ethnographic and qualitative study in process on the language
brokering and translaguaging practices of 1.5 and second generation immigrants of one high school in Barcelona.
According to the first analysis, we can highlight some interesting preliminary results: (a) the emergence of new
translanguaging practices in these young plurilingual speakers that are related to the paradigm of superdiversity; (b) the fact
that the different language brokering activitites of these students have consequences in language transmission and in the
processes of autocategorization and heterocategorization of language expert or non-expert and in their identity construction
processes.
Quali codici fanno parte del repertorio? Variazioni nei glottonimi e spazi linguistici percepiti tra Alto Adige e
Balcani
Marta Lupica Spagnolo, Libera Università di Bolzano e Università degli Studi di Pavia
A partire dagli anni novanta la popolazione straniera proveniente dai paesi della ex-Jugoslavia in Alto Adige è
aumentata considerevolmente. Per questi cittadini stranieri, l´impiego e il mantenimento dei codici d´origine in contesto
migratorio è ostacolato non solo da una riduzione dei loro ambiti d´uso, ma anche da un mutamento dei punti di riferimento
linguistico-normativi nei paesi d´origine. Interviste con persone che hanno subito recentemente una forte «violenza
epistemica» (dalla volontà ufficiale di far emergere quattro standard dalle varietà del loro repertorio) permette di identificare
i segni che tale violenza ha lasciato o meno nel loro modo di percepire i rapporti di differenziazione tra le lingue conosciute.
Inoltre, sulla base delle esperienze ed opinioni di questi cittadini stranieri è possibile indagare l´influsso di atteggiamenti e
stereotipi linguistici, i quali differiscono considerevolmente anche a seconda del periodo e dei motivi di emigrazione, sul
mantenimento o la sostituzione di codice in contesto migratorio.
Nella presentazione mi concentrerò sulla variazione dei glottonimi usati per denominare la lingua propria e altrui da
parte di alcuni cittadini stranieri provenienti da Serbia, Kosovo e Montenegro, stabilitisi in Alto Adige in periodi diversi.
Materiale di analisi è costituito da venti interviste episodico-narrative, condotte in italiano e in tedesco su modello di quelle
effettuate per elicitare biografie linguistiche.
Dalla analisi delle interviste emerge una variazione nel nome dato ai codici del repertorio sia inter- che intra-parlante.
La prima rilevazione suggerisce che lo spazio linguistico a cui si fa riferimento nel corso dell’intervista non sia suddiviso
secondo le stesse categorie dai partecipanti. Nella presentazione si descriveranno gli spazi linguistici percepiti di alcuni
intervistati, considerando possibili relazioni con variabili sociali e migratorie e con gli usi linguistici dichiarati. Dal
momento che i parlanti non sempre prendono posizione esplicita riguardo alla questione dei glottonimi, si tenterà, inoltre, di
ricostruire i motivi che guidano localmente l´uso di termini diversi in una stessa intervista. Oltre che dalla volontà o
tentennamento nel posizionarsi rispetto al dibattito ufficiale, la situazione comunicativa descritta, il tempo della storia ed
eventualmente il tempo del racconto sembrano, infatti, giocare un ruolo nella scelta del termine appropriato.
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Sri Lankan Italians. A sociolinguistic profile of Sri Lankan immigrants in Naples
Marta Maffia, Carmelinda Spina, University of Naples “L’Orientale”
According to recent official surveys, more than 1million Asian immigrants are living in Italy in 2013, representing 28%
of the total number of foreigners from non-European countries. In this context, the Sri Lankan community is one of the
biggest Asiatic groups. The first migration flows from Sri Lanka to Italy date back to the Seventies, but it was during the
Nineties when Sri Lankan immigration showed a strong increase and the creation of a very consolidated settlement and the
so-called “enlarged families” started. In 2013 there are about 99.000 Sri Lankans living in Italy (44% female and 56%
male), mostly employed in the domestic sector. The regions with the greatest number of Sri Lankan presences are
Lombardia (31%), Veneto (13%) and Campania (12%). In the province of Naples the Sri Lankan is the second foreign
community for size, with 11.000 immigrants. Despite the high numbers, this heterogeneous ethnical and linguistic group
(Sinhala and Tamil being the communities most represented) is still scarcely studied, especially from the sociolinguistic
point of view and if compared to other Asiatic communities.
The aim of the present study is to define a sociolinguistic profile of Sri Lankan immigrants in Naples. In order to obtain
an overall picture of multilingualism, language (and dialect) uses and attitudes among the Sri Lankans, a sociolinguistic
questionnaire has been administered to 50 immigrants, learners of L2 Italian in a voluntary association. Observations have
been also used, together with oral interviews to community leaders. The relationship between patterns of verbal behavior
and other social factors (reasons of migration, educational background, first and second generation, etc.) has been
investigated. Moreover, in order to evaluate the L2 Italian of Sri Lankans, 20 oral and 20 written texts produced by learners
with a basic competence in the second language have been analyzed at different levels: phonetic-phonological,
orthographic, morphosyntactical, lexical, pragmatical. Particular attention has been paid to interference phenomena with
mother tongue/s, English (nowadays used in Sri Lanka in secondary schools) and the Neapolitan dialect.
Immigration, language contact and linguistic hybridity
Shahrzad Mahootian, Department of Linguistics, Northeastern Illinois University
Linguistic and cultural contact resulting from immigration has a long and well documented history. Immigration has
played an important role in the spread of languages, in language change and in the creation of new varieties.
In this paper, I consider the impact of immigration on language and identity and the development of mixed, hybrid patterns
of language use, including codeswitching and codemixing in spoken and written discourse. I present a range of data taken
from popular mainstream publications in the United States with an eye to highlighting a pattern of use that helps us
understand the interplay between multiple languages and identities in globalized societies. Language is one of if not the
most salient means by which we present and re-present ourselves and construct global, local and individual identities. I
suggest that an approach which values language as a resource allows for articulation of the issues and outcomes of contact
and provides a framework for a comprehensive analysis of the social and discourse significance of mixed code.
World Englishes in language diaspora. The case of Filipino immigrants in Turin (Italy)
Gerardo Mazzaferro, Department of Foreign Literatures and Languages and Modern Cultures, University of Turin
This contribution is part of a larger research project about language and immigration in Turin (Italy), which attempts to
describe phenomena of language contact between immigrants’ first (L1) and second languages (L2) and Italian (L3, L4, Ln)
(Mazzaferro, 2014 forthcoming, Mazzaferro and Romano, 2014a, 2014b forthcoming).
This study aims to investigate cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of Italian as a third (fourth) language (De
Angelis, 2007, Jarvis and Pavlenko, 2008) by first generation Filipino immigrants who stably reside in Turin (Italy). The
aim is to explain phenomena arising from language contact between Tagalog (L1), English (L2) and Italian (L3).
I consider here some of the specific phonetic/phonological features of Filipino immigrants’ learner varieties of Italian; for
example 1) It. voiced labiodental fricative → voiceless bilabial fricative  and voiceless bilabial plosive //, 2) It.
voiced labiodental fricative  → voiced bilabial fricative // and voiced bilabial plosive //, 3) It. voiced alveolar
14
fricatives  → dental alveolar 4) and the absence of either word-internal or word-boundary
(raddoppiamento fonosintattico) consonant germination (Canepari, 2007).
This analysis is based on a small-scale random sampling of Filipino immigrants who stably reside in Turin. We analyzed a
corpus of 20 semi-guided interviews of more than 30 hours. Informants were recorded in the course of a succession of
investigations carried out between March and November 2010.
Occurrences of the selected phonetic/phonological traits were analyzed both perceptually and acoustically by the use of
PRAAT.
From my data it emerges that L3 phonetic/phonological properties are mainly constrained by the distance and status of
both L1 and L2, like in the case of word-internal degemination. It is well known that in both Tagalog, which is the L1 of the
majority of our informants, and English (L2) germination is a negligible phenomenon.
From what precedes, it is evident that further research about cross-linguistic influence in recently developed immigrant
communities in Italy is needed. I believe, however, that the investigation of the phenomena above has relevant implications
for the comprehension of language contact and transfer as a social phenomenon during the acquisition of an L3.
Interactions across Englishes in trans-local African communities of the Ruhr metropolis
Christiane Meierkord, Ruhr-University of Bochum
The Ruhr Area is one that has a long history of immigration. Whilst most early immigrant communities originate from
various European countries, recently the number of immigrants from African countries has increased, particularly since
political instability has given rise to the numbers of refugees. Additionally, transmigration has grown, i.e. Africans
frequently come to the Ruhr Area to study or work on a non-permanent basis. Often, individuals belong to the middle
classes in their home countries, are very well educated, and speak English as their second language.
As a result, the Ruhr area is now home to what can be labelled diasporic Englishes, varieties spoken by a clearly
confined speech community, composed of individuals who share a migration history and maintain close contacts with their
home countries. Often these Englishes are used as lingua francas in the Ruhr area’s African (mainly Cameroonian,
Ghanaian, and Nigerian) communities, which tend to live in trans-local neighbourhoods held together by social and
communicative practices.
As regards their use and function, these Englishes are similar to the ones spoken by the various Indian communities that
exist across the world, e.g. in South Africa, Fiji, Kenia, or the United Kingdom and the United States, or to African
American English speakers in Canada. Similar to these, the African speakers bring an indigenized variety of English with
them. However, they do not migrate into an English-speaking country.
The social circumstances result in the West Africans drawing on a large repertoire of linguistic resources, including
their various vernaculars, pidignized and standardized Englishes, varieties of French, and German. Especially their various
Englishes blend into a new code that serves the diaspora’s identity construction.
My presentation will draw on the findings of an ongoing research project at the linguistics section at the RuhrUniversity Bochum’s English Seminar. Following a concise description of how English (in standardized and in pidginized
varieties) is used by first and second generation immigrants I will then use Meierkord’s (2012) Interactions-acrossEnglishes model as a theoretical basis and present in-depth qualitative analyses of interactions taking place in the
Cameroonian community to describe



discuss how their various Englishes blend and mix
how further languages (Cameroonian vernaculars, French, and German) are utilized
how this results in borrowing and code-mixing as well as semantic and grammatical change
Migration and language contact in an urban setting: the Romanian community in Madrid
Diego Munoz-Carrobles, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
The importance of cities is growing both politically and economically in our contemporary society. This has got an
impact on linguistics, since new cases of language contact take place nowadays in urban settings, partly due to the arrival of
migrants and the languages they speak. In fact, immigration is one of the major social issues in Western societies. As a
15
consequence of the fast economic growth that took place in Spain during the first years of the 21 st century, a large number
of migrants came from countries such as Romania, Morocco, Peru, Ecuador or China.
We will focus on Romanian migrants, who constitute indeed the largest migrant group in Madrid. According to official
statistics, the Romanian community in that city amounts to more than 200 thousand individuals, more than 3% of the total
population. This would mean that Romanian is the second most widely spoken language in Madrid and its metropolitan
area, after Spanish.
Our aim is to describe the main cultural and linguistic features of this contact between these two Romance languages,
which have come spatially closer thanks to immigration. First of all, we will deal with linguistic aspects related to the use of
Romanian by members of the community and its transmission to the second generation: is Romanian spoken at home? What
do Romanian parents think about the use of the mother tongue and a better integration in the Spanish society? We will also
consider the lexical borrowings from Spanish that make part of the Romanian language spoken in Madrid and briefly
analyse their main features: what kind of words have been transferred? Are speakers aware of code-switching? We will
finally talk about the importance of hybridity in urban language contact and about the birth of new ‘tags’ that Romanian
speakers use to refer to a cross-cultural reality, for instance the word ‘rumañol’ (rumano ‘Romanian’ + español ‘Spanish’)
which clearly follows the pattern of Spanglish and is used to describe a linguistic and cultural perception that lies in
between the country of origin and the host society.
The language policies of Thai mothers in Japan
Janice Nakamura, International Christian University, Tokyo
With nearly half of the world’s migrants being women, female mobility has never been as high as it is in today’s
increasingly globalized world with East Asia being an important source and destination for female migration. Out of 23,657
international marriages in Japan in 2012, 73% involved a Japanese man and a non-Japanese woman (Ministry of Health,
Labor and Welfare, 2014). These women mainly come from Asian countries with China, the Philippines, South/North
Korea, and Thailand making up the largest groups. Similar trends are also observed in other affluent Asian countries such as
South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore where the rates of international marriages between local men and foreign women are
increasing. The high number of migrant women from Asian countries in Japan indicates their important role in childrearing
and their children’s potentiality for bilingualism. However, the existence of a dominant societal language and the negative
evaluation of bilingualism involving minority languages are strong factors that inhibit Asian migrant mothers from passing
on their native languages to their children.
This paper will consider the family language policies of Thai migrant women, who make up the fourth largest group of
foreign women in Japan. Using an ethnographic approach, this study sets out to determine 1) family language policy (FLP)
that was decided at the birth of the first child, 2) current home language practices and the reasons for any deviation from the
FLP, and 3) the effect of home language practices on parent-child communication and the child’s schooling. Five Thai
women who have preschooler and school-age children were interviewed and audio-recorded at their homes. The
participants’ FLP varied from monolingual Japanese-only policy to a Japanese-Thai-English trilingual one. Data from the
audio recordings and field notes revealed that, while some Thai mothers begin with a bilingual policy from the start, more
Japanese is gradually used. Societal pressure for the Thai mothers to speak Japanese resulted in mainly Japanese discourse
between the mothers and their child and the children’s limited passive knowledge of Thai. The impact of the use of Japanese
on parent-child communication and the child’s schooling will be discussed.
New York Versus Barcelona: A comparative study of Latino immigrants adaptation to local dialectal variation
Michael Newman, Queens College, New York
Matched yearlong ethnographic studies of Generation 1, 1.5, and 2 Latino immigrants and autochthonous peers at diverse
working-class secondary schools in NYC and Barcelona explore immigrants’ responses to host community dialectal
variation.
In NYC Gen 1.5 and 2 immigrants adopt local expectations for English variation to index racial identities, with Latinos
constructed as one race. Such associations were typically referred to as “sounding XX” or “talking like a XX person,” where
16
XX refers to a racialized identity. These expectations were sometimes policed by criticism of non-conformers through
accusations of inauthenticity, i.e., wanting to be something they are not. There were, nevertheless, three asymmetries:
• Only Black, White, and Latino identities were indexed; Asians and other groups were dialectally invisible.
• “Sounding Black” corresponded to African American English and second-order indexed low socioeconomic status (SES);
“sounding White” indexed high SES, but linguistically referenced stereotypically California features not White NYC
vernacular. “Sounding Spanish” meant presence of selected Spanish substrate features without clear SES second-order
indexicality.
• Policing focused on White targets using variants expected from Blacks and Blacks and Latinos not using expected
variants.
In Barcelona metalinguistic comments focused on:
• Native-like vs. L2 Catalan,
• SES differences in Peninsular Spanish, and
• Latin American vs. Peninsular Spanish.
Native-like Catalan was accorded highest status followed by Standard Peninsular Spanish, then low SES “Barriada”
Spanish, and finally immigrant L2 and Latin American Spanish.
However, peer policing was reported only for older-arrived (Gen 1) Latinos targeting other Latinos’ adoption of selected
Peninsular Spanish forms (e.g., 2p pronouns). Targets were accused of betrayal of identity and culture, with Peninsular
Spanish linked to often-derided Peninsular cultural practices.
Nevertheless, all Generation 1.5 and 2 immigrants used mostly or fully Peninsular phonology, although some retained
home-country pronominal norms and lexical items mainly with other Latinos. Also, working-class identified autochthonous
participants usually avoided Catalan in peer-to-peer communication and refused to use it in interviews, although no overt
anti-Catalan policing was observed or recounted. Latinos similarly never used Catalan with peers, Gen 1.5 or 2 immigrants,
but they had no trouble using it in interviews or with teachers.
Analysis shows strong but complex interactions between dialect and class and racial/ethnic identities at both sites.
However, policing in NYC reflected preoccupation with an individual’s social identity whereas in Barcelona it protected
group boundaries and cultural values. Crucially, policing flourished in NYC despite robust cross-racial socializing whereas
in Barcelona it was limited to socially homogeneous Gen 1 Latinos and vanished with heterogeneous social networks
characteristic of Gen 1.5 and 2 immigrants. Latinos’ readiness to cross into Catalan results from it not being constructed as
betrayal unlike for autochthonous working class oriented youths.
In both sites, race and ethnicity show important interactions with SES and with dialectal variation. The sites differed,
however, in construction of the meaning of racial/ethnic categories. In NYC these categories primarily instantiated
individual identities as manifested through cultural traits. In Barcelona, they constructed contested collective in-group/outgroup boundaries.
L’immigrazione slava in Italia: problemi, metodi e prospettive dell’analisi
Monica Perotto, Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere Moderne, Università di Bologna
Le dinamiche dell’emigrazione russofona in Italia sono state analizzate e documentate sotto il profilo storico-letterario, ma
i risvolti linguistici di questo fenomeno, che ha raggiunto dimensioni sempre più vaste dalla fine degli anni ‘80, in seguito
alla perestrojka, al punto da meritare l’appellativo di “diaspora russofona”, sono rimasti nel nostro paese pressoché
inesplorati.
L’intensificarsi del contatto linguistico non sviluppa solo l’insorgenza di fenomeni di bilinguismo nelle nuove generazioni
di migranti, ma più spesso, a causa dello scarso supporto delle istituzioni nei programmi di tutela della lingua materna, ne
impedisce uno sviluppo linguistico bilanciato e finisce per destinarli ad un input linguistico incompleto e deficitario.In
Russia e in vari paesi interessati dal fenomeno (Stati Uniti, Israele, ex URSS), l’indagine della vitalità del russo in ambito
migratorio si sviluppa oggi in un settore di ricerca sempre più ricco di contributi a carattere linguistico e sociolinguistico
denominato Jazyk russkogo zarubež’ja (La lingua dell’estero russo), mentre in Italia si registrano pochi e isolati studi
sull’argomento, pertanto si ritiene opportuno e sempre più urgente un’estensione dell’analisi, soprattutto alle seconde
generazioni. La presente indagine intende sviluppare il problema dell’apprendimento del russo da parte di bilingui quasi
nativi, i cosiddetti heritage speakers, che pur ereditando il russo dano o entrambi i genitori, lo usano prevalentemente nel
contesto familiare e sono quindi esposti ad un input ridotto.
L’indagine è stata svolta su un campione di 45 ragazzi in due scuole di “istruzione supplementare”, le cosiddette
subbotnie školy, di Roma e Milano, dove i ragazzi possono ricevere un’educazione in lingua russa per mantenere la propria
lingua di origine ed impedire che regredisca a seconda lingua. Ai ragazzi è stato somministrato un test in due fasi, una
scritta ed una orale. Gli informanti, di età fra gli 8 e i 14 anni, sono nati in Italia oppure giunti nel nostro paese in età
17
diversa, vivono in famiglie miste o monolingui russofone, pertanto presentano un quadro delle problematiche linguistiche ed
acquisizionali molto diversificato. Nel lavoro si analizzeranno i fattori linguistici e sociolinguistici che determinano una
diversa performance degli informanti, nonché le tipologie di errori riscontrate nel test. Si tenterà di determinare
l’importanza di un apprendimento linguistico guidato e di un input corretto e completo nello sviluppo di un bilinguismo
bilanciato.
Language Use, Attitudes and Identity: the Case of Slovene Canadians
Nada Šabec and Mihaela Koletnik, University of Maribor, Slovenia
The paper focuses on Slovene-English language contact among Slovene immigrants and their descendants living in
Vancouver, Canada. Data collected by means of questionnaires and tape-recorded interviews show a considerable degree of
variation in the language use of individuals, while on a broader, community level we can observe intergenerational variation
and very strong signs of language shift from Slovene to English. The immigrants’ attitudes toward the use of either
language and their reasons for language choice in various contexts are analyzed. Furthermore, the relationship between the
immigrants’ degree of mother tongue maintenance and their sense of ethnic identity is examined.
We then turn our attention to a more detailed picture of the linguistic aspects of Slovene-English language contact
themselves. In addition to bilingual phenomena such as borrowing from English and Slovene-English code switching, we
analyze the immigrants’ speech on the phonological, syntactic and lexical levels. Lexis in particular is interesting as it
shows traces of other languages (such as German or Italian) in it – something that was common in the Slovene spoken
during early emigration, but which has subsequently changed and is now considered to be archaic in Slovenia. Dialectal
features are analyzed in order to ascertain how significant a role they play in the immigrants’ ethnic identification compared
to standard linguistic features.
It is clear that, especially with younger generations, the relationship between language and identity has become a much
more complex issue and that, if the trend continues, Slovene Canadians will, at least in the long run, be more accurately
described as bicultural rather than bilingual. Regardless of the highly transitional and unstable character of bilingualism in
the community, which is conducive to language change and attrition, the immigrants’ sense of ethnic identity, however,
does not seem to be diminishing.
Kurdish for Solidarity; Turkish for Authority
Anne Schluter, Assistant Professor, University of Texas at San Antonio
The analysis of code choices as a means of expressing and reinforcing power relations has a long history, especially as it
pertains to Gumperz’s (1982) notion of speech economies and verbal repertoires as well as Bourdieu’s notions of symbolic
capital and symbolic marketplace (1999). Members of the subordinate group adopt the dominant group’s linguistic and
cultural practices in their attempts to access these resources, and this interaction reinforces the existing power relations. This
take on power and language becomes particularly salient in minority-majority language contact situations such as Kurdish
migrant workers’ code-switching practices in Istanbul workplaces.
Relationships between language and symbolic power have been further accentuated in the Kurdish-Turkish example
through a history of repressive language policy, during which policies to promote Turkish as the single official language and
to assimilate non-Turkish speaking citizens were systematic. Despite the currently legal status of Kurdish in most spaces,
open use of the language in Turkey’s western cities may still carry considerable stigma. Moreover, the perception of internal
Kurdish migrants as outsiders in western Turkish cities deepens this stigma. Kurdish-speaking migrants’ language choices
thus reflect a history of subordination at the macro-political level and on-going stigma as the community level.
The current study investigated the code-switching practices of workers in eleven Kurdish-owned and operated eating
establishments in Istanbul. Transcript data from kitchen and dining room-situated interactions were analyzed to assess
workers’ language choices across eight discourse functions. Follow-up interviews with managers and workers [N=40]
addressed the reasons for these language choices.
Based on these data, Kurdish was associated with both worker-worker and manager-worker collaboration. This link
reflects the traditional relationship between the shared minority language and solidarity from the language attitude literature.
Turkish was associated with power-driven, one-sided communication: authoritarian managers were more likely to choose
18
Turkish, the more socially distant code, for making face-threatening complaints and demands. These findings reflect deeply
rooted connections between the Turkish language and authority as well as Gumperz and Bourdieu-based predictions of
managers’ reproduction of the social hierarchy. The complimentary pragmatic functions of Turkish and Kurdish in
conversations between Kurdish migrants suggest that both the mother tongue of the home village and the language of the
sophisticated city are tied to this population’s language preferences.
The impact of migratory movements on linguistic systems : Two case studies
Daniel Schreier, University of Zurich
Migratory movements and linguistic systems in contact form a close-knit relationship. Population movements (emigration,
immigration or cross-migration) lead to modifications in both recipient and host varieties (i.e. in those spoken by the people
on the move themselves and those pre-existent in the areas they move to), which in turn depend on the sociolinguistic
conditioning of the contact scenario. The process is two-fold: the outcome of contact, accommodation and social diffusion
shape the ultimate sociolinguistic outcome of the new variety, whereas the nature of the linguistic systems in contact
(structural similarity, genetic parallelisms, phonological overlap, etc.) has a strong impact on the output, steering the
processes triggered. Migratory movements and interaction patterns of linguistic systems are thus interwoven when it comes
to criteria such as the total proportions of speaker groups in contact (and the sociolinguistic balance of input varieties),
social stratification (and the manifestation of social variation in transplanted communities) or incipient norm-enforcement
via the formation of unprecedented social networks.
In this paper, I look into general patterns of so-called relocation diffusion and possible outcomes of population
movements. It illustrates the impact of social and linguistic factors (i.e. the structural properties of the systems in contact
and the social set-up of the newly emerging community) by looking at two case studies: the so-called ‘twice migrants’,
Indians who migrated to Uganda and then on to Leicester in the UK after being expulsed by Idi Amin in the 1970s, and a
group of social utopians from Australia, who settled in Paraguay in the late 19th century. The boutcomes of the two settings,
accommodation to local norms and language shift, are assessed with reference to the sociolinguistic conditioning of the
respective communities.
The Sociolinguistics of Immigration in Toronto: Contact and Identity
James A. Walker, York University (Toronto),
Naomi Nagy, University of Toronto,
Michol F. Hoffman, York University (Toronto)
Canada has always been a country of immigrants, but recent patterns of global migration have substantially altered the
ethnolinguistic landscape of its largest cities. Toronto, a city founded by American Loyalists and built up through
immigration from the British Isles, has more recently become one of the most multilingual cities in the world. The degree of
language contact implied by the co-existence of so many ‘heritage languages’ (HLs) is mitigated by the existence of ‘ethnic
enclaves’, neighbourhoods that feature a high concentration of people of particular ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.
Ethnic enclaves are argued not only to promote HL maintenance but also to lead to ‘ethnolects’ in English, either through
transfer of HL features into English or because of speakers’ desire to mark their ethnic identity linguistically.
This paper reports on two projects designed to study the sociolinguistic consequences of immigration in Toronto from
these two perspectives: Contact in the City investigates English features associated with different ethnic groups and
Heritage Language Variation and Change uses a multilingual corpus to examine HL maintenance and change. In both
projects, speakers are divided between 1st (G1) and 2nd/3rd (G2/G3) generation and are recorded in sociolinguistic interviews
that include an Ethnic Orientation (EO) questionnaire to gage the influence of ethnic identity and language attitudes on
language use. We present an overview of studies that test the effect of language-internal and language-external factors on
different phonetic (consonantal features and vowel systems) and grammatical linguistic variables (null subject, classifiers
and habitual past) that represent situations of stable variation, changes in progress and features claimed to be ethnolectal or
indicative of language transfer. As expected, G1 speakers show non-native patterns of English usage and their HLs show no
evidence of influence from English. Although the English of G2/G3 speakers differs in overall rates of use, the languageinternal conditioning of the variation shows no significant differences among groups. Patterns of HL use generally remain
19
parallel across generations, although G2/G3 speakers show some evidence of innovation or participation in changes
occurring in the HL homeland but little evidence of influence from English.
These results suggest that young Torontonians of all ethnic backgrounds have adapted to local linguistic norms. They have
acquired the same linguistic system of Canadian English, although they may convey their ethnicity through differential use
of features. Similarly, they have maintained the HLs as living languages that feature variation and change. By examining the
sociolinguistic consequences of immigration in Toronto from different perspectives, we gain a more nuanced view of how
the linguistic resources in a multilingual context can be used to construct and convey complex identities.
20
Authors’ Index
Adjeran, Moufoutaou ............................................................................................................................. 5
Ali-Bencherif, Mohammed Zakaria ....................................................................................................... 5
Avesani, Cinzia ...................................................................................................................................... 5
Best, Catherine ....................................................................................................................................... 5
Bocale, Paola ......................................................................................................................................... 6
Bonomi, Milin ....................................................................................................................................... 6
Bucci, Jonathan ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Calamai, Silvia ....................................................................................................................................... 7
Calvi, Maria Vittoria .............................................................................................................................. 8
Carpitelli, Elisabetta .............................................................................................................................. 7
Chini, Marina ......................................................................................................................................... 8
Corrigan, Karen P. .................................................................................................................................. 9
Cutrì, Giuseppina ................................................................................................................................... 9
De Marco, Anna .................................................................................................................................... 10
Di Biase, Bruno ..................................................................................................................................... 5
Firpo, Elena ........................................................................................................................................... 10
Galatà, Vincenzo .................................................................................................................................... 5
Giai, Enrico ............................................................................................................................................ 11
Golovko, Ekaterina ................................................................................................................................ 12
Hoffman, Michol F. ............................................................................................................................... 19
Istanbullu, Suat ...................................................................................................................................................... 12
Koletnik, Mihaela .................................................................................................................................. 19
Leglise, Isabelle .................................................................................................................................................... 12
Llompart, Julia ....................................................................................................................................... 13
Lupica Spagnolo, Marta.......................................................................................................................... 13
Maffia, Marta ......................................................................................................................................... 14
Mahootian, Shahrzad ............................................................................................................................. 14
Mair, Christian ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Matthey, Marinette ................................................................................................................................ 3
Mazzaferro, Gerardo .............................................................................................................................. 14
Meierkord, Christiane ............................................................................................................................ 15
Munoz-Carrobles, Diego ....................................................................................................................... 15
Nagy, Naomi .......................................................................................................................................... 19
Nakamura, Janice ................................................................................................................................... 16
Newman, Michael .................................................................................................................................. 16
Palumbo, Mariagrazia ............................................................................................................................ 10
Pasqui, Alessia ....................................................................................................................................... 7
Perotto, Monica ..................................................................................................................................... 17
Roberts, Nicholas S. .............................................................................................................................. 9
Romano, Antonio ................................................................................................................................... 7
Šabec, Nada ........................................................................................................................................... 18
Sanfelici, Laura ...................................................................................................................................... 10
Schluter, Anne ....................................................................................................................................... 18
Schreier, Daniel ..................................................................................................................................... 19
Spagnolo, Marta, Lupica ........................................................................................................................ 13
Spina, Carmelinda .................................................................................................................................. 14
Thorburn, Jennifer ................................................................................................................................. 9
Van de Velde, Hans ............................................................................................................................... 4
Vayra, Mario .......................................................................................................................................... 5
Versino, Paola ........................................................................................................................................ 8
Walker, James A. ................................................................................................................................... 19
21
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