Early language socialization and language shift: Kazakh as Baby Talk

This paper draws attention to the key role of a caregiver's bilingual language practices in the process of language shift. It argues that certain multilingual practices actually discourage children's multilingualism and devalue the language at the same time as they provide preverbal children with direct input. The analysis is based on data collected in Russophone urban families of ethnic Kazakhs. Drawing from work on registers and footing, the paper demonstrates that in these families the Kazakh language, while quantitatively prevailing in caregiver's speech, systematically co‐occurs with Baby Talk – a specific register directed to infants and toddlers in their preverbal stage. The metapragmatic typification of talking Kazakh to non‐agentive objects‐of‐minding, and talking Russian to autonomous social agents, suggests that language practices envision expert members of the local community as Russian speaking. This ideology sustains the ongoing language shift to Russian despite families’ aspiration to raise Kazakh‐Russian bilingual children.     

Orderly mixing and accommodation in South African codeswitching

'Mixed Language,' a characteristic pattern of language use among African township residents in South Africa, may well include words or full constituents from several languages. However, from both a structural and a social perspective, such speech has a systematic nature. In reference to grammatical structure, within any CP (projection of COMP) showing codeswitching, only one language (the Matrix Language) provides the grammatical frame in the data studied. Also, while speakers from different educational levels engage in codeswitching with similar frequencies, the types of codeswitched constitutents they prefer are different. In reference to the social use of language, we argue that specific patterns of codeswitching indicate how language is both an index of identity and a tool of communication in South Africa. In the codeswitching patterns they use, speakers exhibit strong loyalty to their own first languages. Yet, because they recognize that codeswitching facilitates communication with members of other ethnic groups, they use a number of codeswitching strategies as a means of accommodating to their addressees and simultaneously as a means of projecting multiple identities for themselves.     

普通话与大同话语码转换顺应模式研究

普通话与大同话之间的语码转换是发生在大同地区常见的一种语言现象。通过调查访谈和试卷问答,分析收集到的普通话与大同话语码转换的语料,了解人们进行语码转换的动机和目的、对这种语码转换的态度以及对普通话、大同话的态度,从而探究这两者之间语码转换的动机模式。     

汉英语码转换的句法特点和结构限制

通过分析实际语料验证波普拉克的“自由语素限制和对等限制”以及斯科顿的“主体语言构造模式”理论,可探讨汉英语码转换的句法特点和结构限制。研究得出,“主体语言构造模式”理论提出了更为合适的分析框架,更具有普遍性和说服力。     

Review Articles: Introduction

Florian Coulmas (ed.). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics, 4). Oxford: Blackwell. 1997. x + 532 pp.Cloth (0–631–19339–1) £#187;70.00.     

Negotiating conflict within the constraints of social hierarchies in Korean American discourse

This paper provides an interactional account of conflict negotiation strategies in Korean American discourse. With specific attention to the sociolinguistic phenomenon of codeswitching among Korean Americans, I argue that speaking Korean at particular moments evokes ideologies of social hierarchy that serve to mitigate potential conflicts. The Korean social ideology of relative status has a major influence on how bilingual Korean Americans interact with one another, regardless of whether they are using Korean or English. The use of codeswitching, among other mitigating strategies in discourse, serves to instantiate these hierarchical relationships and introduces particular social norms that guide the observable actions used in navigating meaning and social relations. The data analyzed here show how the evocation of Korean social ideologies may serve as an identifiable characteristic of Korean American discourse.     

Some 'fractious energy'

Florian Coulmas (ed.). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics, 4). Oxford: Blackwell. 1997. x + 532 pp. Cloth (0–631–19339–1) £70.00.     

Book Reviews

Honey, John. Language is Power: The Story of Standard English and its Enemies .
Ó Snodaigh, Pádraig. Hidden Ulster: Protestants and the Irish Language .
Edwards, Derek. Discourse and Cognition .
Blaney, Roger. Presbyterians and the Irish Language .
Traill, Anthony. Extinct South African Languages Compact disk plus booklet
Kasper, Gabriele, and Kellerman, Eric (eds.). Communication Strategies: Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives .     

What is a ‘Handbook of Sociolinguistics’?

Florian Coulmas (ed.). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics, 4). Oxford: Blackwell. 1997. x + 532 pp.Cloth (0–631–19339–1) £70.00.