Bidialectal children in Dutch Limburg growing up in
Bidialectal children in Dutch Limburg growing up in a standardized world: a cognitive, sociolinguistic and acquisition perspective Workshop: Bidialectalism. Structural and Developmental Aspects of Bidialectalism, Universiteit Tromsø Leonie Cornips Meertens Institute (KNAW) & Maastricht University, 25/10/2017
More holistic view on bidialectal acquistion Acquisition - 2 L 1/child L 2 • Age of Onset (Ao. O/Ao. A) • Length of exposure • Quality (and quantity) of the input Linguistics: • Structural (dis)similarities of the languages involved Sociolinguistics: • Speech repertoire dialect – standard language Linguistic Anthropology: • Social meaning of language choices worked out locally
What is the surplus value of a more holistic view on biadialectal acquisition? Take home message: ‘where you are is crucial’ • Where influences how and why children select dialect or standard in daily practices; the social meaning of language choice and child’s active or passive knowledge of dialect grammar. • Where influences categorization between • monolinguals and bidialectals • monolingual, dialectal or in-between language use • how adults fill in questionnaires
More holistic view on bidialectal acquisition This talk, where : • Dutch Limburg • Social meaning of choice between Dutch and dialect at home, primary school and pre-school playgrounds • The use of dialect vocabulary in a Word Task (Francot et al. 2017) • Parental questionnaire (Blom et al. 2017)
Introduction Dutch Limburg (since 1867) and its bidialectal speakers
Introduction Dutch Limburg and its bidialectal speakers • In Limburg there has been a long period of contact between Dutch and the dialects (about 150 years). • 900, 000 Limburgers, 75% of the total population, claim to speak a dialect showing the high value people attach to speaking their dialects (Driessen 2006). (cf. Cornips 2013, 2014)
• Dialects are spoken varieties • Prestige of various dialects differs (Cornips et al. 2016). • Children often acquire Dutch in addition to the Dialect either from birth (2 L 1, early L 2) or from school age onwards (child L 2) (Cornips & Hulk 2006/2008, Cornips 2014).
Introduction Dutch Limburg and its bidialectal speakers HIGH PRESTIGE • Speaking dialect is most often taken as a claim to be a certain kind of authentic Limburger, (Cornips et al. 2015, 2016, cf. Woolard 2016)
Introduction Dutch Limburg and its bidialectal speakers LOW PRESTIGE • ‘Let children learn English or Spanish, the two world languages at school. That has the future. Not this incomprehensible babble’ (personal email)
Structural (dis)similarities of Dutch and dialects in Limburg (Limburgish) Heeringa 2004
Speech repertoire dialect – standard language Speech repertoires depends WHERE you are in Europe (Auer 2000): 1. Dutch Limburg: A diaglossic repertoire: intermediate variants between standard and (base) dialect.
Speech repertoire dialect – standard language Diaglossic repertoire in Limburg (cf. Cornips 2005): • Speakers switch and adjust to the Standard (and surrounding Dialect varieties) without a noticeable effort • Speakers produce intermediate variants in daily speech situation, thus • No clear-cut distinction between Dialect and Standard is possible from a syntactic view (Cornips 2016) • But, Limburgian speakers perceive the Dialect and the Standard as two different varieties and associate them with different identities (Cornips 2014)
Speech repertoire dialect – standard language Diaglossic repertoire in Limburg: The speech repertoire is a complex, variable and diffuse synthesis of dialectal and standard features (Giesbers 1989: 78) What do you speak yourself in Ottersum? N=436 % ‘pure’ Dialect 79 18, 1 Dialect with Dutch influence 131 30, 1 ‘pure’ Dutch 58 13. 3 Dutch with Dialect influence 168 38, 5
Acquisition of grammatical gender: the definite determiner • Dutch: two way grammatical gender • Dialect: three-way grammatical gender • Bidialectal and passive dialectals are in advance with respect to the L 1 Dutch controls from age 4 onwards in the acquisition of the neuter definite determiner het (cf. Cornips&Hulk 2006; Cornips&Hulk 2008, Cornips 2014). • The passive dialectals or in-between children grow up in households in which principal caregivers address them in dialect but they produce Dutch only.
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Language socialisation: Study of interactions and the process whereby young children and others are socialized through the use of language and socialized to use language(s) meaningfully, appropriately and effectively. (Ochs and Schieffelin 1984).
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Let’s meet Pim, 5; 8 years old growing up in a small city in Dutch Limburg: • Pim lives together with his mother and father, and his brother Cas (3 yrs). • Charlotte Fijnault (2011) observed him day and night for one week • Field work: Participant observation, audio-recordings, notes
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Pim 5; 8 yrs in the swimming pool Pim’s swimming instructor and Pim talk together in dialect when Pim stands on the side of the swimming pool. At one point, the instructor asks Pim in dialect: Kumse het water in, anges kries ze ut koud ‘Come into the pool, otherwise you will be freezing’ The moment Pim jumps in the water, the instructor switches to the use of Dutch: Pim, doe je handjes op je rug ‘Pim, put your hands-DIM on your back’
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Pim, 5; 8 years old in the swimming pool Swimming instructor in Dutch: Benen sluiten, Pim ‘Close legs, Pim’ Pim, being in the swimming pool, also answers in Dutch: Ik heb water in mijn oogjes ‘I got water in my eyes-DIM’
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice • The choice to Dutch constructs a formal setting in which instruction on how to swim takes place within a hierarchical relation between an instructor and her pupil. • The formality of the situation is co-constructed by Pim in his choice of Dutch when being in the water. • The use of dialect co-constructs an informal situation between locals: the adult and child just chat with each other while standing on the side of the swimming pool. • Pim’s choice between Dutch and dialect shows that he is already socialized in when to use what language with what kind of activity; in what context, with whom, in what kind of (hierarchical) relationship and with appropriate social meaning.
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Pim (5; 8) playing at home: • Pim speaks Dialect to everyone, also to his nephew Max who adresses Pim in Dutch. All other family members address Pim in Dialect
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Pim (5; 8) playing at home • Pim is allowed to play one hour with his Nintendo DS. During his play (he is the only participant) he speaks in Dialect: Ich goa noa dat land (I go to that country) Hie kumt Lava noa boven (Here, Lava comes upstairs) Ich goa Indiana Jones do. (I imitate Indiana Jones) • Occasionally he speaks English : Let’s go, Let’s go.
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Pim (5; 8) playing at home: Playing the captain of a submarine, he switches to Dutch: Pas op mannen, jullie hebben een missie! ‘Watch out men you have a mission to undertake’ In his role of captain, Pim speaks Dutch while making himself taller: he stands on his toes and speaks in a higher voice
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Pim 5; 8 years at school: The teacher asks who is willing to perform a dance on the stage. Pim calls in Dutch he is willing to do so. But while standing on the stage he uses Dialect: Ich wil toch neet meer I don’t want anymore He does not feel at ease and switches to Dialect
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Pim 5: 8 years at school: Pim tells L 1 Dutch speaking boy B. in Dutch: En jij moet me naar mij luisteren! (and you should listen to me!) Some while later, Pim is not at ease and switches to Dialect to boy B: Ich ving dat neet leuk (I don’t like that)
Primary school, 4 -5 years: Throwing snow balls (Meevissen 2011) Stefan: Teacher: Loes: Teacher: en op de auto’s mag je ook niet gooien. Dutch You may not throw on cars nee, maar zo ver komen we vandaag niet. We komen niet bij de auto’s. Dutch no but we don’t reach the cars today mèr waal eeh waal. Dialect but well eeh well Loes, even Nederlands praten. Dutch Loes, just talk Dutch
Primary school, 4 -5 years: Throwing snow balls (Meevissen 2011) Loes: op de tegeltjes als se een bolletje maaks den. . Dutch-Dialect On the tiles when one makes a small snow ball then… Teacher: even Nederlands praten, anders kan ik je niet verstaan. just talk Dutch othwerwise I cannot understand you Dutch
Primary school, 4 -5 years: Throwing snow balls (Meevissen 2011) Teacher: even Nederlands praten, anders kan ik je niet verstaan. ‘just talk Dutch otherwise I cannot understand you’ This teacher is observed to talk Dialect with all other dialect speaking teachers throughout schooltime • Monolingual norm (Jørgensen 2008: 168) • Monolingual discourse strategy (de Houwer 2009: 133)
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Pre-school playgrounds in Eijsden-Margraten (Morillo Morales 2017) • Children aged between 2 - 4, • Observation between February and June 2016, 13 days in total • Multilingual playground: Dutch, Dialect, Turkish, Spanish, Dari
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Group conversation in the circle: • Repetition (De Houwer 2009: 134) is a socialisation tool to get across monolingual norm: Giulia to a teacher in Dialect: Ich wil nao opa en oma! ‘I want to go to grandpa and grandma!’ The teacher repeats the sentence in Dutch : Jij gaat naar opa en oma, ja! ‘You will go to grandpa and grandma, yes!’ (Morillo Morales 2017)
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Teachers clearly show the tendency to speak Dutch in the groups’ circle conversations addressing more than one child: A teacher to the group giving an instruction: We gaan zo een bloemetje prikken! We will cut out a small flower in a minute! Teachers show a tendency to use primarily Dialect in dialogues between two people: A teacher to Iris: Wils se ‘n hertje prikke? ‘Do you want to cut out a small heart? ’ (Morillo Morales 2017)
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Lotte tells a teacher in Dialect that she has watered the flowers. In this case, the other children are not paying any attention. The teacher repeats her question in Dialect. Lotte to the teacher: Ich höb de bloemetjes water gegeve! ‘I have watered the flowers!’ The teacher to Lotte: Oh! Höbs doe de bloemetjes water gegeve? ‘Oh! Have you watered the flowers? ’ (Morillo Morales 2017)
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice When a teacher asks a collective question to the entire group, Dutch is selected. An individual response from the children is then provoked: all Dutch speaking children reply in Dutch while all Limburgish speaking children reply in Dialect. A teacher to the group in circle conversation: Welke kleur is dit? ‘Which colour is this? ’ Dutch speaking children: Groen! (Green!) Dialect speaking children: Greun! (Green!) (Morillo Morales 2017)
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Conclusion: primary school, home and leisure activities • The choice to Dutch co-constructs a formal setting in which instruction is the primary activity • The choice to Dutch co-constructs a hierarchical setting • The choice to Dialect co-construtcs an informal situation: localness, expressing emotions • In instruction context (school&swimming pool), socialization in monolingual norm (Jørgensen 2008: 168): • through a monolingual discourse strategy with explicit request/instruction for translation and repetition in Dutch as requested/desired language code (De Houwer 2009: 133).
Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice • Social meaning: if the teacher speaks Dutch, everyone listens! • Social meaning: If the teacher speaks Dialect, only the Dialect speaking child addressed pays attention. All other children are allowed to ignore the teacher. • Since Dutch is used in higher hierarchical social contexts (group communication, instructions, content related, paying attention to teacher), it indexes a higher status than Dialect.
Experimental Studies • The context in which experimental acquisition and cognitive research take place • What are the consequences for our methodologies and analysis of results? • Children experience how Dialect is minoritized in pre-school and primary school and that Dutch only matters • Children socialize in social meaning: Dialect is informal between locals, bilateral; Dutch establishes hierarchical relation, is used in instruction and signals ‘attention’ • Children may stop speaking their Dialect after pre-school (often reported in Limburg)
Experimental Studies • The acquisition of Dutch vocabulary by monolingual and bidialectal children in Limburg. Francot, Van den Heuij, Blom, Heeringa & Cornips (2017). • Thanks to the NWO VIDI project of Elma Blom, and for Limburg financial support by University Fund Limburg, chair Languageculture in Limburg (UM)
Experimental studies Thanks to Elma Blom and co-authors • All children, parents, and schools • Kirsten van den Heuij (Limburgish data) • NWO (Vidi and Aspasia grants awarded to Elma Blom) • Province of Fryslân, Raod veur ‘t Limburgs, SWOL Maastricht University/Chair Language Culture in Limburg of Leonie Cornips 37
Experimental Studies 128 children between 5 and 9 years old in (small area in) Limburg • Trained research assistants fluent in Dialect tested each child individually at their schools • a newly-developed Limburgish Dialect Word production Task (LWT). • The Questionnaire for Parents of Bilingual Children (Pa. Bi. Q, COST Action IS 0804, Tuller 2015) was administered during a telephone interview with the child’s caregiver in their preferred language.
Experimental Studies Limburgish Word Task (LWT): • 30 different images of everyday objects for children and well-known animals • Dutch /vɔrk/ ‘fork’ Dialect /vəʁʃɪt/ • Dutch /lysifɛrs/ ‘matches’ Dialect /ʃʋɛ: ɣələ/. • Each image was presented to the child asking her in Dialect to name the object in Dialect only. /vɔrk/ – /vəʁʃɪt/ lysifɛrs– ʃʋɛ: ɣələ/
Experimental Studies Results I: Limburgish Word Task (LWT): Proportion Dialect responses is low with a mean of. 24 N Age in years SESa Proportion of dialect responses LWTb PPVT-NLc M 128 109 128 125 6. 75 6. 83. 24 106. 34 SD 1. 03 1. 60. 18 10. 56 Range (Min – Max) 4. 50 - 9. 33 1 - 9. 00 -. 77 79 - 134
Experimental Studies Limburgish Word Task (LWT): • Result II: Most items show varying responses between the targeted Dutch and the targeted Dialect responses. Rabbit: Dutch konijn /konɛin/ Dialect knien /kniːn/ In-between konien /koniːn/ • Result III: Each child was closer to target standard Dutch in her responses than to target Dialect responses.
Limburgish Word Task (LWT)
Experimental Studies Results IV: (Levenshtein distance) • The two curves show an almost perfect speaker continuum. Neither of these graphs demonstrates a clear cut-off point that can be used to logically divide the 128 children into groups L 1=Dutch or L 1=Dialect based on the distance from the reference language.
Experimental Studies Results I, III, IV: Limburgish Word Task (LWT) 1. The children hardly produced Dialect (task was in Dialect) 2. The children produced much more targeted Dutch responses than targeted Dialect 3. The results reveal extensive variation across vocabulary items 4. The results reveal extensive variation across children • Impossible to draw a clear distinction between the L 1/2 L 1 Dialect and L 1 Dutch children -> Due to diaglossic speech repertoire and….
Experimental Studies: Conclusions • Social meaning language choice in Limburg: • Dialect co-constructs informality and shareness between locals • Dutch co-constructs instruction, Dutch means ‘pay attention’, Dutch is communication between non-locals, Dutch in educational context, hence formality and hierarchy • Social meaning in Limburg clashes with experimental methodologies (formal, pay attention, instruction, non-local) eliciting Dialect (informal, ignoring, equalness, local) • Other experimental methodologies needed to raise Dialect production and targeted Dialect responses!
Experimental Studies Questionnaire for Parents of Bilingual Children (Pa. Bi. Q, COST Action IS 0804, Tuller 2015)
Parental questionnaire: Cognitive effects of bidialectism/bilingualism Participants N NVIQ SES Girls/boys 44 Age in months 82 (7) Dutch 107 (15) 6. 56 (1. 94) 20/24 Frisian 44 82 (6) 107 (15) 6. 73 (1. 28) 20/24 Limburgish 44 84 (6) 108 (13) 6. 72 (1. 93) 20/24 Polish 44 82 (7) 108. 5 (13) 7. 28 (1. 40) 22/22 • Matched on age, general intelligence, SES and gender • Bilingual groups: at least one parent spoke the non-Dutch language with the child • Bilingual proficiency: good command of Dutch – variation in command of other language 47
Questionnaire for Parents of Bilingual Children (Pa. Bi. Q, COST Action IS 0804, Tuller 2015) • The Frisian parents indicated quite similar skills in both languages (Frisian: t(43) = -. 78, p =. 44) • The Limburgish parents reported that their children’s skills in Dutch were better than in Dialect (Limburgish) (t(40) = -6. 06, p <. 001). • How come? Possible explanations: • Differences in social meaning of language choice, Different speech repertoires
Questionnaire for Parents of Bilingual Children (Pa. Bi. Q, COST Action IS 0804, Tuller 2015) • Social meaning: Frisian is taught in schools, instruction in and about Frisian in Frisian, Frisian used for group communication. • More equal or inequal status of the minority language influences parental reports on child’s skills in the minority language. • Higher evaluation Frisian skills, lower evaluation Limburgish skills • Diaglossic repertoire in Limburg • Monolingual use of Frisian and Dutch reported. • See Twitter (Nguyen et al. 2015)
Conclusion I • Diaglossic linguistic repertoire in Limburg: • Speakers switch without effort between Standard and Dialect • Speakers produce intermediate forms between Standard and Dialect • No clear-cut distinction between L 1 Dutch and L 1 Dialect children.
Conclusion II Social meaning of bidialectism depends on where you are (Friesland, Limburg, etc): • Where influences how, why and the extent to which children switch between • dialect and standard and in-between in daily practices • social meaning of language choice • child’s active or passive knowledge and usage of dialect • Code-switching has social meaning worked out locally (communities) which is beyond reflection of the speakers -> clashes with questionnaires
Conclusion III We need to enhance experimental designs and questionnaires in hierarchical dialect-standard speech repertoires to do justice to and enhance full awareness and understanding of the complexities Dialect speaking children encounter in a standardized world (nation-state).
Thank you! Questions!
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Social meaning of Standard-Dialect choice Effects of pre-school language socialization which is a common complaint: A parent: “Ons ouder kind weigert sinds de peuterspeelzaal Limburgs te spreken, ook al houden we thuis Limburgs aan. We blijven wel gewoon in Limburgs antwoorden, dan gaat het vanzelf wel over. ” Our older child has refused to speak Limburgish since the pre-school playground, even though we stick to Limburgish at home. We will keep on sticking to Limburgish, then it will be solved after a while. (Morillo Morales 2017)
Tasks: Verbal Working Memory, Visuo. Spatial Working Memory, Inhibition 3 6 2 9 57
Labelling on basis of home languages? child n=30 in HEERLEN Cornips & Hulk 2006 n=2 n=6 n=8 n=1 n=4 n=9 child speaks dialect NO NO YES NO mother speaks dialect in home NO YES YES NO mothers speaks dialect to child NO NO YES YES NO grandparents dialect to child YES YES - YES NO role relations in the home domain
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