B.12 Everyday bilingualism. Finno-Ugric languages and practice – theoretical approach and applied linguistics / Двуязычие в повседневной жизни: проблемы теоретической и прикладной лингвистики в изучении финно-угорских языков
Organizers: Zsuzsa Salánki, Beatrix Oszkó, Natalia Kondratieva
Thursday, August 25, Department of African Studies (Afrikanistik)
10:00–10:30
Gergely M. Antal:
Angol jövevényszavak hangtani vonatkozásai a permi nyelvekben az orosz–permi kétnyelvüség tükrében
English language as a global source of new lexica has been a strong influencer on other languages of the world. Several studies have been concerning this issue, however a very barely observed and fresh field of study is the question how does this global tendency effect Permic (Komi-Permyak, Komi-Zyrian, Udmurt) languages. In this study I would like to focus on phonological and orthographical issues in terms of transcription and transliteration in Komi languages and Udmurt from the perspective of Permic–Russian bilingualism.For a long time in Permic–Russian contacts, words which have a final English source used to be only borrowing via Russian. These first words which can be traced back to English roots may have arrived in the late 19th century in Komi and early 20th century in Udmurt, but slightly gained popularity during the 1920’s and 1930’s with new technological, industrial expressions in the changing urban lifestyle of the early Soviet Union, such as вокзал, комбайн, трамвай, футбол or спорт. Since then the 1960’s and 1970’s also took some new lexemes into account, and more recently the 1990’s and the beginning of the 21th century, these Anglo-Russian terms entered many parts of the vernacular language up until now.
Our hypothesis is that the competence of English is becoming more common among bilingual Permic–Russian younger speakers today while elder generations may acquire new, English-originated terms via Russian. What kind of phonetic changes, sound replacements or systematic / spontaneous solutions occur during this process? Are new words borrowed via Russian or directly from English? How big role the strong Russian knowledge plays in this whole process?
According to these circumstances, we need to form different categories of these borrowings regarding 1) the way of borrowing, 2) the method of adaptation (transliteration, transcription or mixed of both), 3) the function of loans (prestige, fashion, temporal occurrences, etc). The sources of this study are the available existing materials which varies from archived and modern dictionaries to the latest online texts and post / comments on social media as these latter are mainly based on spoken language and tend to have more fashionable ways of vocabulary, for example челендж, фейсбук, смартфон or сельфи. The actuality of this study is the practical aspect of how English loanwords are regarded in the longer run for the future of Permian languages.
10:30–11:00
István Kozmács:
Translingual Udmurt Texts
Translingualism is well observed phenomenon in the blog posts of Udmurt youth. The presentation shows how young speakers incorporate Russian elemenst into their texts. I argue that using the translingual teaching method might help preserve the Udmurt language.
Sources
García, Ofelia. 2009. Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21. century. In: Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove – Phillipson, Robert – Mohanty, Ajit K. – Panda, Minati (eds.) Social justice through multilingual education. Multilingual Matters. Cromwell. 140–158.
Lagabaster, David; García, Ofelia (2014). Translanguaging: Towards a dynamic model of bilingualism at school. Cultura y Educación. 26 (3): 557–572.
Wei, Li 2018. Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics 39(1): 9–30.
11:00–11:30
Beatrix Oszkó & Larisa Ponomareva:
Linguistic landscape, education, bilingualism
One of the most important factors of language maintenance is using the language in every day situations such as in schools (cf. Skutnabb-Kangas – May 2016).
Our study deals with the present-day situation of bilingualism of Komi-Permyak people - a Finno-Ugric speech community, in the territory of Perm Krai, Russia.
Our ongoing research focuses on two different topics: the linguistic landscape (schoolscape) and the language use in school.
We attest the presence of Komi-Permyak and Russian language in the linguistic landscape of Kudymkar and in a village, Antipino. Antipino is 36 km east of Kudymkar, the number of habitants is 371 (according to the 2010 census). The Elementary School of Antipino has 19 pupils. The constitution of the territory (Permskiy Kray) guarantees the right to study the mother tongue (cf The Statute of Permskiy Kray; article 42.). The students of the elementary have 3 hours/lessons per week in Komi-Permyak as a non compulsory object.
In our presentation we describe
- the distribution of nationalities in the village and in the school
- the proportion of Russian/Komi-Permyak language at the school (in and of classes)
- how the teachers can use the minority language
- what is the motivation of parents when they choose or reject the non compulsory lessons for their child.
The presentation is based on fieldwork material collected by the authors: interviews with teachers and questionnnaire. The preliminary results show that the use of Komi-Permyak at home and at the school correlates.
11:30–12:00
Zsuzsa Salánki, Natalia Kondrateva & Beatrix Oszkó:
К вопросу о лингвистической типологии переключения кода в условиях билингвизма (на материале финно-угорских языков России)
The goal of our presentation is to provide an overall picture of the different types of code switching which are widespread and general among Finno-Ugric – especially Volgaic and Permic – languages in Russia due to extensive Russian– Finno-Ugric bilingualism on a social level.
We apply structural approach to examine occurrences of code switching particularly focusing on morphological and morphosyntactic levels in sentences. We interpret code switching in a broad sense like the simultaneous use by bilinguals of two or more languages in the same conversation. We can observe code switching on any level of language. In this presentation we focus on the adaptation of the bases of notional parts of speech, more precisely from nouns, adjectives, numerals, namely nominals to the grammar of the given languages. In terms of syntactic interference, the following transformations are singled out: 1) minus-segmentation, i. e. the number of elements in the recipient language reduces due to the influence of corresponding models in the donor language; 2) plus-segmentation, i.e. the number of elements in the recipient language increasing due to the influence of the distributive rules of the donor language; 3) replacing, i.e. the elements of the recipient language are rearranged under the influence of the rules of the donor language.
When comparing the different Finno-Ugric–Russian code switching we can observe several parallel features according to the typological differences between the majority and minority languages in contact. As a result, the synthetic classification of every similar/parallel code switching features from an applied perspective has a distinctive practical significance. It is a well-known fact that linguistics consider code switching a natural element of speech of the bilingual community, although speakers still stigmatise code switching. Furthermore, it is a common belief among bilingual Finno-Ugric societies that code switching is unnatural and non-acceptable. We suppose that among other factors, this opinion also contributes to the decline of minority language use. In addition to this, not only loanwords or phraseological borrowings in the examined topics of speech in the target languages, but structures following the morphological / syntactic rules of the majority language cannot be avoided. However, these latter segments are not conspicuous but very phenomenal to speakers and as it is a stigmatised form of communication, it ultimately leads to the elimination of minority language communication. By an overall classification we can explain how many of these features of code switching between Finno-Ugric and Russian languages are universal. Based on this study, we can conclude concrete methodological suggestions about language acquisition and amelioration for native language teachers and parents with bilingual children.
13:30–14:00
Ildikó Vančo:
The relationship between different types of bilingual education and identity
Language plays a different role in preserving the identity of minorities in different parts of the world. However, the relationship between language and identity exists for all nations and minorities. In many situations, as a language disappears, both the minority and the culture using it disappear. In every case, from the point of view of the maintenance of language and culture, the political and linguistic aspirations of the ruling majority create a social situation in which the value and prestige of a language in the language market is determined and appreciated or devalued.
Identification of linguistic and national minorities is based on the definition of segregation and differentiation from the majority. At the same time, coexistence with the majority is both inevitable and vital.
Language is central to the establishment and maintenance of states, both for the ethnic majority and for the ethnic minority, and so is a political and educational issue. The basic dilemma of minority education policy within the majority framework is separation and integration, both in terms of how and to what extent.
In other words, how and to what extent a minority should be separated from the majority, and how and how to find values that connect the majority. It is in the individual's interest to acquire a language of the highest prestige from the point of view of social prestige, while maintaining the language is the most important goal for the community. When, due to the unequal distribution of power, linguistic inequalities in language exchange (ie, more texts and documents are created and published in the state language than in minority languages), the individual tends to make decisions based on his or her own interests rather than those of the community.
During the coexistence of a minority and a majority, the issue of bilingualism, ie the teaching the language of the majority (in most cases the state language) and how to teach the minority language for survival is inevitable.
In my presentation I introduce bilingual education models in education, analyzing the effects of certain models on the preservation of language and identity.
14:00–14:30
Valej Kelmakov:
Роль диглоссии в истории формирования лексики удмуртского литературного языка
1. The conditions for the emergence and formation of the Udmurt literary language appeared only in the XVIII century in connection with the creation of a number of important philological works, in particular, with the publication of the first Udmurt language grammar in 1775. It was the work that laid the foundations phonetic-graphic, grammatical and to some extent lexical norms of the literary language.
2. The first large printed texts (translations of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, the first two ABCs) in the Udmurt language appeared in 1847 in two dialects Glazov (glaz.) and Sarapul (sar.)), however, the creators of these books made attempts to “unify” the languages of these publications what lexis concerns. They used to apply correspondent forms to specific words of one dialect taken from another dialect. Ex.: glaz. курамъ-бере Мумизэ Солэнъ ~ sar. курамъ бере Анайзэ (glaz. Мумизэ) Солэсь ’по обрученiи Матери Его’ ’on the engagement of his mother’; and etc.
3. Such inclusion of foreign-language and other dialects lexical units into written texts continued throughout the history of the Udmurt literary language, although the functions of diglossia elements at various stages of its development underwent not serious changes.
3.1. During the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries the parallel use of dialectal both of the Udmurt origin and borrowed, performed two interrelated functions: 1) the function of understanding: published texts appeared to be understandable for people speaking different dialects; 2) the function of enrichment: literary language gradually became enriched with synonyms what made original lexical resources of the Udmurt language and borrowed words be more actively used. Ex.: (southern) Усьтэтъёстэк тунгонъёсыз эн усья (northern куличьёстэк [< rus.] замокъёсыз [< rus.] эн усья!) ’Безъ ключей замковъ не отпирай!’ (1889) ’Use keys to unlock the door’; öд (southern) чырдэ (in parenthesis: (northern) лыдюе) ама? ’разве вы не читали?’ (1904) ’haven’t read it?’; and etc.
3.2. Above mentioned inclusion of correspondences has two aims: 1) to explain the still unusual and not understandable neologisms, which were issued in a large number recently, for example: (from the «Udmurt dunn’e» newspaper) огаз вотэс-бамын (сай-тын) ’на одном из сайтов’ ’on one of the sites’; and etc; 2) to identify specific words taken from the lexis of different branches of our life what are not well understood by readers who are not fluent in the Udmurt language, for example: (from the «Udmurt dunn’e» newspaper) Атасгурюон (боярышник) вирзüбетэз тупатэ. ’Боярышник регулирует кровяное давление’ ‘Hawthorn regulates blood pressure’.
4. Words borrowed from Iranian, Turkic, Russian, Arabic, Western European and other languages were and are the most important arsenal for enriching lexical synonymy (and thereby improving the style) of the Udmurt literary language throughout its entire history.
14:30–15:00
Ludmila Kirillova & Aino Kirillova:
Визуализация удмуртского языка в городской и сельской эпиграфике (на материалие лингвистических данных городов Удмуртской Республики)
The language of the city, which is a complex cooperation of different linguistic components (the living speech of townspeople and urban epigraphy), is the subject of special fundamental research in modern linguistics. This phenomenon is traditionally studied not only in linguistic proper, but also in sociolinguistic, communicative, semiotic and linguocultural aspects within the framework of the anthropocentric paradigm. The main goal of our research is to study the visualization features of the Udmurt language in cities and rural areas of the Udmurt Republic.
An analysis of micro-toponims in the city language reveals that the names of signboard show the social, economic, cultural and political changes that take place in society, moreover, they are related to linguoecological issues and language policy. In particular, the appearance of signboards on two state languages of the Udmurt Republic in most cities became the result of work of the Republican terminography and spelling commission on the Udmurt language (resolution 103/316 of November 13, 1995 and decree No. 148 of December 8, 2015).
The development of bilingual epigraphy leds to the emergence of language options, for example: эмъюмни ~ эмъюм инты ʻaptekaʼ; сиськонни ~ сиськон инты ‘dining room’. Unfortunately, there are cases of wrong translation of signboards. So, the most frequent errors are wrong using of declensional formants -лэн ~ -ысь; matching the main word with dependent components; a order of words and etc. The linguistic face of the cities of the Udmurt Republic are poorly studied nowadays. Meanwhile, the research of the dynamics of language processes in the visualization of the Udmurt language will allow to determine the strategy of the language policy in the country.