Educational Sociolinguistics

Can Language APP Save the Disappearing Indigenous Languages？

Shuhang Li

“Where in the world do you learn Chinese in Cantonese?” The Secretary for Education of Hong Kong, China said that if we learn Chinese in Cantonese in the long run, we need to study whether we will lose the advantage of Hong Kong. The language learning application Duolingo offers courses in Navajo and Hawaiian, but in fact, the number of people who speak these two languages may not reach 30000, which is less advantageous.
Myra Awodey, the chief community expert of Duolingo, admitted that the company had predicted that this was not a profitable project, but she said: “This is just something we feel we must do.” This cheap learning platform has more than 33040 users, and all of them attend free courses. It is hoped that its unique position in the language learning community “can not only protect the endangered language but also make the language spread.” Awodey means that although Duolingo usually offers widely used language courses, it has also received requests for minority language courses. Duolingo’s website shows that more than 20000 users are interested in learning Hawaiian.
The Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in 1893, and the use of the Hawaiian language for teaching and learning was banned in 1896. The number of Hawaiian language users declined sharply. Hawaiian was not recognized as the official language of Hawaii until the Constitution of Hawaii was amended in 1978. In the 1980s, the state’s education department established the Hawaiian Research Program and the Hawaiian Language Experience Program. The University of Hawaii also opened related degrees, reopened schools that teach Hawaiian, and established a non-profit organization ‘AhaP ū Nana Leo to revive and spread the language. However, according to a state report in 2020, Hawaiian is still the fifth largest language in the local area except for English, and only 18610 people can speak Hawaiian. The content of the Duolingo Hawaiian language course is developed with the help of Kamehameha Schools, a Hawaiian school network dedicated to developing the Hawaiian alpine ethnic education system.
K, Vice President of Community Engagement Resources, Kamehameha Schools āʻ Eo Duarte said: “The foundation of our ancestors’ adoption of new printing technology in the 19th century ʻō lelo Hawai ʻ I Bring it into this platform, so that traditional skills, literature, and history can be inherited. ” Ekela Kaniaupio Crozier, a member of the development team of the course, has 40 years of Hawaiian language teaching experience. She said: “People always think local people will like and support Hawaiian. The reality is that prejudice still exists, and people still think that learning Hawaiian is a waste of time today.” She added: “Just like using English in Hawaii, we also hope to see the Hawaiian language widely used. Indeed, it is the official language of the state and should have equal status.” Kaniaupio Crozier specifically mentioned that the primary target of the course is Hawaiian aborigines. She thinks it is particularly important for local people to learn their language first: “This is mainly to help us learn our language first, let it return to the owner (Hawaiian)’s heart, and share it.”
The situation of language disappearance and culture disappearance is more serious. It is estimated that 1500 people are transferred to the area in San Juan County, Utah to learn Navajo in an old way. Clayton Long, an educator in Duolingo, spent his childhood in the Navajo culture of the mountain people in the southwest of the United States, hoping that Navajo can be passed on and that hundreds of thousands of young people can get in touch with it through game oriented applications, He said: “We are at a critical moment. If we do not attract any children who want to learn or should learn, we will lose a lot… When you lose a language, you will lose a culture.”
Duolingo has been used to save a language facing extinction. In 2014, Duolingo included Irish Gaelic in the platform for the first time. When the Irish language course was launched in 2014, it was estimated that only 100000 people were parents’ language users. Today, 4 million people have used the application to learn this language. This feat won the public thanks of the Irish President in 2016. If this effort continues, the revival of Navajo and Hawaiian languages is promising.

Questions:
1. What do you think of the way to publicize the vanishing indigenous languages? What are the advantages and disadvantages? (feel free to share your opinions)
2. How to arouse people’s awareness of the protection of indigenous languages of ethnic minorities? You can choose one from school, family, society, and other aspects to talk about (if you want to say more, that would be great!)

References:

Galla, C. K. (2018). Digital realities of indigenous language revitalization: a look at Hawaiian language technology in the modern world. Language and Literacy, 20(3), 100–120. https://doi.org/10.20360/langandlit29412

Josep, C. (2015). Language revitalization from the ground up promoting Yucatec maya on facebook. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 36(3), 284–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2014.921184

Language Policy and Planning: Words and Actions

Martina Boi

Some time ago I found myself typing on the Google search bar “Italian language policy”, but I noticed that the results that I could find were very very few. I opened every single page, I changed the key words, I tried different word (and languages!) combinations many times, but it didn’t help. I could have kept trying as much as I wanted but the reality (which I only discovered later) was simply that an Italian language policy doesn’t exist – the only case dates back to the Fascist era, after which there was no longer a real interest in issues related to the Italian linguistic heritage. Apparently, dealing with linguistic issues is not among the State’s priorities, which is the reason why the fate of Italian and the other languages and dialects spoken in Italy are in the hands of the single regions and of the European Union.

In fact, the Council of Europe has been quite active for what concerns the interventions for the protection and promotion of European minority languages. In 1992, an international treaty was concluded in Strasburg – the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The Charter aims to promote the use of minority languages, in order to safeguard European cultural heritage, identities and traditions, as well as the respect of the will of individuals to be able to use these languages in their daily public and private activities. In June 2000 Italy signed the Charter BUT, more than twenty years later, the country has not ratified the Charter yet. The States that have signed and ratified the Charter committed to, among other things, adopt efficient solutions to promote their minority languages, to foster and encourage their (written and spoken) use in the public and private life and to make available adequate forms and means of education at all levels. Apparently, Italy has never been ready to or interested in working in this direction, which is the reason why in 2014 the State received a formal sanction from the Council of Europe, which sent a document with which they severely condemned the Italian immobilism (Corongiu, 2014).

What are the reasons for this non-fulfilment? The Parliament continues not to express its view on the issue, and in the meanwhile languages and identities die. Perhaps it is, like always, a matter of power whereby the strongest wins while the rest is forgotten. After all, with the spending review of Monti government a distinction was made between languages protected by international agreements and considered “national minorities” and languages “without a State”. The first ones are languages spoken by communities that can be associated with actual States: in North Italy languages like German, Slovenian and French are spoken alongside Italian, and in these cases language retention is supported by factors such as institutional support and the power and prestige of the languages in question (Van Herk, 2018). On the other hand, other languages are simply recognized as “minority languages” (and thus are given less attention) because they cannot be associated with any sovereign State (Sardinia is an example). Of course, such a differentiated treatment expressed by this spending review has had consequences for education. Education is one of the main means through which promoting and valuing the use of a certain language, but when the resources to do so are limited, the possibility for that language to keep thriving are constrained as well.

What we can see here is that while many interesting projects have been made and signed (on paper), actual interventions and actions are rarely concretely realized. When minority languages do not have the support of a State apparatus, it must be the speakers of those languages themselves the ones who assert their desire to make their voice heard, it must be them the first ones who strongly believe in the value of their language and identity by working for a change that takes form in their everyday lives action after action, word after word. It is here that we see the importance of family language policies, and of the consequent linguistic behaviors that could arise from these policies (Fogle & King, 2013). As we see from Van Herk (2018), the status and shape of a language can be affected not only by governments and big institutions, but also by education (when the possibility is given to it) and by single individuals. And, importantly, language planning effectively works only if a plan is actually implemented with concrete interventions after a theoretical elaboration has been developed (Van Herk, 2018).

While all these points seem to make sense, I wonder: can the desires and actions of single individuals promote a real change when it comes to language use and revitalization or are these actions effective only when appropriately supported by governments and institutions? There’s a lot to think about.

References
Corongiu, G. (2014, February 23). La mancata ratifica della Carta rivela le “scorrettezze” del Belpaese L’Europa e il sardo: cartellino giallo per l’Italia. Forma Paris. https://web.archive.org/web/20140302071825/http:/www.formaparis.com/blog/la-mancata-ratifica-della-carta-rivela-le-%E2%80%9Cscorrettezze%E2%80%9D-del-belpaese-leuropa-e-il-sardo-cartel

Chart of signatures and ratifications of Treaty 148. Council of Europe. https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=signatures-by-treaty&treatynum=148

Fogle, L. W., & King, K. (2013). Child agency and language policy in transnational families. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 19(0), 1–26.

Text of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Council of Europe. https://www.coe.int/en/web/european-charter-regional-or-minority-languages/text-of-the-charter

Van Herk, G. (2018). Language as a Social Entity. In Van Herk, G. (Ed.), What is sociolinguistics? (pp. 187-202). 2e Chichester, West Sussex, UK:Wiley-Blackwell.

Do I have a strong accent? What does it really mean to “have an accent”?

By Rebecca Lin

As an immigrant in Canada, one question that I’d always ponder is that “How do I know where this person is from if he/she doesn’t have an accent?” Here’s the real question: What does it mean to “have an accent”? Are we assuming that certain accents are more superior than others? Or do we have a standard accent, and any other pronunciation methods would be considered as “foreign”?

Back home in Taiwan, the English education is usually delivered in an American context, so it’s natural for Taiwanese students to assume that the standard pronunciation is what they have been taught in school – the American accent. However, people also find the British accent quite elegant, I recall when Harry Potter became a fad in Taiwan, which was when I was still in primary school, people would intentionally speak in a British manner, some example would be “could you give me a glass of wo-tah (water)?” or “Oh, bloody hell!” Many years later, the BBC series Sherlock Holmes were released, this has took the world by storm, and that also includes Taiwan. Many people start to imitate the way the actors speak in the series, and people generally believe that having a British accent makes you sound more elegant and more sophisticated.

We can totally see a pattern here, in Taiwan, people tend to be drawn to western drama and films, and they would use those sources as their means of learning English, which was inherently a good thing, but then this would also mean that they would feel inferior when they couldn’t speak just like actors on screen or when other people sound more similar to their favourite actors. This phenomenon would only worsen when one move to a new country, even if they speak the language, they would feel out of place because their accents are not “perfect”.

According to research, people see those with accents that are similar to their own more positively than those with different accents (Edwards, 1982; Hurt & Weaver, 1980). Similarity in attitudes and features influences communication processes and perceptions formed, in line with the theoretical position advanced by Rubin (1981) and others (Sunnafrank, 1985). This work develops a three-part topology of accents, consisting of dissimilar, comparable, and nonaccented accents, based on this knowledge. As a result, while accents that are highly dissimilar from standard North American English may lead to less favourable perceptions of sources, accents that are more similar to it (such as the British accent) may lead to less harsh evaluations.
The common accent is referred to as nonaccent. For instance, Tom Brokaw’s middle-plains “newscaster” accent is not an accent. In this regard, we can infer that when someone said “you don’t have an accent”, that usually means that you speak in a way that they are more familiar with.

Questions to consider:
1. Do you think you have a “good accent”? What makes you think that way?

2. How do we change our perception about which accents are better than another?

Edwards, J. R. (1982). Language attitudes and their implications among English speakers. In E. B. Ryan & H. Giles (Eds.), Attitudes toward language variation (pp. 20-33). London: Edward Arnold.

Hurt, H. T. & Weaver, C. H. (1972). Negro dialect, ethno-centricism, and the distortion of information in the communicative process. Central States Speech Journal, 23, 118-125.

Sunnafrank, M. (1985). Attitude similarity and interpersonal attraction during early communicative relationships: A research note on the generalizability of findings to opposite sex relationships. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 49, 73-80.

Expressions in different languages and how to translate them into other languages

Post by Rebecca Lin

The other day I was chatting with my roommate in the kitchen, and he started preparing a tofu dish. Shortly after he finished cooking, another roommate of mine asked him, “can I eat your tofu?”
Upon hearing that, my Chinese roommate and I started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” asked my roommates who don’t understand Chinese.
“Well,” I took a deep breath and held my urge to laugh. “In Mandarin, if you say to another person, especially of another gender, ‘Can I eat your tofu? (我可以吃你的豆腐嗎？wǒ kě yǐ chī nǐ de dòu fǔ má?)’ it means, ‘Can I flirt with you’ or ‘Can I touch you inappropriately’?, it usually has a sexual implication….” I couldn’t finish my sentence, it was too funny for me to explain this, especially to my non-Mandarin speaking roommates.
After my explanation, my roommates suddenly realized why we were laughing. They then asked, “so how are we supposed to ask for another person’s tofu dish without sounding creepy?”

“Well, usually in Mandarin, we would specify the way that the tofu was prepared, for exampled, deep-fried, stir-fry, boil, etc. So the way to not sound inappropriate would be ‘May I try that stir-fry tofu?’ Also, not adding a possessive pronouns would also remove the suggestive meaning, since the expression ‘eat someone’s tofu’, the tofu here would refer to a person’s body, therefore, not specifying whose dish is it would be the perfect way to express your desire to try to dish itself.”

I found it fascinating that a simple phrase about tofu could start a conversation that lasted about 20 minutes. It reminded me of another expression “eat vinegar (吃醋 chī cù)”, which implies jealousy. If you say someone is eating vinegar in Mandarin, it means that this person is jealous, and it usually involves being jealous because the target person is ignoring him/her for someone else. It made me wonder, where did this expression originate?
This tale dates back to the Tang dynasty, when the emperor himself gifted a favoured prime minister with a beautiful young concubine. The jealous wife of the prime minister was well-known for her meddling and henpecking ways. She threatened to drink poison to commit suicide rather than submit to the emperor’s will. This moved the emperor, but he also wanted to test her commitment to her husband. Therefore, he forced the wife’s hand by giving her a vial of poison and threatening her with death if she did not accept the concubine. She consumed the vial without hesitation, only to discover that it contained vinegar. Since then, vinegar consumption has come to symbolize jealousy and envy.

In some cases, like the example of my conversations with my roommates, these kinds of expression could be somehow translated into another language. However, in most cases, these phrases would be extremely hard to translate, and it usually would not make any sense to others who don’t speak the target language. This reminds me that even when certain words are translated, they don’t convey the original meaning perfectly either. Below are some examples of what a Native Chinese Speaker (NCS) and a Native English Speaker (NES) would say, according to Jiang (2000):

Steam bread vs. Hamburger
Noodles vs. Pasta
Jiaozi vs. Dumplings
Congee vs. Porridge
Rice vs. Risotto

As you can see, when certain words are being translated, sometimes it would be altered to something similar but not exactly identical due to localization purposes. Therefore, it would be interesting to observe how certain expression in your first language could be translated into another language.

Jiang, W. (2000). The relationship between culture and language. ELT journal, 54(4), 328-334.

Football or soccer? The dominant language of the FIFA World Cup

by Ali El Mahmoud

It is the world cup fever. Billions worldwide are watching the games, supporting their teams, and participating in heated discussions with family and friends to share their football expertise.

Soccer unites the world, or is it football? Former players David Beckham and Peyton Manning’s humorous debate over the differences between British and American Englishes is one of the interesting linguistic points that was highlighted by Lays in their viral commercial.

Whether it is a pair of cleats or a pair of shoes, chips or crisps, trophies or souvenirs, it is still considered English, right? Of course, there are many varieties of English around the world, but Lays will not focus on Australian, Indian, or Jamaican Englishes for instance, at least not in this ad.

The question that occurred to me while watching the FIFA World Cup games is how do all these teams communicate during the competition? (FIFA stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association. In English, it is the International Federation of Association Football).

The situation is two teams who do not likely speak the same language have to face each other and communicate. Sometimes, the players do not share the same language within the same team.

The video below is an intense conversation between a coach and his players. The coach is a native speaker of French, but he speaks English with the players and uses the services of an interpreter.

What I find interesting is why he speaks English but not French. He has access to interpretation services, so why not speak French? Perhaps, some of the players can understand English?

However, all soccer players must, at a certain point, speak with each other and with the game referees. How do they succeed?

Well, they do not, but they try anyway. For instance, any comments said with attitude to the face of the referee in a language he (yes, he, because in most of the cases the referee is a man. Unfortunately, female presence is scarce in the world cup) does not understand, it will cost the player (offender in the referee’s eyes) a red card, which means, he is forced to leave the pitch.

We should know that in most situations, the rules of the game and the referee’s decisions are clearly understood without verbal communication. For example, the use of flags, cards, whistle blows, and hand gestures are enough to deliver the message. Players would know whether the ball is a throw-in, a corner kick, or even a penalty. They do not have to talk to perceive the referee’s decisions, but what if they want to protest and argue?

According to the FIFA website (2022), there are four accepted official languages during the tournaments: French, Spanish, English, and German. In 2022, FIFA added Arabic, Portuguese, and Russian. So, ideally, the referees must be bilingual to accommodate the two teams, but is it always the case?

No, it is not. English is by default the language of soccer (or football if you like).

Baker (2018) noted that in 2014, FIFA investigated a complaint made by the Croatian national team who claimed that the referee in their game against Brazil was speaking Japanese. FIFA denied the claims and defended its decision by saying that all referee workshops are done in English. Therefore, it is impossible that the Japanese official not to speak English with the players. Well, I do not intend to explain to FIFA today that if you understand a language, it does not mean that you can speak it.

In another example, we may wonder what language the referee used in the game between Argentina and Mexico (FIFA World Cup 2022). The referee was Daniele Orsato, an Italian national. He presided over two teams who share the same language, Spanish (The Sun, 2022). Did he speak Spanish? Maybe not. English was the official language of communication even though we may think that it is easier to call up a Spanish-speaking referee for the game, right?

I am not a FIFA expert, but I am trying to raise linguistic questions that I find interesting. For instance, is English undeniably a lingua franca without any competition? If so, why does FIFA have several official languages?

For the teams who come from poor regions of the world, how do you think that they cope with the English-is-a-must reality? Do you think that it is socially just?

References

Baker, A. (2018, June 18). World Cup Mystery Solved: What language do refs and players speak on the field? Yahoo Sports. https://sports.yahoo.com/world-cup-mystery-solved-language-refs-players-speak-field-215143257.html

FIFA. (2022, June 7). Amendments to the FIFA Statutes: new official FIFA languages. https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/1b97a4d37a6cb822/original/Circular-No-1797-Amendments-to-the-FIFA-Statutes-new-official-FIFA-languages_EN.pdf

Terrel, A. (2022, November 26). REF WATCH: Who is Argentina vs Mexico World Cup 2022 referee Daniele Orsato and what controversies has he been involved in? The Sun. https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/6457284/who-is-daniele-orsato-argentina-mexico-referee-world-cup/

Loanwords between English and Chinese

Yi Hu

Before I move on to the topic of this blog, please let me ask you one question first. When you go to the store and want to buy tofu, have you ever thought that the word ‘tofu’ is an original English word or it was borrowed from other language? Actually, this word is a loanword that originates from the Chinese word ‘dòu fu’. We can find many examples like this in our life.

Loanwords are words that are adopted from one language into another with little or no alteration. Borrowing is a consequence of cultural contact between two language communities. Borrowing of words can go in both directions between the two languages in contact, but often there is an asymmetry, such that more words go from one side to the other. The actual process of borrowing is complex and involves many usage events.

In order to study Chinese borrowed words in English vocabulary based on dictionary research, Vice Professor Zeng Tai Yuan of Dong Wu University, Taiwan, gave a close look at Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Fifth Edition) and found out that there were at least about 300 words in English vocabulary borrowed from Chinese (Zeng, 2005). We can see some examples from this site https://www.thoughtco.com/english-words-borrowed-from-chinese-688248 Similarly as English has borrowed lots of words from Chinese, there are many words borrowed from English in Chinese vocabulary, from every aspect of social life. According to Zhang’s (2005) stratified sampling research, English-borrowed words can be divided into 14 groups. From my perspective, one of the reasons why there are loanwords between English and Chinese is due to external factors. To be more specific, they are related to geographical neighbourhood, politics, economy, culture, military, and other activities between different countries.

Language is the key to human communication, and despite the vast differences between world countries and their cultures, their people’s languages have always influenced one another. In my opinion, loanwords have many advantages. They usually seem fashionable and interesting, which can attract Chinese young students deeply and stir up their enthusiasm and motivation in learning English. In addition, the process of borrowing words can be regarded as the process of gaining a better and deeper understanding of each associated country’s cultures, economies, policies, etc.

So, here is the question: as language teachers, how can we help students learn languages better by using loanwords? And do you think there are still disadvantages of loanwords? If so, how could we improve them?

References:

Zeng, T. (2005). Translating Chinese Culture-Specific Words into English–from a Perspective of Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 5th edition. Journal of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, 11, 74-77.

Zhang, P. (2005). Study on English Loan Words in Chinese. Tianjin University of Finance & Economics, 10-15.

Translanguaging: K-pop’s Magic Formula

Sam Lyn

After our group’s presentation in class many of you asked me about Korean pop music (K-pop) and its translanguaging trend, so I decided to gather some thoughts on this subject and put it in this month’s blog.

Trudgill (1997) posits that “Anyone with an interest in… rock and pop songs will have observed that there are ‘rules’ concerning the way in which the words of these songs are pronounced. The label ‘tendencies’ might be more appropriate than ‘rules’…, but… it is clear that singers… employ different accents when singing from when they are speaking, and that deviations from their spoken accents are of a particular and relatively constrained type” (p. 251). Although Trudgill is talking about British pop, the same observation applies to K-pop. Not only do K-pop singers alter their accents, the secret formula of recent success of Korean pop music is in the translanguaging we find in K-pop lyrics.

The formula is simply as follows: English words at key positions inside mostly Korean lyrics. The “key” positions are the first few words, repeating portions of the chorus, beginning and the ends or rap interludes, and the song endings. What this does is it creates a communicative link with the audiences which may or may not speak Korean, and especially non-Korean listeners can hum in at the key sections of the song without needing to understand the rest of the lyrics which are in Korean.

Consider the following lyrics by Aespa for their recent hit, “Girls:”

Oh my gosh!
Don’t you know I’m a savage?

I’m a killa 너를 깰, æ
아직도 가리고 환각을 펼친 너
팰라, we holler
두렵지 않아 너, 너, hit you harder

날 밀어 넣어, deep fake on me
준비가 안된 무대로, 몰아넣어, fake on me
Got everybody mock up to me
수치를 느끼게 멘탈을 흔들어놔
싸늘한 관중 무너져, æ (ooh)
더는 널 못 참아, say no (yeah, yeah)

두고 봐, 난 좀 savage
너의 dirty 한 play, 더는 두고 볼 수 없어
나를 무너뜨리고 싶은
네 환각들이 점점 너를 구축할 이유가 돼

I’m a savage, 널 부셔 깨 줄게, oh
I’m a savage, 널 짓밟아 줄게, oh

Get me, get me now, get me, get me now (zu, zu, zu, zu)
지금 나를 잡아 아님 난 더 savage (zu, zu, zu, zu)
Get me, get me now, get me, get me now (zu, zu, zu, zu)
이젠 내가 너를 잡아, now I’m a savage

(Complete lyrics for the song are found here: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/aespa/savage.html )

The video is highly recommended as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPdWvnAAurg

As you can see, the “formula of success” is fully implemented: first words, chorus, sentence endings, repetitions, etc. are all in English.

Of course, there is more than the language formula to Aespa’s success. The band championed the story – a narrative running through all the texts of their songs – about a parallel world found on the Internet, where all our personal activities create our AI avatars. These avatars gain consciousness of their own as a result of our virtual activities, and they try to communicate with us from their world. However, our negative actions also produce an evil AI called Black Mamba – the nemesis of our avatars who wants to thwart them away from a relationship with us… What a story! You can watch the video introducing this metanarrative here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbH4Lk5wYWg

Another important fact is that one of the band members is Chinese, and another one a Korean raised in Japan. This openness of K-pop bands to international members provides the fans around the world a new incentive: when I was in Korea as an exchange student, it was not uncommon to meet international students who aspired to stardom in K-pop industry.

But let’s return back to the lyrics. Upon careful observation one can discover that the English parts are far from being grammatically perfect. Consider, for example, a refrain from another Aespa’s hit, “Dreams Come True:”

You make it feel me good
Do you wanna upside down?
You make it feel me good
Don’t you wanna up and down?
I’m in twilight zone

(Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H69tJmsgd9I)

Hah? You make it feel me good? I know… I had the same reaction! Hahaha
Despite the flops in grammaticality the songs are immensely popular among East Asian audiences, and now in the West, too. Perhaps, the pidgin-like quality adds a special charm to the songs?

The sociolinguistic effects extend from simple appreciation into the classrooms: Korean classes are immensely popular these days. Before the Korean Wave, university Korean programs struggled to match the popularity of Chinese and Japanese programs. Not anymore! For instance, Korean courses at McGill are full. Certainly, popularity of Korean pop culture extends beyond music into TV series, movies, fashion, etc. But in my opinion, it is this translanguaging quality of K-pop that draws new fans in by feeding them its welcoming lingua franca chunks. The next stage of fandom then becomes the motivation to learn Korean and to dive deeper into the story. What do you think? Did you recently have an aesthetic experience with Korean music? Did it draw you in? Are you on your way to your next Korean class? Or applying for an exchange at a Korean university?

Finally, consider doing the following exercise: watch this new Aespa’s videoclip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYRITmpFbJ4

Do you feel the success formula working its magic inside your mind? Do grammatical mistakes turn you off? What else do you notice?

References

Trudgill, P. (1997). Acts of Conflicting Identity: The Sociolinguistics of British Pop-song Pronunciation. In: Coupland, N., Jaworski, A. (eds). Sociolinguistics. Modern Linguistics Series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25582-5_21

Positive Psychology for Language Learning and Teaching?

Alison D.

The process of language acquisition is full of ups and downs. From the anxiousness and discomfort of being afraid to make mistakes, to the joy of finally understanding the intonation structure of a given language. It is evident that this process is full of emotions and feelings. We can consider all sorts of factors that contribute to the emotions that are present in the general classroom. We can talk about the feelings of engagement and involvement, classroom environment, rapport with teachers, motivation, interest of the content being taught, etc. Though typically, for more positive results in engagement, participation and motivation, students need a safe and empowering place to learn. Thus, a positive environment.

When thinking about a positive classroom environment, the topic of positive psychology always comes to mind. To define it quickly, positive psychology encapsulates the positive feelings and emotions that are present in our lives in order for humans to feel fulfilled, successful and self-actualized (MacIntyre, 2018). That said, does incorporating the approach of positive psychology as a pedagogical approach have the potential to promote feelings of fulfillment, success, and self-actualization from the standpoint of a L2 learner-self? Let’s explore.

As often discussed in the field of second language education and acquisition, the feeling of anxiety is a great barrier for all those involved in the learning process: “language anxiety is a significant concern for teachers, learners, and educational leaders because it affects the quality of teaching, learning, and assessment” (MacIntyre, 2018, p. 8). Since anxiety is largely associated with feelings of fear, this often leads to avoidance behaviour which forces students to disengage and avoid using the target language. The immense space that anxiety takes up in the process of language acquisition can be a driving factor as to why positive psychology has such great potential as a pedagogical tool in the SLE context.

You may be asking yourself exactly how positive psychology can be used and seen in the classroom, especially for language learning. Activities revolving around emotional intelligence is a good place to start. Many SLE researchers argue that language and emotional intelligence should be taught simultaneously. As learners are faced with language anxieties, having the appropriate vocabulary and set of skills to self-regulate and express their feelings can evidently positively impact the outcome of each situation they are placed in. As Dr. Danielle McGraw states, “It’s difficult to understand our emotions when we do not have the language to describe them.” This said, providing second language learners with adequate emotional literacy skills can be a content-based approach to language instruction!

Check out the quick video below for some inspiration from fellow educators as to how they have implemented elements of positive psychology in their classrooms!

Teachers from BYU on positive psychology in the classroom.

Questions:

How can we use positive psychology in the language classroom?

How can PosPsy benefit language learners?

References:

Macintyre, Peter, D.., Gregersen, Tammy, & Mercer, Sarah (2019). Setting an agenda for positive psychology in SLA: Theory, practice, and research. The Modern Language Journal, 103(1), 262–274. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12544

Why do people keep dropping out of the Francization program?

Yurun Zhang

One of the things that most people would do when they arrive in Quebec is to learn French. When I first arrived here, I was really excited to take the free French courses and expected to speak fluent French.

However, my expectations and feelings changed after I stayed in this full immersion program for one year. I felt that the course did meet up my expectation and finally decided to drop out. Apart from me, I also saw many of my classmates drop for different reasons. Generally, there are some reasons for quitting:

Financial assistance for courses is not sufficient for living in Montreal. As their financial needs increased, they needed to start working, even though they haven’t reached the threshold for linguistic autonomy.
The language benchmark needed to obtain Canadian citizenship is proficiency level 4 (d’Haese, 2018).
French is too hard to learn, and people cannot see their progress in French and start to forget English words.
Certain professors treat students impatiently or intentionally target certain students.
People are too busy with school or work, so they have to give up learning French in class.
Some want to have courses but just cannot register because there are no available seats.

Here is a video about one student who dropped out of the francization program and talked about his reasons:

Can those concerns be solved? Probably, learning French during working hours can be a solution. Denis Hamel, vice-president of workforce policy development for the Conseil du patronat du Québec (CPQ), believed that teaching and learning French in the workplace during working hours is the best and most efficient way to learn French.

He said,

“You cannot expect either an immigrant or a Canadian-born person to follow courses in the evening or on a Saturday morning above all the duties we have in our lives.”

Providing opportunities to learn in the work place can solve many of those concerns, such as not having enough financial assistance, no time to learn, and no available seats to register. More flexible learning opportunities can be offered after working hours. Besides, instead of sitting in the classroom for 4 hours every day, some activities can be organized to practice French in real life, so people do not feel tired but still have to sit in class to learn. People can also see the progress of their French when using in real life.

Questions

If you are taking or once took a Francization program, what are the reasons that make you stay or drop out?

How can the Francization program be improved to keep students staying and learning French?

Reference

D’Haese, S. (August 20, 2018). Francization in Laval: The state of the issue. Government of Quebec. https://www.noslangues-ourlanguages.gc.ca/en/blogue-blog/francisation-francization-laval-eng

How the Identity Affected Our L2 Pronunciation?

Shuhang Li

In the 1970s and 1980s, teachers focused on behavioural theory between L1 and L2 in teaching pronunciation in second language acquisition, influenced by behaviorist master theory, and engaged learners in a lot of audiolingual drills, like dictations, repetitions, etc., but little consideration was given to the actual meaning of the content.

Since the 1990s, the goals of instruction seem to have changed. Phonics teachers began to focus on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), not only focusing more on what communicative language means. At the same time, a critical assumption arose in academic field: Biological and maturational constraints affected on adults’ L2 learning. There was a growing belief that there is a critical period for learning L2 in childhood, between the ages of 6 and 7, and that once a person misses the critical period, it is difficult for them to learn as much as they did from the beginning (Critical period: the key period for learners to learn some special skills or behaviours).

So what are the goals of learning to L2 pronunciation, the nativeness principle or the intelligibility principle?

There are many influencing factors, for example: negative transfer from the native language: it is very difficult for a Chinese adult to become a native speaker of English, because the Chinese pinyin is different from IPA in that there are no diphthongs. For example, if the word “down” is not known, most people will pronounce it as “dang”. There are many other effects of negative native language migration, so I will not go into details here. There are also local dialects, emotional factors and so on.

What I am interested in is one of the social factors that influence the L2 pronunciation: identity.

Some L2 learners do not want to sound like native speakers because they are concerned about and want to preserve their L1 identity, such as English speakers with a French or Spanish accent. Others believe that the closer the native speaker is, the more successful their learning will be.

Not only the learners , but also the other people in their social network play a key role. For example, in foreign countries, if a Chinese person’s English pronunciation is too native, he or she is often first recognized by people in his or her language community as being of Chinese descent or as having immigrated many years ago, and is not considered to have received his or her second language education in China. In addition, there is a phenomenon where some of the L1 community around the learner will accuse them of being disloyal to the L1 community by their overly authentic accent, and the L1 community will put pressure on them to assert their support for their national ideology. In such cases, L1 learners are likely to maintain some superficial desire to sound like native speakers, but in most cases they are satisfied with a certain level of pronunciation proficiency to communicate effectively at an understandable global average.

Questions:

Have you ever experienced anything in the above situations? How do you balance the relationship between pronunciation learning objectives and identity?
As a teacher, if you find that your students have such contradictions, how should you help them?

References:

Loewen, S. (2020). Introduction to instructed second language acquisition (Second). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Retrieved 2022, 149-165.

Moedjito, M. (2009). Priorities in english pronunciation teaching in efl classrooms. K@Ta, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.9744/ing.v10i2.16884

Gilakjani, A. P. (2012). The significance of pronunciation in english language teaching. English Language Teaching, 5(4), 96–107. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v5n4p96