The linguistic history of Italian migration to Australia is characterised by long-term evolution involving three different language varieties. The so-called first generation, who arrived in the decades after WWII, today speaks dialect and regional Italian as well as English. Starting from a corpus of semi-structured interviews in Italian with first generation migrants, in this exploratory study we focus on the appearance of specific phonetic features in the speech of a sample of speakers originally from three different regions (Veneto, Tuscany and Sicily respectively) — in order to see if there is any convergence towards a shared local form of Italian, as well as any evidence of attrition or loss due to exposure to English. What emerges is that, after more than half a century in Australia, the Italian spoken by our subjects still presents phonetic features that are known to be characteristic of the same regional varieties as spoken in Italy today. At the same time, there is also limited evidence of phonetic contact effects with English (e.g. the presence of velarized /ɫ/, and post alveolar approximant /ɹ/).
This investigation focuses on the analysis of the vitality of Sardinian varieties in migration contexts and discusses the use of corpus linguistics methodologies to highlight the outcomes of language contact phenomena in the heritage scenarios. Despite the recent interest in the Italian heritage languages, this field of research is still unexplored, due to the lack of data resources available to the scientific community. This contribution intends to provide an in-depth description of the features of Heritage Sardinian, focusing on (i) internal linguistics phenomena, (ii) consequences of language contact, (iii) sociolinguistic layering of Heritage Sardinian; (iv) ideological values concerning Heritage Sardinian maintenance. Finally, this work aims at contributing to the studies of theoretical linguistics focused on Sardinian and at showing the potentialities of corpus methodologies for the study of language contact in migration contexts.
This chapter explores self-reported domains of use and actual instances of code-switching in Italian-based multilingual practices, which I label ‘Italian in Transit’ (IiT). My dataset comprises twenty-three interviews with speakers from sub-Saharan West Africa who learned Italian passing through Italy and occasionally reactivate it working as street vendors in a Berlin park. In Berlin, IiT acquires innovative functions, like being used as a phatic code to attract potential customers. Linguistically, I analyze code-switching in interviewer-directed utterances, excluding translinguistic wordings and culture-specific terms. The normalized frequency of code-switching varies across participants. However, IiT’s permeability for German function word insertions highlights the intense language contact in the park and is explained by IiT’s peculiar status as a minority, but not in-group code in its speakers’ superdiverse repertoires.
The case of Heritage Piedmontese in Argentina has received little attention thus far from the scientific community. Moreover, while most contributions have concentrated either on sociological aspects of language maintenance and language shift or on the outcomes of contact with Spanish, contact between different varieties of Piedmontese in the heritage language scenario has never been investigated. After selecting a number of variables with multiple variants in different dialectological areas of Piedmont, we compared our fieldwork materials with the supposed baseline varieties of each speaker, retrieved through the analysis of autobiographical narratives. The results allow for a preliminary dialectological characterization of Heritage Piedmontese as a variety of High Piedmontese, which also reflects the most numerous social group in demographic data. Typical features of this variety are also displayed by speakers who claim origins from other areas, revealing an incipient stage of dialect Leveling which, due to sociolinguistic causes, has probably not reached the stages of Leveling and focusing that characterize koineization in Peter Trudgill’s theory.
This study examines Italian language maintenance among onward-migrating families from Italy to the UK, focusing on children’s perspectives on how they and their families use Italian in their new environment. In endogamous families, parents primarily communicate in language(s) of their country of origin. Older children, fluent in Italian at the time of migration, play a key role in promoting its maintenance within the family. Italian extends beyond family interactions, used among friends, classmates, and online. For many, Italian represents valuable linguistic capital, with participants opting to study it formally at school and university. This study highlights the active role children play in maintaining Italian as a heritage language in diverse social and educational contexts.
This paper describes the plurilingual repertoires of two Campanian heritage speakers settled in Bedford, England. It focuses on code choice and code-switching between dialect, Italian and English in first and second generation migrants. By comparing the linguistic behaviour of two speakers, Giovanni and Carmela, it attempts to verify whether and to what extent the code choice between Italian, dialect and the dominant language of the society is conditioned by the situation speakers are involved in. In order to do so, the paper inevitably adopts a predominantly qualitative and ethnographic approach. The paper demonstrates how code choice is predominantly conditioned by external parameters and, in particular, by the relationship with the interlocutor, the type of communicative event, the feeling of belonging assigned by speakers and community members to the variety that constitutes the migrants’ repertoire.
The recent influx of Italians in Malta is extraordinary insofar as numbers are concerned, to the extent that today they represent one of the the largest group of non-nationals in gainful occupation on the island. Their engagement within an Anglophone community broadens their linguistic repertoire and this can have long-term benefits, but they also have many opportunities to use their own language, both among other Italians and with the Maltese. In this contribution, based on data collected by means of an online questionnaire completed by 347 Italian nationals who reside, study or work in Malta, I investigate their language use, and I focus on how this is related to other variables including age, occupation, level of education and duration of stay. Results reveal that Italian is used widely, both through face-to-face interactions, social media and by accessing it via the media. Some also use their dialect/regional variety. Nevertheless, English is used extensively too, and could potentially represent a threat to Italian as a heritage language in the future.
This study examines Italian language maintenance among onward-migrating families from Italy to the UK, focusing on children's perspectives on how they and their families use Italian in their new environment. In endogamous families, parents primarily communicate in language(s) of their country of origin. Older children, fluent in Italian at the time of migration, play a key role in promoting its maintenance within the family. Italian extends beyond family interactions, used among friends, classmates, and online. For many, Italian represents valuable linguistic capital, with participants opting to study it formally at school and university. This study highlights the active role children play in maintaining Italian as a heritage language in diverse social and educational contexts.
This investigation focuses on the analysis of the vitality of Sardinian varieties in migration contexts and discusses the use of corpus linguistics methodologies to highlight the outcomes of language contact phenomena in the heritage scenarios. Despite the recent interest in the Italian heritage languages, this field of research is still unexplored, due to the lack of data resources available to the scientific community. This contribution intends to provide an in-depth description of the features of Heritage Sardinian, focusing on (i) internal linguistics phenomena, (ii) consequences of language contact, (iii) sociolinguistic layering of Heritage Sardinian; (iv) ideological values concerning Heritage Sardinian maintenance. Finally, this work aims at contributing to the studies of theoretical linguistics focused on Sardinian and at showing the potentialities of corpus methodologies for the study of language contact in migration contexts.
This chapter explores self-reported domains of use and actual instances of code-switching in Italian-based multilingual practices, which I label 'Italian in Transit' (IiT). My dataset comprises twenty-three interviews with speakers from sub-Saharan West Africa who learned Italian passing through Italy and occasionally reactivate it working as street vendors in a Berlin park. In Berlin, IiT acquires innovative functions, like being used as a phatic code to attract potential customers. Linguistically, I analyze code-switching in interviewer-directed utterances, excluding translinguistic wordings and culture-specific terms. The normalized frequency of code-switching varies across participants. However, IiT's permeability for German function word insertions highlights the intense language contact in the park and is explained by IiT's peculiar status as a minority, but not in-group code in its speakers' superdiverse repertoires.
The recent influx of Italians in Malta is extraordinary insofar as numbers are concerned, to the extent that today they represent one of the the largest group of non-nationals in gainful occupation on the island. Their engagement within an Anglophone community broadens their linguistic repertoire and this can have long-term benefits, but they also have many opportunities to use their own language, both among other Italians and with the Maltese. In this contribution, based on data collected by means of an online questionnaire completed by 347 Italian nationals who reside, study or work in Malta, I investigate their language use, and I focus on how this is related to other variables including age, occupation, level of education and duration of stay. Results reveal that Italian is used widely, both through face-to-face interactions, social media and by accessing it via the media. Some also use their dialect/regional variety. Nevertheless, English is used extensively too, and could potentially represent a threat to Italian as a heritage language in the future.
The case of Heritage Piedmontese in Argentina has received little attention thus far from the scientific community. Moreover, while most contributions have concentrated either on sociological aspects of language maintenance and language shift or on the outcomes of contact with Spanish, contact between different varieties of Piedmontese in the heritage language scenario has never been investigated. After selecting a number of variables with multiple variants in different dialectological areas of Piedmont, we compared our fieldwork materials with the supposed baseline varieties of each speaker, retrieved through the analysis of autobiographical narratives. The results allow for a preliminary dialectological characterization of Heritage Piedmontese as a variety of High Piedmontese, which also reflects the most numerous social group in demographic data. Typical features of this variety are also displayed by speakers who claim origins from other areas, revealing an incipient stage of dialect Leveling which, due to sociolinguistic causes, has probably not reached the stages of Leveling and focusing that characterize koineization in Peter Trudgill's theory.
The present chapter attempts to offer a linguistic biography of two different generations of Italians currently living in Mannheim observing the language contact phenomena emerging from the oral narration of their personal history. The analysis of the spoken language is based on a semi-free corpus of interviews. The interviews lasted 90 minutes and were carried out on 3 participants belonging to the first generation of immigrants in Mannheim since the 1960s and 5 participants belonging to the most recent first generation. This paper evidenced that in the younger first generation, code-switching with German primarily involves the insertion of words and mainly revolves around vocabulary related to specific semantic areas, especially those connected to the workplace.
The present work aims to test the perceptual salience of the aspiration feature produced by a group of Italian-Argentines in their heritage language speech (dialects of the third Calabrian dialectological area). Specifically, the main purpose is to prove whether and to what extent the partial phonetic attrition of VOT values, evidenced for such speakers in their post-sonorant /p t k/ productions, has an impact on the perception of a global foreign accent, based on the judgements/evaluations of Italian native listeners coming from the same dialectological area. Three translated sentences (Italian > dialect) orally produced by nine heritage speakers living in Argentina were used to build a foreign accent rating test, along with the same dialectal sentences produced by a Calabrian control group. The test was carried out by 74 Calabrian listeners and the obtained scores converted into a 6-point Likert scale. Variability in listeners' judgements is then tested assuming VOT durations and migrants' psycho-social profiles as possible covariates. The negative effect of VOT variation on the scores of FAR (Foreign Accent Rating) suggests the phonetic attrition attested for post-sonorant stop aspiration is also perceivable, so confirming the hypothesis of 'perceived attrition' featuring the speech of native Calabrian migrants.
This paper describes the plurilingual repertoires of two Campanian heritage speakers settled in Bedford, England. It focuses on code choice and code-switching between dialect, Italian and English in first and second generation migrants. By comparing the linguistic behaviour of two speakers, Giovanni and Carmela, it attempts to verify whether and to what extent the code choice between Italian, dialect and the dominant language of the society is conditioned by the situation speakers are involved in. In order to do so, the paper inevitably adopts a predominantly qualitative and ethnographic approach. The paper demonstrates how code choice is predominantly conditioned by external parameters and, in particular, by the relationship with the interlocutor, the type of communicative event, the feeling of belonging assigned by speakers and community members to the variety that constitutes the migrants' repertoire.
This study investigates language use and code-switching patterns within a close-knit, village-based Italian community in Bletchley (UK), aiming to understand how these social characteristics shape everyday linguistic practices and to propose a model for the description of a community's average linguistic repertoire. Findings reveal that participants rely on a continuum of linguistic resources that do not necessarily align with separate entities, suggesting that what speakers alternate between are not languages in the strict grammatical sense. The study offers a fresh perspective on describing linguistic repertoires in similar communities, proposing a shift from the conventional notion of discrete language varieties to the more fluid concept of 'medium'. Mediums can be either monolingual or bilingual, with the latter exhibiting varying degrees of mixing depending on several extralinguistic factors. The nature of social networks plays a significant role in shaping the range, characteristics, and intergenerational distribution of the mediums available within a community.
The linguistic history of Italian migration to Australia is characterised by long-term evolution involving three different language varieties. The so-called first generation, who arrived in the decades after WWII, today speaks dialect and regional Italian as well as English. Starting from a corpus of semi-structured interviews in Italian with first generation migrants, in this exploratory study we focus on the appearance of specific phonetic features in the speech of a sample of speakers originally from three different regions (Veneto, Tuscany and Sicily respectively) - in order to see if there is any convergence towards a shared local form of Italian, as well as any evidence of attrition or loss due to exposure to English. What emerges is that, after more than half a century in Australia, the Italian spoken by our subjects still presents phonetic features that are known to be characteristic of the same regional varieties as spoken in Italy today. At the same time, there is also limited evidence of phonetic contact effects with English (e.g. the presence of velarized /l/, and post alveolar approximant /r/).
Cross-module interfaces, such as the syntax-semantics interface, are among the most problematic properties to fully acquire in a second language (L2). First language (L1) monodialectal and bidialectal speakers may show different performances at the interfaces in L2. However, little is known if such a different performance is caused by learners' diverse L1 dialectal backgrounds. The study is motivated by the need to link speech-language pathology and word order typological studies in a bidialectal/bilingual context. The aim is to investigate L1 bidialectism in the L2 syntax-semantics interface acquisition outcome and to separate language difference from language disorder. A sentence-picture matching task on the topic-comment structure was administered among 37 Mandarin monodialectal and 39 Mandarin - Wu bidialectal child speakers. Results of a generalized linear model showed that L1 bidialectals exhibited better syntactic-semantic awareness in L2 than their L1 monodialectal counterparts. The results showed that mono- and bidialectal speakers have different performance patterns at the syntax-semantics interface involving noncanonical word orders for L2. However, the L2 performance was under the impact of language difference between L1 and L2, it does not qualify for Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Finally, the study offers both theoretical and clinical implications for the diagnosis and assessment of bilingual DLD.
African American English (AAE) is among the most studied dialects of American English (Gollan & Ferreira, 2009), and is spoken by most, but not all, African American people in the United States. It is a source of pride and identity within the community, unifying its speakers socially and linguistically. Outside of the community, however, AAE has a long and complicated history that is inexplicably entangled with race politics. By most accounts, AAE is regarded as a low status, stigmatized variety and as such has not been without controversy in social, political and educational circles. Its status, and the often controversial nature of AAE, has significantly impacted attempts to introduce it into educational settings, and has hindered its use by educators and child speakers as an accepted way to bootstrap language and literacy learning. This, despite mounting evidence of the impact of AAE on outcomes of language-supported academic skills, such as reading, writing and spelling (Brown et al., 2015; Craig et al., 2003; Puranik et al., 2020; Thomas-Tate et al., 2004; Thompson et al., 2004; Washington et al., 2019; Washington et al., 2018; Patton-Terry & Connor, 2010; Terry, 2006; Charity et al., 2004). The sections that follow present an overview of the history and origins of AAE, the pitfalls, promises, and potential future directions for the use of AAE in the classroom.
The present study investigates narrative microstructure in the English oral retellings of primary school children from disadvantaged backgrounds in India. For these children, the combination of rich linguistic diversity and English as the medium of instruction is a challenge since exposure to English is almost exclusively in the school context. Measures of microstructure include syntactic complexity and finiteness marking as well-known indices of English language ability. Microstructural properties are examined in relation to literacy performance in order to identify possible links between the two modalities. Participants' language background was included to investigate a possible (dis)advantage associated with minority language speakers exposed to English as the medium of instruction. Our findings suggest that finiteness errors and number of function words are associated with performance on reading comprehension. English input in the classroom selectively predicts performance on complex syntax but not other aspects of microstructure measures. Children speaking minority languages at home are not disadvantaged in their English performance compared to children speaking the majority language (Telugu). Finally, error analysis suggests similarities between types of errors found in other studies of child L2 English. This study sheds light on English L2 narrative skills in a multilingual and underprivileged context with learners exposed to low levels of English language input.
