Search

This study examines young speakers' language use in the bidialectal context of Cyprus. It focuses on children's language use of their two language varieties, namely Standard Modern Greek and Cypriot Greek, and how they are being socialised to use these two varieties in the classroom environment and at home. The data collected from kindergarten formal education and the home environment via observations and voice recordings suggest that children socialise in their activities by making use of both varieties and their decisive factor in terms of favouring one more than the other is not merely space (class versus home) but also the topics involved in the interaction and the values attached to these which seem to be expressed via habitual linguistic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines young speakers' language use in the bidialectal context of Cyprus. It focuses on children's language use of their two language varieties, namely Standard Modern Greek and Cypriot Greek, and how they are being socialised to use these two varieties in the classroom environment and at home. The data collected from kindergarten formal education and the home environment via observations and voice recordings suggest that children socialise in their activities by making use of both varieties and their decisive factor in terms of favouring one more than the other is not merely space (class versus home) but also the topics involved in the interaction and the values attached to these which seem to be expressed via habitual linguistic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complex notion of the public/private distinction of social spheres has not been systematically investigated in sociolinguistics; particularly in the case of bidialectal kindergarten age children and how they construct their social lives around this distinction in a public environment such as that of school. No simple continuum can clearly illustrate the distinction between public and private since the dividing line between the two is discursively renegotiated and recreated. Hence, the distinction between the two is normally characterised by fluidity rather than stability. This is the case in educational settings where it is firmly institutionalised. In this study, the public/private distinction is analysed as a communicative phenomenon in kindergarten children's linguistic practices in two varieties. The data illustrate that young children separate their social spheres into 'public' and 'private' by skilfully employing linguistic variation. That said, the distinction children make between the two spheres is not always predictable, not only due to the instability in the boundaries that separate one sphere from the other but also due to differences in speakers' linguistic ideologies regarding the use of specific varieties in certain communicative practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study compares teachers’ language use and covert language attitudes in primary and secondary state education in Cyprus. The Ministry of Education and Culture encourages the systematic use of Standard Modern Greek in the formal learning environment of the classroom. Yet, our class observations and teacher interviews demonstrate that the Greek Cypriot Dialect cannot be absolutely eliminated from teachers’ language practices. The findings surfacing from the study illustrate a complex and multidimensional conflict between the two language varieties, where the dialect is used vis-à-vis the standard to different extents depending on the occasion of communication in the classroom, teacher''s dialect and their covert language attitudes. Despite their differing language attitudes and language use, teachers in primary and secondary school settings commonly employ various correction techniques to promote use of more acrolectal variants in ‘standard-dominated’ occasions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study investigates language use and language attitudes in state kindergarten education in Cyprus. Kindergarten education is the primary setting where Greek-Cypriots learn to employ the standard variety on a systematic basis. Consequently, the context of kindergarten education is a principal setting for examining language attitudes and language variation. Specifically, this study examines whether teachers' ambiguities regarding language use exist in kindergarten education as in other levels of formal education and whether at the age of kindergarten education children's language attitudes towards the standard and non-standard varieties begin to develop. The data gathered via class observations and teacher interviews suggest that teacher ambiguities do seem to exist in relation to the use of the two varieties in the classroom and children do distinguish between the two language varieties, as they employ these on different speaking occasions in the classroom with their peers and teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]