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The article discusses the debate on the ontological status of creoles and mixed languages by analyzing the Berbice Dutch language formation underlying assumptions of the two-stage genesis scenario proposed by the authors. Topics include differences between traditional languages and contact languages, including pidgins, creoles, and intertwined languages; and consequence of prior pidginhood resulting in a relative lack of grammatical complexity compared to traditional languages.

The author talks about the language styles and style shifting in Creole communities. She discusses the linguistic anthropology-based approaches, the stylistic fabric of one Creole, the Eastern Maroon Creole or Nenge(e) and how and why it has been evolving over time, and stylistic changes and the factors that play a role in the stylistic changes.

The article explores the contribution of Japanese to the formation of seven contact languages including Yokohama Pidgin Japanese; Yilan Creole; and the Ogasawara Mixed Language. Topics discussed include information on the phonological interpretation of the system of transcription used in the few written records of Yokohama Pidgin Japanese; discussions on the inter-speaker variation in the Yokohama Pidgin Japanese.

For a long period in history, the border between Russian Empire and China was a place of constant and intensive cultural and language contacts, which resulted in the emergence of the Russian-Chinese Pidgin. In the 19th century it was used by no less than one million people around the border with China, in an area of more than 3,000 kilometers long. The grammatical analysis of Russian-Chinese Pidgin reveals several features (e.g. using the imperative as a basic verb form), which can be interpreted not only linguistically but sociologically as well, because they are intertwined with the social positions of the contact groups and their attitudes towards each other. Interestingly, features found in the pidgin's grammar have certain parallels in foreigner-directed talk used nowadays by Russian speakers when communicating with Chinese speakers in the border area, which may indicate there are rather stable linguistic stereotypes associated with these contact situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One critical assumption that Salikoko Mufwene (2017) makes about the field of language endangerment and loss is that linguists engaged in language endangerment, documentation and revitalization are concerned with indigenous languages, which naturally leaves out nonindigenous languages. This response concerns itself with addressing this assumption, with a focus on a particular group of nonindigenous languages. It provides insight on the levels of endangerment of pidgins, creoles and mixed languages for which we have information and considers some reasons why it is important to focus on the endangerment and loss of these types of nonindigenous languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomena of pidgin and creole languages have turned out to be significant fertile grounds for research and speculation on the constitution, evolution, and acquisition of language. The purpose of this paper is to examine Derek Bickerton's Language Bioprogramme Hypothesis specifically in the context of the debate between nativist and non-nativist theories on the emergence of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Traces of Portuguese in Afro-Yungueño Spanish?" by Danae M. Perez that was published in the previous issue.

A response from the author of the article "Traces of Portuguese in Afro-Yungueño Spanish?" that was published in the previous issue, is presented.

While bilinguals frequently mix languages in everyday conversation, these hybrid language practices have often been viewed from a deficit perspective, particularly in classroom contexts. However, an emerging literature documents the complexity of hybrid language practices and their usefulness as an academic and social resource for bilingual students. This chapter examines hybrid language practices among English- and Spanish speaking high school students in an astronomy ¡oceanography classroom in southern Arizona. Microethnography, or fine-grained analysis of video recordings from long-term ethnographic observation, is used to reveal what bilingual students accomplished with hybrid language practices in the classroom and to outline implications for teachers who want to engage their students' hybrid repertoires. Specifically, the analyses reveal that careful attention to hybrid language practices can provide teachers with insights into students' academic learning across linguistic codes, their use of language mixing for particular functions, and their beliefs about language and identity. The research is necessarily limited in scope because such in-depth analysis can only be done with a very small amount of data. Nevertheless, the findings affirm that hybrid language practices can enrich classroom discourse, academic learning, and social interaction for emergent bilinguals. The chapter highlights a teacher's story in order to offer practical guidance to other teachers who seek to capitalize on the promise of hybrid language practices in their own classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language contact is a natural and inevitable phenomenon, which is a result of the contacts between nations. The influence of one language to another may result to lexical borrowing due to lexical gaps or because the borrowed word is better to use in order to explain certain phenomenon or object, and so on. Depending of the length and the intensity of the contact among the groups, the type of societies, the ties among them and the functions for which communication is needed; it may bring to forming the so called creole languages, whose basic characteristic is the need for communication among the speakers of different languages. The goal of this paper is to give a short review on the phenomena, which emerge as a result of languages in contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Surinamese creole language Sranan, verbs in finite clauses that lack overt TMA-marking are often considered to be ambiguous between past and present interpretations (depending on the lexical aspect of the verb involved) or analyzed as having a perfective value. We claim that these verbs are in fact zero-marked, and we investigate the various uses of this zero expression in relation to context and lexical aspect on the basis of corpus data and native speaker elicitations. It is shown that existing analyses do not cover and unify all the various uses of the construction. We propose, as an alternative, to regard the zero form as present perfective marker, whereby tense and aspect are conceived of as fundamentally epistemic categories, in line with Langacker (1991). This combination of present tense and perfective aspect, which is regarded as infelicitous in typological studies of tense and aspect (cf. the 'present perfective paradox', Malchukov 2009), gives rise to the various interpretations associated with zero. However, in all of its uses, zero still indicates that, at the most basic level, a situation belongs to the speaker's conception of 'immediate reality' (her domain of 'inclusion'). This basic 'presentness' distinguishes zero from the past-tense marker ben, which implies dissociation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creoles (here including expanded pidgins) are commonly viewed as being more analytic than their lexifiers and other languages in terms of grammatical marking. The purpose of the study reported in this article was to examine the validity of this view by measuring the frequency of analytic (and synthetic) markers in corpora of two different English-lexified creoles - Tok Pisin and Hawai'i Creole - and comparing the quantitative results with those for other language varieties. To measure token frequency, 1,000 randomly selected words in each creole corpus were tagged with regard to word class, and categorized as being analytic, synthetic, both analytic and synthetic, or purely lexical. On this basis, an Analyticity Index and a Syntheticity Index were calculated. These were first compared to indices for other languages and then to L1 varieties of English (e.g. standard British and American English and British dialects) and L2 varieties (e.g. Singapore English and Hong Kong English). Type frequency was determined by the size of the inventories of analytic and synthetic markers used in the corpora, and similar comparisons were made. The results show that in terms of both token and type frequency of grammatical markers, the creoles are not more analytic than the other varieties. However, they are significantly less synthetic, resulting in much higher ratios of analytic to synthetic marking. An explanation for this finding relates to the particular strategy for grammatical expansion used by individuals when the creoles were developing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author claims that John McWhorter misinterprets the ecological approach to the emergence of creole languages in his article published in an issue of the "Journal of Pidgin & Creole Languages." He notes on the allegation of McWhorter that the feature pool hypothesis is counterintuitive and intriguing. He criticizes the way McWhorter elevates his contributions to creolistics.

The author comments on the claims of linguist Salikoko S. Mufwene about the creole language. He notes on the work of Mufwene which investigated why Kituba, which came from Kikongo dialects, is isolating. He analyzes the stipulation of Mufwene that languages relying on bound morphology that come in contact with each other should not be taken for granted.

In bilingual contact environments, personal pronoun systems are relatively impervious to replacement or borrowing. Several Creole languages contain hybrid personal pronoun paradigms, but the language contact environments that resulted in creolization and mixed pronominal systems are no longer in effect, and the mechanisms of pronominal replacement remain unknown. The present analysis is based on data from Zamboangueño Chabacano, a variety of Philippine Creole Spanish that has already undergone at least one set of pronominal replacements in its history, substituting Spanish-derived plural pronouns with pronouns taken from Philippine languages. Due to recent migration, Zamboangueño Chabacano is now in contact with Tagalog, and younger speakers are incorporating the Tagalog second-person singular respect-neutral pronoun ikaw into the Chabacano system. The insertion of ikaw restores the respectful–respect-neutral pronominal distinction originally present in Spanish and found in Philippine languages but lacking in Chabacano. The ease with which a Tagalog pronoun is entering Chabacano is attributed to long-standing popular views that Zamboangueño Chabacano is already a mixed-up language—often regarded as “broken Spanish”—devoid of its own grammar and therefore readily susceptible to any and all intrusions. The use of ikaw as an in-group marker among Zamboangueño youth further aids the addition of the Tagalog pronoun to the Chabacano paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Lengua y Literatura Catalana, Gallega y Vasca is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

From the field of the sociolinguistics of globalisation, this article investigates the linguistic features of transnational SMS talk, focusing on the heteroglossic and hybrid multilingual text messaging practices and the ICT-mediated vernacular literacies of a very heterogeneous small group of migrants establishing transnational networks in the outskirts of Barcelona. It shows that migrants employ highly flexible, non-elite linguae francae or "we-codes" for successful inter-group communication which are based on heterography, orality anti-standardness and transidiomaticity. It also explores the social indexicalities of such SMS practices, and claims that, against a highly ideologised discursive regime which classifies them as "faulty" or "deviant", transnational migrants' text messages offer an insight into how these highly mobile citizens attain the necessary degree of social agency to unfold their many transnational identities, re-negotiate their belonging and entitlement to host-society resources, and manage to organise their life trajectories and prospects largely successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of more than one language in SMS communication is widespread, yet has remained relatively underexplored in the existing research. In this paper we ask: What methodological and conceptual tools are needed for empirically investigating code-switching in large databases of SMS communication? We show that the investigation of SMS communication calls for an adaptation of the conceptual and the methodological apparatus of classical code-switching studies, which have been typically concerned with the analysis of spoken, mostly interactional, data. We argue for a broad understanding of code-switching that comprises switching between natural languages and language varieties along with style shifts as well as switching between language and other semiotic systems (ideographic switching). We also document, as a key feature of SMS communication, hybrid forms of language use that blur the boundaries between what we commonly call languages (e.g. homographs, mixed spellings or allogenisms), and we suggest that these possibly indicate that SMS communication has become one site where the tension between localized and globalized social practices is played out. The study presented here is part of an inter-university research project, entitled "SMS communication in Switzerland: Facets of linguistic variation in a multilingual country", based on a corpus of 26,000 authentic messages collected between 2009 and 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most executives have not heard of human performance technology (HPT), but a recent Google search showed 25 times more Google hits for 'lean six sigma' than for 'human performance technology.' This article describes five factors that make HPT a hard sell: (1) HPT is not part of standard business jargon, (2) organizational executives associate performance improvement practices with HR, (3) managers think they are the primary problem solvers, (4) executives seek subject-matter expertise rather than performance improvement, and (5) managers want magic bullets. Approaches that practitioners can use to make HPT easier for organizations to accept include using managers' language instead of HPT jargon; not working for HR; identifying and working for general managers-start with defined tasks, incorporate analytic steps, and move toward outcome-oriented tasks; cultivating your relationship with general managers by helping them get meaningful results; and using managers' interest in magic bullets as a springboard to exploring desired outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gurindji Kriol is a contact variety spoken in northern Australia which has been identified as a mixed language. Yet its status as an autonomous language system must be questioned for three reasons — (i) it continues to be spoken alongside its source languages, Gurindji and Kriol, (ii) it has a close diachronic and synchronic relationship to code-switching between Gurindji and Kriol, and (iii) its structure bears a strong resemblance to patterns found in this code-switching. Nonetheless in this paper I present criteria which support the claim of ‘language-hood’ for Gurindji Kriol. I demonstrate that Gurindji Kriol (i) is a stable language variety (it has child language learners and a high degree of inter-speaker consistency), (ii) has developed independent forms and structural subsystems which have not been adopted back into the source languages, and (iii) contains structural features from both languages which is rare in other language contact varieties including Kriol/Gurindji code-switching. I also present a number of structural indicators which can be used to distinguish Gurindji Kriol mixed language clauses from code-switched clauses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information related to good writing skills and practice on medical writing. It states that launched by Alistair Reeves and Wendy Kingdom in December 2010 issue of "TWS," the Good Writing Practice aims to provide advice on the practical aspects of writing and go beyond the classic style guide, making texts easier to read. It advises to refrain using jargon when writing for a multilingual audience and being aware on culture in medical writing.

The commentators expressed concerns regarding the relevance and value of non-computational non-symbolic explanations of cognitive performance. But what counts as an 'explanation' depends on the pre-theoretical assumptions behind the scenes of empirical science regarding the kinds of variables and relationships that are sought out in the first place, and some of the present disagreements stem from incommensurate assumptions. Traditional cognitive science presumes cognition to be a decomposable system of components interacting according to computational rules to generate cognitive performances (i.e., component-dominant dynamics). We assign primacy to interaction-dominant dynamics among components. Though either choice can be a good guess before the fact, the primacy of interactions is now supported by much recent empirical work in cognitive science. Consequently, in the main, the commentators have failed so far to address the growing evidence corroborating the theory-driven predictions of complexity science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Romanian jargon referring to the Internet includes many words borrowed from English. Some of these terms respect the spelling of the source language, others adapt their spelling according to the Romanian language rules. In the specialized publications and in the recent dictionaries, the definitions of the terms referring to computer and the Internet are completed with the most recent characteristics of the IT devices and equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lexikos is the property of Bureau of the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents the author's view regarding the effect of jargon on writer's literature. According to the author, technical precision and the kind of professional jargon can close off one's writing from any except professional audiences. Moreover, he mentions that jargons also motivated by a fear of being unclear and being accused of being unclear by others within the profession.

Cases from Sranan are presented in order to illustrate the various processes and mechanisms involved in developments in a creole language that could be interpreted as grammaticalization. While we do find “ordinary” grammaticalization, substrate patterns sometimes provided a model. In the extreme case, where the development consists of a large shortcut, grammaticalization as a usage-based process is no longer at issue, but rather a kind of local relexification variously referred to as “calquing” (Keesing 1991), “apparent grammaticalization” (Bruyn 1996), or “polysemy copying” (Heine and Kuteva 2005). Yet other cases involve reanalysis of a lexifier form without grammaticalization (Detges 2000). Distinguishing between the various types of developments is essential both for understanding the processes shaping creoles, and for delimiting the concept of grammaticalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the sources for, and the origins and uses of, the creole languages in the Dutch colony of eighteenth-century Suriname – those created and spoken among slaves on the plantations, among the free black Maroons in the jungle villages and among the mixed population (freed/slave, Christian/Jewish, French/Dutch, etc.) of the town of Paramaribo. The rich sources derive especially from plantation managers and Moravian missionaries, at their best working with black or coloured collaborators. These creoles, both the English-based Sranan and the Portuguese-based Saramaccan, allowed generations of Africans and Surinamese-Africans of diverse background to discuss matters of family, health and religion, to tell stories, to establish intimacy and mount quarrels with each other, to consider relations with masters and settlers, to plot resistance and sometimes to construct a past history. The uses of the creole languages by settlers are described, including their limited employment for religious conversion. The article concludes with the Dutch and Sranan poems published in the seventeen-eighties by a Dutch settler married to a mulatto heiress, poems casting in doubt hierarchies of colour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pidgin and creole languages are usually the result of contacts between people who do not speak each other's language. When they meet for different purposes (trade, business, plantation work) they immediately look for a quick means of communication. Thus, a simple makeshift language is created in a relatively short time. It is naturally composed of the elements deriving from two or more of the languages that are in contact. It is commonly considered (see, e.g., Bickerton 1981, Sebba 1997, Mühlähusler 1986) that pidgins can constitute the initial stage for further development into a stable pidgin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines and advocates a historicized writing approach that leads (im)migrant Latina/o and Hmong students to reflect upon, reread, and rewrite their socially and culturally situated experiences. Students explored their own identities through readings, writing, and discussion based on larger umbrella social themes such as historicality and sociality, language and culture, race and class, and gender. This exploration took place in an environment which valued hybrid language practices that valued and legitimized students' lives while fostering critical thinking around issues related to farmworker experiences. Further case study analysis of the writing and reflection of two migrant students detail the ways that students were encouraged to grapple with challenging texts that extended to an examination of the ways such texts led them to question their lived experiences and work toward individual and social transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the frequency rate of occurrence of computer jargon in students' colloquial speech. The ratio of borrowings to their Lithuanian equivalents is also explored. The methods of the research include the analysis of the data obtained in the questionnaire survey and in the statistical processing. The results show that jargons prevail in students' colloquial speech. The reasons for rejecting Lithuanian equivalents are analysed. Most probably students are influenced by the environment in which they communicate. The paper aims to research and analyse terms for the purpose of promoting correct usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are over 6000 languages in the world, different dialects within communities, pigins and creole languages, clicks and whistles, guttural and sweet, but how did this all begin? Who, what, how did we learn to speak so many languages? There are many theories. One of those theories suggests that the origin of language is monogenesis, some argue that perhaps the first language began with one of the most unlikely ancestors: Neanderthals. Is this possible? The focus of this paper is whether or not Neanderthals may have had the same capabilities for speech as modern humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the issue over the nature of the complexity in pidgin and creole languages. Arguments concerning the issue have largely been conducted on structural-functional grounds and have not been informed by developments in quantitative corpus analysis. Even those who endorse measures of complexity usually discuss them in the abstract without applying them systematically to corpora. The author notes that this trend is not entirely surprising, given the paucity of available materials for many pidgin and creole languages. Also mentioned in this article are quotes from literature indicating that pidgin and creole languages are associated with a relatively small vocabulary.

Hispanics are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. Sixty-three percent of all Hispanics self-identify as Mexican, and 41% of these individuals were born outside of the United States. The purpose of this article is to introduce mental health professionals to the use of the genogram as an intervention to help Mexican immigrants identify traditional resources that they can modify or adapt for success in a new culture. Suggestions for constructing a genogram with Mexican immigrants and Spanish translations of basic genogram jargon are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To describe physicians use of jargon with diabetes patients with limited health literacy. Methods We audiotaped 74 outpatient encounters and coded unclarified jargon, assigning each term a clinical function. We administered telephone questionnaires to determine if comprehension of diabetes-related jargon varied with context. Results: Eighty-one percent of encounters contained at least one unclarified jargon term (mean of 4/visit). Thirty-seven percent of jargon use occurred when making recommendations, and 29% when providing health education. Patient comprehension rates were generally low and never reached adequate thresholds. Conclusion: Physicians caring for patients with limited health literacy employ unclarified jargon during key clinical functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author argues about the influences of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) may have had on the Creole language development. He maintains that the nineteenth century settlements of expatriated American slaves in Liberia, especially the Samaná settlers, shows evidence of a Creole influence upon the AAVE. He argues against the thesis of Shana Poplack and others who studied the linguistic qualities of unique populations in the Dominican Republic, as well as Guysborough and North Preston in Nova Scotia, Canada. Poplack feels that the unique aspects of AAVE could have evolved from English sources and did not rely on Creole influences.

The author conjectures that the pervasive nature of multilingual talents in modern West Africa makes the search for a historic "genesis" of the creole language difficult. The very nature of multilingual individuals offers them a chance to borrow words from other languages spoken and introduce them into another language. This quality of adaptation of language, if it carries back to the era of the slave trade, would add confusion to the linguistic study of Creole. The author feels this idea offers new areas of linguistic studies.

The current technological trend depicts a scenario in which space, and more generally the environment in which the computation takes place, represents a key aspect that must be considered in order to improve systems' context awareness, even if the kind of information processed is not only of spatial nature. This article focuses on the notions of "place" and "conceptual spatial relation" to present a formal model of space supporting common-sense spatial reasoning. The model can be viewed as the semantic specification for a hybrid logic, whose formulas represent spatially qualified information. Interesting classes of common-sense spatial models are identified according to the properties of their characteristic relations and an axiomatization of the associated hybrid language is given; a sound and complete tableau-based calculus for these classes of models is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines five key areas of grammar which differentiate the pidgin, Fanakalo from L2 learner varieties of its lexifiers, Zulu and to a lesser extent, Xhosa. Taking Fanakalo as the descriptive starting point, these areas are (a) the article Io; (b) the preposition lapha; (c) the free pronouns mina 'I', wena 'you' etc.; (d) the locative copula khona and (e) verb suffixes like --lie (perfective), --isa (causative) etc. The context of the discussion is whether early fossilised intedanguages can be differentiated from pidgins (Schumann, 1974; Andersen, 1981; Siegel, 2003). Whilst there appear to be immense overlaps between the two for English as target language or lexifier (Schumann, 1974), this article argues that for an agglutinating language like Zulu or Xhosa, there are clear-cut differences between pidgin and relatively early-fossilised forms of the L2. However, for more complex tense patterns, similar simplificatory strategies occur in pidgin and L2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios de Sociolinguistica is the property of Equinox Publishing Group and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This papers investigates the representation of the variability characteristics of the post-creole continuum of Jamaica in literature, and it discusses theoretical ramifications concerning the nature of an author's 'pan-lectal' competence. Based upon Thelwell's novel The Harder They Come and set against the background of theoretical statements on literary dialect, the origin of the novel, and the Jamaican culture which it represents, the variability of literary dialect is investigated by two complementary types of approaches: a quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of three phonological and 13 morphological variables of Jamaican Creole as represented in the speech of 14 fictive characters, and a qualitative documentation of the style-shifting employed by some of these characters. The results show that Thelwell's literary representation of the Jamaican speech continuum is remarkably accurate and in line with the findings of fieldwork-based sociolinguistic studies. A wide range of variation between basilect and acrolect is convincingly represented in the novel, with the characters' idiolects correlating with their socioeconomic status and with situational parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on the role of children in creole genesis. It also focuses on the learning strategies of children and adults. According to the author, children play a unique and important role in creole formation by regularizing grammatical patterns. The author states that one need to know more of the structure of the societies in which genesis took place to understand the role of children in creole genesis.

Abstract: Various linguists have been taking seriously the notion that pidgin languages provide a window on certain facets of language evolution. Hence, for example, the contention that protolanguage is similar to pidgin languages as regards lexical and structural properties. Hence, too, the contention that, like processes participating in the formation of pidgins, language evolution is a gradual process that involves competition and selection. The present article seeks to appraise the notion that it is possible to draw firm conclusions about language evolution from data about properties of pidgin languages. It assesses in some depth the heuristic potential of the putative pidgin window on language evolution. In doing so, it identifies a number of fundamental difficulties that will have to be overcome in constructing a pidgin window capable of yielding new insights into language evolution. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Psychologie Française is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we explore the problem of selecting appropriate interventions for students based on an analysis of their interactions with a tutoring system. In the context of the WHY2 conceptual physics tutoring system, we describe CarmelTC, a hybrid symbolic/statistical approach for analysing conceptual physics explanations in order to determine which Knowledge Construction Dialogues (KCDs) students need for the purpose of encouraging them to include important points that are missing. We briefly describe our tutoring approach. We then present a model that demonstrates a general problem with selecting interventions based on an analysis of student performance in circumstances where there is uncertainty with the interpretation, such as with speech or text based natural language input, complex and error prone mathematical or other formal language input, graphical input (i.e., diagrams, etc.), or gestures. In particular, when student performance completeness is high, intervention selection accuracy is more sensitive to analysis accuracy, and increasingly so as performance completeness increases. In light of this model, we have evaluated our CarmelTC approach and have demonstrated that it performs favourably in comparison with the widely used LSA approach, a Naive Bayes approach, and finally a purely symbolic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many bilingual and multilingual communities, certain communicative practices are CODE-SPECIFIC in that they conventionally require, and are constituted in part through, the speaker's use of a particular code. Code-specific communicative practices, in turn, simultaneously constitute and partake of CODE-SPECIFIC GENRES: normative, relatively stable, often metapragmatically salient types of utterance, or modes of discourse, that conventionally call for use of a particular code. This article suggests that the notions of code specificity and code-specific genre can be useful ones for theorizing the relationship between code and communicative practice in bilingual/multilingual settings, particularly those in which language shift and other contact-induced processes of linguistic and cultural change tend to highlight that relationship. This is demonstrated through an examination of how young children in St. Lucia are socialized to "curse" and otherwise assert themselves by means of a creole language that under most circumstances they are discouraged from using. (Bilingualism, code-switching, creoles, diglossia, genre, language contact, language shift, language socialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pidgin and creole languages are spoken by more than 75 million people, but the vast majority of their speakers acquire literacy in another language—usually the language of a former colonial power. This paper looks at the origins of pidgins and creoles and explores some of the reasons for their lack of use in formal education. Then it describes some language planning efforts that have occurred with regard to instrumentalisation and graphisation of these languages, and the few cases where they are actually used to teach initial literacy. The paper goes on to discuss how speakers of pidgins and creoles more commonly acquire literacy in the standard European language officially used in formal education. It concludes with a short section on the role of pidgins and creoles in newspapers, literature and other writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Code-switching is very common among bilingual speakers. Spoken queries by these speakers are typically in mixed language. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised method for mixed-language query understanding, using only a monolingual corpus and a bilingual dictionary. Secondary-language words mixed in a primary-language query are translated into words in the primary language. We found that using a single disambiguation feature for translation is more effective than using multiple features, provided this feature is based on the most salient seed-word, chosen automatically by confidence scoring. We propose and compare four types of disambiguation features that are based on context seed-words. A baseline method uses the nearest neighboring seed-word as disambiguation feature. Multiple-context seed-word voting is also proposed in order to enlarge the context window. On the other hand, merely using the inverse-distance as weights on context words degrades the performance as it runs counter to the potential underlying syntactic relations between words. Our final proposal is a solution that uses multiple-context seed-words and the translation candidates of all mixed language words to select a single most salient seed-word for translation disambiguation. The translation disambiguation accuracy for this feature is at 83.7% for all words in the ATIS spontaneous speech query database, and 66.7% for content words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers Filipino English (Taglish) and Hawai'i Creole English or Pigdin, the language regularly used by the local, poor, working-class Filipino American residents, as Creole languages in the sense of Edouard Glissant, and examines their relationships to mass consumerism and popular culture with regard to the workings of transnational capitalism in the Philippines and Hawai'i, respectively. In the readings of some novels, Taglish and Pidgin are determined not only by the history of American colonialism in the Philippines and Hawai'i but also by class, race, gender, and sexuality. Allegedly, both languages effectively expose the logic and effects of global capitalism, which are neocolonialism, cultural hegemony, center-periphery relationships, and a global division of labor where migrant laborers from economically disadvantaged countries are heavily exploited and abused by host countries. Apparently, the use of the Creole languages in some novels by Filipino Americans sustains an effective critique of both American cultural hegemony in former U.S. colonies and the common culture as articulated by the related discourses of American multiculturalism and nationalism in the actual political and cultural economy in which the novels circulate as commodities.

Attitudes to use of creole languages are explored, particularly with regard to how these attitudes intersect with attitudes about gender. The focus is principally on attitudes to Pidgin in Hawai'i but parallels are drawn with another Pacific creole, Bislama. Attitudes to Pidgin use are viewed through respondents' evaluations of the terms moke and tita — social categories that prototypically denote Pidgin-speaking, Locals of Polynesian descent (moke for males; tita for females). Evaluations of tita provide indirect and covert evidence that, as in many speech communities, female speakers of the (creole) vernacular are evaluated more negatively than male speakers are and often in normative sexual terms. The notion of 'non-standardness' is discussed in relation to the process of constructing normative ideologies about gender and language in a creole speech community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]