Volume Two, Number One (October 1999)
Volume Two, Number One of MULP was a special issue dedicated to Professor Michael Clyne on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Without Michael's phenomenal expertise, exemplary supervisory skills, endless energy, unwavering enthusiasm and abundant generosity, MULP simply wouldn't exist.
ABSTRACTS
Articles
Code-switching patterns
in the speech of Romanian-English bilinguals
Anamaria Beligan, Monash University
This paper is an attempt to explore the code-switching patterns in the speech of two Romanian-English bilingual males, M and V, currently living in Melbourne. The informants have a friendly relationship and visit each other regularly - however their socio-economic background is different: V is a well-educated urban professional, whereas M is a driver/tour operator, and comes from a remote village in Northern Romania. The paper examines the types of psycholinguistically-conditioned and discourse-related switches that are used by the two informants, and attempts to provide two different profiles of switchers. It is found that M code-switches freely, without self-censorship, displaying his successful adjustment to Australian life. By contrast, V consistently attempts to excuse or to correct his code-switching, displaying a pre-disposition to avoid mixing languages. However, V appears to relinquish his self-censorship mechanism when code-switching for discourse-related reasons.
32 years
on and still triggering: Psycholinguistic processes as motivation
for switching amongst Croatian-English bilinguals
Jim Hlavac, Monash University
This paper investigates the phenomenon of "unconscious" or "unintended" switching between languages - triggering - on the basis of accessing items - trigger words - whose language-specific membership may be ambiguous. Triggering as a phenomenon in some examples of bilingual speech was first noticed and explored by Michael Clyne in the first of his many books Transference and Triggering (1967), and has been subsequently problematised by many researchers in the field of language contact. A linguistic corpus based on taped interviews with 100 second-generation Croatian-English bilinguals provides the bilingual speech sample in which triggered switching is examined. While the relative number of instances of triggered switching is small, two categories of triggering are distinguished -consequential and anticipational - while two productive categories of trigger words are identified - proper nouns and English-origin lexical transfers (almost always nouns). The data suggest that items whose semantic-referential values are similar cross-linguistically are more likely to offer potential "cross-over points" leading to "unconscious" and "unimpeded" switching.
Networks and language use in an historical
context
Sandra Kipp, Monash University
This paper examines the ways in which an understanding of social networks can contribute to the understanding of variability within the language behaviour of a group of German-English bilinguals in the Western District of Victoria. The perspective is an historical one. The research project on which the discussion is based is still in progress.
Latvian language maintenance
in Melbourne: a "core value" approach
Anya Woods, Monash University
This paper reports on selected findings from research carried out in 1996, and focuses on the language attitudes and practices of those involved with the Latvian Saturday School in Melbourne. The framework for the analysis is based on Smolicz's "cultural core value" theory. Findings revealed the Latvian language to clearly be the core value amongst participants, thereby supporting findings of previous studies. Language maintenance was found overall to be of lesser importance in reality, based on findings concerning language use practices in participants' homes. Findings suggest that both imagination and sensitivity will be required to ensure the survival of Latvian in the future, given the changing profile of ethnic communities in Australia.
Previously unexamined texts in Victorian
languages: the manuscripts of Rev. William Thomas (1793-1867)
Stephen Morey, Monash University
Most of the records of the Aboriginal languages of Victoria were written down by untrained people in the 19th century. One of the most prolific was the Rev William Thomas (1793-1867), who was Assistant Protector of the Aborigines in the early days of colonisation of what is now Victoria. This article and the thesis upon which it was based closely examine for the first time the linguistic data collected by Thomas in two main sources - his manuscript notes now in the Mitchell Library, Syndey, and a manuscript entitled A lexicon of the Australian Aboriginal languages in the six dialects of Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh, Melbourne, Gippsland, Mount Gambier and Wonnin..., now in the State Library of Victoria. The valuable linguistic data about the various languages in these sources is exemplified, discussed and compared with modern linguistic studies of the languages concerned.
Using systemic functional linguistics in
university teaching: A postgraduate class on making writing more
"readable"
Kate Chanock, LaTrobe
University
While systemic functional linguistics illuminates many of the language practices of university students, its terminology can be daunting. I am interested in finding ways of offering insights from systemics with the minimum of jargon, to help students with the problems they experience in negotiating academic discourse. One such attempt is a session for postgraduates on density in writing, and some differences between speaking and writing in academic contexts. The session, described in this paper, suggests ways of making writing more readable, and a procedure by which students can identify the linguistic changes needed to turn a chapter or article into an oral presentation.
Reviews
Pluricentric Languages
in an Immigrant Context: Spanish, Arabic and Chinese,
by Michael Clyne and Sandra Kipp. 1999. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Reviewed by Mark Newbrook