Bilingual Dictionary Drafting. The Example of German-Basque, a Medium-density Language Pair

Edited by Andrea Abel, Chiara Vettori, Natascia Ralli.

Experimental Economics Meets Language Choice

Roughly one half of World's languages are in danger of extinction. The endangered languages, spoken by minorities, typically compete with powerful languages such as En- glish or Spanish. Consequently, the speakers of minority languages have to consider that not everybody can speak their language, converting the language choice into strategic,coordination-like situation. We show experimentally that the displacement of minority languages may be partially explained by the imperfect information about the linguistic type of the partner, leading to frequent failure to coordinate on the minority language even between two speakers who can and prefer to use it. The extent of miscoordination correlates with how minoritarian a language is and with the real-life linguistic condition of subjects: the more endangered a language the harder it is to coordinate on its use, and people on whom the language survival relies the most acquire behavioral strategies that lower its use. Our game-theoretical treatment of the issue provides a new perspective for linguistic policies.

Elebitasuna eta bigarren hizkuntzaren ikaskuntzarekiko jarrera: Ama-hizkuntzaren eta jatorriaren eragina

LABURPENA: Lan enpiriko honen helburua Lea-Artibaiko hiru ikastetxetako ikasleen jarrerak aztertzea izan da, jatorria eta ama-hizkuntza bezalako faktoreek ezberdintasunik eragiten duten ikusteko. Horretarako, Likert eskalako galdetegien bidez informazioa bildu, ikasleen motibazioak -integratzailea eta instrumentala-, bigarren hizkuntza ikasteari eskaintzen dioten garrantzia eta haien gurasoen laguntza neurtu eta ondoren talde ezberdinen arteko konparaketa gauzatu da. Parte-hartzaile guztiek emaitza onak erakutsi badituzte ere, ama-hizkuntza euskara dutenek eta jatorriz euskal herritarrak direnek eskuratu dituzte emaitzarik baxuenak jarrerak deskribatzeko erabili diren aspektu horietan. Hala, ondorioztatu da testuinguru honetan etxeko hizkuntzak eta jatorriak badakartela desberdintasunik bigarren hizkuntzaren ikaskuntzarekiko jarreran.

On innate and specific aspects of human language

Mixel Aurnague, Kepa Korta and Jesus M. Larrazabal (eds.)

A Brief Grammar of Euskara, the Basque Language

This is a short grammar of the Basque language, or Euskara as it is called by its speakers. What follows is a partial description of the syntax of Euskara. The text has been arranged in the following fashion: there is an index where you can find the distribution of topics. Within each of the topics, an effort has been made to arrange information from general to specific, so that as you read into a given section, you will get into more details about the topic being under discussion. This grammar hopes to be useful to a wide variety of users. Therefore, it will probably not satisfy anyone completely: Those who want a quick 'feel' for the language will be disappointed by the slow and messy details the text dives into. Those who want a detailed, professional description will be disappointed by the lack of depth in the discussion. The text hopes to sit somewhere in the middle, and if it tells too much to those who want to know a little, and too little to those who want to know a lot, then it will have done its job.

A Game-Theoreteic Analysis of Minority Language Use in Multilingual Societies

This chapter studies multilingual democratic societies with highly developed economies. These societies are assumed to have two languages with official status: language A, spoken by every individual, and language B, spoken by the bilingual minority. We emphasize that language rights are important, but the survival of the minority language B depends mainly on the actual use bilinguals make of B. The purpose of the present chapter is to study some of the factors affecting the bilingual speakers language choice behaviour. Our view is that languages with their speech communities compete for speakers just as fi rms compete for market share. Thus, the con ict among the minority languages in these societies does not take the rough expressions such as those studied in Desmet et al. (2012). Here the con flict is more subtle. We model highly plausible language choice situations by means of choice procedures and non-cooperative games, each with different types of information. We then study the determinants of the bilinguals ' strategic behaviour with regard to language. We observe that the bilinguals' use of B is shaped, essentially, by linguistic conventions and social norms that are developed in situations of language contact.

Frame-level features conveying phonetic information for language and speaker recognition

150 p.

Intercultural Management and Leadership in the Context of Language Academies

Throughout this undergraduate thesis, a study of intercultural management and leadership will be carried out with a special focus on language academies. We begin by analyzing the importance of cultural values and their effects on the perception of a leader. We then study the role of Strategic Human Resources Management in an intercultural environment. Finally, as an original contribution to this thesis, an investigation is performed that examines three local language academies and their management practices. After reviewing the findings, we hope to propose a sort of ‘best practices’ for language academies that could lead to a more harmonious relationship between teachers and their managers.