Linguistic Polarization and Conflict in the Basque Country

This paper investigates the relationship between linguistic polarization and conflict in the Basque Country. During the 40 years of Franco’s dictatorship the use of the Basque language was banned. Therefore, there may be some linguistic roots underlying the conflict in the Basque Country. We show that at the municipality level, linguistic polarization reduces the level of conflict. This finding is robust to various ways of measuring linguistic and ideological polarization and the inclusion of other covariates. In addition, we find that a high level of the stock of human capital is beneficial for reducing conflict intensity.

EUSMT: incorporating linguistic information to SMT for a morphologically rich language. Its use in SMT-RBMT-EBMT hybridation

148 p.: graf.

Word frequency cues word order in adults: cross-linguistic evidence

[EN] One universal feature of human languages is the division between grammatical functors and content words. From a learnability point of view, functors might provide entry points or anchors into the syntactic structure of utterances due to their high frequency. Despite its potentially universal scope, this hypothesis has not yet been tested on typologically different languages and on populations of different ages. Here we report a corpus study and an artificial grammar learning experiment testing the anchoring hypothesis in Basque, Japanese, French, and Italian adults. We show that adults are sensitive to the distribution of functors in their native language and use them when learning new linguistic material. However, compared to infants’ performance on a similar task, adults exhibit a slightly different behavior, matching the frequency distributions of their native language more closely than infants do. This finding bears on the issue of the continuity of language learning mechanism.

Cross-linguistic influences in the phonetic and lexical component in English, Baque and Spanish: Contextual and individual factors in language acquisition and attrition.

350 p.

Ikasleen hizkuntza erroreak eta hutsegiteak : zuzentzeko proposamena

[Es]El presente trabajo se basa en las consultas que los profesores y profesoras de distintas asignaturas nos hacen al profesorado de lengua. Muchas veces los profesores debemos corregir no sólo el contenido de los trabajos de nuestros alumnos, sino también la lengua. La discusión no es nueva: ¿somos todos los profesores también profesores de lengua? Es un desafío del que difícilmente podemos escapar, ya que la lengua además de ser una materia de estudio también es el vehículo en el que se imparten los contenidos de todas las asignaturas. Con el presente trabajo pretendemos ayudar a los profesores que no imparten lengua como asignatura a corregir los trabajos de sus alumnos. Esta propuesta consta de tres ejes de actuación marcados por un orden de prioridad: prevenir, autocorregir y ayudar.

La implicación del estudiante con la escuela

[Es]El objetivo de esta investigación ha sido analizar la implicación o compromiso de nuestros estudiantes con sus centros escolares. La implicación posee un componente conductual (la participación) y un componente psicológico (la identificación con el centro escolar). La muestra está compuesta por 656 alumnos de 14 colegios del País Vasco y Cataluña, divididos según diferentes tipologías de centro: 179 en pública-primaria, 151 alumnos en concertada-primaria, 203 alumnos en pública¬-secundaria y 123 alumnos en concertada-secundaria. Los resultados indican que las percepciones en las escalas de participación e identificación son más altas en los centros concertados, de primaria y con una sola línea educativa y modelo lingüístico. Así mismo hemos comprobado que existen correlaciones entre las dos dimensiones de la implicación y las variables independientes analizadas: autoconcepto y motivación académica, tipología de centro, trabajo de los profesores y el entorno familiar.

Representación 3D interactiva de relaciones de derivación e hiponimia en paradigmas léxicos del inglés antiguo

Participantes en el proyecto Nerthus: Javier Martín Arista (Universidad de La Rioja, Investigador principal), Laboratorio de Documentación Geométrica del Patrimonio (Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU).-- Sitio web del proyecto: http://www.nerthusproject.com/

Régimen jurídico de las lenguas y reconocimiento de la diversidad lingüística en el Tratado por el que se establece una Constitución para Europa

The territory of the European Union is made up of a rich and wide-ranging universe of languages, which is not circumscribed to the «State languages». The existence of multilingualism is one of Europe’s defining characteristics and it should remain so in the constantly evolving model of Europe’s political structure. Nonetheless, until now, the official use of languages has been limited to the «State languages» and has been based on a concept of state monolingualism that has led to a first level of hierarchization among the languages of Europe. This has affected the very concept of European language diversity. The draft of the treaty establishing a European Constitution contains various language-related references that can be grouped in two major categories: on the one hand, those references having to do the constitutional status of languages, and on the other, those regarding the recognition of European language diversity. Both issues are dealt with in this article. In analyzing the legal regime governing languages set forth in the draft of the constitutional treaty, we note that the draft is not based on the concept of the official status of languages. The language regulation contained in the draft of the constitutional treaty is limited in character. The constitutional language regime is based on the concept of Constitutional languages but the official status of languages is not governed by this rule. The European Constitution merely enunciates rights governing language use for European citizens vis-à-vis the languages of the Constitution and refers the regulation of the official status of languages to the Council, which is empowered to set and modify that status by unanimous decision. Because of its broad scope, this constitutes a regulatory reservation. In the final phase of the negotiation process a second level of constitutional recognition of languages would be introduced, linked to those that are official languages in the member states (Catalan, Basque, Galician, etc.). These languages, however, would be excluded from the right to petition; they would constitute a tertium genus, an intermediate category between the lan guages benefiting from the language rights recognized under the Constitution and those other languages for which no status is recognized in the European institutional context. The legal functionality of this second, intermediate category will depend on the development of standards, i.e., it will depend on the entrée provided such languages in future reforms of the institutional language regime. In a later section, the article reflects on European Union language policy with regard to regional or minority languages, concluding that the Union has not acted in accordance with defined language policy guidelines when it has been confronted, in the exercise of its powers, with regional or minority languages (or domestic legislation having to do with language demands). The Court of Justice has endeavoured to resolve on a case by case basis the conflicts raised between community freedoms and the normative measures that protect languages. Thus, using case law, the Court has set certain language boundaries for community freedoms. The article concludes by reflecting on the legal scope of the recognition of European language diversity referred to in Article II-82 of the European Constitution and the possible measures to implement the precept that might constitute the definition of a true European language policy on regional or minority languages. Such a policy has yet to be defined.

Apuntes jurídicos sobre el paisaje lingüístico en Euskal Herria

This paper is a study of place-names and signs in the Basque Country from the point of view of language law. These are matters that relate to both the status and corpus of language and contribute to the formation of the language landscape,» After a brief historical introduction, the author focuses on the factors that bear on signs and the language 1andscape: the cornpetence factor and the language factor. The description of the latter leads the author to a discussion of the existing language system, in which the Spanish and Basque sharing official status does not necessarily entail the obligation to use both languages at the same time. Using this discussion as a frame of reference, the au- thor analyses place-names, traffic signals and signs. As for place-names, the existing rules are deemed rigid and lacking in ambition, in that they do not pursue the dissemination of official Basque forms. In traffic signaIs, Basque has to appear alongside Spanish, which is required by Spanish legislation, although this bilingualism excludes place-names that have an official Basque form only. With regard to signs, the author analyses public premises, companies licensed to provide public services and the private sector. For public premises there is no specific regulation, but the status of Basque as an autochthonous language, together with the identification and informatíon purposes of signs, could support the exclusive use of this language, According to the author , companies licensed to provide public services should observe the same language system as the goverment and therefore promote the use of Basque. Finally, in the private sector, the author upholds the legitimacy of measures to promote Basque language use such as tax allowances and exemptions in advertising and commercial signs.

Descripción del desarrollo organizacional y curricular de diferentes tipos de centro y etapas educativas

[Es] Esta aportación sintetiza el estudio que están desarrollando profesores del Área de Didáctica y Organización escolar de la UPV y de la UAB (2005-06). Su contenido aborda las relaciones entre los estadios de desarrollo organizativo y curricular y los resultados escolares. Los primeros datos sugieren que hay una mayor cohesión y coherencia en los centros pequeños, de titularidad pública y de un solo modelo lingüístico. Curiosamente, esta aparente identidad común se apoya más en la estructura participativa y en los sistemas de aprendizaje organizacional y no tanto en la cultura institucional y la cultura colaborativa. Estas últimas dependen más del tamaño del centro y del modelo lingüístico que de la titularidad. Llama la atención que el liderazgo transformacional se vincula más a la titularidad pública y a los centros de secundaria, no relacionándose significativamente con el tamaño del centro, el modelo lingüístico o los años vinculados al ejercicio de cargos.