El uso del valenciano, la actitud hacia la lengua y la destreza escrita : Un estudio sociolingüístico sobre el dominio del valenciano de jóvenes alicantinos

Los jóvenes de Alicante viven en una sociedad donde coexisten dos lenguas, el castellano y el valenciano. La lengua valenciana es utilizada por jóvenes de Alicante tanto en ámbitos formales como informales. Los jóvenes hablantes de valenciano sienten un lazo identificativo con la lengua que se rige por las actitudes de éstos. La actitud lingüística conlleva a una identificación lingüística del hablante, la cual es una construcción social que se rige por las normas que rodean al hablante. La identificación bilingüe podría, por lo tanto, ser influenciada e influenciar a su vez a la competencia lingüística. El propósito del presente estudio es investigar en qué situaciones y contextos es usado el valenciano; con el objetivo de estudiar la relación entre el grado de bilingüismo, la actitud lingüística y el nivel de complejidad, corrección y fluidez (CAF) en la expresión escrita del valenciano. Partimos de la hipótesis de que el valenciano tiene, para la generación joven de Alicante, una función social y que la actitud hacia la lengua es positiva, lo que a su vez se refleja en la destreza escrita. Para comprobar nuestra hipótesis nos hemos basado en un cuestionario de hábitos sociales, un test de nivel de valenciano y dos redacciones, una escrita en castellano y una en valenciano. Con la participación de 59 jóvenes alicantinos, llegamos a la conclusión de que el valenciano es usado tanto en ámbitos formales como informales y que la actitud hacia la lengua es positiva, y que consideran importante dominar y preservar el valenciano. Además, los participantes han presentado un nivel alto de destreza en el valenciano escrito, mostrando complejidad y fluidez en la expresión escrita. Por otro lado, la corrección es más elevada en el castellano. También se ha podido ver que la identificación de los participantes está relativamente correlacionada con la competencia lingüística. 

Romanian street beggars in Stockholm. A conflict between global city aspirations and informal livelihoods.

This thesis is looking into the issue of Romanian street beggars in Stockholm, Sweden. In the last couple of years there was an increase in the number of beggars in the Swedish capital, while most of them seem to come from Romania. This lead quickly to a national debate. The aim of the paper is to shed some light on this issue and see why it is a problem and for whom, looking at three main stakeholders: the state, the activists and the beggars. The theoretical framework for this project is mainly based on the concept of the conflict of rationalities, with Stockholm as an aspiring global city and those which are begging as livelihood strategy. The data is collected mainly through semi-structured interviews, informal interviews and personal observations. Also, the literature review provides context and brings similar examples for a better grasp of the situation in Sweden. The results show that Stockholm sends a branded image of itself to the world, while the new type of migrant is in conflict with this view. The activists try to make the life better for the beggars which are virtually not doing anything illegal. The Swedish state opened discussions with the Romanian state, but did nothing to integrate the newcomers. In this case, the beggars share similar experience in the city.

Deictic Demonstratives in Japanese, Finnish and Swedish : First and Third Language Perspectives

The goal of this thesis is twofold. Firstly, it investigates the actual, native use of spatial-deictic demonstratives in Japanese, Finnish and Swedish. Secondly, it investigates and elucidates the interlanguage of Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking learners of Japanese regarding their use of Japanese spatial-deictic demonstratives in the light of respective native use and, in comparison to the descriptions of demonstratives in the teaching materials used. Thus, the present study deals with analyses of two sets of empirical data: data produced by native-speaking informants (L1 data) and data produced by language learners (L2 data). These were elicited by Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) designed, collected and analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods by the author. The results showed that the actual use of demonstratives by the native informants was not always in accordance with the way described in grammars. The typological similarities between Japanese and Finnish were in this study not reflected in the native use of demonstratives, and some uses were not solely based on the spatial relations between the referent, the speaker and the addressee, but rather on social-interactional factors. The main findings regarding the learner data revealed some differences in the usage rate of the demonstratives between the two Finnish-speaking groups and the one Swedish-speaking learner group studied. There were, however, no particular differences found between them regarding the type of demonstrative used. It is suggested that these differences are first and foremost connected both with the teaching materials used and the more or less heterogeneous linguistic environment in which the learners reside, and only thereafter with the typological similarities or differences between their respective native languages, Finnish and Swedish, and the target language, Japanese. It is further argued that the learners’ use of the different Japanese demonstratives, that is the type of demonstrative used, could be explained in terms of familiarity with the grammar. That is, when the situations used in the DCTs were exemplified in teaching materials and were familiar to them, the learners seemed to use Japanese demonstratives as they are described in the teaching materials and as the native Japanese speakers use them. When the situations used in the DCTs were not exemplified in the teaching materials, the learners seem to rely more on their native language. The results, thus, suggest that the learners’ interlanguage is influenced by the grammar of the target language known to the learners, but also by the number of languages (or varieties) that the learners have contact with at the time of learning. The results of the present study have implications for the teaching of Japanese in at least two ways. Firstly, the importance of grammar instruction must be emphasized since its effect on the learners’ language is apparent. Secondly, the contents of teaching materials should be revised on the basis of the native speakers’ actual use of the grammar.