Language Boxes: Bending the Host Language with Modular Language Changes

As domain-specific modeling begins to attract widespread acceptance, pressure is increasing for the development of new domain-specific languages. Unfortunately these DSLs typically conflict with the grammar of the host language, making it difficult to compose hybrid code except at the level of strings; few mechanisms (if any) exist to control the scope of usage of multiple DSLs; and, most seriously, existing host language tools are typically unaware of the DSL extensions, thus hampering the development process. Language boxes address these issues by offering a simple, modular mechanism to encapsulate (i) compositional changes to the host language, (ii) transformations to address various concerns such as compilation and highlighting, and (iii) scoping rules to control visibility of language extensions. We describe the design and implementation of language boxes, and show with the help of several examples how modular extensions can be introduced to a host language and environment.

Person-sensitive TAME marking in Galo: Historical origins and functional motivation

Scott DeLancey’s analysis of person-sensitive TAME marking in Lhasa Tibetan – “a.k.a. conjunct-disjunct marking” or “egophoricity” – has stimulated considerable discussion and debate, particularly as previously little-known languages of the Tibeto-Burman area, as well as outside it, have come to be described, and a wider range of functional factors have been taken into account. This chapter is intended as a contribution to this discussion, by presenting the first detailed analysis of person-sensitive TAME marking in a language of the Tani subgroup of Tibeto-Burman, namely Galo. Like Tournadre (2008), I find that person-sensitive TAME marking in Galo is not a grammaticalized index of person (“agreement”) nor of cross-clause subject continuity, but is instead a semantic index of an assertor’s knowledge state. Unlike in more westerly Tibeto-Burman languages, however, different construals of agency and/or volition do not seem to be factors in the Galo system. Thus, there are both similarities and differences underlying systems of person-sensitive TAME marking in different Tibeto-Burman languages; this suggests that further research - particularly, employing a diachronic perspective when possible - will be required before we can confidently characterize person-sensitive TAME marking from a pan-Tibeto-Burman (or broader) cross-linguistic perspective.

White matter in aphasia: a historical review of the Dejerines' studies

The Objective was to describe the contributions of Joseph Jules Dejerine and his wife Augusta Dejerine-Klumpke to our understanding of cerebral association fiber tracts and language processing. The Dejerines (and not Constantin von Monakow) were the first to describe the superior longitudinal fasciculus/arcuate fasciculus (SLF/AF) as an association fiber tract uniting Broca's area, Wernicke's area, and a visual image center in the angular gyrus of a left hemispheric language zone. They were also the first to attribute language-related functions to the fasciculi occipito-frontalis (FOF) and the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF) after describing aphasia patients with degeneration of the SLF/AF, ILF, uncinate fasciculus (UF), and FOF. These fasciculi belong to a functional network known as the Dejerines' language zone, which exceeds the borders of the classically defined cortical language centers. The Dejerines provided the first descriptions of the anatomical pillars of present-day language models (such as the SLF/AF). Their anatomical descriptions of fasciculi in aphasia patients provided a foundation for our modern concept of the dorsal and ventral streams in language processing.

Crowdsourcing language change with smartphone applications

Crowdsourcing linguistic phenomena with smartphone applications is relatively new. In linguistics, apps have predominantly been developed to create pronunciation dictionaries, to train acoustic models, and to archive endangered languages. This paper presents the first account of how apps can be used to collect data suitable for documenting language change: we created an app, Dialäkt Äpp (DÄ), which predicts users’ dialects. For 16 linguistic variables, users select a dialectal variant from a drop-down menu. DÄ then geographically locates the user’s dialect by suggesting a list of communes where dialect variants most similar to their choices are used. Underlying this prediction are 16 maps from the historical Linguistic Atlas of German-speaking Switzerland, which documents the linguistic situation around 1950. Where users disagree with the prediction, they can indicate what they consider to be their dialect’s location. With this information, the 16 variables can be assessed for language change. Thanks to the playfulness of its functionality, DÄ has reached many users; our linguistic analyses are based on data from nearly 60,000 speakers. Results reveal a relative stability for phonetic variables, while lexical and morphological variables seem more prone to change. Crowdsourcing large amounts of dialect data with smartphone apps has the potential to complement existing data collection techniques and to provide evidence that traditional methods cannot, with normal resources, hope to gather. Nonetheless, it is important to emphasize a range of methodological caveats, including sparse knowledge of users’ linguistic backgrounds (users only indicate age, sex) and users’ self-declaration of their dialect. These are discussed and evaluated in detail here. Findings remain intriguing nevertheless: as a means of quality control, we report that traditional dialectological methods have revealed trends similar to those found by the app. This underlines the validity of the crowdsourcing method. We are presently extending DÄ architecture to other languages.

The English of The Sleeping Lady: An exploration of the historical and current influences on the English of Kosrae

Kosrae, or ‘The Island of The Sleeping Lady’ as it is known to locals, is the most remote island of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), located in the western Pacific. FSM is an independent sovereign nation consisting of four state in total: Pohnpei, Chuuk, Yap and Kosrae. First claimed by the Spanish, who were forced to cede FSM to Germany in 1899. In 1914, the Japanese took military possession of the region resulting in considerable economic, social and political change for the islands’ inhabitants. By 1947 after WWII, the islands formed part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands commissioned by the UN and administered by the US. The FSM became an independent nation in 1986 while still retaining affiliation with the US under a ‘Compact of Free Association’ encouraging the officiating of English as a language of FSM, alongside local languages. Here I examine the presence and uses of English in Kosrae with reference to these socio-historical influences. First, I discuss the extralinguistic factors which have shaped the English that is currently found on Kosrae. Secondly, I assess the use of English in this community in light of Schneider’s (2007) ‘Dynamic Model’. Finally, an overview of the salient linguistic characteristics of Kosraean English, based on data collected in informal conversations on the island, will be presented. The overall objective is to present a socio-historical, political and linguistic description of a hitherto unexamined English emerging in a postcolonial environment. Schneider, E. (2007). Postcolonial Englishes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Research Interests: Global Englishes

Contact, Mobility and Authenticity: Language Ideologies in Koineisation and Creolisation

Part II - Christoph Neuenschwander: Language ideologies in the legitimisation of Tok Pisin as a lingua franca Pidgins and Creoles all over the world seem to share common aspects in the historical circumstances of their genesis and evolution. They all emerged in the context of colonialism, in which not only colonisers and colonised, but also the various groups of the colonised population spoke different languages. Pidgins and Creoles, quite simply, resulted from the need to communicate.¬¬ Yet, the degree to which they became accepted as a lingua franca or in fact even as a linguistic variety in its own right, strikingly differs from variety to variety. The current research project focuses on two Pacific Creoles: Tok Pisin, spoken on Papua New Guinea, and Hawai'i Creole English (HCE). Whereas Tok Pisin is a highly stabilised and legitimised variety, used as a lingua franca in one of the most linguistically diverse countries on Earth, HCE seems to be regarded as nothing more than broken English by a vast majority of the Hawai'ian population. The aim of this project is to examine the metalinguistic comments about both varieties and to analyse the public discourses, in which the status of Tok Pisin and HCE were and still are negotiated. More precisely, language ideologies shall be identified and compared in the two contexts. Ultimately, this might help us understand the mechanisms that underlie the processes of legitimisation or stigmatisation. As Laura Tresch will run a parallel research project on language ideologies on new dialects (New Zealand English and Estuary English), a comparison between the findings of both projects may produce even more insights into those mechanisms. The next months of the project will be dedicated to investigating the metalinguistic discourse in Papua New Guinea. In order to collect a wide range of manifestations of language ideologies, i.e. instances of (lay and academic) commentary on Tok Pisin, it makes sense to look at a relatively large period of time and to single out events that are likely to have stimulated such manifestations. In the history of Papua New Guinea - and in the history of Tok Pisin, in particular - several important social and political events concerning the use and the status of the language can be detected. One example might be public debates on education policy. The presentation at the CSLS Winter School 2014 will provide a brief introduction to the history of Tok Pisin and raise the methodological question of how to spot potential sites of language-ideological production.