This article compares Mandarin Chinese (MC) proficiencies of bi/multilingual children from immigr... more This article compares Mandarin Chinese (MC) proficiencies of bi/multilingual children from immigrant families in Canada (BM) with those of monolingual (bidialectal) children (M) from China across two age groups (5–7 and 10–12). The purpose of the comparison is to identify the threshold of mother tongue to heritage language shift among Canadian bi/multilinguals. The results of bivariate ANOVA analysis of 28 speech parameters in children’s narratives elicited with the help of picture prompts demonstrate significant effects of language and age groups on proficiency parameters as well as interactions between language and age group factors. In the younger age group (5–7), bi/multilinguals proficiency is higher in six parameters, and lower in eight parameters, as compared to monolinguals, i.e., language proficiencies of bi/multilinguals are overall on par with those by monolinguals. By contrast, in the older participant group (10–12), there is a higher number of significant differences be...
Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Very little is known to date about the long-term ... more Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Very little is known to date about the long-term dynamics of balancing home and dominant languages by adult immigrants. Russian-speaking immigrants in Canada remain an underrepresented group with no available studies of their language development. To address these gaps, this article describes a linguistic journey experienced by Russian-speaking immigrants in Canada as they adapt to the life in the host country. The major objective of the study is to examine the importance of learning the host country’s majority languages (English and French) vis-à-vis maintenance of the home language as seen by the participants in the beginning and after a few years of immigration. Design/methodology/approach: The article reports the results of a mixed-methods study involving an online survey and written narratives about language dynamics in immigration. Data and analysis: One hundred Russian-speaking immigrants from nine countries residing in seven Ca...
This article considers Russian language attitudes of Canadian Doukhobors, a religious and ethnic ... more This article considers Russian language attitudes of Canadian Doukhobors, a religious and ethnic minority group of Russian origin who immigrated to Canada in 1899. The significance of the study is determined by a paucity of research devoted to this unique cultural and linguistic group as well as by an urgency of protocolling the language loss. In particular, language attitudes held by the Doukhobors have never been investigated before. The aim of the study is to describe the attitudes of the Doukhobor participants to their heritage language (Russian). The goals are to outline the remaining functions of the language in the community, and the perspectives for its maintenance. The materials include interviews with 40 speakers of Doukhobor Russian who are bilingual in English and Doukhobor Russian. The interviews were recorded in British Columbia and Saskatchewan (the historic settlements of the Doukhobors) between 2012 and 2018. The methods rooted in heritage language and sociolinguist...
This paper outlines the categories of Doukhobor choral singing in Saskatchewan, Canada, describes... more This paper outlines the categories of Doukhobor choral singing in Saskatchewan, Canada, describes the venues and the manner of performance of the Doukhobor traditional spiritual music and demonstrates its role in the religious ceremony and in the community life.
This paper applies Speech Act Theory towards an investigation of the use and role of self-praise/... more This paper applies Speech Act Theory towards an investigation of the use and role of self-praise/positive self-assessment in the texts of three Chekhov’s plays: The Seagull, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. The findings conducted with manual coding of texts for the speech acts of self-praise/positive self-assessment suggest that Chekhov employed self-praise for a number of textual and character-building functions. In particular, self-praise functions as a literary device to identify less likable characters as well as to provide a chance for more likable characters to stand up for themselves against injustice and provocation. The self-praise/positive self-assessment comes in mitigated and aggravated forms. Mitigation is mostly achieved through grammatical or phrasal means, as well as semantically through self-criticism, whereby the only form of aggravation observed in the data was other-criticism/other-derogation. Specific forms of a positive self-assessment likely unique to Che...
This paper provides a description of the structure and goals of the database of Russian Language ... more This paper provides a description of the structure and goals of the database of Russian Language Affective (emotional) utterances. It also reports some preliminary results of an experimental phonetic analysis of the acoustic characteristics of emotional utterances (surprise, happiness, anger, sadness and fear) vs. neutral ones in Russian. The study utilizes 600 database utterances by 10 speakers. Special focus of the study is placed on interactions between prosody and syntactic patterns of utterances.
This study analyzes official public talks by two Iranian presidents—Hassan Rouhani and Mahmoud Ah... more This study analyzes official public talks by two Iranian presidents—Hassan Rouhani and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—within the framework of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS). The study focuses on discoursal features in addresses of these presidents to the United Nations General Assembly at the micro-level (25 discursive devices) and the macro-level (positive self-representation and negative other-representation). The investigation attempts to determine whether significant differences existing in the micro and macro structures of these political discourses may be reflective of such factors as dissimilarities in political stance, world view and personal background. Combining quantitative and qualitative elements of analysis, the study demonstrates that consensus, illustration, hyperbole and polarization were used more frequently, whereas lexicalization and vagueness less frequently by Rouhani than by Ahmadinejad. At the semantic macro-level, Rouhani employed more positive self-representations a...
This paper addresses the problem of universal and languagespecific features in intonation percept... more This paper addresses the problem of universal and languagespecific features in intonation perception. It reports the results of a sentence type (declarative, interrogative, exclamatory) identification task performed by Japanese and Russian subjects on re-synthesised one-word two-syllable stimuli with modified rising-falling contours. The effect of parameter manipulations on sentence type perception is investigated. An increase in the height or interval of the rise leads to a decrease in declarative judgement. Stimuli with a rise exceeding 5.2st are not perceived as declarative, which suggests the existence of a categorical boundary in perception. Raising the fall start pitch increases exclamatory and decreases declarative judgement. Raising the fall end pitch has the same effect on the perception by Japanese subjects, but does not influence the perception by Russian subjects. Some significant differences between the two subject groups are found in the perception of stimuli as interr...
This article reports the results of a small-scale study examining the role of English language pr... more This article reports the results of a small-scale study examining the role of English language proficiency in the adaptation of Ukrainian immigrant children and youth to life in Saskatchewan, Canada. The main objective of the study was to describe issues related to English as a Second Language (ESL) proficiency as they are perceived by Ukrainian children and youth and by their parents. The second objective of the study was to explore the following factors in the adaptation process: age, gender, duration of stay in Canada, age upon arrival in Canada, ESL class attendance, school type (English as the language of instruction or bilingual), and level of English proficiency. A total of 60 participants (30 children/youth and 30 parents) took part in the study. The methodology (mixed quantitative/qualitative) involved semi-structured interviews with the children/youth participants, an evaluation of their ESL proficiency, and a questionnaire survey of parents’ views on ESL-related adaptatio...
This article compares Mandarin Chinese (MC) proficiencies of bi/multilingual children from immigr... more This article compares Mandarin Chinese (MC) proficiencies of bi/multilingual children from immigrant families in Canada (BM) with those of monolingual (bidialectal) children (M) from China across two age groups (5–7 and 10–12). The purpose of the comparison is to identify the threshold of mother tongue to heritage language shift among Canadian bi/multilinguals. The results of bivariate ANOVA analysis of 28 speech parameters in children’s narratives elicited with the help of picture prompts demonstrate significant effects of language and age groups on proficiency parameters as well as interactions between language and age group factors. In the younger age group (5–7), bi/multilinguals proficiency is higher in six parameters, and lower in eight parameters, as compared to monolinguals, i.e., language proficiencies of bi/multilinguals are overall on par with those by monolinguals. By contrast, in the older participant group (10–12), there is a higher number of significant differences be...
Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Very little is known to date about the long-term ... more Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Very little is known to date about the long-term dynamics of balancing home and dominant languages by adult immigrants. Russian-speaking immigrants in Canada remain an underrepresented group with no available studies of their language development. To address these gaps, this article describes a linguistic journey experienced by Russian-speaking immigrants in Canada as they adapt to the life in the host country. The major objective of the study is to examine the importance of learning the host country’s majority languages (English and French) vis-à-vis maintenance of the home language as seen by the participants in the beginning and after a few years of immigration. Design/methodology/approach: The article reports the results of a mixed-methods study involving an online survey and written narratives about language dynamics in immigration. Data and analysis: One hundred Russian-speaking immigrants from nine countries residing in seven Ca...
This article considers Russian language attitudes of Canadian Doukhobors, a religious and ethnic ... more This article considers Russian language attitudes of Canadian Doukhobors, a religious and ethnic minority group of Russian origin who immigrated to Canada in 1899. The significance of the study is determined by a paucity of research devoted to this unique cultural and linguistic group as well as by an urgency of protocolling the language loss. In particular, language attitudes held by the Doukhobors have never been investigated before. The aim of the study is to describe the attitudes of the Doukhobor participants to their heritage language (Russian). The goals are to outline the remaining functions of the language in the community, and the perspectives for its maintenance. The materials include interviews with 40 speakers of Doukhobor Russian who are bilingual in English and Doukhobor Russian. The interviews were recorded in British Columbia and Saskatchewan (the historic settlements of the Doukhobors) between 2012 and 2018. The methods rooted in heritage language and sociolinguist...
This paper outlines the categories of Doukhobor choral singing in Saskatchewan, Canada, describes... more This paper outlines the categories of Doukhobor choral singing in Saskatchewan, Canada, describes the venues and the manner of performance of the Doukhobor traditional spiritual music and demonstrates its role in the religious ceremony and in the community life.
This paper applies Speech Act Theory towards an investigation of the use and role of self-praise/... more This paper applies Speech Act Theory towards an investigation of the use and role of self-praise/positive self-assessment in the texts of three Chekhov’s plays: The Seagull, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. The findings conducted with manual coding of texts for the speech acts of self-praise/positive self-assessment suggest that Chekhov employed self-praise for a number of textual and character-building functions. In particular, self-praise functions as a literary device to identify less likable characters as well as to provide a chance for more likable characters to stand up for themselves against injustice and provocation. The self-praise/positive self-assessment comes in mitigated and aggravated forms. Mitigation is mostly achieved through grammatical or phrasal means, as well as semantically through self-criticism, whereby the only form of aggravation observed in the data was other-criticism/other-derogation. Specific forms of a positive self-assessment likely unique to Che...
This paper provides a description of the structure and goals of the database of Russian Language ... more This paper provides a description of the structure and goals of the database of Russian Language Affective (emotional) utterances. It also reports some preliminary results of an experimental phonetic analysis of the acoustic characteristics of emotional utterances (surprise, happiness, anger, sadness and fear) vs. neutral ones in Russian. The study utilizes 600 database utterances by 10 speakers. Special focus of the study is placed on interactions between prosody and syntactic patterns of utterances.
This study analyzes official public talks by two Iranian presidents—Hassan Rouhani and Mahmoud Ah... more This study analyzes official public talks by two Iranian presidents—Hassan Rouhani and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—within the framework of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS). The study focuses on discoursal features in addresses of these presidents to the United Nations General Assembly at the micro-level (25 discursive devices) and the macro-level (positive self-representation and negative other-representation). The investigation attempts to determine whether significant differences existing in the micro and macro structures of these political discourses may be reflective of such factors as dissimilarities in political stance, world view and personal background. Combining quantitative and qualitative elements of analysis, the study demonstrates that consensus, illustration, hyperbole and polarization were used more frequently, whereas lexicalization and vagueness less frequently by Rouhani than by Ahmadinejad. At the semantic macro-level, Rouhani employed more positive self-representations a...
This paper addresses the problem of universal and languagespecific features in intonation percept... more This paper addresses the problem of universal and languagespecific features in intonation perception. It reports the results of a sentence type (declarative, interrogative, exclamatory) identification task performed by Japanese and Russian subjects on re-synthesised one-word two-syllable stimuli with modified rising-falling contours. The effect of parameter manipulations on sentence type perception is investigated. An increase in the height or interval of the rise leads to a decrease in declarative judgement. Stimuli with a rise exceeding 5.2st are not perceived as declarative, which suggests the existence of a categorical boundary in perception. Raising the fall start pitch increases exclamatory and decreases declarative judgement. Raising the fall end pitch has the same effect on the perception by Japanese subjects, but does not influence the perception by Russian subjects. Some significant differences between the two subject groups are found in the perception of stimuli as interr...
This article reports the results of a small-scale study examining the role of English language pr... more This article reports the results of a small-scale study examining the role of English language proficiency in the adaptation of Ukrainian immigrant children and youth to life in Saskatchewan, Canada. The main objective of the study was to describe issues related to English as a Second Language (ESL) proficiency as they are perceived by Ukrainian children and youth and by their parents. The second objective of the study was to explore the following factors in the adaptation process: age, gender, duration of stay in Canada, age upon arrival in Canada, ESL class attendance, school type (English as the language of instruction or bilingual), and level of English proficiency. A total of 60 participants (30 children/youth and 30 parents) took part in the study. The methodology (mixed quantitative/qualitative) involved semi-structured interviews with the children/youth participants, an evaluation of their ESL proficiency, and a questionnaire survey of parents’ views on ESL-related adaptatio...
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