Imitation Game is an experimental paradigm in which participants seek to distinguish members of t... more Imitation Game is an experimental paradigm in which participants seek to distinguish members of their own social group from pretenders. The goals are to better understand processes of social inclusion and exclusion, develop pedagogical practices to address them, and increase the public’s awareness of diversity in our increasingly multicultural and multiethnic societies. Emerging results point to the importance of shared meanings that go above and beyond encyclopedic knowledge of a particular culture. Stereotypical representations and assumptions about culture-specific facts, beliefs, sentiments and behaviors do not necessarily contribute to correct group membership categorization. A more useful resource is based on tacit and experiential knowledge as well as interactional expertise. This approach paves the way toward a more comprehensive account of social identity that explains both its stable and constitutive features and its adaptable and negotiable ones.
What is the role of a man in a family? How do you celebrate Christmas? The answers to these and s... more What is the role of a man in a family? How do you celebrate Christmas? The answers to these and similar questions can be used to assess ethnic membership of a person. Whether or not these are actually useful questions will be the topic of our workshop. We will compare practices and beliefs about self and others as we try to act as judges in the Imitation Game. During the demonstration of the experiment the audience is invited to contest their own assumptions about the formation and maintenance of sociocultural groups. In addition to learning more about specific categories relevant for becoming a recognized member of a social group, we will also try to increase granularity of our perception of social classification and to promote participatory research as a tool for raising awareness.
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, Mar 12, 2019
This article introduces and defines the concept of mediated receptive multilingualism as a mode o... more This article introduces and defines the concept of mediated receptive multilingualism as a mode of multilingual communication which eases understanding between typologically distant languages through the medium of a language closely related to the target. In an experimental setting, Estonians without previous exposure to Ukrainian were quite successful in understanding Ukrainian texts via their knowledge of Russian. As expected, they made use of various language-specific elements to improve intelligibility, such as linguistic similarities between Russian and Ukrainian. However, a number of extra-linguistic factors were detected as influential predictors of success, especially metalinguistic awareness, exposure to Russian, exposure to various registers, experience with multilingual situations, learnability, and attitudes towards Ukrainian. These findings contest a static take on multilingual potential and point out the emergent nature of competencies and practices that become relevant in multilingual settings. Unconventional communicative modes – like mediated receptive multilingualism – may activate linguistic and sociolinguistic resources needed for establishing understanding in novel and potentially challenging communicative settings.
This study was inspired by the idea that there is more diversity in the ways languages come into ... more This study was inspired by the idea that there is more diversity in the ways languages come into contact to create efficient and fair communication. The alternative mode explored in this study is called lingua receptiva (or, LaRa): here interlocutors speak their own language and have enough linguistic and interactional competencies to understand the language of the other. Success of this mode is often related to mutual intelligibility between languages (e.g., typologically close Scandinavian constellations). However, in this study the leitmotif lies in discovering the covert potential of LaRa not within but across language families. The data come from the dialogues between native speakers of Estonian and Russian, the two biggest linguistic groups in Estonia. The participants were pre-selected with the help of a socio-linguistic questionnaire, which focused on participants' self-reported L2 proficiency, exposure to multilingual situations as well as attitudes towards the language...
Lingua receptiva (LaRa) is a ‘mode of multilingual communication in which interactants employ a l... more Lingua receptiva (LaRa) is a ‘mode of multilingual communication in which interactants employ a language and/or a language variety different from their partner’s and still understand each other without the help of any additional lingua franca’ (Rehbein, ten Thije and Verschik, 2012). Understanding in that case is established based on ‘passive’ knowledge of the interlocutors’ language. The current paper presents data on Estonianand Russian-speaking interlocutors involved in the task-solving experiment via Skype who use their respective mother tongues. In studies on dialogues, psycholinguistic alignment is claimed to be fundamental to overall communicative success and automatic in monolingual communication (e.g., Pickering and Garrod, 2004). This paper compares studies on multilingual constellations and argues that in LaRa alignment is actively monitored by interlocutors and is thus also a process of establishing understanding. The study explores meta-linguistic devices that are consi...
This study was inspired by the idea that there is more diversity in the ways languages come into ... more This study was inspired by the idea that there is more diversity in the ways languages come into contact to create efficient and fair communication. The alternative mode explored in this study is called lingua receptiva (or, LaRa): here interlocutors speak their own language and have enough linguistic and interactional competencies to understand the language of the other. Success of this mode is often related to mutual intelligibility between languages (e.g., typologically close Scandinavian constellations). However, in this study the leitmotif lies in discovering the covert potential of LaRa not within but across language families. The data come from the dialogues between native speakers of Estonian and Russian, the two biggest linguistic groups in Estonia. The participants were pre-selected with the help of a socio-linguistic questionnaire, which focused on participants' self-reported L2 proficiency, exposure to multilingual situations as well as attitudes towards the languages and social groups concerned. A C-Test was administered to obtain more objective information regarding interlocutors' proficiency in Estonian and Russian as their L2. The empirical study was based on the psycholinguistic experiments that investigate alignment in dialogues. Dyads composed of one Estonian and one Russian-speaking participant were engaged in a Skype phone call. Their task was to find each other on an abstract map and agree on a route from one point to another. In psycholinguistics, `alignment' is a state that is established once the interlocutors have reached a shared understanding of relevant aspects of reality. Based on pertinent literature, it was hypothesised that in lingua receptiva other aspects affecting successful communication include general awareness of this mode, flexibility and activation of plurilingual repertoires, exposure and attitudes to multilingual situations as well as ability to find mutual strategies of accommodation. It was argued that in LaRa alignment is actively monitored and a set of meta-communicative devices (MCDs) was proposed. The results indicated that even dyads with limited L2 proficiencies are able to complete the task successfully or can be more efficient than linguistically advanced dyads. Interlocutors reach and maintain mutual understanding by `minding' their languages with the meta-communicative devices. These MCDs vary significantly depending on the individual L2 proficiency, the composition of proficiencies within a dyad; exposure and attitudes to L2 were also found to play a role. When L2 proficiency does not guarantee mutual understanding, compensatory strategies may include code-switching. Despite the instruction to use mother tongue, the subjects in this experimental task occasionaly used their L2: all these instances were analysed in the framework of contact linguistics. Their distribution, too, depended on L2 proficiency, attitudes and exposure. It was concluded that code-switching can also function as an alignment strategy. To sum up, LaRa can be recommended as an alternative mode of multilingual communication. Equipped with plurilingual resources and meta-communicative skills, LaRa interlocutors monitor their languages by adapting to what they believe would be understood by the hearer in each specific situation. Finally, it is beyond doubt that enough common ground can be built even with quite limited linguistic resources.
This study investigated how speakers of Estonian as L1 with varying degree of proficiency in Engl... more This study investigated how speakers of Estonian as L1 with varying degree of proficiency in English judge grammaticality of bilingual constructions English adjective + Estonian noun from the point of view of adjective agreement. Estonian is rich in inflectional morphology, and adjectives agree with nouns in case and number. The empirical evidence from English-Estonian bilingual speech shows that agreement is not always the case even when an English adjective fits into Estonian declension system. It is hypothesized that the higher proficiency in/exposure to English is, the higher is the acceptability of bilingual adjective phrases, and (non-)agreement does not play a role. To test this, an experiment was designed where the test corpus of 108 sentences consisted of real and constructed examples, both in agreement and non-agreement condition. Real sentences came from fashion and beauty blogs and vlogs. The test was administered online and the participants were asked to rate adjective ...
Receptive multilingualism refers to language constellations in which interlocutors use their own ... more Receptive multilingualism refers to language constellations in which interlocutors use their own language while speaking to each other. This mode was widely applied in the Middle Ages, but linguistic constellations were transformed into monolingualism determined by nation-state formation from the 17th to the 19th century. Mainly due to areas and countries where receptive multilingualism still flourishes, researchers have demonstrated increasing interest in the processes behind this type of multilingual communication. This entry first discusses the theoretical concept of this phenomenon and then describes historical developments, linguistic and mental characteristics, as well as current applications.
This article introduces and defines the concept of mediated receptive multilingualism as a mode o... more This article introduces and defines the concept of mediated receptive multilingualism as a mode of multilingual communication which eases understanding between typologically distant languages through the medium of a language closely related to the target. In an experimental setting, Estonians without previous exposure to Ukrainian were quite successful in understanding Ukrainian texts via their knowledge of Russian. As expected, they made use of various language-specific elements to improve intelligibility, such as linguistic similarities between Russian and Ukrainian. However, a number of extra-linguistic factors were detected as influential predictors of success, especially metalinguistic awareness, exposure to Russian, exposure to various registers, experience with multilingual situations, learnability, and attitudes towards Ukrainian. These findings contest a static take on multilingual potential and point out the emergent nature of competencies and practices that become relevan...
publication descriptionProceedings of the 15th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue, 2011
Lingua receptiva (LaRa) is a 'mode of multilingual communication in which interactants employ a l... more Lingua receptiva (LaRa) is a 'mode of multilingual communication in which interactants employ a language and/or a language variety different from their partner's and still understand each other without the help of any additional lingua franca' (Rehbein, ten Thije and Verschik, 2012). Understanding in that case is established based on 'passive' knowledge of the interlocutors' language. The current paper presents data on Estonian-and Russian-speaking interlocutors involved in the task-solving experiment via Skype who use their respective mother tongues. In studies on dialogues, psycholinguistic alignment is claimed to be fundamental to overall communicative success and automatic in monolingual communication (e.g., Pickering and Garrod, 2004). This paper compares studies on multilingual constellations and argues that in LaRa alignment is actively monitored by interlocutors and is thus also a process of establishing understanding. The study explores meta-linguistic devices that are considered as explicit alignment. These devices are especially important for achieving understanding in typologically distant languages as it is the case in Estonian-Russian interaction. The conclusion drawn from this pilot is that regardless of L2 proficiency, dyads of speakers and hearers in lingua receptiva are able to fulfill their task successfully, however, they differ in applying meta-linguistic devices.
Imitation Game is an experimental paradigm in which participants seek to distinguish members of t... more Imitation Game is an experimental paradigm in which participants seek to distinguish members of their own social group from pretenders. The goals are to better understand processes of social inclusion and exclusion, develop pedagogical practices to address them, and increase the public’s awareness of diversity in our increasingly multicultural and multiethnic societies. Emerging results point to the importance of shared meanings that go above and beyond encyclopedic knowledge of a particular culture. Stereotypical representations and assumptions about culture-specific facts, beliefs, sentiments and behaviors do not necessarily contribute to correct group membership categorization. A more useful resource is based on tacit and experiential knowledge as well as interactional expertise. This approach paves the way toward a more comprehensive account of social identity that explains both its stable and constitutive features and its adaptable and negotiable ones.
What is the role of a man in a family? How do you celebrate Christmas? The answers to these and s... more What is the role of a man in a family? How do you celebrate Christmas? The answers to these and similar questions can be used to assess ethnic membership of a person. Whether or not these are actually useful questions will be the topic of our workshop. We will compare practices and beliefs about self and others as we try to act as judges in the Imitation Game. During the demonstration of the experiment the audience is invited to contest their own assumptions about the formation and maintenance of sociocultural groups. In addition to learning more about specific categories relevant for becoming a recognized member of a social group, we will also try to increase granularity of our perception of social classification and to promote participatory research as a tool for raising awareness.
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, Mar 12, 2019
This article introduces and defines the concept of mediated receptive multilingualism as a mode o... more This article introduces and defines the concept of mediated receptive multilingualism as a mode of multilingual communication which eases understanding between typologically distant languages through the medium of a language closely related to the target. In an experimental setting, Estonians without previous exposure to Ukrainian were quite successful in understanding Ukrainian texts via their knowledge of Russian. As expected, they made use of various language-specific elements to improve intelligibility, such as linguistic similarities between Russian and Ukrainian. However, a number of extra-linguistic factors were detected as influential predictors of success, especially metalinguistic awareness, exposure to Russian, exposure to various registers, experience with multilingual situations, learnability, and attitudes towards Ukrainian. These findings contest a static take on multilingual potential and point out the emergent nature of competencies and practices that become relevant in multilingual settings. Unconventional communicative modes – like mediated receptive multilingualism – may activate linguistic and sociolinguistic resources needed for establishing understanding in novel and potentially challenging communicative settings.
This study was inspired by the idea that there is more diversity in the ways languages come into ... more This study was inspired by the idea that there is more diversity in the ways languages come into contact to create efficient and fair communication. The alternative mode explored in this study is called lingua receptiva (or, LaRa): here interlocutors speak their own language and have enough linguistic and interactional competencies to understand the language of the other. Success of this mode is often related to mutual intelligibility between languages (e.g., typologically close Scandinavian constellations). However, in this study the leitmotif lies in discovering the covert potential of LaRa not within but across language families. The data come from the dialogues between native speakers of Estonian and Russian, the two biggest linguistic groups in Estonia. The participants were pre-selected with the help of a socio-linguistic questionnaire, which focused on participants' self-reported L2 proficiency, exposure to multilingual situations as well as attitudes towards the language...
Lingua receptiva (LaRa) is a ‘mode of multilingual communication in which interactants employ a l... more Lingua receptiva (LaRa) is a ‘mode of multilingual communication in which interactants employ a language and/or a language variety different from their partner’s and still understand each other without the help of any additional lingua franca’ (Rehbein, ten Thije and Verschik, 2012). Understanding in that case is established based on ‘passive’ knowledge of the interlocutors’ language. The current paper presents data on Estonianand Russian-speaking interlocutors involved in the task-solving experiment via Skype who use their respective mother tongues. In studies on dialogues, psycholinguistic alignment is claimed to be fundamental to overall communicative success and automatic in monolingual communication (e.g., Pickering and Garrod, 2004). This paper compares studies on multilingual constellations and argues that in LaRa alignment is actively monitored by interlocutors and is thus also a process of establishing understanding. The study explores meta-linguistic devices that are consi...
This study was inspired by the idea that there is more diversity in the ways languages come into ... more This study was inspired by the idea that there is more diversity in the ways languages come into contact to create efficient and fair communication. The alternative mode explored in this study is called lingua receptiva (or, LaRa): here interlocutors speak their own language and have enough linguistic and interactional competencies to understand the language of the other. Success of this mode is often related to mutual intelligibility between languages (e.g., typologically close Scandinavian constellations). However, in this study the leitmotif lies in discovering the covert potential of LaRa not within but across language families. The data come from the dialogues between native speakers of Estonian and Russian, the two biggest linguistic groups in Estonia. The participants were pre-selected with the help of a socio-linguistic questionnaire, which focused on participants' self-reported L2 proficiency, exposure to multilingual situations as well as attitudes towards the languages and social groups concerned. A C-Test was administered to obtain more objective information regarding interlocutors' proficiency in Estonian and Russian as their L2. The empirical study was based on the psycholinguistic experiments that investigate alignment in dialogues. Dyads composed of one Estonian and one Russian-speaking participant were engaged in a Skype phone call. Their task was to find each other on an abstract map and agree on a route from one point to another. In psycholinguistics, `alignment' is a state that is established once the interlocutors have reached a shared understanding of relevant aspects of reality. Based on pertinent literature, it was hypothesised that in lingua receptiva other aspects affecting successful communication include general awareness of this mode, flexibility and activation of plurilingual repertoires, exposure and attitudes to multilingual situations as well as ability to find mutual strategies of accommodation. It was argued that in LaRa alignment is actively monitored and a set of meta-communicative devices (MCDs) was proposed. The results indicated that even dyads with limited L2 proficiencies are able to complete the task successfully or can be more efficient than linguistically advanced dyads. Interlocutors reach and maintain mutual understanding by `minding' their languages with the meta-communicative devices. These MCDs vary significantly depending on the individual L2 proficiency, the composition of proficiencies within a dyad; exposure and attitudes to L2 were also found to play a role. When L2 proficiency does not guarantee mutual understanding, compensatory strategies may include code-switching. Despite the instruction to use mother tongue, the subjects in this experimental task occasionaly used their L2: all these instances were analysed in the framework of contact linguistics. Their distribution, too, depended on L2 proficiency, attitudes and exposure. It was concluded that code-switching can also function as an alignment strategy. To sum up, LaRa can be recommended as an alternative mode of multilingual communication. Equipped with plurilingual resources and meta-communicative skills, LaRa interlocutors monitor their languages by adapting to what they believe would be understood by the hearer in each specific situation. Finally, it is beyond doubt that enough common ground can be built even with quite limited linguistic resources.
This study investigated how speakers of Estonian as L1 with varying degree of proficiency in Engl... more This study investigated how speakers of Estonian as L1 with varying degree of proficiency in English judge grammaticality of bilingual constructions English adjective + Estonian noun from the point of view of adjective agreement. Estonian is rich in inflectional morphology, and adjectives agree with nouns in case and number. The empirical evidence from English-Estonian bilingual speech shows that agreement is not always the case even when an English adjective fits into Estonian declension system. It is hypothesized that the higher proficiency in/exposure to English is, the higher is the acceptability of bilingual adjective phrases, and (non-)agreement does not play a role. To test this, an experiment was designed where the test corpus of 108 sentences consisted of real and constructed examples, both in agreement and non-agreement condition. Real sentences came from fashion and beauty blogs and vlogs. The test was administered online and the participants were asked to rate adjective ...
Receptive multilingualism refers to language constellations in which interlocutors use their own ... more Receptive multilingualism refers to language constellations in which interlocutors use their own language while speaking to each other. This mode was widely applied in the Middle Ages, but linguistic constellations were transformed into monolingualism determined by nation-state formation from the 17th to the 19th century. Mainly due to areas and countries where receptive multilingualism still flourishes, researchers have demonstrated increasing interest in the processes behind this type of multilingual communication. This entry first discusses the theoretical concept of this phenomenon and then describes historical developments, linguistic and mental characteristics, as well as current applications.
This article introduces and defines the concept of mediated receptive multilingualism as a mode o... more This article introduces and defines the concept of mediated receptive multilingualism as a mode of multilingual communication which eases understanding between typologically distant languages through the medium of a language closely related to the target. In an experimental setting, Estonians without previous exposure to Ukrainian were quite successful in understanding Ukrainian texts via their knowledge of Russian. As expected, they made use of various language-specific elements to improve intelligibility, such as linguistic similarities between Russian and Ukrainian. However, a number of extra-linguistic factors were detected as influential predictors of success, especially metalinguistic awareness, exposure to Russian, exposure to various registers, experience with multilingual situations, learnability, and attitudes towards Ukrainian. These findings contest a static take on multilingual potential and point out the emergent nature of competencies and practices that become relevan...
publication descriptionProceedings of the 15th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue, 2011
Lingua receptiva (LaRa) is a 'mode of multilingual communication in which interactants employ a l... more Lingua receptiva (LaRa) is a 'mode of multilingual communication in which interactants employ a language and/or a language variety different from their partner's and still understand each other without the help of any additional lingua franca' (Rehbein, ten Thije and Verschik, 2012). Understanding in that case is established based on 'passive' knowledge of the interlocutors' language. The current paper presents data on Estonian-and Russian-speaking interlocutors involved in the task-solving experiment via Skype who use their respective mother tongues. In studies on dialogues, psycholinguistic alignment is claimed to be fundamental to overall communicative success and automatic in monolingual communication (e.g., Pickering and Garrod, 2004). This paper compares studies on multilingual constellations and argues that in LaRa alignment is actively monitored by interlocutors and is thus also a process of establishing understanding. The study explores meta-linguistic devices that are considered as explicit alignment. These devices are especially important for achieving understanding in typologically distant languages as it is the case in Estonian-Russian interaction. The conclusion drawn from this pilot is that regardless of L2 proficiency, dyads of speakers and hearers in lingua receptiva are able to fulfill their task successfully, however, they differ in applying meta-linguistic devices.
The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, 2012
Receptive multilingualism refers to language constellations in which interlocutors use their own ... more Receptive multilingualism refers to language constellations in which interlocutors use their own language while speaking to each other. This mode was widely applied in the Middle Ages, but linguistic constellations were transformed into monolingualism determined by nation-state formation from the 17th to the 19th century. Mainly due to areas and countries where receptive multilingualism still flourishes, researchers have demonstrated increasing interest in the processes behind this type of multilingual communication. This entry first discusses the theoretical concept of this phenomenon and then describes historical developments, linguistic and mental characteristics, as well as current applications.
This article introduces and defines the concept of mediated receptive multilingualism as a mode o... more This article introduces and defines the concept of mediated receptive multilingualism as a mode of multilingual communication which eases understanding between typologically distant languages through the medium of a language closely related to the target. In an experimental setting, Estonians without previous exposure to Ukrainian were quite successful in understanding Ukrainian texts via their knowledge of Russian. As expected, they made use of various language-specific elements to improve intelligibility, such as linguistic similarities between Russian and Ukrainian. However, a number of extra-linguistic factors were detected as influential predictors of success, especially metalinguistic awareness, exposure to Russian, exposure to various registers, experience with multilingual situations, learnability, and attitudes towards Ukrainian. These findings contest a static take on multilingual potential and point out the emergent nature of competencies and practices that become relevant in multilingual settings. Unconventional communicative modes – like mediated receptive multilingualism – may activate linguistic and sociolinguistic resources needed for establishing understanding in novel and potentially challenging communicative settings.
Paper presented at the seminar Approaches to early and youth multilingualism, 22 April 2021, Tall... more Paper presented at the seminar Approaches to early and youth multilingualism, 22 April 2021, Tallinn University
This study was inspired by the idea that there is more diversity in the ways languages come into ... more This study was inspired by the idea that there is more diversity in the ways languages come into contact to create efficient and fair communication. The alternative mode explored in this study is called lingua receptiva (or, LaRa): here interlocutors speak their own language and have enough linguistic and interactional competencies to understand the language of the other. Success of this mode is often related to mutual intelligibility between languages (e.g., typologically close Scandinavian constellations). However, in this study the leitmotif lies in discovering the covert potential of LaRa not within but across language families. The data come from the dialogues between native speakers of Estonian and Russian, the two biggest linguistic groups in Estonia. The participants were pre-selected with the help of a socio-linguistic questionnaire, which focused on participants' self-reported L2 proficiency, exposure to multilingual situations as well as attitudes towards the languages and social groups concerned. A C-Test was administered to obtain more objective information regarding interlocutors' proficiency in Estonian and Russian as their L2. The empirical study was based on the psycholinguistic experiments that investigate alignment in dialogues. Dyads composed of one Estonian and one Russian-speaking participant were engaged in a Skype phone call. Their task was to find each other on an abstract map and agree on a route from one point to another. In psycholinguistics, `alignment' is a state that is established once the interlocutors have reached a shared understanding of relevant aspects of reality. Based on pertinent literature, it was hypothesised that in lingua receptiva other aspects affecting successful communication include general awareness of this mode, flexibility and activation of plurilingual repertoires, exposure and attitudes to multilingual situations as well as ability to find mutual strategies of accommodation. It was argued that in LaRa alignment is actively monitored and a set of meta-communicative devices (MCDs) was proposed. The results indicated that even dyads with limited L2 proficiencies are able to complete the task successfully or can be more efficient than linguistically advanced dyads. Interlocutors reach and maintain mutual understanding by `minding' their languages with the meta-communicative devices. These MCDs vary significantly depending on the individual L2 proficiency, the composition of proficiencies within a dyad; exposure and attitudes to L2 were also found to play a role. When L2 proficiency does not guarantee mutual understanding, compensatory strategies may include code-switching. Despite the instruction to use mother tongue, the subjects in this experimental task occasionaly used their L2: all these instances were analysed in the framework of contact linguistics. Their distribution, too, depended on L2 proficiency, attitudes and exposure. It was concluded that code-switching can also function as an alignment strategy. To sum up, LaRa can be recommended as an alternative mode of multilingual communication. Equipped with plurilingual resources and meta-communicative skills, LaRa interlocutors monitor their languages by adapting to what they believe would be understood by the hearer in each specific situation. Finally, it is beyond doubt that enough common ground can be built even with quite limited linguistic resources.
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