Sociolinguistic Competence

Intercultural competence (Cross-culture competence) has become the focus of foreign language education. Awareness of the target culture is now one of the most discussed issues in the literature of the foreign language education. Raising language learners’ intercultural competence has become, now more than ever, an indispensable objective of the EFL education in Saudi Arabia. To investigate this issue, this paper aims at exploring some Saudi EFL learners’ views and attitudes toward learning about the target culture’s practices using both quantitative and qualitative data. Overall, the results showed that Saudi EFL learners were willing to learn about the target culture. Based on the data analysis, this paper concludes with proposing a model for developing language learners’ intercultural competence. The literature of EFL intercultural competence is huge and complex, and it is beyond the scope of this paper to cover all the related issues.

The present contribution considers the perception of difficulty of the use of pronouns in the address system in French by 23 native (NSs) and 102 non-native (NNSs) speakers of French. The NNS judged the system to be, « quite difficult » on average, while the NSs described it as «easy », on average. Surprisingly, independent variables such as frequency of use of French and length of stay in a francophone environment-which have been linked to increased native-like use of pronouns of address in previous studies-did not significantly affect the perception of difficulty of the system of address among NNSs. A closer analysis revealed that increasing use of French and longer stays in francophone environment was not linked to a linear decrease in the values reflecting perception of difficulty. While NNSs at intermediate levels of contact judged the system to be easier than those with less intense contact, difficulty scores peaked again for NNSs who used French most frequently. This non-linear relation suggests that at some point in the development of their sociolinguistic competence NNSs feel quite confident about their mastery of the system, but at a later stage they realise that some aspects still elude them. NNSs with L1s having multiple address pronouns judged the address system in French to be more difficult compared to NNSs with an L1 with a single address pronoun. Résumé La présente contribution considère la perception de la difficulté du système des pronoms d'adresse en français par 23 locuteurs natifs (LNs) et 102 locuteurs non-natifs (LNNs). Les LNNs jugent le système en moyenne « assez difficile » alors que les LNs le jugent en moyenne « facile ». Les variables indépendantes qui avaient été identifiées dans des études antérieures comme étant liées au choix du pronom d'adresse, c'est-à-dire, la fréquence d'usage du français et la durée de séjours en pays francophone, ne déterminent pas significativement la perception de la difficulté du système de pronoms d'adresse en français. Une analyse plus approfondie a révélé une progression non-linéaire des valeurs de difficulté entre les différents groupes. Alors que les LNNs avec un niveau de contact intermédiaire jugent le système comme étant plus facile que ceux à un niveau de contact inférieur, il s'est avéré que les LNNs avec le plus de contact en français jugent le système comme étant plus difficile. Il se peut qu'à un certain point dans le développement de la compétence sociolinguistique, les LNNs estiment avoir compris le fonctionnement des pronoms d'adresse en français. Or, à un niveau plus avancé ils se rendent compte que certains aspect du système continuent à leur échapper. Les LNNs dont la L1 comporte un système à pronoms d'adresse multiples jugent le système français comme étant plus difficile comparé aux LNs dont la L1 n'a qu'un seul pronom d'adresse. Mots-clefs : compétence sociolinguistique, pronoms d'adresse, perception de difficulté.

In the first part of this paper, the author discusses the importance of the first language in the process of learning English as a second language as explored by previous researchers. In the second part, the author describes the results obtained, in two small case studies, among the students of different ethnic backgrounds learning the English language. The present paper consists of two parts. The first part is comprised of online questionnaire answers provided by Georgian, Mandarin, Hindi and Lithuanian speakers, where participants were asked to answer questions regarding their experience while learning English and whether they were encouraged to use their MTs in the process. The second study was conducted at the International School of the Hague (ISH). Five students were interviewed and recorded as they shared their experiences of using their MTs during the learning process. The research generates mixed pictures, however most of the participants agree on the importance of their mother tongues in learning the target language.

Aunque generalmente se piensa que la manera más eficiente y exitosa para perfeccionar una segunda lengua es estudiar en el extranjero, la investigación empírica se ha enfocado en la adquisición de rasgos de la lengua estándar en oposición a aquellos variables. Por consiguiente, esta monografía investiga hasta qué punto aprendices de español como segunda lengua adquieren estructuras variables de la lengua –leísmo y laísmo– mientras realizan un programa de inmersión en el extranjero de cuatro meses de duración. Este trabajo está formado por dos grupos de aprendices de español matriculados en dos diferentes tipos de programas en Madrid (un programa académico ordinario vs. un programa académico con prácticas de voluntariado) y un grupo de hablantes nativos. Es una investigación longitudinal cuantitativa y cualitativa de datos orales y escritos. Este volumen contribuye a comprender mejor la adquisición de la variación dialectal, a documentar, de manera original, la relación entre las competencias intercultural y sociolingüística, y a dar a conocer, por primera vez, el impacto del tipo de programa en el desarrollo sociolingüístico de aprendices de español como segunda lengua.

Over the past three decades, a considerable number of studies have investigated the connection between study abroad and second language acquisition to the exclusion of another emerging language profile, that of heritage language learners who study abroad to enhance their home language skills. The few studies on heritage language learners' development of local features abroad have focused on phonological ones, concluding that more in-depth exposure to the varieties abroad was related to increased production of the local features (Escalante, 2018; George & Hoffman-González, in press). Research on the effects of international service learning have also been limited to second language learners, demonstrating increased second language use and proficiency (Martinsen, Baker, Dewey, Bown, & Johnson, 2010) along with the development of geographically-variable patterns of use (Salgado-Robles, 2018). The current study combines these two fields and investigates the development of a variable local feature (vosotros versus ustedes) by 20 U.S. Spanish-speaking heritage language learners of Mexican descent studying abroad for four months in Spain. The experimental group (N = 10) participated in a service learning course in addition to traditional coursework, while the control group (N = 10) completed traditional coursework and no service learning course. The results of the Oral Discourse Completion Task demonstrated that all participants significantly increased their use of vosotros from the beginning to the end of the semester; however, the change by the experimental group was two times higher than the control group. This could be explained by the results of the Language Contact Profile, which revealed more use of Spanish and less use of English by participants in the experimental group. This study offers implications for future study abroad programs, the linguistic impacts of service-learning, and the development of sociolinguistic competence.

The current study investigated the extent to which Iranian learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners are sociolinguistically competent in performing the speech act of refusal. The data were elicited form a sample of 30 Iranian EFL learners, 15 males and 15 females, who responded to situations in a discourse completion task (DCT). The results indicated that the three most frequent refusal strategies are 'excuse, reason, explanation', 'non-performative statement' and 'statement of regret'. The findings revealed the participants' tendency toward positive and negative politeness in refusing. Regarding gender, Chi-square analyses revealed no significant differences between males and females in the use of both politeness strategies and refusal strategies. The refusal utterances were also rated by two native English speakers on a three-point politeness Likert scale (1: Polite, 2: Partially polite and 3: Impolite). The rating was that out of the 148 utterances (i.e., 82% of the entire sample of refusal utterances being 180 utterances), only 43 refusals, accounting for 29%, had been rated as 'Polite', with the remaining 105 utterances rated as either 'Partially polite' or 'Impolite'. The analysis of the content of the refusal semantic formulas included elements of both politeness and impoliteness. Elements that contributed to appropriacy included indirectness, certain syntactic and lexical structures, intensification, among others while the elements of impoliteness were length of the semantic formulas (both shortness and verbosity), lack of total redress, mitigation and politeness markers, among other things. In general, the participants were found to be in need of improvement in the appropriate realization of refusal.

Cet article se donne pour objectif de réfléchir aux raisons pour lesquelles la phonétique est le parent pauvre de la didactique du FLE. Il propose d'intégrer des indices phoniques de la variation stylistique à l’enseignement du français. A partir d’une expérience issue d’un terrain didactique, l’auteur se penche sur le « transcodage » en tant qu’outil d’éveil à la variation phonétique en FLE.

This paper attempts to understand why pronunciation is the poor relative of the teaching of French as a foreign language. It examines how phonetic indices of stylistic variation could be integrated in the French language teaching. On the basis of a field study, the author discusses “transcoding” as a tool for awakening phonetic variation in French as a foreign language.

Mots clés : variation phonétique, sociolinguistique, didactique de la prononciation, apprentissage sur corpus, FLE.

Key words : phonetic variation, sociolinguistics, French pronunciation teaching, data driven learning, French as a Foreign Language

The study explores the role of word frequency in the process of acquisition of the urban prestigious form [ʔ] in place of [q] in the vocabulary of the colloquial Arabic of Christian rural migrants to the city of Hims in Syria. The original corpus of words was derived from the naturally occurring speech of fifty-two participants, paying special attention to older speakers who use the two forms variably. The study shows that frequency plays a major facilitative role in guiding the acquisition process towards the most frequent words first, although adopting the form [ʔ] was initiated by the urban Himsi speakers’ stigmatization of the rural form [q] and by social factors. The results have implications for lexical diffusion theory. They also imply that frequency can play a facilitative role in developing higher levels of urban sociolinguistic competence. More importantly, knowledge of word frequency enables predictions on the content of speakers’ variable speech.

AWEJ Volume.5 Number.2, 2014   
                                                                                                                                        Pp.15-23

AUE Students’ Practice of the Speech Act of Compliment

Niveen Mohammad Zayed
American University in the Emirates
Dubai, UAE

Abstract
This paper investigated AUE students’ practice of the speech act of compliment while they were communicating in English; it also investigated the most common positive adjectives adopted by them and the effect of the topic of the situation on the compliments. The participants of this study were 15 female and 15 male students at AUE. To gather the required data for the study, the researcher designed a questionnaire in the format of a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) which had eight situations, provoking the speech act of compliment. The results of the study revealed that the factor of gender among AUE students had almost no effect on their compliment forms, on the adopted positive adjectives, nor on their interest in the topic of  the compliment. The participants did not compliment properly: They ignored some of the most  common forms of compliment in English, they used a lot of compliments that are not common in English, and they used jokes and  Arabic words transcribed in English to convey compliments. The most two frequent positive adjectives  adopted by the participants were ‘nice’ and ‘good’. Finally, the results revealed that the topic of the setting was not a crucial  factor to enhance the participants to convey the compliments. In conclusion, the researcher recommended that the speech act of compliment must be taken into consideration while teaching English language courses to enable students to use them more properly.
Key words: AUE (American University in the Emirates), sociolinguistic competence, speech acts, the speech act of compliment

The chapter begins with the early considerations of sociolinguistic competence for second language acquisition (SLA). We then turn to critical issues associated with this construct. Next, recent research contributions are outlined, including the principal methods employed by investigators interested in tapping sociolinguistic competence. The chapter ends with recommendations for practice informed by communicative competence for researchers and instructors, along with future directions to advance study on the topic. Since the historical context has played a vital role in why communicative competence became an area of interest for SLA researchers, we start by presenting key definitions in the light of their time of introduction.

Sociolingvistinę kompetenciją labai bendrai galima apibūdinti kaip gebėjimą priderinti savo kalbą prie pašnekovo. Toks gebėjimas yra natūralus bendraujant savo kalba, tačiau nėra toks paprastas įsisavinant kitą kalbą. Į Lietuvą gyventi atvykę užsieniečiai, jei nusprendžia, kad lietuvių kalbos jiems reikia, įprastai bent bando kalbos mokytis formaliai. Ar mokydamiesi kursuose, ar patys iš vadovėlio jie susipažįsta ir, tikėtina, išmoksta bendrinės gana oficialios kalbos varianto, kuris tinka bendrauti su plačiausiu pašnekovų spektru. Vis dėlto, realiai bendraudami su gimtakalbiais lietuviais, besimokantieji pamažu ima pastebėti skirtingus variantus, vartojamus oficialiose ir kasdienio bendravimo situacijose. Tačiau tokia sociolingvistinė kompetencija plėtojasi labai pamažu ir tik jau įgijus nemenką lingvistinę kompetenciją.
Pranešime aptariami lietuvių šnekamosios kalbos bruožai (įvardžių, pertarų variantai, veiksmažodžio asmenų ir vardažodžių linksnių formų trumpinimas ir kt.) lietuvių kaip antrojoje (K2) kalboje. Lietuvių K2 duomenys surinkti skerspjūvio metodu iš 17 Lietuvoje gyvenančių užsieniečių, siekiant apimti kuo platesnį jų ratą, t.y. skirtingų pirmųjų kalbų, Lietuvoje praleisto laiko, lietuvių kalbos mokėjimo lygio ir pan. Šnekos duomenys rinkti pusiau struktūruoto sociolingvistinio interviu metu ir respondentams atliekant konkrečias užduotis. 27 val. garso įrašų transkribuota pagal CHILDES sistemą (MacWhinney 2000) ir koduota morfologinei analizei.
Pranešime nagrinėjama, kokie lietuvių šnekamosios (ir kitų atmainų) variantai lietuvių K2 randasi anksčiausiai, kurie nevartojami visai, kas gali lemti tai, kad kai kurios formos pastebimos ir įsisavinamos iškart, o kitos – nors gimtakalbių vartojamos dažnai – ima rastis tik labiausiai pažengusiųjų kalboje. Analizei remiamasi konkrečiais tiriamųjų šnekos duomenimis, taip pat jų pačių metalingvistiniais komentarais.

This study aims to create curiosity about literary texts in order to understand cultural aspects of language. Participatory action research was conducted with B1 level students from an international boarding school in Istanbul. Theoretical framework was based on intuitive text simplifying criteria including CEFR mediation and plurilingual standards. Mediating a literary text, mediating concepts and mediating communication were taken into account while planning activities. For mediating a text, text simplification for B1 level was adapted for developing linguistic competence. Mediating concepts are closely related to sociolinguistic competence and help to explore cultural usages of target language in fashion, cuisine, local traditions, etc. Finally, mediating communication provides pragmatic competence through real life situations and tasks. Mediation activities, which are conducted within this study, enabled students to raise their consciousness and curiosity on learning a foreign language and another culture.

The current study explores the second language (L2) acquisition of subconsciously held language attitudes. Specifically, we determine whether L2 learners perceive differences between Spanish speakers of four geographic varieties and evaluate them differently, and if these perceptions change with proficiency. Following sociolinguistic methodological practices, we administered a verbal guise task to American English speaking learners of Spanish from four university enrollment levels. We found that the learners differentially evaluated speakers of these regional varieties across dimensions of solidarity (kindness) and standardness (prestige). We observed development across levels in the evaluation of regional varieties for prestige, while differentiations in kindness ratings remained consistent across levels. We also show that for our highest-level group, study abroad experience may contribute to patterns of subconscious evaluation. Although one would not expect L2 classroom learners to possess native-like subconscious attitudes, the present study is an essential step in understanding how such attitudes develop in L2 acquisition.

This article employs a language ideological framework to explore how particular language attitudes and beliefs shaped one group of U.S. students' choices to avoid producing a dialectal variant, Castilian Spanish [θ], in the context of an undergraduate Spanish pronunciation class. An analysis of ethnographic data points to the significance of three common beliefs that frame the appropriate use of [θ] in idealized monolingual terms that are incongruous with a U.S. national identity. The instructor mobilized these beliefs at key moments to establish normative expectations that discouraged learners from producing [θ]. Students also alluded to these beliefs and the consequences of being unable to use [θ] appropriately to explain their decisions to eschew this variant following the class. These findings suggest that language attitudes and beliefs shape learners' choices to adopt dialectal variants in production as an effect of language ideologies on the L2 development of phonology and sociolinguistic competence.

The present contribution considers the perception of difficulty of the use of pronouns in the address system in French by 23 native (NSs) and 102 non-native (NNSs) speakers of French. The NNS judged the system to be, « quite difficult » on average, while the NSs described it as «easy », on average. Surprisingly, independent variables such as frequency of use of French and length of stay in a francophone environment - which have been linked to increased native-like use of pronouns of address in previous studies - did not significantly affect the perception of difficulty of the system of address among NNSs. A closer analysis revealed that increasing use of French and longer stays in francophone environment was not linked to a linear decrease in the values reflecting perception of difficulty. While NNSs at intermediate levels of contact judged the system to be easier than those with less intense contact, difficulty
scores peaked again for NNSs who used French most frequently. This non-linear relation suggests that at some point in the development of their sociolinguistic competence NNSs feel quite confident about their mastery of the system,
but at a later stage they realise that some aspects still elude them. NNSs with L1s having multiple address pronouns judged the address system in French to be more difficult compared to NNSs with an L1 with a single address pronoun.
Keywords : sociolinguistic competence, pronouns of address, perception of difficulty.