Kategorie: Anglistik

Projektdetails

Hochschule
Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg
Sprache
Projektleitung gesamt
Davydova, Julia; H.Prof. Dr. Priv.-Doz.
Projektleitung intern
Davydova, Julia; Dr.
Interne Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Externe Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Kooperationspartner
Laufzeit
2022 – 2024
Beschreibung
(siehe die englisch-sprachige Beschreibung)
Beschreibung (engl.)
This project treats Indian English, its genesis, its acquisitional contexts and its major sociolinguistic uses. In so doing, it contextualizes this linguistic variety within the broader context detailing the history of language contact in South Asia. I demonstrate how over the centuries, Indian English has become an essential part of the linguistic landscape of India naturally underpinning and uniting its millennia-long multilingualism.
URL
Bericht

Projektdetails

Hochschule
Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg
Sprache
Projektleitung gesamt
Davydova, Julia; Dr. habil.
Projektleitung intern
Davydova, Julia; Dr.
Interne Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Externe Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Kooperationspartner
Laufzeit
2017 – 2019
Beschreibung
This chapter provides an overview of the language ideologies and language policies in Russia, while attempting to ascertain the impact these may have had on the attitudes towards English, a major foreign language taught in Russian schools today. The chapter is structured as follows. First, I review the language policies pursued by the Russian government in pre-revolutionary Russia. Second, I explain how linguistic diversity was managed during the Soviet era. In the next step, I highlight the most recent developments in the domain of language planning and language management, while considering the most recent socio-political events, namely the annexation of the Crimea peninsula. Finally, I discuss how language policies traditionally implemented in Russia have impacted on English-language teaching, as well as the teaching of other foreign languages. Throughout the chapter, I will attempt to expand the scope of my descriptive analysis to include some of Russia’s neighbouring states (e.g. the Ukraine, Byelorussia, etc.). In so doing, I will attempt to demonstrate how the linguistic legacy of the Soviet period has affected language ideologies and policies in those satellite states.
Beschreibung (engl.)
Bericht

Projektdetails

Hochschule
Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg
Sprache
Projektleitung gesamt
Davydova, Julia; Dr. habil.
Projektleitung intern
Davydova, Julia; Dr.
Interne Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Externe Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Kooperationspartner
Laufzeit
2020 – 2020
Beschreibung
The paper discusses the changing role of English in Germany drawing on evidence from domains of English use and speakers’ attitudes. In so doing, it reports two case studies carried out at the University of Mannheim, Germany. The first study quantitatively documents the use of English across formal and informal settings as well as in spontaneous interactions. The second study discusses the results of a survey tapping into German speakers’ attitudes towards two native (British, American) and two non-native (Indian, German) Englishes, thereby eliciting respondents’ attitudinal orientations towards English varieties including their own. I conclude that whereas English spoken in Germany shows clear signs of evolving into an ESL variety, it is still, by and large, an EFL English, at least in terms of attitudinal orientations professed by educated young adults.
Beschreibung (engl.)
URL
Bericht

Projektdetails

Hochschule
Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg
Sprache
Projektleitung gesamt
Davydova, Julia; Dr. habil.
Projektleitung intern
Davydova, Julia; Dr.
Interne Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Externe Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Kooperationspartner
Laufzeit
2019 – 2021
Beschreibung
The study explores the use of intensifiers, e.g. I am so lucky. This is really interesting in L2 English of young adults from Germany. In so doing, it attempts to establish similarities and differences in the patterns of use in comparison to native-speaker English. The results of this investigation will allow us to formulate more fine-grained assumptions about the evolution of the newest forms of English.
Beschreibung (engl.)
URL
Bericht

Projektdetails

Hochschule
Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg
Sprache
Projektleitung gesamt
Davydova, Julia; Dr. habil.
Projektleitung intern
Davydova, Julia; Dr.
Interne Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Externe Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Kooperationspartner
Laufzeit
2019 – 2020
Beschreibung
The study reported here explores the role of various social factors in the L2 acqusition of vernacular variation. In so doing, it investigates acquisition of probabilistic constraints on the use of a globally available innovation, quotative be like, as a diagnostic linguistic variable. Drawing on data obtained from 37 individuals from three age cohorts all living in Mannheim, Germany, and applying the variationist method of evaluation, I show that German learners managed to acquire the variable grammar of quotative be like. I also test for a diverse set of sociolinguistic and sociopsychological variables by way of exploring their relative contribution to the process of acquiring structured variation by adult learners. The results of mixed-effects modelling (Johnson 2009) show that acquisition of quotative be like is mediated by age, gender and learners’ linguistic identity. I conclude that EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ (implicit) knowledge about structured variation is an inherent component of their sociolinguistic competence, while drawing English teachers’ attention to the general importance of the issue concerning learners’ knowledge about structured variability.
Beschreibung (engl.)
URL
Bericht

Projektdetails

Hochschule
Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg
Sprache
Projektleitung gesamt
Davydova, Julia; Dr. habil.
Projektleitung intern
Davydova, Julia; Dr.
Interne Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Ilg, Angelika; Mag. Dr. MA.
Externe Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Kooperationspartner
Laufzeit
2019 – 2021
Beschreibung
The study explores the extent to which linguistic globalisation and the ever increasing dominance of English have come to bear on the local languages in traditional sociolinguistic milieus. We set out to investigate the attitudes of 142 respondents from Vorarlberg, an Austrian state, towards their home dialects, High German, a local standardized variety, and English. While drawing on a verbal guise test (VGT) and a questionnaire as the main methods of study, we show that local dialects are viewed as badges of local identities, whereas standard German is appreciated for its utilitarian value. Remarkably, English emerges as a language of enormous social prestige with high levels of social attractiveness. English is further seen as a language allowing the inhabitants of Vorarlberg to connect to the larger world and become part of the global dialogue. We argue that rather than eroding the local cultures, English adds to the sociolinguistic fabric of traditionally diglossic societies, rendering their linguistic texture even more complex and enriched, not impoverished.
Beschreibung (engl.)
URL
Bericht

Projektdetails

Hochschule
Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg
Sprache
Projektleitung gesamt
Davydova, Julia; Dr. habil.
Projektleitung intern
Davydova, Julia; Dr.
Interne Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Externe Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Hazen, Kirk; Dr.
Kooperationspartner
Laufzeit
2019 – 2020
Beschreibung
This study explores the role of linguistic structure in speakers’ sociolinguistic perceptions of vernacular speech. In so doing, it tests the assumptions of the Interface Principle (Labov 1993) and its major claim that semantic and discourse-pragmatic features will elicit a greater degree of social awareness than the morphosyntactic variants (Levon and Buchstaller 2015). Relying on data obtained from 372 German respondents, we explore the social perceptions of two discourse-pragmatic and two morphosyntactic variables. The former are intensifiers and quotative markers; the latter are future tense and possessive markers. We show that the morphosyntactic features investigated here are generally available to the sociolinguistic monitor of L1 speakers as well as highly advanced foreign language learners (henceforth, EFL). However, these morphosyntactic features are (i) not available to the extent that the semantic / discourse-pragmatic variants are and (ii) their social evaluation is more malleable. We argue for the weaker version of the Interface Principle and propose that the differences in the recognisability of vernacular features is gradient between and within linguistic levels, and that juxtaposing different types of speaker data is instrumental in discerning those differences.
Beschreibung (engl.)
URL
Bericht

Projektdetails

Hochschule
Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg
Sprache
Projektleitung gesamt
Davydova, Julia; Dr. habil.
Projektleitung intern
Davydova, Julia; Dr.
Interne Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Externe Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Kooperationspartner
Laufzeit
2018 – 2019
Beschreibung
NA
Beschreibung (engl.)
The study aims at revising the major dichotomy between ‘Indigenised’ and ‘Learner English’, that is the Englishes of the Outer and Expanding Circles respectively. Taking the traditional sociolinguistic model of world Englishes as a starting point of discussion, I discuss the argument that classical macrosociolinguistic descriptions of linguistic varieties are helpful accounts that have also proven to be useful heuristic devices in the study of global variation as it is attested in English. Taking the linguistic variable ‘quotatives’ for illustration, I show that the patterns of use of innovative be like are uniform in the speech of young adults with elevated levels of exposure to mass media products and apply across the Outer and Expanding Circle English board. I conclude that the careful study of L2 learners’ individual profiles in a given sociolinguistic environment also holds the key to a nuanced understanding of the major sociolinguistic and sociocognitive determinants underlying the emergence of the new forms of English.
Bericht

Projektdetails

Hochschule
Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg
Sprache
Projektleitung gesamt
Davydova, Julia; Dr. habil.
Projektleitung intern
Davydova, Julia; Dr.
Interne Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Externe Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Kooperationspartner
Laufzeit
2014 – 2019
Beschreibung
NA
Beschreibung (engl.)
The volume considers global and local innovations in the domain of variable quotative marking by extending its scope to the newly emerging forms of language. In so doing, it explores two academic communities in order to tap into the distinctive non-native speaker ecologies underpinning the evolution of English worldwide. The author tackles the geographical scale that reaches from the southwest of Germany all the way to northern India, while keeping an eye on the sociolinguistic realities of North America and the British Isles. It provides a detailed account of variable quotation strategies as well as language-internal and sociopsychological mechanisms underlying their realisation in non-native speakers’ grammar. The book engages the reader in the discussion of the social and psycholinguistic mechanisms that are at work in the creation of innovative quotative constructions, while highlighting the relevance of the mass media consumption patterns and learners’ local attitudes for the spread of innovative features on a global scale. In so doing, it consolidates findings from (acquisitional variationist) sociolinguistics and World Englishes, as well as usage-based and cognitively oriented approaches to second language acquisition. The approach is motivated by the search for the new synergy effects stemming from the different subfields of the study of language in society and the science of the human mind more generally.
Bericht

Projektdetails

Hochschule
Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg
Sprache
Projektleitung gesamt
Davydova, Julia; Dr. habil.
Projektleitung intern
Davydova, Julia; Dr.
Interne Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Externe Projektmitarbeiter/innen
Kooperationspartner
Laufzeit
2019 – 2020
Beschreibung
NA
Beschreibung (engl.)
Quotative be like is a much discussed variable linguistic feature recruited in this investigation in order to revisit the hypothesis of linguistic diffusion (Labov 2007) predicting re-ordering of the original patterns by L2 populations. Being a sociocognitively salient variant spreading above the level of conscious awareness, be like has been appropriated by adult speakers from two distinctive L2 English ecologies with a high degree of precision, a finding previously not reported in studies exploring the acquisition of structured variation. In this paper, I explain how, supported by frequency and constraint complexity, sociocognitive salience may have contributed to the generally accurate replication of the variable grammar for be like and, by this token, how it can inform existing models of language change.
Bericht