Language Attrition

The main focus of this study was on finding out whether first language attrition can be observed in adults after they have migrated to a country where a language other than their original is spoken. For this purpose a 35 year--old Russian woman (E) was chosen, who migrated to Germany when she was 18 years old and has lived there ever since.

This paper reviews some of the predictions and assumptions made by different versions of the Critical Period Hypothesis which assumes that language acquisition will in principle be more successful in younger subjects. Findings from investigations of early vs. delayed acquisition ofboth a first and a second language which support this claim are presented. The question is then addressed whether the overall difference in ultimate attainment is a consequence of a loss of neural plasticity, or ofthe stabilizing ofneural connections through the language learning process itself. The findings from a study ofthe Ll attrition ofKorean adoptees in France are presented in support ofthe latter explanation.

Linguistics and the science of Anthropology have much in common. In fact, to a large
extent the two fields overlap. Field workers utilize research models of the ethnographic type
as well as approaches that are experimental, methods that are qualitative as well as
quantitative, for example. The study of language contact and bilingualism, topic of this paper,
presents a good opportunity for drawing on contributions from the two overlapping fields.
The focus of the following review of current research will be mainly from the cognitive
science point of view, divided into four areas of recent work: (1) bilingual development, first
and second language learning and language loss, (2) creolization and convergence, (3)
codeswitching and borrowing, and (4) problems related to the distinction between language
and dialect.

Vocabulary learning strategies play an important role in vocabulary learning. Admittedly, lack of vocabulary knowledge will have an effect over all four of language skills: listening, reading, writing, and speaking. In addition, vocabulary learning and word retention are always the problems encountered by students at university. This study, hence, investigates ESL students studying teaching English as a second language in Universiti Putra Malaysia. This investigation attempts to understand the influence of informal language learning environment (parents and home environment) on the vocabulary learning strategies. This paper describes how mediating agents interfere in acquiring vocabulary learning strategies of ESL students or support them.

Nach dem Aufbrechen der weltweiten Systemkonfrontation, deren Wirkung in fast jeder Konfliktstruktur zu spüren war, sind inter-ethnische Konflikte auch in Europa wieder zum vorherrschenden Muster gesellschaftlicher Auseinandersetzung geworden (Seewann 1992: 23). In Südosteuropa sehen sich mit ihrer Identität kämpfende Nationalstaaten immer wieder mit der eigenen Multiethnizität konfrontiert und erlebten in den letzten Jahren die Schwierigkeiten, die daraus erwachsen. Das Lösungsspektrum reichte oft über Marginalisierung der Minderheiten in einer ethnozentristischen Politik nicht hinaus (Romaine: 23). Minderheiten wiederum werden im europäischen Diskurs seit langem in sprachliche Kategorien gegossen. Sprache als Kulturträger par excellence ist auch ein Grundpfeiler der zögerlichen Minderheitenpolitik der Europäischen Union. Mit der Osterweiterung steht diese in der hoffnungsvollen Rolle des Mediators. Denn nachdem die europäischen Staaten in den letzten 200 Jahren dem nationalstaatlichen Monolingualismus verfallen waren, bietet erst die Europäische Union wieder die Perspektive, Vielsprachigkeit als kulturellen Reichtum zu verstehen (Krumm: 9f.). Der Zuwachs zur EU hat diese Vielfalt noch potenziert: In den neuen Mitgliedsstaaten wurden fast doppelt so viele Minderheitengruppen gezählt wie in den alten zusammengenommen (vgl. Euromosaic II) und bilden in mehr als der Hälfte der Staaten einen Anteil von über 10%. Daher setzt sich inzwischen die Einsicht durch, dass Minderheiten ein Problem der Gemeinschaft sind und "für nationale Minderheiten [...] der Erhalt und die Weiterentwicklung der Sprache die notwendige Basis [ist], um ihre Kultur, Tradition und Identität zu bewahren" (Erster Bericht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2000: 4, zit. nach Elle: 7). Ein möglicher Weg dahin ist die Verlagerung des politischen Zentrums weg von den Einzelstaaten zur Europäischen Union hin, die als EU der Nationen und Regionen vor allem letzteren wieder mehr Gewicht verleiht. Die europäischen Regionen, die weitaus älter sind, als die sie inkorporierenden Nationalstaaten, bieten in ihrer Überschaubarkeit die Chance zur Entmarginalisierung auch der regionalen Minderheiten. Die Unterstützung von

This chapter provides a broad overview of the way in which language shift has progressed in the Ryukyus over the last century. It is organized roughly in chronological order, beginning with a brief introduction to the literature on Ryukyuan sociolinguistics. The main text is divided into two main sections. The first is a roughly chronological account of the language shift process as it has progressed in the Ryukyus to date. It deals first with the period of Japanese language spread in the public domains through education and punishment in the early twentieth century before summarizing the post-war era of broken intergenerational transmission and subsequent decline of Ryukyuan languages in private domains. The second section focuses on the observable effects of language shift on Ryukyuan people’s language repertoires, behaviors and attitudes in the present day.

One of the most important challenges that learners will face during the process of second language learning is learning vocabulary. Vocabulary has been recognized as crucial to language use in which insufficient vocabulary knowledge of the learners led to difficulties in second language learning. Thus, in the case of learning the vocabulary in second language, students need to be educated with vocabulary learning strategies.

Learning outcomes result from students' experiences with the curriculum content selected by developers and noted in their content statement .Curriculum developers plan intended learning outcomes, but students achieve actual learning outcomes.

This book chapter is a diachronic study of the process of language shift in Okinawa. I demonstrate how a language shift profile in the form of a timeline can be constructed retrospectively using qualitative synchronic data. These data comprise field recordings of natural conversation between Okinawans of different age cohorts in combination with parameters such as child-bearing age, life expectancy and the age at which people enter the workforce. As shown throughout the discussion, the results can then be triangulated with other researchers’ accounts of the historical context of each phase of shift. The timeline drawn in this chapter illustrates how new subgroups of people with different linguistic behaviours have emerged in the Naha/Shuri community as language shift has progressed. It therefore enables us not only to see how language use has changed over the years, but also to make predictions as to the future course of shift, i.e. when the Okinawan language (Uchinaaguchi) is likely to reach various stages of decay, and finally, extinction. This method of visually representing language shift will be useful not only for scholars interested in the Ryukyuan situation but also for those involved in the study of other endangered languages.

APA citation: Anderson, Mark (2014). Language shift and language loss. In Mark Anderson and Patrick Heinrich (Eds.), Language Crisis in the Ryukyus (pp. 103-139). Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Loss and Maintenance of Somali Language in the UK

Shamsudin Abikar
Bristol Primary School Teaching Assistant


Abstract
This study attempts to investigate first language attrition in Somali (L1) speakers of English as L2. Specifically answers were sought for the questions on Somali language features that are first susceptible to attrition when they come in contact with the English language; and the perception of Somali parents on maintaining the Somali language by their children.The data collected was based on 11 tape recordings (to elicit oral narrative) of six Somali pupils’ voices, structured/unstructured interviews with pupils and parents while case study approach is used. The six pupils were divided into two groups: group1, which included three Somali siblings who are newly arrived in the UK whilst Group 2 consisted of three Somali siblings who are already established in the UK. Initially it was assumed that Group1 would constitute as a control group. This was later disregarded for two reasons: 1) the utterances provided by them, at this early stage, illustrated demise of their L1 verbal ability and 2) due to time and space. Therefore, Group2’s utterances were analysed and the outcome indicate strong indicatars for attrition in their L1 lexical retrieving and L1 sentence structure skills.
Keywords: First Language, Second Language, Language Attrition

This paper is based on a short fieldwork undertaken in the island of Tsushima in August 2018. During this fieldwork, two sites in northern Tsushima were chosen to ascertain what the state of the dialect is at present and what its most salient features in its grammar and vocabulary are. The two sites which were chosen showed a great difference in the current status of the dialect. the first site named Ōura has proven to be mostly devoid of speakers of the traditional dialect. However, there are clear signs of a new interdialect being created that contains a mixture of the standard Japanese and the local dialect mostly containing broadly western Japanese features. The village of Sago has proven to be a more promising site where the traditional dialect is still in use. Some of its basic features in both morphosyntax and vocabulary are discussed in this paper. Material in this paper has been mostly taken from the recordings of natural speech of the inhabitants and in some cases from questioning and elicitation.

Nikvh is a language isolate spoken in the Russian Far East. The language is severely endangered and it is no longer transmitted to children. Estimates on the current number of speakers vary from tens to hundreds.

The study examines the alternation of initial consonants in Nivkh (Consonant Mutation, CM) and the variation occurring in it. Consonant Mutation takes place between homorganic plosives and fricatives, e.g. cus pəɲx ’meat soup’ but cʰo vəɲx ’fish soup’. In addition to the phonological environment, it also requires a certain morphosyntactic context.
The aim of the study was to determine the regularity of CM in the speech of the current Nivkh speakers. My own fieldwork results had led me to suppose that the modern speakers would not exhibit CM as regularly as it has been traditionally described in the literature. Developments observed in similar alternations in obsolescent Celtic languages gave support to this hypothesis. It had also been documented that in Nivkh CM, variation is abundant in post-sonorant environments.

My data consisted of eight volumes of the series Sound Materials of the Nivkh Language, published between 2002 and 2013. Altogether they contained about five and a half hours of conversations in Nivkh and their transcriptions. From these, more than 2 300 contexts of CM were retrieved and saved to a database for further analysis. The realization of CM was compared between speakers, in different syntactic structures, and for different alternating sounds.

The study confirms the weak predictability of post-sonorant CM. In other cases, less than 7 % of forms were at odds with the traditional rules, and even some of these could be attributed to explaining factors such as lexical exceptions. Some anomalies were left unexplained, but their frequency was low enough to conclude that the natural variation occurring in a small language without a prestige norm is a more probable explanation than language attrition, even though the latter may contribute to the variation in case of the youngest speakers.

My purpose in this paper is to examine the psychological nature of forgetting (parts of) a language by individuals involved in language change across the lifespan. The objectives of the article are (1) to summarize psychological theories and hypotheses about forgetting and memory failure, and (2) to evaluate their relevance for the explanation of individual language attrition. By reviewing linguistically and psycholinguistically oriented language attrition studies that appear to implicate mechanisms of forgetting, I seek to contribute to the interdisciplinary study and discussion of language attrition phenomena.

Questo contributo riporta i primi risultati di una ricerca in corso volta a verificare l'incidenza di due tempi perfettivi, il passato prossimo e il passato remoto, nell'italiano d'Australia parlato da immigrati italiani del secondo dopoguerra. Nel contesto australiano la presenza dell'inglese a contatto con l'italiano determina una ridistribuzione delle lingue del repertorio con conseguenze per il sistema linguistico dell'italiano. Attraverso l'analisi del passato prossimo e del passato remoto si vuole pertanto investigare la dinamica di possibili cambiamenti grammaticali in atto. Sebbene le tendenze d'uso di questi due tempi perfettivi siano state documentate per l'italiano in Italia, la concorrenza tra i due tempi in questione non è mai stata affrontata sistematicamente riguardo all'italiano all'estero. La presente ricerca esplora, nello specifico, la varietà meridionale di italiano, di parlanti calabresi e siciliani, varietà per la quale la letteratura sull'italiano in Italia ha confermato la vitalità del passato remoto (Bertinetto e Squartini 1996). I dati provengono da conversazioni condotte da due intervistatori, un parlante del nord e uno del sud. È risaputo che le caratteristiche dell'interlocutore incidono sul comportamento linguistico del parlante . In particolare, quindi, la ricerca si propone di esplorare la relazione tra alcune delle caratteristiche sociolinguistiche dell'interlocutore (la varietà geografica appunto) e la preferenza per uno o l'altro tempo perfettivo nella conversazione.

This study seeks to examine the influence of globalisation dominated by neo-liberal economies on local culture especially on the gradual loss of Rwandans’ language, Ikinyarwanda. Notwithstanding the prevalent use of Ikinyarwanda, mass mastery in Ikinyarwanda is currently an issue. The increasing loss of Ikinyarwanda presents a plodding threat to the culture and identity of Rwandans in years to come. The English has been generally accepted in the international linguistic market and apparently seeks to increasingly become the default language of international community of states where approximately a half of the current 5,000 to 6,000 languages are likely to be extinct in the next one century.

It has been argued that the endangerment of most native languages is due to dissimilar pressures acting on the international community, such as economic, military, social and cultural demands. The acquisition of French or English does not constitute a linguistic problem per se, simply because we need them in the global market; the problem lies in the place practically given to Ikinyarwanda. While almost 85% of respondents supported the idea of preserving Ikinyarwanda from homes, 15% of the respondents avowed to be proud to see their children speaking French or English than their native language when they are still very young. The latter group does not help their children learn or speak Ikinyarwanda throughout while they are at home. Some experts averred that a language is born, grows up and die. If Ikinyarwanda is not well preserved and well used, small endangerments are likely to lead to its death in years to come.

From this contextual background, the study attempts to contribute to the growth in linguistic awareness about the problem and discusses the revitalisation of Ikinyarwanda. It is argued that maintaining the native language always remains critical to one’s identity as it contributes to a positive self-concept. Thus the study proposes, among others, the language standardization which requires a good linguistic management or even linguistic adjustment so that we get a sustainable preservation of Ikinyarwanda.

The ultimate intention of this paper is to achieve a better understanding of how some critical factors for the successful application of knowledge management (KM) in Malaysian firms. KM covers an extensive range of usefulness and sustains various sets of activities and supposed that the KM success, are the Key Success Factors (KSFs) on the contributions of quality and quantity to the system. Based on the existing literature, a research hypothesis has been developed and tested through the quantitative study. The data were collected through a questionnaire that was administrated among sample comprising 70 managers from the various private Malaysian firms. The outcomes confirm positive relationships between all five KFS parameters but there is a lack of leadership.

Learning a new language is one of the privileges that a person can get when moving from one place to another and staying there for a longer time. In this paper, I will discuss my journey that resulted to gradual decline of my L1 (First language), Polillohing Tagalog, which is a variety of the Tagalog language, in the Philippines. The result of migration, acquisition of other languages, and exposure to different speaking environment had led me to continuously decline my first language. Using the auto-ethnographic type of writing a research, I reflected on my experiences which lead me to language attrition. Autoethnographic research is when the researcher is the participant of the story narrating his experience on the culture and phenomenon of the researched topic.

Linguistic studies focusing on monolinguals have often examined individuals with considerable experience using another language. Results of a methodological review suggest that conflating ostensibly 'multicompetent' individuals with monolinguals is still common practice. A year-long longitudinal study of speech production demonstrates why this practice is problematic. Adult native English speakers recently arrived in Korea showed significant changes in their production of English stops and vowels (in terms of voice onset time, fundamental frequency, and formant frequencies) during Korean classes and continued to show altered English production a year later, months after their last Korean class. Consistent with an Incidental Processing Hypothesis (IPH) concerning the processing of ambient linguistic input, some changes persisted even in speakers who reported limited active use of Korean in their daily life. These patterns thus suggest that the linguistic experience obtained in a foreign language environment induces and then prolongs restructuring of the native language, making the multicompetent native speaker in a foreign language environment unrepresentative of a monolingual in a native language environment. Such restructuring supports the view that one’s native language continues to evolve in adulthood, highlighting the need for researchers to be explicit about a population under study and to accordingly control (and describe) language background in a study sample.

This project was funded in part by a Faculty Small Grant from the University of Arizona Foundation and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies. I would like to thank Christopher Hall, Kees de Bot, Ulrike Jessner and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Muriel Saville-Troike and Merrill Garrett deserve credit for having spurred my interest in the topic years ago.

The paper presents the results of a field study conducted in Israel and Italy in 2014. The aim of the study was to investigate the process of language acquisition by children from Russian-speaking families who enrolled in non-formal Russian educational networks. Fifty-seven adolescents from Israel and 45 adolescents from Italy aged 8-15 participated in the study. All of them may be defined as heritage language (HL) learners (Valdés, 2000; Polinsky & Kagan, 2007). The research utilized a specially designed test consisting of oral and written components. Although there are substantial differences between the Russian-speaking populations in the two countries, the present research indicated that the motivation for learning Russian as well as the difficulties encountered during the learning process were very similar in both samples. The case system, verb aspect, and verbs of motion were found to be the most challenging topics to be mastered by all the respondents. Oral proficiency in both groups was much higher than their written proficiency. For the majority, an integrative motivation prevailed as opposed to an instrumental motivation. The present findings constitute an important basis for developing teaching materials that can be used at least partially in many countries outside the Russian Federation.

Duoxu is a terminally endangered and virtually undescribed Tibeto-Burman language, spoken in the historically multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Miǎnníng county in Sìchuān province in the People’s Republic of China. Until recently, Duoxu was known only through a 740-word vocabulary list in the Sino-Tibetan vocabularies Xīfān Yìyǔ [Tibetan-Chinese bilingual glossary], recorded in Chinese and Tibetan transcriptions in the 18th century, and a grammatical sketch (Huáng & Yǐn 2012). Researchers who have worked on the language (Nishida 1973, Sūn 1982, Huáng & Yǐn 2012) have expressed different views about the features and the genetic position of Duoxu, variously viewing it as (1) closely related to Lolo-Burmese languages (Nishida 1973), (2) closely related to Ersu and Lizu, two neighboring languages that are currently classified as members of the Qiangic subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman language family (Sūn 1982), or (3) distantly related to those two languages and to Qiangic languages at large (Huáng & Yǐn 2012).
The Duoxu language is critically endangered and urgently requires documentation. It is of great value for our understanding of the linguistic diversity of the region, and of its linguistic history. It is also of great value as a modern reflection of a language that was recorded in the 18th century. This paper makes significant contribution in all these areas. Based on new fieldwork with all remaining elderly Duoxu speakers, this study provides newly collected data and new analysis. It compares the newly collected data with the 18th-century attestations of Duoxu as well as with its two putative sister languages Ersu and Lizu. The conclusion of the study is that Duoxu is closely related to Ersu and Lizu, with superficial differences attributed to long-standing and on-going contact influence from Southwestern Mandarin.

This study aimed to investigate the attrition rate of EFL concrete and abstract vocabulary among continuing and non-continuing Iranian female and male English language learners across different proficiency levels. They were students of a University who majored in different fields (between 20 and 25 years old). There was no treatment involved in this study, where the researcher compared two groups using the same variables. Hence, the design of the current study is an ex-post facto design. A 40-item vocabulary test, which varied across two proficiency levels, was used to measure the rate of vocabulary attrition as the instrument of this research. In the two stages, after an interval of three months, the students were requested to take the same tests. The results revealed that there was no significant difference between the EFL attrition rate of the abstract and concrete nouns among the continuing students across different proficiency levels. However, this hypothesis was rejected for the non-continuing learners at intermediate and advanced proficiency levels.

This study investigated how bilinguals' perception of their first language (L1) differs according to age of reduced contact with L1 after immersion in a second language (L2). Twenty-one L1 Korean-L2 English bilinguals in the United States, ranging in age of reduced contact from 3 to 15 years, and 17 control participants in Korea were tested perceptually on three L1 contrasts differing in similarity to L2 contrasts. Compared to control participants, bilinguals were less accurate on L1-specific contrasts, and their accuracy was significantly correlated with age of reduced contact, an effect most pronounced for the contrast most dissimilar to L2. These findings suggest that the earlier bilinguals are extensively exposed to L2, the less likely they are to perceive L1 sounds accurately. However, this relationship is modulated by crosslinguistic similarity, and a turning point in L2 acquisition and L1 attrition of phonology appears to occur at around age 12. Keywords critical period; age effects, attrition; age of arrival; laryngeal contrast; perceptual assimilation Many studies have provided evidence that early exposure to a L2 can lead to more nativelike L2 proficiency. In particular, L2 phonology seems to be relatively strongly influenced by age of L2 exposure compared to other linguistic domains (see Granena & Long, 2013). For example, Flege, Yeni-Komshian, and Liu (1999) examined the L2 English competence of 240 L1 Korean learners, whose AOA for English ranged from 3 to 15 years, in both phonology and morphosyntax. They found that AOA showed a significant relationship with L2 phonological proficiency although not with L2 morphosyntactic proficiency (cf. Johnson & Newport, 1989). These age effects in L2 phonological acquisition have been documented in enough detail to outline the boundaries of a critical period for nativelike ultimate attainment. For instance, Guion (2005) compared 10 L1 Korean-L2 English early bilinguals (AOA of 1-6 years), 10 late bilinguals (AOA of 15-34 years), and 10 native English speakers in production and perception of English stress patterns, finding that the early bilinguals not only outperformed the late bilinguals but also showed nativelike proficiency. Likewise, in Tsukada et al. (2005), 34 L1 Korean-L2 English child bilinguals (AOA of 6-14 years) performed more similarly to native controls in both producing and perceiving L2 vowels than did 34 adult bilinguals (AOA later than 21 years). Converging evidence from MacKay, Flege, and Imai's (2006) examination of L1 Italian-L2 English bilinguals' L2 accent showed that only bilinguals whose AOA was earlier than 10 years fell into the range of native speakers. Taken together, these findings suggest that nativelike pronunciation of the L2 is not likely to be acquired after an AOA of 14 years and that the optimal window for L2 phonological acquisition might close around the age of 10 (or even earlier if perception-only studies are taken into account; cf. Pallier, Bosch, & Sebastián-Gallés, 1997; Sebastián-Gallés & Soto-Faraco, 1999). Age Effects in L1 Attrition Although empirical studies are increasingly providing insights into how AOA affects acquisition of L2 phonology, age effects on the L1 have rarely been investigated directly. Only recently have researchers started to examine age effects on the L1 competence of adopted or early-immigrant bilinguals (Bylund, 2009; Montrul, 2008). In part, this is due to the frequent ambiguity of age effects on the L1, which can reflect attrition (i.e., loss of L1 knowledge after its successful acquisition), interrupted (or incomplete) acquisition, or both of these processes. One body of research that bears on the study of L1 perceptual attrition in early bilinguals is the literature on L2 effects in late bilinguals, which shows that L2-influenced modifications to the phonetics and/or phonology of the L1 may occur even in learners who acquire a L2 after the

This article describes the context of the studies carried out on Dutch migrants, at the request of a number of Language Attrition Researchers who have plans to re-visit the population I investigated. It describes sociolinguistic, linguistic and psycholinguistic experiments and data analyses on Dutch emigrants in Melbourne/Victoria

Heritage receptive bilinguals (RBs) are individuals who report understanding but not speaking their family language. This study tests whether semantic features of functional morphemes, namely tense, aspect, and agreement, are accessible to them in comprehension. RBs in this study are fluent speakers of English with receptive knowledge of Labrador Inuttitut.

The purpose of this research is to present the theory of language attrition based on translators from Ukraine who live in Poland and provide translations in the following language pairs: Ukrainian - Polish and Russian - Polish. Translation from Russian and Ukrainian has been deliberately taken into account, since many residents of Ukraine speak Russian as well.

Whether a language can be called endangered depends on such factors as the rate of acquisition by the children, the attitude of the whole community to it, and the level of impact of other languages which may be threatening it. In general there are three levels of danger: a language can be safe, endangered or extinct. To these three levels another one has been added: languages which are no longer being learned as a mother tongue by children are said to be moribund. This captures the notion of a language well beyond the stage of 'mere' endangerment, because it lack intergenerational transmission; the analogy is with a species unable to reproduce itself. Some classifications go a stage further, distinguishing 'safe' and 'not so safe', as in this five-level system:

Given its focus on a definitely endangered language as noted by the UNESCO Atlas of the World Languages in Danger, and also marked as being threatened by the Ethnologue, this study aims to scrutinize whether Laz people do, or do not use their ancestral tongue, to identify factors involved in their language choice, and ultimately, to comment on its vitality going forward. Concerns addressed in the study include self-reported proficiency in Laz, ethnic self-identification of Laz speakers in Turkey, the effect of external factors (e.g., place of birth and residence, spouse's ethnicity) on Laz language use, the perception of Laz in Turkey, and the Laz community's preferred revitalization efforts. Correlatively, the data were collected using an online questionnaire, and related statistical analyses were performed. As a result, it is reported that Laz speakers define themselves as the good speakers of the language. Ethnic self-identification of Laz speakers are marked as Laz more than Turkish, Turkish more than Laz, and both respectively. However, Laz language is not a preferred choice of new generation. Even more, Laz language use amidst elders is getting lowered since Laz customs are applied in their daily routines to a lesser extent. Besides, it is noted by the perceptions of Laz residing in Turkey that Laz language is perceived either as a Black Sea dialect, or a variation of Turkish language within the community. The Laz community's preferred revitalization efforts are also drawn to provide insights from a survey-based exploration of the factors associated with Laz language endangerment and maintenance in Turkey.

Australia is a multicultural society in which over 300 different indigenous and migrant languages are spoken. While its cultural diversity is often celebrated, Australia's linguistic diversity is still at risk due to the inherent monolingual mindset (cf. Clyne 2005) of its population. In this paper, we use a cross-disciplinary approach, drawing on both historical and sociolin-guistic sources, to investigate some of the major causes of language shift among first-and subsequent generations of postwar German-speaking migrants in Australia. While historical and societal changes have provided greater opportunities for German to be maintained as a heritage language in Australia, these developments may have come too late or have not been effective in the face of English as the dominant language in Australia and as a global language. Our investigation indicates that Australians with German as a heritage language, like many other migrant groups, are still at a high risk of shift to English, despite recent opportunities for language maintenance provided by modern society.

The paper deals with the use of reflexive markers in dependent clauses in Nanai (Tungusic). V. A. Avrorin [1959] describes this system in the following way. Light reflexives in dependent clauses behave consistently as long-distance reflexives and heavy reflexives behave as local ones. However modern field data shows another picture: a system with a very limited range of long-distance contexts is attested. The hypothesis is that a rapid grammatical change takes place and that this change is motivated by sociolinguistic factors: contact influence of Russian and language attrition.

En esta monografía se publican los resultados del proyecto de investigación La competencia bilingüe de los jóvenes emigrantes retornados a España entre 1986 y 1991: apoyo social y repercusiones profesionales, financiado por el Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales y la Consejería de Asuntos Sociales de la Junta de Andalucía y dirigido por la autora de la monografía. La temática de la remigración (término introducido por la autora) de los jóvenes en el ámbito español, no ha sido tratada hasta el momento, por lo que cobra un interés especial. Todos los informantes (100) mostraron un competencia nativa en español y un detrimento más o menos acusado en la lengua extranjera. Sin embargo, se trata de un deterioro superficial que no afecta la estructura profunda del idioma. Los individuos con estudios superiores y de formación profesional consiguieron aprovechar sus conocimientos lingüísticos para su progreso académico y/o laboral. La gran mayoría de los individuos mostró su interés por recibir un apoyo lingüístico en la lengua extranjera (mayoriatariamente alemán y francés), específico de su especialidad.

Clarke (1980) hypothesized that effective interlingual transfer of reading skills requires the attainment of some particular threshold of second language (L2) knowledge. Results from a study by Hacquebord (1989) suggested that the interlingual transfer of reading skills also requires active reading of the first language (L1). Results from a longitudinal study carried out over a 1-year period with 52 Bosnians learning French as a L2 supported Clarke’s hypothesis but were only partially in accord with Hacquebord’s. Significant correlations between L1 and L2 reading performance for the subgroup of nonactive L1 readers suggested that failure to maintain L1 reading did not prevent the transfer of reading skills. However, the greater improvement in L2 reading ability by the active L1 readers than by the nonactive L1 readers suggested that maintaining L1 reading enhances the transfer of reading skills.

This study aims to investigate the association between three dimensions of e-relationship quality in lodging websites. The objectives of this study are to investigate the relationship between determinants of e-relationship quality on loading websites. This research adopts the quantitative method (Correlational design) so the researcher gathered data through survey and used close coding to code the data as well as constant comparative methods to analyze them. In addition, based on the aim of this thesis, 150 respondents were randomly selected by using the convenience sampling method comprised of Malaysian adult male and female with age ranging from 25 to above 65 years old. This survey was conducted in Malaysian hotels which are located in Kelang Valley.
The findings  revealed that the communicational function, followed by relational function and transactional function was the most important dimensions that would affect customer e-loyalty. Furthermore, the findings of this thesis indicated that there is a positive relationship among the three dimensions of e-relationship quality in Malaysian lodging websites.

This paper concludes a research project on Belarusian-Russian Mixed Speech (BRMS), which is commonly referred to disrespectfully as 'Trasjanka'. BRMS is practised as a subvariety by millions of people in Belarus, usually in addition to Russian. The findings of the project will be presented in a question and answer format. At issue are 11 questions, which have been widely discussed during the last two decades: 1. When did BRMS / Trasjanka come into existence? 2. How did Trasjanka arise and how is it acquired? 3. Is Trasjanka a form of speech of the uneducated? 4. Does Trasjanka have anything in common with pidgin or creole languages or other 'mixed languages'? 5. Is Trasjanka an instance of code switching, of code mixing or a mixed ('fused') lect? 6. Does Trasjanka have a usus or usage norm? 7. Is it possible to distinguish a Belarusian-based Trasjanka from a Russian-based one? 8. Is Trasjanka a Belarusian or Russian 'dialect'? 9. Can we comprehend Trasjanka with the help of old concepts like 'diglossia' and 'bilingualism'? 10. Is Trasjanka a transient epiphenomenon in the language shift from Belarusian to Russian? 11. What role does Trasjanka play for the maintenance or revitalisation of Belarusian? Аннотация Эта статья является итогом исследовательского проекта по белорусскорусской смешанной речи (БРСР), которую обычно уничижительно называют 'трасянкой'. БРСР практикуют как субвариант миллионы людей в Беларуси, как правило, в дополнение к русскому. Результаты проекта будут представлены в формате вопросов и ответов. Речь идет об 11 вопросах, которые широко обсуждались в течение последних двух десятилетий: 1. Когда начала существовать трасянка? 2. Как возникла трасянка и как ее усваивают? 3. Является ли трасянка формой речи необразованных людей? 4. Есть ли у трасянки что-либо общее с пиджинами, креольскими языками или другими 'смешанными языками'? 5. Является ли трасянка примером переключения кодов, смешивания кодов или смешанного кода ('fused lect')? 6. Есть ли у трасянки узус или нормы использования? 7. Можно ли отличить трасянку с белорусским базисом от трасянки с русским базисом? 8. Трасянка-'диалект' белорусского или русского? 9. Можем ли мы описать трасянку с помощью таких старых понятий, как B G. Hentschel