Now showing 1 - 10 of 16
  • Publication
    Tales from the Celtic Tiger: migrants' language use and identity
    (Four Courts Press, 2016-05-01)
    This chapter describes an aspect of Ireland and Irishness in the twenty-first century. It tells the story of a country undergoing major changes and a concomitant identity in flux. Ireland has had, in a relatively short space of time, an economic boom and a subsequent crash. This economic cataclysm, with its major shifts in population caused by immigration and emigration, has brought with it changes in how Irish people see themselves and indeed what constitutes ‘Irishness’. The study presented here tells this story through the lens of language: language use, language practices and language attitudes. an important ‘barometer’ of identity is language; here, language tells a story of identity in flux where ‘Irishness’ is redefined. Similarly to the picture painted by Lamarre (this volume) of a changing Quebec identity, Ireland’s rapidly changing identity may be captured here through language use in Ireland today; specifically the language of the ‘new Irish’.
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  • Publication
    Scopus© Citations 58  5507
  • Publication
    Variation
    (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
    Language is inherently variable; this applies whether we are talking about a speaker’s first, second or third language. Yet linguistics in the twentieth century tended to focus on the invariant and variation was considered to be a marginal issue. However, focus has increasingly been shifting to variation in linguistic studies. For instance, in a 2010 article in New Scientist, Kenneally says that Evans and Levinson (2009) “believe that languages do not share a common set of rules . . . their sheer variety is a defining feature of human communications . . . Language diversity is the ‘crucial fact for understanding the place of language in human cognition.’” Whether or not one agrees that all languages share a set of rules (Editors’ note, e.g. Universal Grammar; see Chapters 1, 2, this volume), it is increasingly accepted that variation is an important aspect of language.
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  • Publication
    The significance of age and place of residence in the positional distribution of discourse like in L2 speech
    (John Benjamins Publishing, 2015-07-15) ;
    This chapter investigates the use of discourse markers in L2 Irish English, specifically like by Polish people, assuming that the use of discourse markers is an indicator of integration. Quantitative and qualitative approaches are used to analyse the corpus of speech, focusing in particular on the positional distribution of like and the impact of age and place of residence. Results show that the L2 speakers use discourse like in patterns which correspond to those attested for L1 Irish English. Place of residence was a significant factor, with rural and urban speakers following rural and urban L1 patterns respectively. However, the younger speakers tended to favour urban (and global) clause-medial like over clause-marginal like, the more traditional pattern for Irish English. The young L2 speakers appear to be participating in the global change in like patterns.
      16
  • Publication
    The Acquisition of Community Speech Norms by Asian Immigrants Learning English as a Second Language: a preliminary study
    (Cambridge University Press, 1991-03) ;
    We investigate Vietnamese and Cambodian immigrants' acquisition of the variable (ing), which occurs in progressive tenses, participles, noun phrases, etc., and which can be pronounced [iŋ] or [In]. A VARBRUL 2 program analysis of native speaker speech shows that the production of (ing) is constrained by phonological, grammatical, stylistic, and social factors. An analysis of the nonnative speakers' acquisition of these norms shows that [In] is more frequent before anterior segments (reflecting ease of articulation), and that males use [In] more frequently than females, especially in monitored speech (perhaps reflecting their desire to accommodate to a male native speaker norm rather than to an overall native speaker norm). The analysis also shows evidence of grammatical constraints which are different from those in the native speakers' speech. This difference may reflect the fact that it is easier to acquire the [In] variant in “frozen forms,” such as prepositions, than in productive rules.
    Scopus© Citations 149  1703
  • Publication
    L1 and L2 Language Attitudes: Polish and Italian Migrants in France and Ireland
    (MDPI, 2023-01-04)
    Until recently, research on language attitudes focused mainly on attitudes relating to speakers' L1. However, with the increase in interest in multilingualism in a globalised world, there has been a renewed interest in language attitudes relating to L2 speakers. This article focuses on these issues in the context of migration: how language attitudes associated with migrants' L1 and L2 may affect the L2 acquisition process. The attitudes of two L2 groups (Polish and Italian) are compared to see if, in the case of speakers learning different L2's (French and Irish English), there was a difference based on the different contexts. Qualitative data and analysis were used to attend to the voices of the participants in the study. Analysis revealed differences in language attitudes amongst Polish migrants in France, Polish migrants in Ireland, and Italian migrants in Ireland that paralleled differences in L2 strategies. This supports recent research which indicates that attitudes associated with L2s play a more important role than was previously realised and should be considered alongside L1 language attitudes.
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  • Publication
    The Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Native Speech Norms: Effects of a Year Abroad on Second Language Learners of French
    (John Benjamins Publishing, 1995-10-12)
    One of the perennial debates in language teaching is the one about the benefits, or otherwise, of time spent abroad -- learning the language while immersed in the target speech community. After all, as Gardner (1979) says, in acquiring a second language "the student is faced with the task of not simply learning new information (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, etc) .. but rather of acquiring symbolic elements of a different ethnolinguistic community". To what extent is this process facilitated by living in the target language community? This article reports a study which provides concrete empirical data on the effects of such experiences on the language learning process. This sociolinguistic study of second language acquisition tries to investigate just what is the process of the acquisition of symbolic elements of another ethnolinguistic community. It is a study of the acquisition of sociolinguistic competence and focuses on the acquisition of a particularly sensitive sociolinguistic variable which is invested with powerful symbolic significance by the native speech community.
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  • Publication
    The relationship between the group and the individual and the acquisition of native speaker variation patterns: a preliminary study
    (De Gruyter, 2007-07)
    The relationship between group and individual has been explored within the variationist paradigm. In L1, group patterns of variation are replicated by the individual. Second language acquisition research is concerned with the individual learner, but second language acquisition variationist researchers tend to group learners. Little empirical evidence exists that such grouping is valid, given the importance of individual variation. This article investigates whether it is meaningful to group learners. This is a longitudinal, quantitative study of the acquisition of variation by Irish speakers of French L2 over three years, of which one is a year abroad experience. Participants are five advanced learners, twenty years old, with five years of French classes at secondary school and two at university. A computer (Varbrul) analysis shows similar patterns in group and individual, in the deletion of ne. Theoretical implications are that it is legitimate to apply group standards to individual speakers and that native speaker variation acquisition is linked to a prolonged stay in the native speaker community.
      747Scopus© Citations 41
  • Publication
    Second language adquisition and sociollinguistic approaches: The Case of L2 French
    (Routledge, 2022-01-01)
    French is one of the major target languages on which L2 acquisition research has been carried out. SLA research on French highlights specific aspects of L2 acquisition. Codification and prescriptivism long associated with French have wider implications for L2 language ideology and attitudes. Research on L2 French acquisition which reveals the influence of ‘la norme’ – especially the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation and pragmatics – is discussed. Research methods particularly suited to illuminating these issues are outlined, including variation analysis, mixed-methods research and network analysis. Current research themes include agency, identity and individual variation.
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