Bente Ailin Svendsen

Tell me who your friends are and I might be able to tell you what language(s) you speak: Social network analysis, multilingualism, and identity:

Social network analysis has proved particularly useful in explaining why speakers in bilingual communities maintain or change their language behavior. Researchers have employed this sociolinguistic tool to investigate language shift and maintenance among longstanding stable bilingual communities. An underlying assumption in this analysis is that language, particularly the first language or mother tongue, is an integral part of collective identities, such as national, ethnic or cultural identities, and that maintenance of language across generations is a key factor to the maintenance of such identities. Certain bilingual communities may maintain this language ideology; however, multilingual communities present a more complex picture of the situation and may thus offer a challenge to the underlying assumptions of social network analysis. This article discusses the application of social network analysis to multilingual communities by taking a point of departure in the Filipino community in Oslo, the capital of Norway, with a view towards understanding linguistic and cultural maintenance. Results from the analyses provide support for the importance of social network in understanding language choice and cultural and linguistic maintenance; however, there were some notable exceptions. In this article we discuss language ideologies and the relationship between language and identity as complementary sources of explanation for language choice and language maintenance in this relatively speaking newly established multilingual community.

A new speech style is born. The omnipresence of structure and agency in the life of semiotic registers in heterogeneous urban spaces

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the sociolinguistic discussion about the need for a unified sociological theory, by applying realist social theory (RST) (Carter and Sealey, this volume) to the total linguistic fact (TLF) (Silverstein 1985) or to the semiotics of ‘new’ speech styles in heterogeneous urban spaces. We explore, with data from Belgium (Flanders, Limburg) on Citétaal and Norway on so-called kebabnorsk, the ways structure and agency are omnipresent in the enregisterment of these semiotic registers. Through media discourse analyses, we investigate essential parts of this enregisterment process, in particular the invention and diffusion of labels and the assignment of stereotypical indexical values to these speech styles and to their alleged speakers. We demonstrate, in line with other studies, that media in interplay with scholars is a key force in the enregisterment of these speech styles. In the analysed media discourse, kebabnorsk and Citétaal are constructed as a ‘mixed language’, as a countable and uniform entity, the use of which inevitably results in unemployment. The alleged language users are constructed as a homogeneous group, namely ‘young people with migrant backgrounds’. It is shown that social structure, including asymmetric power relations and language hegemonies, are omnipresent in the valorisation of these registers and that media discourses rely on language ideologies of unity and purity, ideologies central to amonolingual orientation. We advocate a translingual orientation towards language and communication in which communication transcends languages and involves negotiation of mobile resources. This orientation captures the ontology of language and communication and has, as such, the potential to empower the language users’ individual agencies. Bente A. Svendsen: Professor of Norwegian as a second language and Scandinavian linguistics and the Deputy Director of MultiLing Centre for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan, a Centre of Excellence at the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Oslo, E ˗ mail: b.a.svendsen@iln.uio.no Stefania Marzo: Assistant Professor at the Department of Linguistics at the KU Leuven, Belgium, E ˗ mail: Stefania.Marzo@arts.kuleuven.be EuJAL 2015; 3(1): 47–85 MOUTON

Lexical access in a bilingual speaker with dementia: changes over time

ABSTRACT In this article, we explore the naming skills of a bilingual English-Norwegian speaker diagnosed with Primary Progressive Aphasia, in each of his languages across three different speech contexts: confrontation naming, semi-spontaneous narrative (picture description), and conversation, and at two points in time: 12 and 30 months post diagnosis, respectively. The results are discussed in light of two main theories of lexical retrieval in healthy, elderly speakers: the Transmission Deficit Hypothesis and the Inhibitory Deficit Theory. Our data show that, consistent with the participant’s premorbid use of and proficiency in the two languages, his performance in his L2 is lower than in his L1, but this difference diminishes as the disease progresses. This is the case across the three speech contexts; however, the difference is smaller in the narrative task, where his performance is very low in both languages already at the first measurement point. Despite his word finding problems, he is able to take active part in conversation, particularly in his L1 and more so at the first measurement point. In addition to the task effect, we find effects of word class, frequency, and cognateness on his naming skills. His performance seems to support the Transmission Deficit Hypothesis. By combining different tools and methods of analysis, we get a more comprehensive picture of the impact of the dementia on the speaker’s languages from an intra-individual as well as an inter-individual perspective, which may be useful in research as well as in clinical practice.