Why is it important to have variation in a language?

Variation in language is very crucial in studying sociolinguistics. Different language dialects cause language to vary due to regions, ethnic groups and social classes. These factors express people’s origin and who they are.
It is absolutely wrong to talk of a standard language as every language has a dialect. Existence of regions, ethnic groups and social classes reflects language’s pronunciation, grammatical construction and vocabularies. Linguistics holds the view that all dialects are systematic, meaningful, logical and correct. Equally, the age and gender may cause language variation.
Every speaker, therefore, has a right to the language of communication to show his or her identity, and to convey the message to a given social setting.

What is the best way for a non-native speaker to learn English and why?
A non-native speaker is a person with the urge to learn English. The best way for this person to learn English is to read it out loud to allow maximum concentration. This method is frustrating but will work over time.

Reading words loud will let the learner focus on deep meaning of words. Reading an unfamiliar language causes the brains catch the visual and physical logic of the language. Although the method is slow, its results are superb. This assists in pronouncing unfamiliar words which can be checked from a dictionary or in the internet in case of any difficulty. Through reading, the speaker comes across various vocabularies that help to build the language of expression.
Reading loudly allows maximum concentration. The learner will, therefore, catch the meaning of words easily without much distraction. It is a slow process with enviable results.

Linguistics 1

Second-Language Writing and Second-Language Acquisition

Introduction
Second-language writing is a study done by non-native writers or speakers of a certain language as a foreign or second language. Second-language acquisition or second- language learning is a process by which individuals learn a foreign or second language. It is also known as the scientific discipline that is used to study that process of acquiring a second language. A second language is any language that is learned in addition to an individual’s first language. It’s acquisition may also incorporate subsequent languages like third, fourth and fifty languages (Silva & Matsuda). The intersection of second-language writing and second- language acquisition is extremely difficult.

Second-language acquisition theories aim to describe and explain the competence of learners. Second-language writing focuses on models of teaching and learning; it is based on the performance of learners.
Relationship between Second-Language Writing and Second-Language Acquisition
The relationship between second-language writing and second-language acquisition is that the two involve learning or acquiring a second language. Second-language writing involves efforts and practices in composition, development and analysis of ideas. People writing in a foreign or second language are faced with cognitive and social challenges that relate to second- language acquisition.

It is imperative to note that second-language acquisition leads to errors in writing (Leki, 1992). The ability to write well is not a skill that can be acquired naturally: usually, it is culturally transmitted or learned as practices in instructional settings that are formal. Second-language writing skills are learned and practiced through experience. Writing also involves composition or the ability to tell particular pieces of information. Second language writing and second language acquisition involves finding out the basics of the language of the learners, and how they acquired it. It also involves finding out what accounts for differences in language achievements and the effects of formal instructions. Issues related to models of teaching and learning second-language writing are driven by pragmatic concerns of the classrooms in which they are taught.

Second-language writing involves writers where writing occurs in second, third or fourth language. Second-language acquisition is extremely useful to second language writers such as teachers, theorists, and writing researchers. This is because learning to write is like acquiring a second language; no individual is a native speaker of writing. Every person learns how to write at school. This is not a simple interaction with others as is the case in first-language acquisition (Silva & Matsuda, 2001). Second-language writing students have challenges when they try to acquire a second language. In learning a second language, learners must be exposed to the language to be learned or the second language. The input may be informal or formal. It may also be oral or written. The nature of the input will have an effect on how learners internalize the second language. A second language writer whose input has been informal oral language is the case for many immigrant second language writers. This student may be able to hold conversations with native speakers but may have challenges in academic writing.

Theories in Second-Language Acquisition and Second-Language Writing
The theories of second language acquisition give an explanation on why formal language practice has a negligible effect on the overall language ability improvement. This also shows unsatisfactory improvement in second-language writing skills. Grammar practices and memorization of language forms seem only minimally useful in writing contexts where language must be used to express personal meaning. These forms, stored as unanalyzed chunks, may remain inaccessible to the writers for active and creative manipulation. Different theories state that second language acquisition does not appear to progress linearly but rather is characterized by backsliding on linguistic forms that had seemed mastered already. The backsliding may come as a result of a learning overload (Leki, 1992).

As learners encounter new second-language learning forms, they experience some challenges. In their attempt to fit them into their internalized grammar of the target language, the workload causes errors to appear in stable second-language learning forms. The backsliding may be the result of a restructuring of the learners’ internal second-language grammar, which is based on an encounter with new second learning forms that do not fit the learners’ grammar.

Second-language acquisition theories inform theories in second-language writing. This is because these theories attempt to explain how learners simplify, over-generalize, regularize irregular forms, and reduce language redundancy. When called upon to produce language, the learners employ strategies to reduce their workload in schools. They do this formally by avoiding certain language structures they are unsure of. They also do this by avoiding entire speech acts or actions (Silva & Matsuda, 2001). This is in the case of students who are not asked questions in class.

In some situations, learners have ample time to take in new language input and re-analyze their internalized grammar in light of the new input. In terms of writing in classroom, cognitive overload and backsliding suggests that second-language acquisition or writing students have certain weaknesses. They have a problem of coping with language learning as well as learning how to write. These students may make these towards their goals even when surface evidence of improvement is not visible. The acquisition of foreign language and acquisition of that special variety of language used in writing is extremely critical.

Personal Experiences
Acquiring English as a second-language student for international students usually comes with challenges in reading and writing. Students may take ten years before they fully understand English (Leki, 1992). Learners may have some English vocabularies but may not be able to write or learn well in English instructions. Students might repeat everything that is said in English but show poor command in English.
Conclusion
The process of second-language acquisition describes various challenges learners of second language have. For example, foreign students have challenges in studying English as their foreign language. Understanding and internalizing the language may take time. Second-language students have challenges of writing effectively. Second language is any language that is learned in addition to an individual’s first language. Second-language acquisition may also incorporate subsequent languages like third, fourth and fifty languages.

There is a thin line between the intersection of second-language writing and second-language acquisition. Second- language acquisition theories aim to describe and explain the competence of learners. Second-language writing focuses on models of teaching and learning, which s based on the performance of learners. Second-language acquisition models show that second language acquisition is not related to the intelligence of learners. It mostly depends with the learners’ psychological, social, and motivational factors.

References
Leki, I. (1992). Understanding ESL writers: A guide for teachers, New York: Boyntox/Cook Publishers.
Silva, T. J. & Matsuda, P. K. (2001). On second-language writing, Chicago: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

LINGUISTICS 2

Running head: LINGUISTICS 1

Acquisition of Morphology

Introduction

Morphology is an aspect of language dealing with the regulations governing change in word interpretation. Morphology has brought about more concerns of linguists. There is no comprehensive theory of language that can emerge without a well well known theory of word development. There are numerous unexplained issues, nevertheless, that make any morphological theory a weak theory, seriously requiring proof-based solutions, a number of of them critical to the theory; these are for example, meaning, constrictions, productivity, and many others.
During structuralism era, linguistics emerged as scientific discipline. In the course of this era, linguistics thrived among other things in the identification and evaluation of the sections of language from the easiest, the phoneme, to the most difficult, the sentence, comprising the middle ones such as the morpheme and the word. Morphology comprises the regulations, which permit the speaker to expand his/her linguistic proficiency by means of their application (Huang, & Pinker, 2010). However, it just has normal processes that exist in the working of the system as of coherent and non-arbitrary system.
Morphology in essence is to understand the manner in which human brain function and process language. It assist in providing substitutes to understanding languages, which are cost effective than those used currently. This allows application of artificial intelligent. The significance of linguistic science is the commitment of morphology ranking in the grammar of a particular language in whole grammar. Currently, morphology is seen as an independent part on the similar field as semantic and syntax. Morphological guidelines have official features and ideologies of their own, and their research has steered linguists to realize that the morphological subcomponent has rules that governed more than initially represented.

Tomasello (2003) mentions the greatly item-based nature of child’s speech. Rather than necessitating the manifestation of distinctive classes or abstract structures, “children can as well offer ‘grammatical’ language by easily reproducing the particular linguistic articles and terminologies like phrases and words present in adult speech, which are, by explanation, grammatical without effectively incorporating those items (Tomasello 2000, pp. 156). For example, Tomasello (2000) reveal that in initial designs of child practice, formulaic frames focused on just a few verbs, which they refer to as constructional islands, usually present complement clauses. Their data shows an initial dependence on item-based designs, with additional novel uses happening as familiarity with the language growths.
How do children acquire inflectional morphology?
There are presently two key approaches to children’s acquisition of inflectional morphology, which reflect the two leading positions in psycholinguistics and linguistics more generally. Dual-Mechanism models stress the difference between lexicon and grammar made in most traditional theories of language (Clahsen, 1999; Pinker & Ullman, 2002). According to dual-mechanism models, regular and irregular morphological forms arise from qualitatively distinct developments. Irregular types are simply lexical items, and are stored in memory just as other words but with an added grammatical feature (Sahin et al., 2009). Regular variations, in contrast, result from the presentation of a grammatical rule.
Experimental studies and data also disclose that children are capable to spread the regular pattern of inflection to original lexical items and to allow use of derivational rules to build new words (Berent, Pinker, & Shimron, 2002). This verifies that children are not rote learners, that they are creative in the morphology domain and at the same time in the syntax domain.
Marcus et al. (1992), assuming a dual-mechanism model, suggest that children store the exact irregular form in the lexicon but do not access it, for memory reasons, altogether and at the time. Once they can recover the correct irregular form from memory, the default regular rule does not apply because it is obstructed. Nevertheless, once the irregular form cannot be recovered, that is, when the associative lexically based network fails to provide the irregular form, the child will request for overregularisation. The regular rule is applied by default, because nothing blocks it. This is termed as the blocking and retrieval failure assumption. The benefit of such justification is that it incorporates the recovery of irregular forms into the memory. Memory storage is based on probabilistic model and it relies on rate of exposure to every specific idiosyncratic form.

Customarily, morphological regulations are classified into two central classes: derivational and inflectional. Derivational rules form new words, while inflectional rules alter the form of a word according to its relation to other words in a sentence, that is, as per the syntactic environment where the word transpires. As asserted the ‘split morphology’ hypothesis (Perlmutter 1988), the entire derivational morphology is for the lexicon or to the module referred to as the morphological component, while the entire inflectional morphology is taken as non-lexically. Inflectional morphology is transformational and taken at the syntactic level.
A research by Marchman and Bates (1994) reveals that the initial lexicons, less than 10 verbs, are taken up by the irregular verbs; as the vocabulary of a child expands to nearly twenty to thirty verbs, it still has more irregular verbs than regular verbs, but there is no irregular verb given in the past tense. If the size of the vocabulary is less than fifty items, merely half of the irregular verbs in the initial lexicon are generated just as stems. Immediately as the number of verbs increases to above fifty, the figure of stem-only forms starts to reduce (Marchman & Bates, 1994). Moreover, it is just after the lexicon has increased to more than ninety verbs that the average figure of past tense given appropriately surpasses the stem-only forms.
A rise in vocabulary is assumed to contribute to the extension of the regular patterns to new forms (Prasada, & Pinker, 1993). Nevertheless, this association appears to be more associated to statistical artifact. It is anticipated that children will overgeneralize more when they understand more verbs. The rise of overgeneralization mistakes cannot be the consequence of vocabulary development per se. Vocabulary development gives the chance for more mistakes.

Stages of language acquisition

Morphological development in Children involve numerous stages before attaining the right irregular forms, they start with the correct irregular forms then, after obtaining the regular pattern, they cover all the forms. During this stage, they practice both the overregularized form and the correct irregular one. After a while, they cease using overregularized and start using all the forms, regular and irregular, properly.
In essence, young children are expected to have no familiarity of the regular pattern. In this particular stage, children memorize regular and irregular past tense forms and use them correctly; nevertheless, no general rule has been established. Past tense in early English had errors, which were very rare, and children appeared to be incapable to generalize a definite pattern to new forms. In the subsequent stage, when children have developed the regular pattern, they start to extend it to the irregular pattern, forming rare over-regularized forms. At this phase, the rule-based model becomes functional. Nevertheless, by now, the irregular forms have been kept in the lexicon and can at times be retrieved. This explains the fact that, at this developmental stage, children can use both the correct irregular and the inappropriate over-regularized form of the similar verb. Listening to the irregular forms more often, they will combine them in memory and will be proficient to remember them more frequently until they stop overregularization.
The ordinary description of overregularisation is that a kid just memorizes the right irregular form and then repeats it. At this stage, it is assumed that the child has no knowledge of the pattern of regular past tense forms and hence no overextension or overregularization is possible. When the young one has developed the pattern, he/she will extend it to the entire verbs and will begin to practice inappropriate overregularized past tense verbs. However, simple as it might appear at initial sight, this description is not without difficulties. Marcus et al. (1990) states some of the difficulties which accounts of that kind encounter.

Empirical data of initial grammars reveal that children go through a developmental phase when they appear to overgeneralize the design of regular morphology, creating improper past tense forms such as “comed” or “goed” and improper plural forms such as “mouses” or “tooths”. When things are more confusing, they tend to give out the regularized “goed” after using the correct forms of grammar, or improper plural such as “mouses” and acquiring the proper plural as mice. They as well pass a step that they extend irregular past tense patterns to regular verbs, giving pairs like “bring – brang” or “trick – truck”.
Empirical data of impulsive child English along with experimental outcome focuses to the fact that kids are pattern producers. When they start to get the inflections that mark tenses, they naturally take irregular verbs like bring, go, break, and take them as if they belong to the regular pattern (Clark 1987, pp. 19). This pattern-making development comes before a stage where children use the irregular verbs appropriately. It appears as if children do not want irregularities. Nevertheless, in the course of this pattern-extending phase, the children still make use of the appropriate irregular forms. ‘An irregular form hardly drops out, but somewhat proceeds to compete with overregularised rivals during mistake making’ (Bowerman 1982: 342).

Theories of language acquisition

Imitation Theory

Children listen to speech within their dwelling and adopt it. When a kid is brought up in an English-speaking place, they get to know and understand English. Imitation theory fundamentally states that kids acquire grammar by memorizing the sentences of their language (Santelmann & Jusczyk, 1998). Prior to criticizing this comment, it is important to understand that language adoption must incorporate numerous memorizing. There is just no manner to do away with this issue. Evidently, children must listen to words of their language to go about incorporating them to their mental dictionaries, and evidently, children learn English since they are acquiring English input, however, memorizing only is not enough.
Problems with the imitation perspective:
Kids produce many words that are not in the adult grammar
Children create constant mistakes that cannot be accredited to wrong pronunciations and which do not always exist in the adult grammar. They create mistakes similar to even saying “drawed” rather than “drew”. “goed” rather than “went”.
Children can produce and comprehend novel words. It is the endless use of finite issue in the setting of a kid language adoption. If imitation were correct, we would anticipate that children would not give words they had not already listened to.

Reinforcement Theory

The theory looks into the manner in which adults train children when using language by praising as well as rectifying the kids.  Parents could at times rectify the correct statement instead of the form. The kid’s errors are normally rule governed. The fundamental notion here is that children adopt to speak like grownups since they are trained to do so when they are praised and otherwise compensated for performing things correctly. At the same time, they are assisted since parents “correct” them whenever they make errors.
Major flaw in this theory
Extraordinarily, guardians in real sense do not appear to correct kid’s grammar the way we might be imagining, and they do not praise children for making use of appropriate adult grammatical creations, as well. What guardians appear to perform is a praise kid for being honest.

Active Construction of a Grammar Theory

Regulations are hypothesized by means of linguistic inputs known by children who are acquiring language. As children endlessly acquire language input, their language is reviewed to be an exemplary of adult grammar. This emerges to be the reason why kids can create novel words unlike those they hear from adults.
This theory persistently states that children come up with the regulations of grammar for their own. Currently, this is not to mention that the grammar that they produce is not related to the language spoken within their surroundings. This theory describes how kids do things like producing wrong past tense forms like “goed” or how they produce novel words that they have not ever heard before.
Initially, a child memorizes a form similar to “went”, by listening to it and relating it with particular event and committing it to his/her lexicon. Then, the child’s grammar attains a situation where a regular “rule” of past tense development is attained. At this extent, a child overgeneralizes and use the rule to the sentence “go” to get “goed” and this particular regular form overcomes the irregular form. Eventually, the kid comprehends that “went” is exclusion to the past tense regulation and once more adjusts his/her grammar correctly by marking “go” as a verb that doe not go through the regular procedure of past tense generation and by using “went” as the past form.

Bibliography
Berent, I., Pinker, S., & Shimron, J. 2002. The nature of regularity and irregularity: Evidence from Hebrew nominal inflection. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31(5), 459-502.
Bowerman, M. 1982. Evaluating competing linguistic models with language acquisition data: Implications of developmental errors with causative verbs. Quaderni di Semantica, 3, 5–66.
Clahsen, H. 1999. Lexical entries and rules of language: a multi-disciplinary study of German inflection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22: 991-1060
Clark, E. 1987. The principle of contrast: A constraint on language acquisition. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.),Mechanisms of language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Huang, Y.-T., & Pinker, S. 2010. Lexical semantics and irregular inflection. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25, 1-51.
Marchman, V., & Bates, E. 1994. Continuity in lexical and morphological development: A test of the critical mass hypothesis. Journal of Child Language, 21(2), 339-366.
Marcus, G.F., et al. 1992. Overregularization in language acquisition. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 57, Serial No. 228.
Perlmutter, David. 1988. The Split Morphology Hypothesis: Evidence from Yiddish. In Theoretical Morphology, eds. Michael Hammond and Michael Noonan, 79-99. San Diego: Academic Press, Inc.
Pinker, S. & Ullman, M. 2002. The past and future of the past tense. Trends in Cognitive Science, 6, 456-463.
Prasada, S. & Pinker, S. 1993. Generalizations of regular and irregular morphology. Language and Cognitive Processes, 8 , 1-56.
Tomasello, M. 2003. Constructing a Language. A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003, pp. 65
Tomasello, M. 2000. Do young children have adult syntactic competence? Cognition, 74, 209-253
Pinker, S., & Ullman, M. T. 2002. The past and future of the past tense. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(11), 456463.
Sahin, N. T., Pinker, S., Cash, S. S., Schomer, D., & Halgren, E. 2009. Sequential processing of lexical, grammatical, and articulatory information within Broca’s area. Science, 326, 445-449.
Santelmann, L., & Jusczyk, P. 1998. Sensitivity to discontinuous dependencies in language learners: Evidence for limitations in processing space. Cognition, 69, 105-134.

ACQUISITION OF MORPHOLOGY 3

Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic anthropology is very important to the accounting profession. It refers to the study of the relationship between language, culture, and society. It gives accountants an understanding of how human communication works, how it evolved and educates us on the importance of linguistic choices in our daily lives. It focuses the research on the physiology of speech, the structure and function of languages, social and cultural influences on speech and writing, non-verbal communication and how languages have developed over time and how they differ from each other.
This branch of anthropology originated from the need to document endangered languages and has grown over the years to include almost every aspect of language use and structure. It explores how language shapes communication among accountants and leads to the development of a common cultural representation of natural and social words. Accountants are able to take advantage of new developments in technology including new forms of mechanical recording. It also enables accountants to research on various issues using linguistic data and methods. Accountants also learn how to socialize and build relationships with fellow workers which increases their productivity at work. It also reduces misunderstandings between accountants and fellow workmates and helps employees collaborate effectively which results in a productive workforce.

The cultural lens helps policy makers and development practitioners to understand, analyze, and utilize positive cultural values, assets and structures in planning their processes. A cultural lens helps illuminate the basis for social practices that are harmful to people and hinder enjoyment of human rights. It develops skills for dealing with individuals, communities, and interest groups living in a specific cultural context and enhances equity and equality. It creates a more conducive environment for programme ownership and delivers more sustainable programmes.

LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY 2

Running head: LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY 1

Annotated Bibliography

Rabia, Redouane. Linguistic Constraints on Code switching and Code mixing of Bilingual Moroccan Arabic French Speakers in Canada. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. 2005. 1921-1933. Print.
This article attempts to show the linguistic constraints associated with the use of code switching using three main models and approaches. These models of constraints fall into four main categories:

language specific constraints, more general and universal constraints, theoretical constraints and matrix language approaches to the constraints. However, the article lays its focus on three main linguistic constraints to analyze its data, which are the ‘equivalence of structure’, the ‘size of constituent’, and the ‘free morpheme’. The equivalence of structure suggests that for code switching to occur, there has to be a juxtaposition of L1 and L2 elements during conversation that ensure that the syntactic rules of both languages are not breached. The size of constituent constraint suggests that switching tends to occur more recurrently in the major and main constituents like sentences, and less frequently in smaller constituents like nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. Free morpheme constraint prevents the occurrence of code switching between lexical forms and leaping morphemes with the exception that the lexical form has phonologically been assimilated into the language of the leaping morpheme.

Hypothesis
Therefore, this article attempts to scrutinize the validity of these three main linguistic constraints under consideration by using two typologically diverse languages, Arabic and French, and analyzing the syntax of the intra sentential code switching between them.

Experimental Design
To perform the study, the researchers used Moroccan Arabic-French bilingual speakers who lived in Canada. The choice of this ethnic sample was due to the fact that the Moroccan community has a large presence or population among the Arab Canadian residing in Canada’s Quebec province.

Aims of the Study
The study examined the bilingual Arabic-French speakers residing in Canada by analyzing their syntax of the intra sentential code switching. The three main objectives for this study were; analysis of the sample group speech in formal and informal circumstances, identification of the switching patterns in these settings, and an assessment of the link between the mixing and switching between the linguistics (Moroccan Arabic and French) and the divergent syntactic properties of the languages being used.

The Study and Sample Group
The study had four adult bilingual Moroccans who were fluent speakers of French and two types of Arabic (Moroccan Arabic as their mother tongue and Standard Arabic). These adults are derived from the middle class members of the society and have administrative positions working at the center for learning languages. The choice of the subjects was based on specific criteria: Moroccans that migrated into Canada between 1192 and 1997 had stayed and been exposed to an L2 environment for between 5 and 10 years, and were non-speakers of Berber. The subjects consisted of two males and two females, aged between 27 and 36 years. In the study, items were considered as code switches if they were not morphologically, syntactically, or phonologically assimilated into the base language.

Results
From the study, it was observed that switches occurred from French to Arabic, and vice versa, with the French to Arabic being the most frequented. The switching occurred in noun phrases mainly between adjective and noun, and noun and determiner. Other switches were between object and verb, verb and subject, and adverb and verb when used in simple sentences of Arabic and French languages. Notably, these speakers switched smaller constituents (verbs, adverbs, nouns, and determiners) than larger constituents, with nouns being the most switched in the smaller constituent syntactic class.

The switches also occurred transversely in word internal morpheme restrictions that had a root morpheme from French and from Arabic an inflectional morpheme. The study also determined that the switches in the formal and informal settings were varied. Additionally, the syntactic composition and rules of the two languages demonstrated that the legitimacy and universality of the three linguistic constraints could be proven as false. This can be evidenced by the fact that switching occurred, in spite of the unequivocal nature of the surface structures of the two languages.

Therefore, according to the study, the Intra sentential code switching and inter sentential code switching between the Arab and French bilingual speakers were unaffected by the linguistic constraints such as equivalence of structure, the size of constituent, and the free morpheme.
Iqbal, Liaqat. Linguistic Features of Code-Switching: A Study of Urdu/English Bilingual Teachers’ Classroom Interactions. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science. 1. 14 (October 2011): 188-194.

This is an article that explorers the use of code switching in a classroom setting ad how it can be effectively utilized to realize maximum benefits for the students education and their relationship amongst themselves and their teachers. Therefore, code switching is used to serve several roles such as identity markers, preciseness, solidarity markers, style shifting, dominance and prestige, personalization, reiteration, interjection and quotation, address specification, and strategy of neutrality.

The article defines code switching in the classroom as the switching between the learners main language and the language of learning and teaching (LOLT) and is used by the learners and/or teachers. The article addresses the improper notion that bilingual or multilingual code switchers are lazy and have poor English proficiency especially as envisioned by teachers in universities. In the classroom setting, code switching can be essential for clarifications, managing lessons, accentuating important points, and elucidating grammar, translation of complex vocabularies, and conveying unity and compassion with the students.

The article endorses code switching as a useful learning tool for discourse related functions that are involved with bilingual practices away from the classroom environment, as well as participant related functions that involve the interactions between the students and the teachers within the classroom environment. The article postulates that one of the primary and effective tools for language is the utilization of such tools as code switching for L2 teachings, and shows the that it is being utilized in Pakistani EFL as an effective teaching tool that eliminates the belief by teachers that code switching shows an incompetency in language.

Objectives of the Study
The study shows the linguistic features of code switching that have been quantitatively analyzed and are used for pedagogical functions for student-student, teacher-student interactions, or teacher-led lesson discussions. Secondly, the study is used to show the ratio through which the language can be switched between each other to achieve the intended purpose. This switching can be achieved through adherence to three main criteria; first, the switching of content should be done unawares, switching between the two languages should be done equally, and the switching should be structured to accomplish an explicit learning objective. Therefore, the study provides a platform for the analysis of the intensity of switching for clauses, words, phrases, and sentences.

Methodology
The study included 16 HEC recognized universities located in Lahore city where only six were selected through purposive sampling. The study focused on the postgraduate level lectures where two or three lectures were used with the totality of all the lectures observed and recorded totaling 14, and the total number of hours were approximately 10 hours of classroom lectures. Observations of the lectures by a non-participant were recorded in an audio recorder, though in other settings the lecturer made the appropriate recordings where the observer’s presence would have disrupted classroom communication or discussion. The data generated was gathered, recorded, and examined to identify the linguistic features of code switching.

Findings
The research showed that the number of code switches was 2646, with 983 being intra-sentential code switching and 97 being inter-sentential code switching, which showed the frequency of occurrence of these two types of code switching. The study showed that the highest frequency of intra-sentential code switching was at the word level that was about 826 (31.21%). There were only 170 (6.42%) phrase level code switching. The clause level code switches were higher than phrase level code switches and were about 570 (21.54%).

The study revealed that English was considered as the matrix language especially for the intra-sentential code switching, and it was observed that its use was higher than inter sentential code switching. The high number of code switches at the word level is due to the ease of integration of lexical terms into the matrix language. Therefore, this study revealed that when English is used as the matrix language, such as in university teachings, then the data carrying items, technical and registral are derived from English, while the grammatical items and linkers are derived from the second language (Urdu). Therefore, this study shows that code switching is a common phenomenon in universities that is utilized as a teaching and communication tool within and without the classroom environment.

Heredia, R. Roberto and Altarriba, Jeanette. Bilinguals language mixing: Why do bilinguals code switch. American psychological society. 10.5 (2001): 164-168.
This article attempts to analyze reasons why bilinguals tend to code switch during conversations, in spite of the myriads of considerations such as phonetics, grammar, and semantics that define linguistic structures. To achieve this result, the researchers considered four categories that could be responsible for the bilinguals’ ease of ability to code switch in intra sentential and inter sentential.

These were language proficiency, language dominance, time for code switching or retrieving words or phrases from other languages, and bilingual memory models. In the analysis of these categories, the article cites several studies that have been performed by different academicians and scholars that prove their specific postulation. However, the article does not show how the researches were conducted, their sample groups, and methodology, but rather only shows the results, findings, and attempts to explain them.

Language proficiency is considered as one of the reasons attributed to bilinguals’ code switching, since they could be unable to express themselves in certain languages hence having to code switch. However, this view has several weaknesses such as code switching could be because of one’s inability to retrieve the correct word, which could be attributed to a reduced frequency of use of the word. Another weakness is that it cannot explain why code switching is centered on following grammatical structures in relation to such constituents as adjectives, adverbs, nouns, among others. The third weakness is the mode of language proficiency through its use, spoken, written, or read language. For instance, in Spain, bilinguals use Spanish as the spoken language, but use English for reading and writing, which means that their Spanish would be poor for the reading and writing while their English is strong, while their English would be poor in the spoken language. Finally, language proficiency can be explained suing the fact that people code switch in order for others to understand them better. For instance, the Spanish word ‘carino’ means liking and affection, which implies that the word has a deeper meaning in Spanish than when the English words are used individually.

The time used to read or process code switched words was analyzed using a study of bilingual and monolingual speakers reading two scripts one with one language, while the other was code switched. The study indicated that the bilinguals took longer reading the code switched phrases as compared to reading the monolingual phrases. This was explained using a two-switch mechanism that postulated that the linguistic mental lexicons are usually turned on or off depending on the language that is in use currently. This means that the process of code switching is slowed down.

However, the researchers identified factors responsible for recognition of code switched words as semantic context, phonetics, and homophonic overlap. Finally, despite these findings, the researchers also considered other forms of communication such as speaking and writing and recognized that the speed of recognition of code switched words was almost similar to that of recognition of monolingual words.

Language dominance is another factor that is considered as one of the reasons for the ease of code switching among bilingual speakers. According to research, they believe that a bilingual has a first language that they consider as their primary language and a second language that is considered as the secondary. Therefore, it is believed that code switching is usually prevalent when one is using the second language due to a lack of proficiency hence replacing words from the second language with the first. Therefore, it could be presumed that code switching would primarily occur when one is speaking the second language as the interference are as a result of a problem with word and phrase retrievals.

According to a research carried out on bilingual English and Spanish speakers, the researchers inserted Spanish and English words into sentences. The participants used English as the second spoken language, though the research revealed that they were able to retrieve English words more quickly from Spanish sentences as compared to Spanish words from English sentences. This results were attributed to the frequency and fluency of use of the second language since it has been determined that lack of exposure to a certain language could result in the second language becoming the dominant language as time passes. Therefore, for beginning bilinguals, they would experience code switching of the first language at the initial stages of use of the second language due to a lack of fluency. However, as time passes, the first language could be replaced by second language, as the latter becomes the dominant language.

Surname 2

Linguistics Assignment

1. Identify the morphemes in the text that follows.

Some gentlemen dined at an economical restaurant. They found the service to be unacceptable and wished to express their unhappiness to the management. The manager was unavailable, so they brought the leftovers home to their dog who resided in a doghouse in the backyard.

/Some/ a free morpheme

/Gentle/ (free morpheme) /men/ (free morpheme)

/dine/ (free morpheme) /-ed/ (bound morpheme)

/at/ (free morpheme) /an/ (Free morpheme)

/economic/ (free morpheme) /-al/ (bound Morpheme) /restaurant/ (Free Morpheme)

/They/ (Free morpheme) /found/ (free morpheme)

/the/ (Free morpheme) /service/ (free morpheme) /to/ (free morpheme) /be/ (free morpheme)

/un/ (bound morpheme) /accept/ (Free morpheme) /-able/ (Bound morpheme)

/and/ (Free morpheme)/wish/ (Free morpheme) /-ed/ (bound morpheme) /to/ (Free Morpheme)

/express/ (free morpheme) /their/ (Free morpheme)

/un/ (Bound morpheme) /happy/ (free morpheme) /–ness/ (Bound morpheme)

/to/ (Free morpheme) /the/ (Free morpheme)

/manage/ (Free morpheme) /-ment/ (bound morpheme) /The/ (free morpheme)

/manage/ (free morpheme) /-er/ (bound morpheme) /was/ (free morpheme)

/un-/ (Bound morpheme) /avail/ (Free morpheme) /-able/ (Bound morpheme)

/so/ (Free Morpheme) /they/ (free morpheme) /brought/ (free morpheme)

/the/ (Free morpheme)

/left/ (Free morpheme) /over/ (Free morpheme) /-s/ (Bound morpheme) /home/ (free morpheme)

/to/ (free morpheme) /their/ (Free morpheme) /dog/ (free morpheme) /who/ (Free morpheme) /reside/ (Free morpheme) /-ed/ (bound morpheme) /in/ (Free morpheme) /a/ (Free morpheme) /dog/ (Free morpheme) /house/ (free morpheme) /in/ (Free morpheme) /the/ (Free morpheme) /back/ (Free morpheme) /yard/ (Free morpheme)

2. For the next portion, identify all the phonemes in the text that follows. Write your answer in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
There was an old woman who swallowed a fly. I don’t know why she swallowed a fly. Perhaps she’ll die.

/ðɐə(ɾ)/ /wəz/ /ɑn/ /əʊld/ /ɯʊmən/ /hu:/ /swɑ:loʊd/ /ɑ/ /flɑɪ/. /ɑɪ/ /dəʊnt/ /nəʊ/ /wɑɪ/ /ʃi/ /swɑ:loʊd/ /ɑ/ /flɑɪ/. /pə’hæps/ /ʃɪl/ /dɑɪ/

Reference

Hornby, Albert Sydney, Anthony Paul Cowie, and Alfred Charles Gimson.Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary of current English. Vol. 1428. Oxford: Oxford university press, 1974.

Gleason Jr, Henry A. “An introduction to descriptive linguistics.” (1961).

Language Community problems

Communication is a very crucial aspect of human interaction. The ideals of communicating depend on a variety of factors, which are determinate of a speech community. A speech community refers to a collective nuance of distinct styles and factors creating a group of communication (Stewart, 16). Often speech communities are also language communities and have similar characteristics. However, the current rates of globalization and metropolitan affiliations have exacted a dynamic paradigm on the validity period of a language community. Ideally, for many people, especially those in the city, the people of frequent interaction do not necessarily come from the same language community.

The language communities of everyday lifestyle are categorized into different sociolects, dialects, and registers with specialized jargons for specialized communication. Such contextual relationships require frequent and calculated code switching failure of which may cause a linguistic misstep. One such instance of a linguistic error occurs last year during a cross-cultural talk show.

At the show, we came from all background in New York with different presentations as youths from educational institutions. The event was very interactive and we soon became very well acquainted with each other to the point of free communicational variations and linguistic code creation. One catch was that we all came from different backgrounds and had only American Standard English to reckon with. The mutuality of the occasion and the session soon had us creating a system of communication like having a word like “bombo” to represent a funny event such as “we are going bombo.” In the midst of all these fun, we had an occasion for my newly found friend Henry to make a presentation. Earlier on, we had a great time learning Ebonics and the concept of African American English. He was all joy to the podium when he started his speech. At that moment, he began drawling in Ebonics without knowing that the participants in the room understood little of the American Standard English dialect. The conversation went for three minutes as we watched awed rather than grasping at his speech. It was until the moderator made an interrupting remark that he realized the need for code switching and aligning to the register of the talk show.

During that brief moment, several factors came to the limelight. As a linguistic critic, I realized just how little linguistic missteps could lead to a complete misunderstanding. During the unique three-minute experience, different values clashed. The register determinism of an occasion became a priority. Due to the differences in language and dialect for everybody in the room, a common language of communication coded in a register was necessary. Every participant had such rules in mind. What then could have been Henry problem? It is intelligent to note that such linguistic problems are not peculiar or worrisome as everybody has an orientation they may find hard to remember in a “free” environment. One value that every human in communication possesses is the habit of L1 usage (Stewart, 18). Such habits emanate from different contexts that evoke friendly environments and cooperation often expected of those speaking the same language.

Such a value becomes factual when a language speaker forms a different community with similar linguistic “freedom” purported. Another value could be the triangulation phenomenon of language expression. Such linguistic values form an element of circumlocution. In certain circumstances, speakers find it hard to express their ideas in a language or register more clearly and accurately. Such occasions are very often and come with a create elements of linguistic missteps. You may just want to create a certain impact so profound or make a sale. In such cases, a person may often switch the code to a more self-reliable language or dialect. Lastly, the value of precise communication clashed in this context. According to Searle, certain communicative elements of interlocution require four maxims to create an impact and relevance. The maxims of interlocution in discourse are relevant and applicable to every language with a bias to different dialects (Stewart 25).

A language community contains a variety of dialects, sociolects, and different variances. Often these varieties within a language community are mutually intelligible and understood in part or totality of the speech community. In certain circumstances, certain breakdowns occur within the language or between languages. L1 interference is a major cause of communication breakdown between languages or within language dialects. In many cases, the speaker often gets an orientation to shift to the L1 in a process of either hypercorrection or hypo-correction in sociolinguistics. Hypercorrection is the problem of overgeneralization in a speech community. In this case, a speaker would often over-generalize structures based on a rule of application without a careful attention to the specifics of usage. In certain cases, for instance, a speaker would employ the plural rule of (s) to all situations in syntax. For instance, “boy = boys” therefore, “man = mans.” Such cases of hypercorrection cause communication breakdown (Stewart, 24).

Hypo-correction refers to the application of the rules of one language to another. In many cases, especially in interlanguage cases, a speaker may opt to use the specialties of one language in terms of rules to the other language. For instance, such speakers would employ the SOV structure of their syntax analysis to relate to the English language or another. Such misappropriations cause breakdown in communication.

Solving such problems and breakdowns in communication require a careful analysis and comprehension of idiosyncratic problems of speech communities. In certain cases, adequate preparation of children before puberty in critical languages of interest is necessary. According to Chomsky, the development of a child is critical in language acquisition and learning (Chomsky 15). He continues that the language acquisition device in a child is very active until puberty when the child begins to accustom to other regional and social paradigms of language. In case a speaker is over the LAD age then certain variances become necessary to control such language breakdown. As Chomsky states, nothing comes easily (16). Therefore, language learning and alignment requires laborious practice, which lead to self-correction and self-awareness in actuality. The problems of language are not static or peculiar to certain conditions; several actions are variances are available to define the true nature of real life and language community. Reflecting on Henry and others who make certain linguistic errors dialectically, either socially or in terms of registers, may yield a variety of correspondences in linguistic analysis. Significantly, not all linguistic errors are identifiable but often, they lead to the creation of better understanding of the linguistic community. Helping such problems require a linear mainstreaming as well as practice.

Reference

Chomsky, Noam. “Linguistics and brain science.” Image, language, brain(2000): 13-23.

Stewart, William A. “An outline of linguistic typology for describing multilingualism.” Study of the role of second languages in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics (1962): 15-25.