Bilingualism_Case Study

INSTITUTO SUPERIOR DEL PROFESORADO

“DR. PBRO. A. M. SAENZ”

DEPARTAMENTO DE INGLÉS

INGLÉS Y SU ENSEÑANZA II

Lecturer: Prof. Laura Renart

Student: Andrea Dallape

Academic Paper 2017

¨Crossing bridges through languages¨ 

Abstract

The case study presented here aims to demonstrate whether a second language can be acquired during adulthood through the process of examining a Russian woman who has been exposed to the Spanish language from the age of 27. For this purpose, the evidence given by the woman will be analysed in the light of some the most important figures in the field of L2 acquisition such as Brown (2000), Krashen (1985) and Baker (2011). Two approaches of second language acquisition will be presented: ‘The critical period hypothesis’ by Lenneberg and ‘the creative construction theory’ by Krashen. Furthermore, what appears to be the inestimable importance of modified interaction and motivation factors in second language acquisition will be highlighted. Finally, some of the most salient differences between Russian and Spanish will be exposed.

Introduction

Numerous causes contribute to the emergence of bilingualism, since socio-cultural, economic and political arrangements of the world have changed. Half of the world’s population today uses more than one language while engaging in basic activities.

This case study on bilingualism aims at making it clear that a second language can be developed during adulthood. It emphasises the fact that although age is an important factor as regards second language acquisition, it is not the only variable that influences this process. As a consequence, this discussion also attempts to prove that other variables such as motivation and L1 are key factors in second language learning.

In order to carry out this academic paper with the intention to prove the issues mentioned above, a Russian immigrant was interviewed. Yuliya Omelianko is a 27-year-old woman who arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina where the variety of Spanish spoken is known as ‘dialect of the River Plate’ (Oxford Dictionaries | Spanish, 2017). As this research paper focuses on a particular case study, analysing what was happening in Russia and Argentina at the time of Yuliya’s arrival in this country will prove to be relevant.

 Several approaches will be examined in this paper with the intention to bring some light to the concept of bilingualism. Moreover, those issues which differentiate L2 acquisition from L1 acquisition will also be mentioned. It will be necessary to make a point on an approach that attempts to explain second language acquisition: Krashen’s Creative Construction Theory. (Krashen and Terrell, 1995) Motivation factors play an important role as regards language acquisition, so special focus will be placed on how it appears to influence this process. The concepts of ‘critical period’ popularized by Lenneberg will be mentioned through the paper. Last but not least, the role of ‘modified interaction’ and its effects in second language acquisition proposed by Long will also be discussed.

A Russian doctor in Argentina

Yuliya Omelianko is a 44 year old woman who was born in the borderlands of The Soviet Union before its dissolution. After finishing secondary school, Yuliya started studying medicine because she wanted to be a doctor, like her parents. As soon as she got her degree as a clinical doctor, Yuliya decided to emigrate from Ukraine to Argentina due to serious economic problems the country was going through. In 1998, Yuliya left Russia since low incomes and inflation affected people’s everyday lives. As the basic salary was twenty-five United States dollars per month, most of the inhabitants were uncertain about their future and many of them decided to emigrate. Boris Yeltsin was the president of Russia at that time. Yuliya was then 25 years old with no knowledge of Spanish, so her degree was useless since she did not know the language. Initially, she used signs to be understood but the possibility to get a job was reduced. Yuliya depended on her friend Andriy, who lived in Valentin Alsina, to communicate with people. So, in order to learn the language faster, she bought a book called Hablar Español en 30 días.

Those were difficult times in Argentina, as well. The quality of life of a huge percentage of citizens was being affected and the work rate was declining. The country was undergoing a great depression and, in terms of income, over fifty percent of the population of Argentina were poor. The Argentine peso was devalued which produced a banking crisis. Fernando de la Rua was elected president in 1999 but the new government devalued the peso, which triggered serious economic unrest. After living three months in Argentina, Yuliya was able to say and understand some phrases and commands. For that reason, she applied for a job in a nursing home where she worked for six months There she met a doctor, her current husband, who encouraged her to validate her degree in medicine. Otherwise she would not have been able to work as a doctor in this country. It was a real challenge since she not only had to speak Spanish but also to read it. Only then could she validate her degree, but what Yuliya really wanted was to do a postgraduate course and become a Psychiatrist. She succeeded in it and in a short period of time she got it. Afterwards, Yuliya started working in the Experimental Psychology Department of Evita Hospital, where she currently works as a Psychiatrist.

Historical background: Yuliya’s disintegrated country

The collapse of the Soviet experiment, and of the country that embodied it, has surely been among the most dramatic and consequential events of the post-war-world. It marked the disappearance of the world’s largest state, one that had been central to Eurasian political life for four centuries or more. That reform process was associated with the end of the communist party rules which occasioned new instability in many places along the borderlands of the former Soviet Union. Yuliya’s homeland disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Now she was a Ukrainian citizen and, for that reason, she had to adopt the new country policies and language. That collapse caused the most profound depression of the twentieth century which was accompanied by a brutal decline in living standards. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2017)

           

Theoretical Framework

This paper will examine the topic of bilingualism. In order to do so, an attempt to define it should be carried out.

Upon analysing different authors, it appears to be no easy task to define what bilingualism is since it is considered an ambiguous term. Some theories and definitions about it will be mentioned.

To start with, Valdés and Figueroa (Baker, 2011) claim that having the ability to ‘perform in two languages is not as simple as having two wheels or two eyes’. According to Baker (2011), bilinguals can be classified according to:

●     Age: a bilingual person may have acquired both languages simultaneously, one after the other (sequentially) or one may have been acquired late in life. (p.16)

●     Ability: an incipient bilingual is that ‘who can only manage a few words and phrases in the second language’, a receptive bilingual ‘understands the second language but cannot produce it’, and a productive bilingual can ‘understand the second language and use the second language as well’. (p.16)

●     Balance of two languages: it refers to whether ‘both languages are used to the same extent or one prevails over the other’. (p.16)

●     Development: if the language ability of a bilingual person is ascendant, it means that the second language is developing; if it is recessive, one language is decreasing. (p.16)

●     Contexts ‘where each language is acquired and used’. (p.17)

●     Elective bilinguals are people who choose to learn a second language; on the contrary, circumstantial bilinguals are those who need to learn another language in order to ‘survive’ in a society. In this case, the first language is in danger of being replaced by the second language. However, over the past century there have been an increasing number of migrations due to different socio or economic problems and it entails the necessity of learning the language of the host country.

Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis mentioned in Lightbown and Spada (1999) can be related to the personality factors that influence second language acquisition. In the same line, Brown (1994) states that the learner’s personality factors influence the process of second language acquisition considerably. As a consequence, it will be worth making a point on motivation and its different varieties. Keller (in Brown, 2000) refers to motivation as “an inner-drive, impulse, emotion or desire that moves one to a particular action”. There are five different kinds of motivation:

●     Instrumental: it aims at attaining goals such as furthering a career.

●     Assimilative: in this case, the language learner wants to use the second language in order to get to know about or communicate with the members of that particular culture. In order to do this, direct contact with the culture in question is not necessary.

●     Integrative: the person has the need of identifying himself/herself with the members of a particular group exclusively.

●      Intrinsic: the person uses the language for personal reasons, without considering the possibility of being rewarded.

●      Extrinsic: in this case, the person uses the language awaiting for a prize, or a high mark, for instance.

It is also worth mentioning the Critical Period Hypothesis, stated by Lenneberg (1967), in which he states that there is a biologically determined period of life when language can be acquired more easily and beyond that time, a second language is increasingly difficult to acquire.

 To conclude with the theoretical framework it appears to be relevant to refer to Long (1985) who postulated The second language interactionist view. Long alleges that interaction and comprehensible input is necessary for language acquisition. Long sees ‘interactional modifications which take place in conversations between native speakers and non-native speakers as the necessary mechanism for this to take place’ since these modifications make input comprehensible. This is necessary to promote learning. Some examples of these conversational modifications are: comprehension checks, clarification requests and self-repetition or paraphrase. It took Yuliya some years to fully understand interactions around her in Buenos Aires.

Analysis: What barriers does a SLA face? Can an adult fully acquire a second language?

Through the analysis of the data collected while interviewing Yuliya, it is possible to believe that she has fully acquired Spanish after 19 years of living in Argentina. However, the first months it was unclear how her oral Spanish would develop over time. Since she depended on her conversational skills such as comprehension checks or clarification requests in order to sustain a conversation with native speakers, daily exposure and modified interaction were the key factors that allow her to make the necessary adjustments that could aid comprehension. Nevertheless, when she had to go shopping for food, she experienced misunderstandings more than once. On one occasion, she went to the greengrocer’s so as to buy vegetables, but instead of asking for “zapallitos” she asked for “zapatillas”. As the shopkeeper did not understand her, she tried again but this time pointing out to the zucchini. “El tener que ir a comprar una cosa tan sencilla como el pan para mí era una odisea ya que no sabía cómo conjugar los verbos. Se me mezclaban con los sustantivos. Un horror.  Me acuerdo que la gente se me quedaba mirando como si fuera un extraterrestre”. According to Long (1985), ‘it is thought that second language acquisition takes place only when people can understand and convey messages in the target language.’(p. 382)  In those daily situations Yuliya had to modify her conversational skills in order to be understood.

Furthermore, it must be taken into account the relevance of motivation as a component in second language acquisition, as it is “an inner-drive, impulse, emotion or desire that moves one to a particular action”. (Gardner, 1985, p.109) Yuliya’s motivation was a useful and effective factor in her SLA as she not only needed Spanish to communicate but also to get a job in order to survive. “...me estaba quedando sin dinero..” Hence her motivation can be classified as, firstly, ‘instrumental’ because she needed to use the language to work, and, secondly, ‘assimilative’ because she needed to use the language to communicate with Argentinian people and, lastly, ‘intrinsic’ because her aim was not to get a reward.

Going back to the concept of The effective filter hypothesis proposed by Krashen and the influence of motivation in SLA, it can be inferred that Yuliya appeared to have always had her emotional filter down because motivation always prevailed in her pursuit of achieving her goal of learning Spanish. The kinds of motivation (Keller in Brown, 1994) which prevailed during her process of second language acquisition were: instrumental: because she needed to use the language to work, assimilative due to the need to use the language to communicate with Argentinian people and  intrinsic since her aim was not to get a reward.

Following Baker’s taxonomy (Baker, 2011), Yuliya can be classified as a circumstantial bilingual because she was forced to learn the language by the circumstances. In other words, she could not choose to do it. It was a necessity in order to survive and to obtain a means of subsistence.

She can also be classified as a sequential bilingual because she acquired the Russian language first and then Spanish, not both at the same time.

        Taking into account that her first contact with her second language (Spanish) took place when she was 27 years old, Yuliya can also be classified as a productive bilingual since she can not only understand, but also produce it without making mistakes.

Yuliya may as well be considered a functional bilingual because she can use both languages (Russian and Spanish) competently in any context.

As far as balance of two languages is concerned, Yuliya states that although she knows both languages well, in everyday life Spanish prevails over her L1.

In relation to Yuliya’s ability, she may be classified as ascendant, since her second language goes on developing within the context of the country where she lives. She just speaks Russian when a relative calls her from Russia.

According to the four abilities a speaker has, it can be assumed that Yuliya seems to be a receptive and productive bilingual as she was able to achieve a full communicative competence.

There may be several explanations for this case study but we cannot deny is that Yuliya’s case presents us with quite clear evidence that a second language can be developed during adulthood.

Slavic languages’ family tree

Slavic languages are those languages spoken in today’s Eastern Europe and Russia. Slavic languages are ‘Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian to the east; Polish, Czech, and Slovak to the west; and Slovenian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian to the south. All of the Slavic languages are closely related to each other, but they are also related to the Romance and Germanic languages, including English and to others in the Indo-European family.’ (Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures, 2017)

Here is a chart of common Slavic languages:

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Russian (Русскийязык)

Russian is an Eastern Slavic language spoken mainly in Russia. It is currently spoken by 150 million native speakers. Russian is an official language in other countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, territories and international organisations, including Tajikistan, Moldova, Gagauzia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and the UN. It is also recognised as a minority language in Romania, Finland, Norway, Armenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Omniglot.com (2017) dates Russian’s appearance in writing back to ‘the reign of Peter the Great (a.k.a. Peter I) (1672-1725) who introduced a revised alphabet and encouraged authors to use a literary style closer to their spoken language. The dialect of Moscow was used as the basis for written Russian.’

Source: (BBC News, 2017)

Comparing Spanish and Russian

      Spanish and Russian have some differences. These differences will be analysed in relation to some aspects of the language, as follows:   

Writing:

       Russian is part of the Slavonic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is closely related to other Slav languages such as Polish, Czech and Serbo-Croatian.

Spanish and Russian are very different in many important aspects. One of the most important is their alphabet. They are Latin and Cyrillic, respectively.

The modern Russian alphabet is composed of 33 letters. Some letters coincide (e.g., a, e, o and k) other coincide in their graphical symbols but represent different sounds (e.g., в / v, и / i, н / n, с / s, m / t, у / u, x / j) and some others are different (e.g.,  Russian б, г, ж, з, ш, ы, ю, я or  Spanish ll, ñ, s, z).

When a Russian student starts studying Spanish, the difference between their alphabets causes difficulties. While reading they tend to pronounce the Spanish ‘c’ like an ‘s’, the letter ‘g’ like a ‘d’, ‘m’ like a ‘t’ and  the letter ‘y’ like ‘u’.

The Spanish orthographic rules are problematic too. For instance, in Spanish the initial letters of the name of an institution are written all with capital letters but, in Russian it is only the first letter of the first word (e.g., Fondo Monetario Internacional Международныйвалютныйфонд.).

Regarding punctuation marks, a typical mistake of a Russian student is the overuse of commas.

Phonology:

-Vowels:

There are six vowels in Russian: /а/, /о/, /у/, /э/, /и/ e /ы/ and they are always reduced with the exception of /о/ and /e/, which are only distinguished when they are stressed whilst in Spanish the vowels are never reduced. Thus, for example they pronounce the verbs ‘contar’ and ‘retener’ like ‘cantar’ and ‘ritiner’. As it is not the same to say ‘puedo contar’ than ‘puedo cantar’, ‘Francisco’ than ‘Francisca’ or  ‘Todos los niños van a contar cuentos’ than ‘todas las niñas van a cantar cuentas’. That is why some communication problems may arise if Russian students do not pay special attention to the correct pronunciation.

Morphology:

Learning the use of Spanish articles is a real challenge for Russian speakers as well. They tend to:

-Interchange the determinate article for the indeterminate one: ‘mi marido me ha comprado el coche, nosotros  han ido a una playa’.

-Omit the article when it is necessary: ‘trabajan en geriátrico, es necesario bañar abuelos’.

- Use articles when they are not necessary: ‘yo  no tiene el trabajo, hay que tener los amigos en todas partes’.

- Use articles instead of possessive pronouns: ‘me están ayudando los amigos’, ‘el hermano se parece mucho a mí’.

Nowadays Yuliya does not face these difficulties. She has achieved proficiency in Spanish.

Conclusion

All the concepts reviewed so far, while using this case study as a model, have served me to conclude that a bilingual person cannot be classified from a single perspective, as there are many factors that affect or influence the person and this person’s process of acquiring the second language, such as age, context and motivation.

After analysing Yuliya’s case, it can be said that her need to communicate in order to earn a living was always a strong force, a motivation to achieve the goal of becoming proficient in Spanish. For that reason it can be concluded that developing a second language during adulthood is possible, and that age is not a barrier. We just have to believe that ‘crossing bridges through languages’ is possible.

NUMBER OF WORDS: 3186

References

Harvard Referencing System has been followed to cite the sources of the present academic paper.

Baker , C (2011). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. (5th ed.). Bristol: Multilingual matters.

BBC News. (2017) Russia country profile. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17839672 [Accessed 5 Dec. 2017].

Brown, H.D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching. White Plains, New York: Addison Wesley Longman

Collinsdictionary.com. (2017). Collins English Dictionary | Definitions, Translations and Pronunciations. [online] Available at: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english [Accessed 5 Dec. 2017].

Encyclopedia Britannica. (2017). Union of Soviet Socialist Republics | historical state, Eurasia. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/place/Soviet-Union [Accessed 5 Dec. 2017].

Gardner, R. (1985). Social Psychology and Second Language Learning. Baltimore: Edward Arnold.

Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures. What are the Slavic Languages?Available at: https://slavic.fas.harvard.edu/pages/what-are-slavic-languages [Accessed December 5, 2017].

Krashen, S. and Terrell, T. (1995). The natural approach. New York: Phoenix.

Lenneberg, E. (1967) Biological Foundations of Language.  New York, Wiley.

Lightbown, P. & Spada, N. (1999) How languages are learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Long, M. H (1985) Input and second language acquisition theory in S. Gass and C. Madden (eds.): Input in Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House  Massachusetts: Newbury House

Omniglot.com. (2017). Russian language, alphabet and pronunciation. [online] Available at: https://www.omniglot.com/writing/russian.htm [Accessed 5 Dec. 2017].

Oxford Dictionaries | Spanish. (2017). Varieties of present-day Spanish | Oxford Dictionaries. [online] Available at: https://es.oxforddictionaries.com/grammar/varieties-of-present-day-spanish [Accessed 5 Dec. 2017].

Literary Essay

Are women’s roles  in the 21^st century different from the ones they had in Austen’s times?

 Throughout this century, the role of women within society has changed, and the majority of people feel that this change is for better. More women work than ever before, and it is accepted in Western culture that many women now have careers. Nonetheless, in the 19^th century there was a great deal of sexual discrimination against women in society. Jane Austen contemplated the female submission throughout her book Pride and Prejudice, and how women had to look for the suitable husband who should have an equal or higher socioeconomic level in order to keep or improve their families’ lineages thanks to a convenient marriage.

To begin with, in majority of cases when women did not get married implied, not only that they were excluded from social life, but also they had a precarious one. Since daughters of fathers with limited fortunes often had difficulty finding husbands .Elizabeth’s friend, Charlotte, explains her pragmatic view: I am not romantic, you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home. Many women (such as Charlotte) had to marry solely for the sake of financial security.

Secondly, the traditional views of the position of women within society are so deeply ingrained that they have not really changed. For instance, the view that women should stay at home and look after their children still widely held, is not new. In Austen’s times it was even worse. For example, if she was widowed, she had no control over her children unless her husband had named her as guardian; if she was separated from her husband, she was disgraced in the public eye and her husband had legal possession of the children.  It was not until 1839 that a new law allowed a separated or divorced woman to sue for custody of her children under seven years of age and for visiting rights to her older children.

Thirdly, since families often need two incomes in order to enjoy a good standard of living, a woman finds herself doing two jobs. So, it could be said that a woman’s position has, in fact, been deteriorated rather than improved, with the result that women carry the burdens of equality but get none of the benefits. Nevertheless, it did not happened in 1800s.A woman’s economic independence was further restricted because of the stigma attached to a female who earned money through working.   An unmarried woman could become a governess, but this was a position beneath the social rank and status of middle and upper class young women and was; thus, regarded as humiliating.    Some unmarried women conducted girls’ schools, but most of them lacked sufficient education to fill this or other professions.Women had very few rights. A woman, no matter her wealth or social standing, was looked on forever by the government and by society as a second class citizen. They were restricted from gaining more than a few years of mainstream education, were banned from obtaining any but low-paying jobs, were looked on with disparagement if they stayed single, and were forced to be obedient to men.  All such restrictions and manipulations were condoned by church, state, and tradition.

In contrast, there are some people who claim that the problem of sexual discrimination no longer exists. They point out that women do, after all, have legal rights intended to protect them from discrimination. The late eighteenth century also witnessed a transformation in the conception of women’s rights following the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the rights of woman in 1792. In the “Vindication” Wollstonecraft argues, in the language of Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, that women should be treated as equal of men. Jane Austen was highly influenced by those ideas. What seems to be one of the most important issues about “woman’s place” for Jane Austen is education – the development of the mind and character of the young woman – But, How did a girl at that time acquire a more substantial education?  Primarily through continuous and serious reading.  In addition, if a girl had a learned father or brother and consequently, a good library at home with a wide range of significant books, conversation about them was available to her.  A few girls even learned Greek and Latin at home from their fathers and brothers.  By the late eighteenth century, women’s social life was broadening; thus, women participated in dinner parties, assemblies, where it was possible to converse with educated men on an equal basis. Nonetheless, those examples were not the norm.

Taking these points into consideration, it can be said that the position of women has improved only slightly. While rules and laws have changed, it is the deep-rooted opinions of people within society which are taking a longer time to evolve. Needless to say, until men attitudes have changed, sexual discrimination will remain forever.

Bibliography

http://catarina.udlap.mx/u_dl_a/tales/documentos/lhu/marquez_c_pa/capitulo1.pdf

Social Contract

Social Contract

The theory seeks to explain the formation of societies and governments. Despite the great
variations on some points, the social contract theory mainly focuses on the voluntary consent that
people give to the formation of the government.3 Moreover, the theory denotes an implicit
agreement within a State regarding the rights and responsibilities of the State, i.e. the
government and its citizens.4 It is an explicit or implicit agreement and it emphasizes the rights
of citizens in their relationship to their government. The theory posits that rights of citizens are
prior to and more fundamental than the organization of society under the government.5 The
governed, in essence, should be the governors.