Videos by Jogile Teresa Ramonaite
Language attrition to different extend is a rather vast phenomenon if one considers the attrition... more Language attrition to different extend is a rather vast phenomenon if one considers the attrition to start whenever more than one language is present in the repertoire. However, extreme cases of attrition are rather rare. This paper presents a case study of first language (mother tongue) attrition that is significant for multiple reasons. The subject is internationally adopted (a person is suddenly and completely deprived of the L1 input and environment). Secondly, the adoptee is 12 years old at the age of adoption and this not only means the subject had a full and well-developed L1 system (was also literate in the L1) but also places the case at the center of a greatly discussed age factor in the L2 acquisition, effects of L2 acquisition before and after puberty. Thirdly, despite the extensive negative experience in the birth country (due to parent abandonment, being moved from one orphanage to another etc.), the subject exhibits surprisingly positive attitudes towards the L1. 11 views
Conference Presentations by Jogile Teresa Ramonaite
X-oji tarptautinė mokslinė konferencija „Romanų kalbų tekstų vertimo akiračiai“, VDU, Kaunas, 2024
Pranešime bus pristatomas 2023 m. pasirodžiusio Stefanios Auci itališko romano „Sicilijos liūtai,... more Pranešime bus pristatomas 2023 m. pasirodžiusio Stefanios Auci itališko romano „Sicilijos liūtai, Florijų šeimos saga I“ tarmiškų intarpų vertimo lietuviškame tekste tyrimas. Sicilijos kultūros niuansų turtingame originaliame romane autorė pateikia neišverstų ir kitaip nepaaiškintų Sicilijos tarmės intarpų, panardinančių skaitytojus į savitą Sicilijos personažų tapatybę, išsaugant kitoniškumo ir laipsniškos atvykėlių į salą Florijų šeimos asimiliacijos jausmą. Įvairaus ilgio, nuo vieno žodžio iki kelių sakinių, intarpų romane yra apie du šimtus. Lietuviškame vertime šios sicilietiškos frazės išverstos į žemaičių kalbą, turinčią savitą kultūrinį atspalvį ir tapatybinį charakterį. Šis kūrybiškas vertimo pasirinkimas suteikia Lietuvos skaitytojams panašią patirtį kaip ir originalo italų auditorijai, išryškindamas kultūrinį sicilietiškos tapatybės turtingumą ir kartu integruodamas jį į pasakojimą. Pranešime bus nagrinėjama, kaip žemaičių tarmė dėl savo specifiškumo padeda vertime išlaikyti šnekamosios kalbos gyvumą, humorą ir personažų įtikimumą. Tuo pat metu toks vertimo metodas ragina kvestionuoti dominuojančios kalbos normas ir supažindina su kalbine įvairove. Pranešime keliami klausimai prisideda prie vykstančio vertimo teorijos diskurso apie vertimo strategijas, skirtas kultūrinei specifikai ir personažų dinamikai perteikti peržengiant kalbines ir kultūrines ribas. Be to, parodo, kaip kalbiniai pasirinkimai gali formuoti skaitytojo kultūrinio tapatumo ir įsitraukimo į pasakojimą suvokimą.
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AILA 20th World Congress, Lyon, France, 2023
The paper will analyze the family language policy of Lithuanian emigrant families. The research i... more The paper will analyze the family language policy of Lithuanian emigrant families. The research is based on quantitative (online survey sample N=2026) and qualitative (more than 300 interviews) data, gathered during two large-scale projects on Lithuanian diaspora from various continents. The theoretical standpoint follows Spolsky’s language policy model, according to which language policy consists of three interrelated components: language practices, language beliefs or ideology, and language management. The focus of this paper is language management which is understood as an effort by someone to modify language practices or beliefs in a family domain. A model developed by Curdt-Christiansen, illustrating the complex interplay of the family language policy and its socio, cultural, political, linguistic environment will also be applied for the analysis. The paper will deal with internal (emotions, identity, parental impact beliefs) and external (language status, socio-economic and socio-political realities) factors influencing family language policy.
The Lithuanian diaspora in various continents (Europe, North and South America, and Australia) consists of emigrants of different emigration waves. The first wave were those who emigrated in the end of 19th century from Lithuania that was under the Russian tzarist rule and later, after the WWI, from the independent Republic of Lithuania. This wave of emigration was mainly for economic reasons and consisted of people from rural areas with little or no education. The second wave of emigration consists of highly educated, mostly cultural, political and economical elite part of the Lithuanian society who flew the country at the end of WWII in fear of Soviet repressions. This wave is considered as political emigration. The third wave includes people who left for the West after the Restauration of Independence in 1990. This wave of emigration is generally of economic character.
Family language policy and home language maintenance in the families of these various emigration waves is rather different. The paper will analyze language management strategies and internal and external factors influencing family language policy as well as compare the families of different emigration waves. The role of different family members, both parents and children, will also be taken into account. The analysis will consider the language policy of different generations of emigration: those who emigrated themselves, those who emigrated as children by the decision of the parents and those born later in the host country (second and third generation emigrants). The results show that the reason for emigration has a great impact on the language policy. The language policy and home language maintenance in the families of political emigrants is more influenced by the internal factors whereas in those of economical emigrants, the external factors seem to play a more important role.
Curdt-Christiansen X. L. 2018. Family language policy. In J. Tollefson and M. Perez-Milans (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Spolsky B. 2004. Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sposkly B. 2009. Language management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Giornata di studi “Lingue, identità e migrazioni” Biella, 2021
La diaspora lituana consiste dalle persone che sono emigrati nei vari momenti della storia per di... more La diaspora lituana consiste dalle persone che sono emigrati nei vari momenti della storia per diversi motivi e i loro discendenti che vivono nei diversi paesi e continenti. Considerando la popolazione della Lituania che negli ultimi anni è scesa sotto i 3 milioni di persone, è notevole che la diaspora ammonta a più di un milione e i lituani vivono nei diversi continenti: Europa, Nord e Sud America, Australia. Si possono distinguere tre maggiori ondate di emigrazione che sono diverse non solo per il periodo storico ma anche per i motivi dell’emigrazione. La prima ondata dalla fine del XIX sec. fino alla seconda guerra mondiale è stata di carattere piuttosto economico. La seconda ondata durante o subito dopo la guerra è stata politica, in realtà le persone che hanno dovuto lasciare la Lituania in quel periodo si considerano finora rifugiati di guerra. La terza ondata è cominciata dopo l’Indipendenza della Lituania e l’apertura dei confini del blocco sovietico e continua fino ad oggi. Anche questa terza ondata è principalmente di carattere economico.
I dati presentati provengono da due grandi progetti di ricerca e sono sia quantitativi (sondaggi su vasta scala, un totale di 2610) sia qualitativi (interviste approfondite, condotte dal vivo o via Skype). L’analisi degli atteggiamenti linguistici dimostra che nell’interrelazione dei componenti cognitivo, affettivo e comportamentale delle attitudini, quello affettivo è molto forte nella diaspora lituana ed è quello che ha il maggiore effetto sul comportamento, ovvero l’uso della lingua. Il lituano viene considerato naturalmente come lingua del pensiero, del linguaggio interiore dagli emigrati della prima generazione, però come la lingua più cara anche da parte degli emigrati delle susseguenti generazioni che provano piacere ad ascoltarla e a parlarla. Ed è questo componente affettivo che ha spinto gli emigrati a cercare o a costruire delle comunità locali non solo per poter mantenere i contatti con i compaesani ma anche creare degli ambienti lituani per favorire l’apprendimento linguistico del lituano per i loro figli.
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Arqus, 2021
Second language acquisition in a situation of international adoption is unique as it gives the po... more Second language acquisition in a situation of international adoption is unique as it gives the possibility to study what happens when a person acquires L2 after having stopped using L1. A study has been conducted on L2 acquisition Lithuanian children adopted to Italy who, due to various reasons, have reached pre- and school age prior to adoption. The case study presented in this paper concerns the acquisition of the verb system of Italian by a Lithuanian girl, adopted at the age of 11,5 years old, whose language behaviour has been observed starting little before the adoption and followed for one year in the new country. Before the adoption the girl was monolingual in Lithuanian and she has not received any formal teaching of Italian even after the arrival in her country of adoption.
The progress of Italian L2 acquisition was observed by periodical recordings. The analyzed data is comprised of over 11 hours of recordings, divided into 10 periods about a month from one another. The morphological analysis showed an extremely rapid rate of acquisition, having acquired the whole Italian verb system within the first year in the country. The focus in this paper is on the acquisition of passato prossimo, Italian perfective past tense, and imperfetto, the imperfect tense, a distinction that is clear in Italian but does not have an obvious counterpart in Lithuanian. The acquisition of the tense-aspect system in the pre-adolescent adoptee generally follows the documented path of Italian L2, however, it differs greatly in speed and some points in the acquisition that are most difficult for both adult and child Italian L2 acquirers, namely auxiliary choice, participle agreement, extension of imperfect to other aspectual classes. These latter points resemble the acquisition path of L1 Italian.
References
Andersen, R. W. (1991). Developmental sequences: the emergence of aspect marking in second language acquisition. Esantis T. Huebner, & C. A. Ferguson (Mont.), Crosscurrents in Second Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theories (p. 305-324). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins publishing company.
Banfi, E., & Bernini, G. (2003). Il verbo. In A. Giacalone Ramat (ed.), Verso l'italiano. Percorsi e strategie di acquisizione (p. 70-115). Roma: Carocci editore.
Calleri, D. (1992). Italiano come L2: l'acquisizione della temporalità in bambini cinesi. In B. Moretti, D. Petrini, & S. Bianconi (ed.), Linee di tendenza dell'italiano contemporaneo (p. 431-443). Roma: Bulzoni.
Rosi, F. (2009). Learning aspect in Italian L2. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
Shirai, Y., & Andersen, R. W. (1995). The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology: a prototype account. Language, 71, 743-762.
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V tarptautinė taikomosios kalbotyros konferencija „Kalbos ir žmonės: komunikacija daugiakalbiame pasaulyje“, 2019
Sociolingvistinę kompetenciją labai bendrai galima apibūdinti kaip gebėjimą priderinti savo kalbą... more Sociolingvistinę kompetenciją labai bendrai galima apibūdinti kaip gebėjimą priderinti savo kalbą prie pašnekovo. Toks gebėjimas yra natūralus bendraujant savo kalba, tačiau nėra toks paprastas įsisavinant kitą kalbą. Į Lietuvą gyventi atvykę užsieniečiai, jei nusprendžia, kad lietuvių kalbos jiems reikia, įprastai bent bando kalbos mokytis formaliai. Ar mokydamiesi kursuose, ar patys iš vadovėlio jie susipažįsta ir, tikėtina, išmoksta bendrinės gana oficialios kalbos varianto, kuris tinka bendrauti su plačiausiu pašnekovų spektru. Vis dėlto, realiai bendraudami su gimtakalbiais lietuviais, besimokantieji pamažu ima pastebėti skirtingus variantus, vartojamus oficialiose ir kasdienio bendravimo situacijose. Tačiau tokia sociolingvistinė kompetencija plėtojasi labai pamažu ir tik jau įgijus nemenką lingvistinę kompetenciją.
Pranešime aptariami lietuvių šnekamosios kalbos bruožai (įvardžių, pertarų variantai, veiksmažodžio asmenų ir vardažodžių linksnių formų trumpinimas ir kt.) lietuvių kaip antrojoje (K2) kalboje. Lietuvių K2 duomenys surinkti skerspjūvio metodu iš 17 Lietuvoje gyvenančių užsieniečių, siekiant apimti kuo platesnį jų ratą, t.y. skirtingų pirmųjų kalbų, Lietuvoje praleisto laiko, lietuvių kalbos mokėjimo lygio ir pan. Šnekos duomenys rinkti pusiau struktūruoto sociolingvistinio interviu metu ir respondentams atliekant konkrečias užduotis. 27 val. garso įrašų transkribuota pagal CHILDES sistemą (MacWhinney 2000) ir koduota morfologinei analizei.
Pranešime nagrinėjama, kokie lietuvių šnekamosios (ir kitų atmainų) variantai lietuvių K2 randasi anksčiausiai, kurie nevartojami visai, kas gali lemti tai, kad kai kurios formos pastebimos ir įsisavinamos iškart, o kitos – nors gimtakalbių vartojamos dažnai – ima rastis tik labiausiai pažengusiųjų kalboje. Analizei remiamasi konkrečiais tiriamųjų šnekos duomenimis, taip pat jų pačių metalingvistiniais komentarais.
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Socforumas, 2019
Lietuvoje apsigyventi nusprendę užsieniečiai, jei nusprendžia, kad lietuvių kalba jiems reikaling... more Lietuvoje apsigyventi nusprendę užsieniečiai, jei nusprendžia, kad lietuvių kalba jiems reikalinga, dažnai lanko kalbos kursus. Kalbos kursuose, savaime suprantama, yra mokoma geros ir teisingos lietuvių kalbos. Susidūrę su gimtakalbiais lietuviais ne tik oficialių, dalykinių susitikimų metu, besimokantieji iškart susiduria ir su įprasta šnekamąja lietuvių kalba. Kaip jiems sekasi ją suprasti ir įsisavinti? Kokie yra šnekamosios kalbos bruožai, kurių nemoko per paskaitas? Ar su užsieniečiais kalbėdami kalbame kitaip ir tokiu būdu nepadedame jiems plėtoti savo sociolingvistinės kompetencijos? Pranešime aptariami tokie šnekamosios kalbos bruožai kaip taip/jo vartojimas, įvardžių variantai, trumpinamieji variantai užsieniečių kalboje. Taip pat pačių tiriamųjų metalingvistiniai komentarai ir šnekos duomenys, iš kurių matyti laipsniška sociolingvistinės kompetencijos raida ir patiriami sunkumai.
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AILA Rio de Janeiro, 2017
In the context of globalization and social mobility the world has been experiencing for quite som... more In the context of globalization and social mobility the world has been experiencing for quite some time, it is insightful to observe the situation in countries that had been held away from the global processes for some decades. These countries are catching up quickly but are still lagging far behind. The iron curtain that separated Europe is still rather evident in the mentality of the people of post-soviet countries making them more closed to the outsiders also due to linguistic barriers.
Lithuania is a small country in Eastern Europe and its language, ancient and extremely complex, is not considered to be a prerequisite if moving into the country for business or similar reasons. Nevertheless, once here, a foreigner is faced with a reality that the globalization has not yet reached a comfort-level from the linguistic point of view with the “big” languages. The older generation of Lithuanians were fluent in Russian and the young are quickly advancing in English but is knowing either of those really enough to live in Lithuania?
This paper presents the sociolinguistic perspective from a study conducted on acquisition of Lithuanian L2. Only in the past couple of years there has been some increase of foreign immigrants in Lithuania therefore the qualitative data are collected both from “new” and “old” foreigners residing in Lithuania. The data gives insight on linguistic behavior issues and is the basis for the analysis of language attitudes and competences by foreigners in this “small” language country.
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ISB11 Limerick, 2017
In a globalized and multilingual world predominantly monolingual countries are a bit of a challen... more In a globalized and multilingual world predominantly monolingual countries are a bit of a challenge for foreigners moving to live there. This paper looks at the situation of foreigners in Lithuania, which is a rather small country with an ancient and quite morphologically complex language. The older generation of the population used to know Russian and the young are quickly advancing in English, however, Lithuanian not only is the official state language but it is by far the most used in any environment, formal or informal occasions and is also viewed as a national pride.
Even though knowing Lithuanian is not considered a prerequisite for settling in the country, learning it or at least putting an effort to speak it is valued highly in the society and therefore gives many advantages for the new speakers. This paper presents a qualitative study on Lithuanian as a second language acquisition by foreigners (n=17) living in Lithuania for a varied amount of time and different L1s. Spontaneous speech data (~30h) has been collected using a semi-structured socio-linguistic interview, gathering experiences and language attitudes, together with some specific tasks, such as film retelling. Analysis shows a clear distinction between the basic variety linguistic attainment, which is very elementary but evidently suffices some of the new speakers, and the post-basic continuum that moves clearly towards the target language.
The language proficiency of the informants is studied in terms of the acquisition of morphology (concentrated so far on the verb). This paper focuses on the correlation of the proficiency of the actual language use and the expressed positive/negative experiences with the host linguistic community as well as language attitudes.
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Antrosios kalbos įsisavinimo tyrimai rodo, kad yra daug skirtingų svarbių procesų, kurie vyksta v... more Antrosios kalbos įsisavinimo tyrimai rodo, kad yra daug skirtingų svarbių procesų, kurie vyksta vienu metu: plečiamas žodynas tuo pat metu kaip ir konstruojama morfologinė sistema ir t.t. Atsižvelgiant į tai, kad lietuvių kalba yra gana morfologiškai turtinga, natūralu, kad skirtingos morfologinės formos įsisavinamos palaipsniui. Kalbant apie veiksmažodį, kuris dažniausiai esti bet kokio pasakymo centras, galima numanyti, kad pradedantysis kalbėtojas, kuris dar nėra išmokęs skirtingų asmenų, laikų formų, vartos tokią žinomo veiksmažodžio formą, kurią moka, nors tai ir neatitiktų tikslinės lietuvių kalbos principų. Lietuvių kalbos veiksmažodžio bendratis yra forma, kuri yra nekaitoma ir pavadinanti veiksmą. Regis, to ir reikia pradedančiajam kalbėtojui, kuriam svarbu tik perteikti turinį, nesigilinant į gramatinio taisyklingumo subtilybes. Be to, bendraties forma yra gana dažna gimtakalbių natūralioje kalboje, taip pat ši forma yra pateikiama žodynuose, yra viena iš pagrindinių formų, todėl yra svarbi išmokti. Visgi tikslinėje lietuvių kalboje bendraties forma negali pakeisti asmenuojamųjų formų, o toks jos vartojimas gali kelti nemažų komunikacinių sunkumų, pvz., pasakyme aš valgyti liktų neaišku, ar kalbėtojas nori/nenori, ar jam reikia, ar jis turi/neturi, ko valgyti, o gal jis ką tik pavalgė. Taigi, kaip elgiasi lietuvių kaip antrąją įsisavinantys užsieniečiai ir kokių rezultatų duoda toks jų vartojamos formos pasirinkimas?
Įsisavinant lietuvių kaip antrąją kalbą veiksmažodžio bendraties forma pasirodo gana anksti, iškart po arba kartu su esamojo laiko formomis. Žvelgiant į bendraties formų kiekį besimokančiųjų kalboje, randama, kad pradedantieji ir pažengusieji lietuvių kaip antrosios kalbos kalbėtojai šių formų vartoja labai panašiai (10-15 proc. visų formų), t.y. ši forma neišsiskiria ryškia kiekybine kaita kalbą įsisavinant geriau. Visgi analizuojant giliau galima pastebėti, kad kokybiškai ši forma labai kinta. Pradedantieji kalbėti lietuviškai šią formą kartais renkasi vartoti pasakyme vietoje asmenuojamosios veiksmažodžio formos, o jau gerai kalbantys lietuviškai bendratį vartoja pagal įvairias skirtingas jos funkcijas lietuvių kalboje. Šiame pranešime analizuojamos bendraties formos funkcijos įsisavinimo proceso raidoje, nagrinėjama, ar bendraties forma lietuvių K2 turi savo specifinę funkciją, kuri nebūtinai sutampa su tikslinėje kalboje egzistuojančiomis funkcijomis.
Tyrime remiamasi spontaninės šnekos duomenimis, surinktais iš 17 Lietuvoje trumpiau ar ilgiau gyvenančių įvairių tautybių užsieniečių. Duomenys buvo surinkti pusiau struktūruotų (socio)lingvistinių interviu metu bei atliekant specialias užduotis. Tyrimo dalyvių kalba buvo įrašoma, vėliau transkribuota naudojantis CHILDES programa ir užkoduota morfologinei analizei. Surinkta iš viso daugiau nei 30 val. įrašų, iš jų transkribuotos ir koduotos 27 val. Visų tyrimo dalyvių šnekoje užfiksuotas panašus santykinis bendraties formų pavartojimų skaičius. Pranešime pristatoma, kokiomis funkcijomis bendraties forma vartojama pradedančiųjų kalbėtojų, šios formos funkcijų specifiškumas lietuvių K2 bazinėje atmainoje ir kaip artėjama prie tikslinėje kalboje egzistuojančių funkcijų pažengusių kalbėtojų šnekoje.
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International adoption is a unique but not an infrequent phenomenon. It gives an extraordinary po... more International adoption is a unique but not an infrequent phenomenon. It gives an extraordinary possibility for children, who for various reasons cannot have a family in their birth country, to have a full life in a family in another culture. Usually the adoptive family speaks another language so in addition to such a major change in life, there is also another language to be learned. This might not be considered a difficulty when adopting infants or toddlers but becomes rather evident in case of adoption of pre-schoolers and school-aged children.
In adoption, accepting one another is fundamental, however, an amazing capacity of adopted even older children to re-create themselves as part of the new family, environment and culture is observed. One of the aspects of that self-re-creation is the language. Language attitudes that come into play in case of adoption are somewhat different than in other seemingly similar situations, such as migration. Internationally adopted children, especially older ones, tend to negatively associate (at least for a period in their lives) everything that has to do with their previous life, language included. That in addition to very favorable conditions of full-immersion second language acquisition gives the outcome of a quite specific language-shift situation.
This paper presents research conducted on Italian as a second language acquisition by children adopted from Lithuania. In addition to a longitudinal observation of a few children, a survey of adoptive parents was conducted. The families were asked to evaluate their children’s language, attitudes, process of acquisition, help needed, problems faced etc. Due to national and international laws and other factors the majority of children were older than 3 at the time of adoption (up to 14 years-old) therefore were able to communicate in their first language prior to adoption. The survey results come from 74 families giving information on 117 children. Both quantitative and qualitative research shows an extremely quick acquisition of the second language where language attitudes play a big role both in the acquisition of Italian and the relationship with the former first language.
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Lietuvoje gyvenantys užsieniečiai nuolat yra lietuvių kalbos apsuptyje, net jei jų darbo ar šeimo... more Lietuvoje gyvenantys užsieniečiai nuolat yra lietuvių kalbos apsuptyje, net jei jų darbo ar šeimos kalba nėra lietuvių. Pati lietuvių kalba yra gana sudėtinga, morfologiškai itin turtinga, vyrauja nuomonė, kad jos išmokti beveik neįmanoma (taigi, kam stengtis?) ir panašiai. Vis gerėja pačių Lietuvos gyventojų užsienio kalbų mokėjimas, todėl, bent didmiesčiuose, užsieniečiams nekyla didelių sunkumų išgyventi nemokant kalbos. Nepaisant to, veikiant įvairiems veiksniams ir dėl įvairių priežasčių Lietuvoj gyvenantys užsieniečiai bent šiek tiek vartoja lietuvių kalbą. Pranešime pristatomas lietuvių kalbos kaip antrosios įsisavinimo tyrimas, kurio tikslas nustatyti pagrindinę įsisavinimo seką daugiausiai dėmesio skiriant veiksmo raiškai, t.y. veiksmažodžio sistemos formavimuisi lietuvių K2. Kokybinis skerspjūvio metodu atliktas tyrimas su 17 įvairių tautybių, amžiaus, specialybių ir nevienodo lietuvių kalbos įsisavinimo lygio dalyvių atskleidžia įsisavinimo seką. Surinkti kalbiniai duomenys rodo, kad lietuvių K2 atitinka universalius antrosios kalbos įsisavinimo principus, tačiau morfologiškai turtinga ir skaidri ne tik rašytinė, bet ir sakytinė lietuvių kalba lemia gana ankstyvą skirtingų morfologinių formų atsiradimą kalbančiojo tarpukalbėje.
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Children that are adopted abroad before the adoption undergo various more or less overt phases of... more Children that are adopted abroad before the adoption undergo various more or less overt phases of abandonment (biological parents, other relatives, citizens of the home country). Sometimes in Eastern European countries the biological parents of a low social stratus start raising their children but later on do not take care of them anymore and thus often the children are institutionalized when they already are older. The attitudes of the native society towards these children are often not very positive and therefore, after an additional amount of time for bureaucratic reasons, they can be adopted abroad. This is where they face an additional dramatic challenge: a new language.
The paper will present and analyse both quantitative and qualitative data of Lithuanian children adopted to Italy, concentrating on school-age children. The quantitative data has been gathered by conducting a survey of the adoptive parents and examining the speed and the quality of Italian acquisition, linguistic help, attitudes, reasons and other aspects. The qualitative part is data from a longitudinal observation of linguistic behaviour of adopted children and their speech recordings. The children observed learn Italian spontaneously and demonstrate an extraordinary speed in acquiring the new language and near-native competence in only a year after the arrival to the country.
Even though the general acquisitional path is universal, the linguistic development of internationally adopted school-age children presents curious features that are characteristic to the L1 Italian acquisition. These findings suggest that the general social start-over presented in the international adoption situation by the presence of a family and its support, the new life perspective, affects the linguistic behaviour and a complete re-creation also from the linguistic point of view.
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Lithuanian, an ancient and a complex morphology language, has been studied in various places of t... more Lithuanian, an ancient and a complex morphology language, has been studied in various places of the world for academic reasons. After the regaining of independence in the 1990, with the open borders, foreigners started coming to Lithuania and there started to be a need of everyday communication in Lithuanian. For this reason courses of Lithuanian as a foreign language have been initiated then and therefore now already have a reasonable experience and teaching materials. Nevertheless, neither the actual process of language acquisition nor the learner varieties of Lithuanian have been studied so far. Such research could not only help with the didactic process of Lithuanian as foreign language teaching but also give insight into the process of human language acquisition in general given the rich and rather salient morphology of this both written and spoken language.
The presented research is an on-going study of Lithuanian as an L2, aiming at studying the acquisition process of subjects that have received no or little formal instruction of Lithuanian as an L2. The final goal of this study is to determine the acquisitional sequence of Lithuanian, focusing on the acquisition of verb morphology as well as establishing the major challenges for this acquisition. The language production data is collected by recording a semi-structured sociolinguistic interview of each subject individually as well as a film retelling task. The method used is transversal, therefore, the learner varieties of multiple subjects will be analyzed in order to obtain a more complete picture of the process of acquisition.
This paper presents language attitudes, necessities and challenges faced by the investigated subjects as it emerges both from the metalinguistic data in the interviews and the actual linguistic production in Lithuanian.
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Į Lietuvą dėl įvairių priežasčių po Nepriklausomybės paskelbimo atvyksta gyventi užsieniečių, jų ... more Į Lietuvą dėl įvairių priežasčių po Nepriklausomybės paskelbimo atvyksta gyventi užsieniečių, jų ypač pagausėjo per pastaruosius keletą metų. Gyvendami Lietuvoje užsieniečiai susiduria su lietuvių kalba kasdien, tačiau vieniems labiau, kitiems mažiau reikia aktyviai ją vartoti. Lietuvių kaip svetimosios kalbos mokymas turi jau gana netrumpą tradiciją, yra parengta įvairios mokomosios medžiagos, yra nemažai kalbos kursų, mokyklų. Tačiau trūksta tyrimų apie tai, kaip morfologiškai labai turtinga lietuvių kalba iš tiesų yra įsisavinama, kokie aspektai negimtakalbių yra pastebimi anksčiau, kurie vėliau, kokios formos imamos vartoti iškart, o kurios neįsisavinamos net pažengusiųjų lygmenyje.
Šiame pranešime pristatomas šiuo metu vykdomas tyrimas apie lietuvių kaip antrosios kalbos įsisavinimą. Tyrimo tikslas – ištirti lietuvių kaip antrosios kalbos spontanišką, arba daugiausia spontanišką, įsisavinimą. Stengiamasi nustatyti, kaip kitakalbių yra įsisavinama lietuvių kalba, kokia seka ir kokiais principais (pragmatiniais, gramatiniais ar pan.) remiantis įsisavinami skirtingų kalbos lygmenų (morfologijos, sintaksės ir pan.) elementai. Didžiausias dėmesys kreipiamas į gramatikos įsisavinimą, ypač veiksmažodžio morfologiją. Tyrimas vykdomas skerspjūvio metodu, vienu laikotarpiu surenkami kalbos duomenys iš skirtingo kalbinio lygio informantų, kurie vėliau analizuojami ir lyginami tarpusavyje. Duomenys renkami naudojant pusiau struktūruoto (socio)lingvistinio interviu metodą ir keletą kalbinių užduočių. Gauti duomenys vėliau transkribuojami ir analizuojami.
Pranešime pristatomas lietuvių kalbos kaip antrosios įsisavinimą veikiantys faktoriai, tokie kaip kalbinės nuostatos, sunkumai, su kuriais susiduria Lietuvoje gyvenantys užsieniečiai ir pirminės įžvalgos apie lietuvių kalbos kaip antrosios įsisavinimą, remiantis tiek metalingvistiniais duomenimis, gautais interviu metu, tiek atsiskleidžiančiais iš pačios tiriamųjų kalbos.
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Most of the internationally adopted children are old enough to know their mother tongue at the ag... more Most of the internationally adopted children are old enough to know their mother tongue at the age of adoption. Their linguistic environment and necessities change abruptly at the moment of adoption when the new language not only becomes the only one surrounding the child but it is also a very important part of a new-quality life. In cases of infant or toddler adoption the path of language acquisition is comparable to that of a regular L1 (Glennen 2002, 2005, Glennen and Masters 2002, Nicoladis and Grabois 2002, Snedeker et al. 2007, 2012, Gauthier and Genesee 2011), whereas little is yet known about the linguistic development of older adopted children (Ramonaite 2010, 2013).
This paper analyzes data from a longitudinal observation of a 11,5 year old Lithuanian girl adopted to Italy. The girl was observed for one year starting at the moment of adoption, her spontaneous speech was recorded, transcribed with CHILDES, annotated and analyzed for predicate expression in Italian. Given the girl’s age she started attended a regular Italian-medium school soon after arrival to the new country but has never been taught Italian as a second language. Therefore the girl’s acquisition of Italian is spontaneous and she reaches a surprising native-like attainment level after only a year in the country.
The paper presents peculiarities in the girl’s linguistic development that differ from the studied L2 acquisition (Giacalone Ramat (ed.) 2003, Calleri 1992 and other) and that make her path somewhat similar to that of L1 acquisition (Calleri 1990 and other). Specific attention is drawn to the predicate expression development and the gradual (but overall extremely rapid) formation of the verb system in Italian. The data shows acquisition following the universal path but moving very quickly through learner varieties and acquisition of the complete Italian verb system within a year.
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In the context of globalization and social mobility the world has been experiencing for quite som... more In the context of globalization and social mobility the world has been experiencing for quite some time, it is insightful to observe the situation in countries that had been held away from the global processes for some decades. These countries are catching up quickly but are still lagging far behind. The iron curtain that separated Europe is still rather evident in the mentality of the people of post-soviet countries making them more closed to the outsiders also due to linguistic barriers.
Lithuania is a small country and its language, ancient and extremely complex, is not considered to be a prerequisite if moving into the country for business or similar reasons. Nevertheless, once here, a foreigner is faced with a reality that the globalization has not yet reached a comfort-level from the linguistic point of view with the “big” languages. The older generation of Lithuanians were fluent in Russian and the young are quickly advancing in English but is knowing either of those really enough to live in Lithuania?
This paper presents the sociolinguistic perspective from an ongoing study on acquisition of Lithuanian L2. Only in the past couple of years there has been some increase of foreign immigrants in Lithuania therefore the qualitative data are collected both from “new” and “old” foreigners residing in Lithuania. The final goal of this research is to study the acquisitional sequence of Lithuanian using a functional approach, focusing on the acquisition of verb morphology as well as establishing the major challenges for this acquisition. The language production data is collected by recording a semi-structured sociolinguistic interview of each subject individually as well as a film retelling and other linguistic tasks (the method used by ESF, extensively described in Perdue 1993, and similar projects on L2 acquisition). The data gives insight on linguistic behavior issues and is the basis for the analysis of language attitudes and competences by foreigners in this “small and difficult” language country. This paper presents language attitudes, necessities and challenges faced by the investigated subjects as it emerges both from the metalinguistic data in the interviews and the actual linguistic production in Lithuanian.
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After regaining independence in Lithuania the official role of the Lithuanian language has radica... more After regaining independence in Lithuania the official role of the Lithuanian language has radically changed and there has been a significant increase in Lithuanian as a second language learning and acquisition. People acquire Lithuanian both in language courses and spontaneously from the environment. Recently the number of foreigners who come to live and work in Lithuania has increased and even if Lithuanian is not necessarily the language of their work, they do need it in everyday life. Nevertheless no research has been conducted on the acquisition of Lithuanian L2 so far.
This paper presents a current research that focuses on mostly naturalistic acquisition of Lithuanian. The aim of the research is to determine the general structure of Lithuanian L2 acquisition with respect to the order in which elements of the language are acquired and particular attention on the verb morphology, the success of the acquisition process and the factors that success depends on. The methods used to collect data are semi-structured (socio-) linguistic interviews and also some specific tasks to facilitate the comparability of the different subjects. The type of study is transversal, i.e. more subjects of different level of acquisition are taken into consideration and their data is then compared to get a complete picture of the acquisitional path.
This paper presents an insight on the general Lithuanian L2 acquisition from the studied subjects as well as an overview of sociolinguistic factors, such as language attitudes, that greatly determine L2 acquisition.
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Internationally adopted children go through a dramatic shift in linguistic environment at the mom... more Internationally adopted children go through a dramatic shift in linguistic environment at the moment of adoption. In the new life situation and favored by the entire new surroundings they quickly and very successfully acquire the new language regardless of their age at adoption. The new language becomes their dominant and often the only language within the first year after leaving the country of origin. This paper will analyze the remnants of the mother tongue in a Lithuanian girl adopted to Italy at the age of 11. The data was gathered one year after the adoption and consists of spontaneous speech recordings.
At the time of adoption the girl had a regular knowledge of Lithuanian and was attending elementary school. Baring in mind a positive attitude of the subject towards the mother tongue and the relatively short period of lack of exposure the data reveals a rather severe attrition of Lithuanian. The paper will draw attention to the lexical and the morphological features as well as the general fluency. Analysis shows obvious signs of interference of the newly acquired Italian and a great deterioration of the mother tongue: great effort to recall vocabulary, morphological peculiarities and significant hesitation when speaking.
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The Lithuanian diaspora in various continents (Europe, North and South America, and Australia) consists of emigrants of different emigration waves. The first wave were those who emigrated in the end of 19th century from Lithuania that was under the Russian tzarist rule and later, after the WWI, from the independent Republic of Lithuania. This wave of emigration was mainly for economic reasons and consisted of people from rural areas with little or no education. The second wave of emigration consists of highly educated, mostly cultural, political and economical elite part of the Lithuanian society who flew the country at the end of WWII in fear of Soviet repressions. This wave is considered as political emigration. The third wave includes people who left for the West after the Restauration of Independence in 1990. This wave of emigration is generally of economic character.
Family language policy and home language maintenance in the families of these various emigration waves is rather different. The paper will analyze language management strategies and internal and external factors influencing family language policy as well as compare the families of different emigration waves. The role of different family members, both parents and children, will also be taken into account. The analysis will consider the language policy of different generations of emigration: those who emigrated themselves, those who emigrated as children by the decision of the parents and those born later in the host country (second and third generation emigrants). The results show that the reason for emigration has a great impact on the language policy. The language policy and home language maintenance in the families of political emigrants is more influenced by the internal factors whereas in those of economical emigrants, the external factors seem to play a more important role.
Curdt-Christiansen X. L. 2018. Family language policy. In J. Tollefson and M. Perez-Milans (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Spolsky B. 2004. Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sposkly B. 2009. Language management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
I dati presentati provengono da due grandi progetti di ricerca e sono sia quantitativi (sondaggi su vasta scala, un totale di 2610) sia qualitativi (interviste approfondite, condotte dal vivo o via Skype). L’analisi degli atteggiamenti linguistici dimostra che nell’interrelazione dei componenti cognitivo, affettivo e comportamentale delle attitudini, quello affettivo è molto forte nella diaspora lituana ed è quello che ha il maggiore effetto sul comportamento, ovvero l’uso della lingua. Il lituano viene considerato naturalmente come lingua del pensiero, del linguaggio interiore dagli emigrati della prima generazione, però come la lingua più cara anche da parte degli emigrati delle susseguenti generazioni che provano piacere ad ascoltarla e a parlarla. Ed è questo componente affettivo che ha spinto gli emigrati a cercare o a costruire delle comunità locali non solo per poter mantenere i contatti con i compaesani ma anche creare degli ambienti lituani per favorire l’apprendimento linguistico del lituano per i loro figli.
The progress of Italian L2 acquisition was observed by periodical recordings. The analyzed data is comprised of over 11 hours of recordings, divided into 10 periods about a month from one another. The morphological analysis showed an extremely rapid rate of acquisition, having acquired the whole Italian verb system within the first year in the country. The focus in this paper is on the acquisition of passato prossimo, Italian perfective past tense, and imperfetto, the imperfect tense, a distinction that is clear in Italian but does not have an obvious counterpart in Lithuanian. The acquisition of the tense-aspect system in the pre-adolescent adoptee generally follows the documented path of Italian L2, however, it differs greatly in speed and some points in the acquisition that are most difficult for both adult and child Italian L2 acquirers, namely auxiliary choice, participle agreement, extension of imperfect to other aspectual classes. These latter points resemble the acquisition path of L1 Italian.
References
Andersen, R. W. (1991). Developmental sequences: the emergence of aspect marking in second language acquisition. Esantis T. Huebner, & C. A. Ferguson (Mont.), Crosscurrents in Second Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theories (p. 305-324). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins publishing company.
Banfi, E., & Bernini, G. (2003). Il verbo. In A. Giacalone Ramat (ed.), Verso l'italiano. Percorsi e strategie di acquisizione (p. 70-115). Roma: Carocci editore.
Calleri, D. (1992). Italiano come L2: l'acquisizione della temporalità in bambini cinesi. In B. Moretti, D. Petrini, & S. Bianconi (ed.), Linee di tendenza dell'italiano contemporaneo (p. 431-443). Roma: Bulzoni.
Rosi, F. (2009). Learning aspect in Italian L2. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
Shirai, Y., & Andersen, R. W. (1995). The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology: a prototype account. Language, 71, 743-762.
Pranešime aptariami lietuvių šnekamosios kalbos bruožai (įvardžių, pertarų variantai, veiksmažodžio asmenų ir vardažodžių linksnių formų trumpinimas ir kt.) lietuvių kaip antrojoje (K2) kalboje. Lietuvių K2 duomenys surinkti skerspjūvio metodu iš 17 Lietuvoje gyvenančių užsieniečių, siekiant apimti kuo platesnį jų ratą, t.y. skirtingų pirmųjų kalbų, Lietuvoje praleisto laiko, lietuvių kalbos mokėjimo lygio ir pan. Šnekos duomenys rinkti pusiau struktūruoto sociolingvistinio interviu metu ir respondentams atliekant konkrečias užduotis. 27 val. garso įrašų transkribuota pagal CHILDES sistemą (MacWhinney 2000) ir koduota morfologinei analizei.
Pranešime nagrinėjama, kokie lietuvių šnekamosios (ir kitų atmainų) variantai lietuvių K2 randasi anksčiausiai, kurie nevartojami visai, kas gali lemti tai, kad kai kurios formos pastebimos ir įsisavinamos iškart, o kitos – nors gimtakalbių vartojamos dažnai – ima rastis tik labiausiai pažengusiųjų kalboje. Analizei remiamasi konkrečiais tiriamųjų šnekos duomenimis, taip pat jų pačių metalingvistiniais komentarais.
Lithuania is a small country in Eastern Europe and its language, ancient and extremely complex, is not considered to be a prerequisite if moving into the country for business or similar reasons. Nevertheless, once here, a foreigner is faced with a reality that the globalization has not yet reached a comfort-level from the linguistic point of view with the “big” languages. The older generation of Lithuanians were fluent in Russian and the young are quickly advancing in English but is knowing either of those really enough to live in Lithuania?
This paper presents the sociolinguistic perspective from a study conducted on acquisition of Lithuanian L2. Only in the past couple of years there has been some increase of foreign immigrants in Lithuania therefore the qualitative data are collected both from “new” and “old” foreigners residing in Lithuania. The data gives insight on linguistic behavior issues and is the basis for the analysis of language attitudes and competences by foreigners in this “small” language country.
Even though knowing Lithuanian is not considered a prerequisite for settling in the country, learning it or at least putting an effort to speak it is valued highly in the society and therefore gives many advantages for the new speakers. This paper presents a qualitative study on Lithuanian as a second language acquisition by foreigners (n=17) living in Lithuania for a varied amount of time and different L1s. Spontaneous speech data (~30h) has been collected using a semi-structured socio-linguistic interview, gathering experiences and language attitudes, together with some specific tasks, such as film retelling. Analysis shows a clear distinction between the basic variety linguistic attainment, which is very elementary but evidently suffices some of the new speakers, and the post-basic continuum that moves clearly towards the target language.
The language proficiency of the informants is studied in terms of the acquisition of morphology (concentrated so far on the verb). This paper focuses on the correlation of the proficiency of the actual language use and the expressed positive/negative experiences with the host linguistic community as well as language attitudes.
Įsisavinant lietuvių kaip antrąją kalbą veiksmažodžio bendraties forma pasirodo gana anksti, iškart po arba kartu su esamojo laiko formomis. Žvelgiant į bendraties formų kiekį besimokančiųjų kalboje, randama, kad pradedantieji ir pažengusieji lietuvių kaip antrosios kalbos kalbėtojai šių formų vartoja labai panašiai (10-15 proc. visų formų), t.y. ši forma neišsiskiria ryškia kiekybine kaita kalbą įsisavinant geriau. Visgi analizuojant giliau galima pastebėti, kad kokybiškai ši forma labai kinta. Pradedantieji kalbėti lietuviškai šią formą kartais renkasi vartoti pasakyme vietoje asmenuojamosios veiksmažodžio formos, o jau gerai kalbantys lietuviškai bendratį vartoja pagal įvairias skirtingas jos funkcijas lietuvių kalboje. Šiame pranešime analizuojamos bendraties formos funkcijos įsisavinimo proceso raidoje, nagrinėjama, ar bendraties forma lietuvių K2 turi savo specifinę funkciją, kuri nebūtinai sutampa su tikslinėje kalboje egzistuojančiomis funkcijomis.
Tyrime remiamasi spontaninės šnekos duomenimis, surinktais iš 17 Lietuvoje trumpiau ar ilgiau gyvenančių įvairių tautybių užsieniečių. Duomenys buvo surinkti pusiau struktūruotų (socio)lingvistinių interviu metu bei atliekant specialias užduotis. Tyrimo dalyvių kalba buvo įrašoma, vėliau transkribuota naudojantis CHILDES programa ir užkoduota morfologinei analizei. Surinkta iš viso daugiau nei 30 val. įrašų, iš jų transkribuotos ir koduotos 27 val. Visų tyrimo dalyvių šnekoje užfiksuotas panašus santykinis bendraties formų pavartojimų skaičius. Pranešime pristatoma, kokiomis funkcijomis bendraties forma vartojama pradedančiųjų kalbėtojų, šios formos funkcijų specifiškumas lietuvių K2 bazinėje atmainoje ir kaip artėjama prie tikslinėje kalboje egzistuojančių funkcijų pažengusių kalbėtojų šnekoje.
In adoption, accepting one another is fundamental, however, an amazing capacity of adopted even older children to re-create themselves as part of the new family, environment and culture is observed. One of the aspects of that self-re-creation is the language. Language attitudes that come into play in case of adoption are somewhat different than in other seemingly similar situations, such as migration. Internationally adopted children, especially older ones, tend to negatively associate (at least for a period in their lives) everything that has to do with their previous life, language included. That in addition to very favorable conditions of full-immersion second language acquisition gives the outcome of a quite specific language-shift situation.
This paper presents research conducted on Italian as a second language acquisition by children adopted from Lithuania. In addition to a longitudinal observation of a few children, a survey of adoptive parents was conducted. The families were asked to evaluate their children’s language, attitudes, process of acquisition, help needed, problems faced etc. Due to national and international laws and other factors the majority of children were older than 3 at the time of adoption (up to 14 years-old) therefore were able to communicate in their first language prior to adoption. The survey results come from 74 families giving information on 117 children. Both quantitative and qualitative research shows an extremely quick acquisition of the second language where language attitudes play a big role both in the acquisition of Italian and the relationship with the former first language.
The paper will present and analyse both quantitative and qualitative data of Lithuanian children adopted to Italy, concentrating on school-age children. The quantitative data has been gathered by conducting a survey of the adoptive parents and examining the speed and the quality of Italian acquisition, linguistic help, attitudes, reasons and other aspects. The qualitative part is data from a longitudinal observation of linguistic behaviour of adopted children and their speech recordings. The children observed learn Italian spontaneously and demonstrate an extraordinary speed in acquiring the new language and near-native competence in only a year after the arrival to the country.
Even though the general acquisitional path is universal, the linguistic development of internationally adopted school-age children presents curious features that are characteristic to the L1 Italian acquisition. These findings suggest that the general social start-over presented in the international adoption situation by the presence of a family and its support, the new life perspective, affects the linguistic behaviour and a complete re-creation also from the linguistic point of view.
The presented research is an on-going study of Lithuanian as an L2, aiming at studying the acquisition process of subjects that have received no or little formal instruction of Lithuanian as an L2. The final goal of this study is to determine the acquisitional sequence of Lithuanian, focusing on the acquisition of verb morphology as well as establishing the major challenges for this acquisition. The language production data is collected by recording a semi-structured sociolinguistic interview of each subject individually as well as a film retelling task. The method used is transversal, therefore, the learner varieties of multiple subjects will be analyzed in order to obtain a more complete picture of the process of acquisition.
This paper presents language attitudes, necessities and challenges faced by the investigated subjects as it emerges both from the metalinguistic data in the interviews and the actual linguistic production in Lithuanian.
Šiame pranešime pristatomas šiuo metu vykdomas tyrimas apie lietuvių kaip antrosios kalbos įsisavinimą. Tyrimo tikslas – ištirti lietuvių kaip antrosios kalbos spontanišką, arba daugiausia spontanišką, įsisavinimą. Stengiamasi nustatyti, kaip kitakalbių yra įsisavinama lietuvių kalba, kokia seka ir kokiais principais (pragmatiniais, gramatiniais ar pan.) remiantis įsisavinami skirtingų kalbos lygmenų (morfologijos, sintaksės ir pan.) elementai. Didžiausias dėmesys kreipiamas į gramatikos įsisavinimą, ypač veiksmažodžio morfologiją. Tyrimas vykdomas skerspjūvio metodu, vienu laikotarpiu surenkami kalbos duomenys iš skirtingo kalbinio lygio informantų, kurie vėliau analizuojami ir lyginami tarpusavyje. Duomenys renkami naudojant pusiau struktūruoto (socio)lingvistinio interviu metodą ir keletą kalbinių užduočių. Gauti duomenys vėliau transkribuojami ir analizuojami.
Pranešime pristatomas lietuvių kalbos kaip antrosios įsisavinimą veikiantys faktoriai, tokie kaip kalbinės nuostatos, sunkumai, su kuriais susiduria Lietuvoje gyvenantys užsieniečiai ir pirminės įžvalgos apie lietuvių kalbos kaip antrosios įsisavinimą, remiantis tiek metalingvistiniais duomenimis, gautais interviu metu, tiek atsiskleidžiančiais iš pačios tiriamųjų kalbos.
This paper analyzes data from a longitudinal observation of a 11,5 year old Lithuanian girl adopted to Italy. The girl was observed for one year starting at the moment of adoption, her spontaneous speech was recorded, transcribed with CHILDES, annotated and analyzed for predicate expression in Italian. Given the girl’s age she started attended a regular Italian-medium school soon after arrival to the new country but has never been taught Italian as a second language. Therefore the girl’s acquisition of Italian is spontaneous and she reaches a surprising native-like attainment level after only a year in the country.
The paper presents peculiarities in the girl’s linguistic development that differ from the studied L2 acquisition (Giacalone Ramat (ed.) 2003, Calleri 1992 and other) and that make her path somewhat similar to that of L1 acquisition (Calleri 1990 and other). Specific attention is drawn to the predicate expression development and the gradual (but overall extremely rapid) formation of the verb system in Italian. The data shows acquisition following the universal path but moving very quickly through learner varieties and acquisition of the complete Italian verb system within a year.
Lithuania is a small country and its language, ancient and extremely complex, is not considered to be a prerequisite if moving into the country for business or similar reasons. Nevertheless, once here, a foreigner is faced with a reality that the globalization has not yet reached a comfort-level from the linguistic point of view with the “big” languages. The older generation of Lithuanians were fluent in Russian and the young are quickly advancing in English but is knowing either of those really enough to live in Lithuania?
This paper presents the sociolinguistic perspective from an ongoing study on acquisition of Lithuanian L2. Only in the past couple of years there has been some increase of foreign immigrants in Lithuania therefore the qualitative data are collected both from “new” and “old” foreigners residing in Lithuania. The final goal of this research is to study the acquisitional sequence of Lithuanian using a functional approach, focusing on the acquisition of verb morphology as well as establishing the major challenges for this acquisition. The language production data is collected by recording a semi-structured sociolinguistic interview of each subject individually as well as a film retelling and other linguistic tasks (the method used by ESF, extensively described in Perdue 1993, and similar projects on L2 acquisition). The data gives insight on linguistic behavior issues and is the basis for the analysis of language attitudes and competences by foreigners in this “small and difficult” language country. This paper presents language attitudes, necessities and challenges faced by the investigated subjects as it emerges both from the metalinguistic data in the interviews and the actual linguistic production in Lithuanian.
This paper presents a current research that focuses on mostly naturalistic acquisition of Lithuanian. The aim of the research is to determine the general structure of Lithuanian L2 acquisition with respect to the order in which elements of the language are acquired and particular attention on the verb morphology, the success of the acquisition process and the factors that success depends on. The methods used to collect data are semi-structured (socio-) linguistic interviews and also some specific tasks to facilitate the comparability of the different subjects. The type of study is transversal, i.e. more subjects of different level of acquisition are taken into consideration and their data is then compared to get a complete picture of the acquisitional path.
This paper presents an insight on the general Lithuanian L2 acquisition from the studied subjects as well as an overview of sociolinguistic factors, such as language attitudes, that greatly determine L2 acquisition.
At the time of adoption the girl had a regular knowledge of Lithuanian and was attending elementary school. Baring in mind a positive attitude of the subject towards the mother tongue and the relatively short period of lack of exposure the data reveals a rather severe attrition of Lithuanian. The paper will draw attention to the lexical and the morphological features as well as the general fluency. Analysis shows obvious signs of interference of the newly acquired Italian and a great deterioration of the mother tongue: great effort to recall vocabulary, morphological peculiarities and significant hesitation when speaking.
The Lithuanian diaspora in various continents (Europe, North and South America, and Australia) consists of emigrants of different emigration waves. The first wave were those who emigrated in the end of 19th century from Lithuania that was under the Russian tzarist rule and later, after the WWI, from the independent Republic of Lithuania. This wave of emigration was mainly for economic reasons and consisted of people from rural areas with little or no education. The second wave of emigration consists of highly educated, mostly cultural, political and economical elite part of the Lithuanian society who flew the country at the end of WWII in fear of Soviet repressions. This wave is considered as political emigration. The third wave includes people who left for the West after the Restauration of Independence in 1990. This wave of emigration is generally of economic character.
Family language policy and home language maintenance in the families of these various emigration waves is rather different. The paper will analyze language management strategies and internal and external factors influencing family language policy as well as compare the families of different emigration waves. The role of different family members, both parents and children, will also be taken into account. The analysis will consider the language policy of different generations of emigration: those who emigrated themselves, those who emigrated as children by the decision of the parents and those born later in the host country (second and third generation emigrants). The results show that the reason for emigration has a great impact on the language policy. The language policy and home language maintenance in the families of political emigrants is more influenced by the internal factors whereas in those of economical emigrants, the external factors seem to play a more important role.
Curdt-Christiansen X. L. 2018. Family language policy. In J. Tollefson and M. Perez-Milans (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Spolsky B. 2004. Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sposkly B. 2009. Language management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
I dati presentati provengono da due grandi progetti di ricerca e sono sia quantitativi (sondaggi su vasta scala, un totale di 2610) sia qualitativi (interviste approfondite, condotte dal vivo o via Skype). L’analisi degli atteggiamenti linguistici dimostra che nell’interrelazione dei componenti cognitivo, affettivo e comportamentale delle attitudini, quello affettivo è molto forte nella diaspora lituana ed è quello che ha il maggiore effetto sul comportamento, ovvero l’uso della lingua. Il lituano viene considerato naturalmente come lingua del pensiero, del linguaggio interiore dagli emigrati della prima generazione, però come la lingua più cara anche da parte degli emigrati delle susseguenti generazioni che provano piacere ad ascoltarla e a parlarla. Ed è questo componente affettivo che ha spinto gli emigrati a cercare o a costruire delle comunità locali non solo per poter mantenere i contatti con i compaesani ma anche creare degli ambienti lituani per favorire l’apprendimento linguistico del lituano per i loro figli.
The progress of Italian L2 acquisition was observed by periodical recordings. The analyzed data is comprised of over 11 hours of recordings, divided into 10 periods about a month from one another. The morphological analysis showed an extremely rapid rate of acquisition, having acquired the whole Italian verb system within the first year in the country. The focus in this paper is on the acquisition of passato prossimo, Italian perfective past tense, and imperfetto, the imperfect tense, a distinction that is clear in Italian but does not have an obvious counterpart in Lithuanian. The acquisition of the tense-aspect system in the pre-adolescent adoptee generally follows the documented path of Italian L2, however, it differs greatly in speed and some points in the acquisition that are most difficult for both adult and child Italian L2 acquirers, namely auxiliary choice, participle agreement, extension of imperfect to other aspectual classes. These latter points resemble the acquisition path of L1 Italian.
References
Andersen, R. W. (1991). Developmental sequences: the emergence of aspect marking in second language acquisition. Esantis T. Huebner, & C. A. Ferguson (Mont.), Crosscurrents in Second Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theories (p. 305-324). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins publishing company.
Banfi, E., & Bernini, G. (2003). Il verbo. In A. Giacalone Ramat (ed.), Verso l'italiano. Percorsi e strategie di acquisizione (p. 70-115). Roma: Carocci editore.
Calleri, D. (1992). Italiano come L2: l'acquisizione della temporalità in bambini cinesi. In B. Moretti, D. Petrini, & S. Bianconi (ed.), Linee di tendenza dell'italiano contemporaneo (p. 431-443). Roma: Bulzoni.
Rosi, F. (2009). Learning aspect in Italian L2. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
Shirai, Y., & Andersen, R. W. (1995). The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology: a prototype account. Language, 71, 743-762.
Pranešime aptariami lietuvių šnekamosios kalbos bruožai (įvardžių, pertarų variantai, veiksmažodžio asmenų ir vardažodžių linksnių formų trumpinimas ir kt.) lietuvių kaip antrojoje (K2) kalboje. Lietuvių K2 duomenys surinkti skerspjūvio metodu iš 17 Lietuvoje gyvenančių užsieniečių, siekiant apimti kuo platesnį jų ratą, t.y. skirtingų pirmųjų kalbų, Lietuvoje praleisto laiko, lietuvių kalbos mokėjimo lygio ir pan. Šnekos duomenys rinkti pusiau struktūruoto sociolingvistinio interviu metu ir respondentams atliekant konkrečias užduotis. 27 val. garso įrašų transkribuota pagal CHILDES sistemą (MacWhinney 2000) ir koduota morfologinei analizei.
Pranešime nagrinėjama, kokie lietuvių šnekamosios (ir kitų atmainų) variantai lietuvių K2 randasi anksčiausiai, kurie nevartojami visai, kas gali lemti tai, kad kai kurios formos pastebimos ir įsisavinamos iškart, o kitos – nors gimtakalbių vartojamos dažnai – ima rastis tik labiausiai pažengusiųjų kalboje. Analizei remiamasi konkrečiais tiriamųjų šnekos duomenimis, taip pat jų pačių metalingvistiniais komentarais.
Lithuania is a small country in Eastern Europe and its language, ancient and extremely complex, is not considered to be a prerequisite if moving into the country for business or similar reasons. Nevertheless, once here, a foreigner is faced with a reality that the globalization has not yet reached a comfort-level from the linguistic point of view with the “big” languages. The older generation of Lithuanians were fluent in Russian and the young are quickly advancing in English but is knowing either of those really enough to live in Lithuania?
This paper presents the sociolinguistic perspective from a study conducted on acquisition of Lithuanian L2. Only in the past couple of years there has been some increase of foreign immigrants in Lithuania therefore the qualitative data are collected both from “new” and “old” foreigners residing in Lithuania. The data gives insight on linguistic behavior issues and is the basis for the analysis of language attitudes and competences by foreigners in this “small” language country.
Even though knowing Lithuanian is not considered a prerequisite for settling in the country, learning it or at least putting an effort to speak it is valued highly in the society and therefore gives many advantages for the new speakers. This paper presents a qualitative study on Lithuanian as a second language acquisition by foreigners (n=17) living in Lithuania for a varied amount of time and different L1s. Spontaneous speech data (~30h) has been collected using a semi-structured socio-linguistic interview, gathering experiences and language attitudes, together with some specific tasks, such as film retelling. Analysis shows a clear distinction between the basic variety linguistic attainment, which is very elementary but evidently suffices some of the new speakers, and the post-basic continuum that moves clearly towards the target language.
The language proficiency of the informants is studied in terms of the acquisition of morphology (concentrated so far on the verb). This paper focuses on the correlation of the proficiency of the actual language use and the expressed positive/negative experiences with the host linguistic community as well as language attitudes.
Įsisavinant lietuvių kaip antrąją kalbą veiksmažodžio bendraties forma pasirodo gana anksti, iškart po arba kartu su esamojo laiko formomis. Žvelgiant į bendraties formų kiekį besimokančiųjų kalboje, randama, kad pradedantieji ir pažengusieji lietuvių kaip antrosios kalbos kalbėtojai šių formų vartoja labai panašiai (10-15 proc. visų formų), t.y. ši forma neišsiskiria ryškia kiekybine kaita kalbą įsisavinant geriau. Visgi analizuojant giliau galima pastebėti, kad kokybiškai ši forma labai kinta. Pradedantieji kalbėti lietuviškai šią formą kartais renkasi vartoti pasakyme vietoje asmenuojamosios veiksmažodžio formos, o jau gerai kalbantys lietuviškai bendratį vartoja pagal įvairias skirtingas jos funkcijas lietuvių kalboje. Šiame pranešime analizuojamos bendraties formos funkcijos įsisavinimo proceso raidoje, nagrinėjama, ar bendraties forma lietuvių K2 turi savo specifinę funkciją, kuri nebūtinai sutampa su tikslinėje kalboje egzistuojančiomis funkcijomis.
Tyrime remiamasi spontaninės šnekos duomenimis, surinktais iš 17 Lietuvoje trumpiau ar ilgiau gyvenančių įvairių tautybių užsieniečių. Duomenys buvo surinkti pusiau struktūruotų (socio)lingvistinių interviu metu bei atliekant specialias užduotis. Tyrimo dalyvių kalba buvo įrašoma, vėliau transkribuota naudojantis CHILDES programa ir užkoduota morfologinei analizei. Surinkta iš viso daugiau nei 30 val. įrašų, iš jų transkribuotos ir koduotos 27 val. Visų tyrimo dalyvių šnekoje užfiksuotas panašus santykinis bendraties formų pavartojimų skaičius. Pranešime pristatoma, kokiomis funkcijomis bendraties forma vartojama pradedančiųjų kalbėtojų, šios formos funkcijų specifiškumas lietuvių K2 bazinėje atmainoje ir kaip artėjama prie tikslinėje kalboje egzistuojančių funkcijų pažengusių kalbėtojų šnekoje.
In adoption, accepting one another is fundamental, however, an amazing capacity of adopted even older children to re-create themselves as part of the new family, environment and culture is observed. One of the aspects of that self-re-creation is the language. Language attitudes that come into play in case of adoption are somewhat different than in other seemingly similar situations, such as migration. Internationally adopted children, especially older ones, tend to negatively associate (at least for a period in their lives) everything that has to do with their previous life, language included. That in addition to very favorable conditions of full-immersion second language acquisition gives the outcome of a quite specific language-shift situation.
This paper presents research conducted on Italian as a second language acquisition by children adopted from Lithuania. In addition to a longitudinal observation of a few children, a survey of adoptive parents was conducted. The families were asked to evaluate their children’s language, attitudes, process of acquisition, help needed, problems faced etc. Due to national and international laws and other factors the majority of children were older than 3 at the time of adoption (up to 14 years-old) therefore were able to communicate in their first language prior to adoption. The survey results come from 74 families giving information on 117 children. Both quantitative and qualitative research shows an extremely quick acquisition of the second language where language attitudes play a big role both in the acquisition of Italian and the relationship with the former first language.
The paper will present and analyse both quantitative and qualitative data of Lithuanian children adopted to Italy, concentrating on school-age children. The quantitative data has been gathered by conducting a survey of the adoptive parents and examining the speed and the quality of Italian acquisition, linguistic help, attitudes, reasons and other aspects. The qualitative part is data from a longitudinal observation of linguistic behaviour of adopted children and their speech recordings. The children observed learn Italian spontaneously and demonstrate an extraordinary speed in acquiring the new language and near-native competence in only a year after the arrival to the country.
Even though the general acquisitional path is universal, the linguistic development of internationally adopted school-age children presents curious features that are characteristic to the L1 Italian acquisition. These findings suggest that the general social start-over presented in the international adoption situation by the presence of a family and its support, the new life perspective, affects the linguistic behaviour and a complete re-creation also from the linguistic point of view.
The presented research is an on-going study of Lithuanian as an L2, aiming at studying the acquisition process of subjects that have received no or little formal instruction of Lithuanian as an L2. The final goal of this study is to determine the acquisitional sequence of Lithuanian, focusing on the acquisition of verb morphology as well as establishing the major challenges for this acquisition. The language production data is collected by recording a semi-structured sociolinguistic interview of each subject individually as well as a film retelling task. The method used is transversal, therefore, the learner varieties of multiple subjects will be analyzed in order to obtain a more complete picture of the process of acquisition.
This paper presents language attitudes, necessities and challenges faced by the investigated subjects as it emerges both from the metalinguistic data in the interviews and the actual linguistic production in Lithuanian.
Šiame pranešime pristatomas šiuo metu vykdomas tyrimas apie lietuvių kaip antrosios kalbos įsisavinimą. Tyrimo tikslas – ištirti lietuvių kaip antrosios kalbos spontanišką, arba daugiausia spontanišką, įsisavinimą. Stengiamasi nustatyti, kaip kitakalbių yra įsisavinama lietuvių kalba, kokia seka ir kokiais principais (pragmatiniais, gramatiniais ar pan.) remiantis įsisavinami skirtingų kalbos lygmenų (morfologijos, sintaksės ir pan.) elementai. Didžiausias dėmesys kreipiamas į gramatikos įsisavinimą, ypač veiksmažodžio morfologiją. Tyrimas vykdomas skerspjūvio metodu, vienu laikotarpiu surenkami kalbos duomenys iš skirtingo kalbinio lygio informantų, kurie vėliau analizuojami ir lyginami tarpusavyje. Duomenys renkami naudojant pusiau struktūruoto (socio)lingvistinio interviu metodą ir keletą kalbinių užduočių. Gauti duomenys vėliau transkribuojami ir analizuojami.
Pranešime pristatomas lietuvių kalbos kaip antrosios įsisavinimą veikiantys faktoriai, tokie kaip kalbinės nuostatos, sunkumai, su kuriais susiduria Lietuvoje gyvenantys užsieniečiai ir pirminės įžvalgos apie lietuvių kalbos kaip antrosios įsisavinimą, remiantis tiek metalingvistiniais duomenimis, gautais interviu metu, tiek atsiskleidžiančiais iš pačios tiriamųjų kalbos.
This paper analyzes data from a longitudinal observation of a 11,5 year old Lithuanian girl adopted to Italy. The girl was observed for one year starting at the moment of adoption, her spontaneous speech was recorded, transcribed with CHILDES, annotated and analyzed for predicate expression in Italian. Given the girl’s age she started attended a regular Italian-medium school soon after arrival to the new country but has never been taught Italian as a second language. Therefore the girl’s acquisition of Italian is spontaneous and she reaches a surprising native-like attainment level after only a year in the country.
The paper presents peculiarities in the girl’s linguistic development that differ from the studied L2 acquisition (Giacalone Ramat (ed.) 2003, Calleri 1992 and other) and that make her path somewhat similar to that of L1 acquisition (Calleri 1990 and other). Specific attention is drawn to the predicate expression development and the gradual (but overall extremely rapid) formation of the verb system in Italian. The data shows acquisition following the universal path but moving very quickly through learner varieties and acquisition of the complete Italian verb system within a year.
Lithuania is a small country and its language, ancient and extremely complex, is not considered to be a prerequisite if moving into the country for business or similar reasons. Nevertheless, once here, a foreigner is faced with a reality that the globalization has not yet reached a comfort-level from the linguistic point of view with the “big” languages. The older generation of Lithuanians were fluent in Russian and the young are quickly advancing in English but is knowing either of those really enough to live in Lithuania?
This paper presents the sociolinguistic perspective from an ongoing study on acquisition of Lithuanian L2. Only in the past couple of years there has been some increase of foreign immigrants in Lithuania therefore the qualitative data are collected both from “new” and “old” foreigners residing in Lithuania. The final goal of this research is to study the acquisitional sequence of Lithuanian using a functional approach, focusing on the acquisition of verb morphology as well as establishing the major challenges for this acquisition. The language production data is collected by recording a semi-structured sociolinguistic interview of each subject individually as well as a film retelling and other linguistic tasks (the method used by ESF, extensively described in Perdue 1993, and similar projects on L2 acquisition). The data gives insight on linguistic behavior issues and is the basis for the analysis of language attitudes and competences by foreigners in this “small and difficult” language country. This paper presents language attitudes, necessities and challenges faced by the investigated subjects as it emerges both from the metalinguistic data in the interviews and the actual linguistic production in Lithuanian.
This paper presents a current research that focuses on mostly naturalistic acquisition of Lithuanian. The aim of the research is to determine the general structure of Lithuanian L2 acquisition with respect to the order in which elements of the language are acquired and particular attention on the verb morphology, the success of the acquisition process and the factors that success depends on. The methods used to collect data are semi-structured (socio-) linguistic interviews and also some specific tasks to facilitate the comparability of the different subjects. The type of study is transversal, i.e. more subjects of different level of acquisition are taken into consideration and their data is then compared to get a complete picture of the acquisitional path.
This paper presents an insight on the general Lithuanian L2 acquisition from the studied subjects as well as an overview of sociolinguistic factors, such as language attitudes, that greatly determine L2 acquisition.
At the time of adoption the girl had a regular knowledge of Lithuanian and was attending elementary school. Baring in mind a positive attitude of the subject towards the mother tongue and the relatively short period of lack of exposure the data reveals a rather severe attrition of Lithuanian. The paper will draw attention to the lexical and the morphological features as well as the general fluency. Analysis shows obvious signs of interference of the newly acquired Italian and a great deterioration of the mother tongue: great effort to recall vocabulary, morphological peculiarities and significant hesitation when speaking.
A longitudinal study of a Lithuanian girl adopted to Italy has been conducted. The girl was 11,5 years old at the moment of adoption and her linguistic behavior has been observed and her speech recorded for a little more than a year starting a few days before her leaving the home country. A meticulous analysis of the development of predicate expression and therefore the gradual construction of verbal system seems to reveal similarities with both spontaneous adult Italian language learners and mother-tongue Italian children but differs from both groups in some ways.
The analysis shows a rapid passage from pre-basic learner variety to the basic one and a very fast entrance into the post-basic variety continuum. At the end of the study the girl presents a fully acquired Italian verb system and near-native language use. According to other gathered data (the observation of other children, sociolinguistic survey of adoptive families), the linguistic development of the subject of this case study seems to be typical for internationally adopted children.
Summary.
This paper presents a qualitative study investigating the language attitudes of foreign residents living in Lithuania. Through in-depth interviews with individuals of diverse backgrounds who have migrated to Lithuania at different times, the article explores their language-related experiences in the country and their perspectives on the Lithuanian language. The study analyzes these attitudes from a triadic model perspective, encompassing cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions. The participants vary in their level of proficiency in Lithuanian and thus their reflections help to see the connection between behavioral efforts to learn and use the language and the other dimensions. The study presented elaborates on the comprehended necessity (or lack thereof) to know Lithuanian when living in Lithuania, the emotional comfortability when knowing the language, the effect of the perceived attitudes of Lithuanians towards foreigners who do and who don’t know the language, the character of the Lithuanian people reflected in the language, and putting effort to learn the language as a sign of respect towards the host country. While the cognitive dimension is more readily articulated, it alone is insufficient, and a more significant shift is possible when there is a breakthrough in the affective dimension. Even though the data for this study was collected before Lithuania became more economically attractive to foreign immigrants, the results are especially pertinent in the current situation with more economic migrants and war refugees coming to live in the country. Although it is possible to live in Lithuania without knowing the language if it is not required for one’s job, in order to be an integrative part of the society the foreigner starts to feel not only the necessity but also a desire to know the language.
Kalbinės nuostatos ir kalbinis elgesys yra svarbūs kalbos išlaikymo dviejų kalbų vienoje erdvėje aplinkybėmis veiksniai, ypač kai viena iš tų kalbų yra dominuojanti aplinkos kalba, o kita-mažumos ar tik namų aplinkos kalba, pavyzdžiui, emigracijoje. Straipsnyje nagrinėjamos kalbinės nuostatos netipiškomis-tarptautinio įvaikinimo-aplinkybėmis. Analizuojami sociolingvistinės apklausos, kurią vykdant apklaustos iš Lietuvos į Italiją vaikus įvaikinusios šeimos, duomenys. Tiriamoje situacijoje nuostatos negali paveikti realaus kalbinio elgesio, o tai suteikia galimybę matyti, kaip kalba neišlaikoma ir kaip greitai tai įvyksta, nepaisant teigiamai veikiančių įtėvių kalbinių nuostatų.
This paper focuses on Lithuanian L2 verb forms that do not exist in the target language. The data is drawn from the Lithuanian L2 corpus and includes spontaneous speech data by 17 speakers of different L1s and all three acquisition varieties (pre-basic, basic and post-basic). The non-existent verb forms make only a small part of the overall verb forms used, however, when distinguished from occasional mistakes, the errors that are analyzed show notable systematicity among different speakers. Five distinct and most frequent formants are analyzed in detail, namely -u, -a, -o, -(i)au, ė, that are used by several speakers with seemingly similar function. The analysis reveals specific functions and discusses different factors that have an effect on the acquisition of these formants. In many cases frequency is an important factor, however, with formants -u and -ė transparency and regularity seem to have a stronger effect and thus facilitate the acquisition. Formant -a, being nearly the most common and extremely multifunctional (i.e. rather unmarked), is incorporated into the system firstly as part of the base form and holds this position till a very advanced stage of Lithuanian L2 acquisition. Verb stem type also has an effect with the regularly suffixed verbs being acquired the easiest, the mixed type causing more difficulties, and the primary ones result the most difficult for the speakers. Overall, the systematicity discovered shows the creative structuring of the interlanguage that only occurs more actively in the post-basic variety of acquisition.
One of the most apparent features characteristic of learners who speak Lithuanian as a second language is their overuse of infinitive forms where such forms should not be used in Lithuanian. The analysis of the general sequence of acquisition of the Lithuanian verb system shows that the infinitive was used nearly evenly through the whole acquisition process, i. e. learners who had just started to speak Lithuanian used about the same amount of infinitive forms as the more advanced speakers. This paper analyses in detail the use of the infinitive form by the learners at different levels of acquisition, what functions and in what contexts the infinitive form performs, as well as any changes in the development. The analysis makes it evident that despite the quantitative similarity of the use of the infinitive forms in different varieties of acquisition, the use changes fundamentally in quality. Moreover, it becomes clear that even the speakers of the basic variety, who often use the infinitive as the base form of the verb and therefore also as a predicate instead of a finite form, never use the infinitive of the modal verbs in this fashion and their utterances in which the infinitive is used according to the target Lithuanian language system employ the construction of modal verbs + infinitive. The paper also analyses what other constructions with the infinitive are used, when and in what way they start being used in the post-basic variety of acquisition.
The paper presents a study of Lithuanian as a second language. The aim of the study is to determine the acquisitional sequence of the Lithuanian verb system. The data for the study was collected from 17 foreigners resident in Lithuania who were interviewed and performed specific tasks (film retelling, telling a recipe, picture description, sentence repetition). The collected data were then transcribed and morphologically coded. The analysis shows the existence of three main stages of acquisition: pre-basic, basic and post- basic, of which the basic variety of L2 is sufficient for elementary communication and the acquisition process can fossilize once it is reached. The basic variety of Lithuanian L2 is characterized by the use of a verb form that is, however, not inflected and is only used for its lexical meaning. The speech of more than half of the participants continued to develop after the basic variety level was reached. The post-basic variety continuum starts when the utterances are constructed using finite forms of words. The construction of the Lithuanian verb system starts with the present tense and the infinitive, and continues with the acquisition of the lexeme būti “to be” and the past and future tenses . These four categories are most frequently used in the speakers’ speech. More advanced learners continue the acquisition process by adding more complex forms to their repertoire, such as the imperative, conditional mood, participle, and past frequentative case. A few most advanced speakers in the sample also acquired the most complex forms of Lithuanian verb system, namely the half-participle and gerund.
The functional approach to the interlanguage of spontaneous learners of L2 helps identify that from the very beginning without yet possessing many resources of the target language the speaker makes a systemic use of them. When acquiring a language in a natural environment the effectiveness of communication is of vital importance to the speaker because he or she must start interacting without yet having acquired many of the elements of the structure of the target language. A second language learner makes use of the cognitive resources already in possession and therefore when beginning to use the new language invokes the universal pragmatic principles for utterance organization such as word order. A very important step in L2 acquisition is the appearance of the predicate in the interlanguage of the learner because then the utterances of the speaker are constructed following also the semantic-syntactic principles. This variety of the learnerʼs interlanguage, called the basic variety, is in principle sufficient for elementary communication and the development of interlanguage in the morphological perspective for some learners fossilizes in this variety. In due time and given favourable conditions, the interlanguage of the learner can move on to the so-called post-basic variety that sees the formation of a system approaching that of the target language and the principles of utterance organization previously used are gradually replaced by syntactic principles characteristic of the specific target language. The situation of international adoption presents favourable conditions for the language acquisition of younger and also older children. The article offers examples and analysis of the linguistic behaviour of an over 11-year-old Lithuanian girl adopted to Italy. Her linguistic behaviour has been meticulously observed and recorded for a year after the adoption starting from the very first contact with the new language. The analysis shows that the structure of the target language is acquired according to the universal model proceeding from simple to more complex forms. However the situation in which the acquisition takes place determines the rapidity of L2 acquisition and a very advanced level after a year in the new country. The observed girl reaches the basic variety after having spent only a month surrounded by the new language and one month later her interlanguage demonstrates clear signs of morphological sensitivity and the interlanguage system heading towards that of the target language. After a year in the country the entire Italian verb system is in place, including the most complex parts of it. Moreover, the girl makes use of those system elements that are optional, in a way that native speakers are able to do.
https://www.lrt.lt/mediateka/irasas/2000207719/ryto-allegro-ukrainos-kulturos-ministras-rusijos-agresija-naikina-ukrainos-kultura?time_start=866
https://www.bernardinai.lt/psicholingviste-kaip-zmogus-uzaugs-mastantis-jeigu-vos-prasiziojes-kritikuojamas-uz-kalba/?fbclid=IwAR2eGmYfd6kPEGyOlQzvzal_taWqA8i1eQU34F0OaWACj53LZrh6tCmXlf4
https://www.lrt.lt/mediateka/irasas/2000111346/ryto-allegro-kaip-po-karantino-atsigauna-lietuvos-kulturos-sostine-trakai?time_start=2580
Laida rengiama bendradarbiaujant su Spaudos, radijo ir televizijos fondu.
Laidą rengia Lina Pavalkytė