Brooke Lim The fact of the matter is, we have all at some point said a casual ‘bitch’ or ‘fuck’ during a conversation with both new and old friends. But does that make the other person in the conversation look at us under a new light? Profanity is a crucial part of our society’s language […]
Bingbing Liu, Kejia Zhang, Nina Cai, Ze Ning, Zehao Yao Recent sociolinguistic studies show interests in exploring people’s language practices and their corresponding social influences. In China, the rapid development of the society has attracted more and more people immigrating from the countryside to the city. Beijing, one of the most prosperous cities in China,
Latecomers’ Usage of the [ɹ] Sound and Identity Construction Read Post »
Gianelli Liguidliguid, Kyoo Sang Han, Victor Sohn Korean dramas, otherwise known as “K-dramas,” have become easier to watch than ever before. With shows previously only being televised on South Korean TV stations, many people can now watch K-dramas on popular streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu. Because of this, the popularity of K-dramas has spread
“Oh My God!” Who uses code-switching in K-dramas? Read Post »
Leslie Cheng, Madeline Netto, Grace Yao This study explores the extent of which language transfer affects Spanish L2 learners, Spanish heritage speakers, as well as Spanish-dominant speakers. Previous research shows that Spanish L2 learners differed in their reliance on English when interpreting Spanish depending on their fluency, showing various levels of syntactic transfer. We wanted
“El niño hits la pelota”: Syntactic Language Transfer in Spanish-English Bilinguals Read Post »
Fernando Beltran, Yvette Gamez, Flor Ramirez, Chenyi Wang This study explores the cross linguistic influence of adjective ordering among Spanish heritage speakers. Recently, a multitude of research has been developed to understand the tendencies of heritage speakers regarding adjective ordering in their less dominant language, which oftentimes is Spanish. The purpose of this study is
Talar Anoushian, Kimberly Gaona, Kimberly Maynard, Ann Mayor, and Guoran Zhang Communication within couples can be difficult at times, but is it different when they’re bilingual? This study aims to clarify any breakdowns in communication within bilingual couples when it comes to speaking to their less proficient language for a long period of time. The
Gustavo Gutierrez, Abby Minervini, Ryley Park, Ana Rios, and Santiago Valdez One of the many myths in the field of bilingualism is that bilinguals are “born translators” due to their ability to switch and communicate in more than one language. Nonetheless, if you have ever witnessed a professional interpreter in action whether at a hospital,
Using Google Translate? Ask a Bilingual Instead! Read Post »
Elie Barbar, Said B., Bel Jacob It is well-known that one’s language fluency decreases the less one utilizes it. In particular, heritage speakers are a unique case in which their first language is spoken often within a familial context, yet in all other cases, it is not used. This study sets out to examine Spanish
Attrition amongst Spanish Bilingual Young Adults in Los Angeles Read Post »
Viktoria Hovhannisyan, Alisara Koomthong, Tomoe Murata, Kota Tsukamoto Syntactic knowledge is the understanding of the connection between the words in a sentence. This skill develops over time in children when being exposed to a language from their environment. Previous research demonstrated that bilinguals show different structured outcomes for language and cognitive performance, in terms of
Theo Chen, Joan Kim, Yoori Kwak, Sumeyye Nabieva In our study, we explored code-switching and accent hold-overs for Korean-English bilinguals. Accent hold-overs are theorized to happen when a person is code-switching from one language to another, and refers to a lag in the switching of phonological inventories. While a similar effect has been found in