Steps in Grammatical Turnover-Shift

University South Carolina Research Foundation, Columbia SC

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract Myers-Scotton BCS-0424829 Steps in Grammatical Turnover-Shift With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Carol Myers-Scotton will study Xhosa-English bilinguals in South Africa. The goal of this project is to study the extent to which the transition from one language to another as a speaker's main language is systematic in the sense that the steps in language shift can be predicted. The current linguistic makeup of the United States includes many immigrants who are not native speakers of English, but who must develop working fluency in English in order to hold meaningful jobs in the U.S. This project will advance the understanding of bilingualism and the learning of English in ways that are useful for educators who serve communities with recent immigrants. The project team will gather data on language use among Xhosa speakers who have migrated to urban, industrialized areas far from their homes. The dramatic political and social changes in South Africa make it an excellent choice for examining the steps in language shift. The very complex linguistic situation (there are now 11 official languages, including nine Bantu languages plus Afrikaans and English) makes the shift to English a neutral and widely useful choice for the indigenous populations. If the patterns of shift observed in South Africa have a universal basis, the analysis of the grammatical aspects of data gathered in this project can be generalized to the bilingual climate in the United States. The project hopes to support the hypothesis that bilingual speech has a specific, predictable organization. The claim is that when immigrants are in the process of developing fluency in English, their speech shows two types of grammatical structures. First, they use two languages in the same sentence (their native language and English), a phenomenon known as code-switching. Their bilingual speech also shows how the grammar of one language is influenced by the grammar of the other language; this is called convergence. The project expects to identify specific grammatical steps involving code-switching and convergence as speakers become more proficient in a second language (e.g. English). Knowing about these steps can be useful to U.S. educators because the steps will point to the best type of teaching tools to use in teaching English to immigrant children and adults alike. Evidence that specific steps exist also would be a useful tool for foreign language instructors in general.