Xenolect

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With Xenolekt (Greek ξένος (Xenos) for "foreign" and λέγειν (legein; lektos) for "speech") is called the way, as of a given target language with foreigners communicate, which they think or know that they have the Not proficient in target language or only poorly. They often try to change their language behavior in such a way that they can be understood by the addressees. The speakers alternate between target-language utterances and various levels of reduction.

Variations

There are basically four different levels of expression:

  • The a-utterances are utterances without any changes. They correspond to the individual dialectal or colloquial expression norm.
  • The b-utterances stand for phonetic approximations to the high-level language form with various hypercorrections , redundancies and overly clear separation markings through pauses. These are grammatically correct statements, but they are unusual for the particular speaker.
  • The c-utterances include individual grammatical simplifications , which are by no means of a categorical type (e.g. the specific article : the specific article may be missing in an utterance, but the category of the article is not completely left out and the article appears other places again and again).
  • The d-utterances are only controlled by the corresponding pragmatic requirements of communication. The entire inflection and most of the functional words are omitted. A d-utterance therefore requires a certain functional syntactic topic-rhema structuring , for which only the message-relevant units are used.

The variation is on the one hand determined by many intra- and interpersonal uniform change strategies and on the other hand it is determined pragmatically. The Xenolect speaker is primarily based on his subjective assessment of linguistic skills and the extra-linguistic appearance of the addressee, which is very often influenced by stereotypical assumptions. Another important aspect is the evaluation of the content of the message and the relevance of the message in terms of content and topic for the addressee. The higher the relevance of the content of a message for the understanding of the addressee is rated, the stronger the changes. This means that the informants pursue a topic-related and target-oriented change strategy. Statements that are intended to express other goals, such as securing understanding, comments, evaluations, confirmations, etc. are not changed much.

The appropriateness of the selected linguistic changes is then checked during an interaction with the communicative needs of the addressee, so that reinforcements or relaxation can be made if necessary.

Changes in xenolectal communication

The form of xenolectal utterances is very dependent on the reference language. Nevertheless, some cross-lingual characteristics can be summarized:

Phonological features

  • The slowing down of the speed of speech and the weighting of the break structure
  • More emphasis for highlighting important elements
  • The exaggerated intonation
  • The clear articulation
  • Speaking louder
  • More full forms than contractions

Morphological and syntactic features

Semantic and Lexical Characteristics

Context Features

  • Limitation of topic selection
  • Preference for important topics and here-and-now topics
  • Brief consideration of the topics; small amount of information for a topic

Features of the interaction

  • Clear emphasis on a new topic
  • Predominantly question-answer-action patterns
  • Lots of understanding safeguards and feedback
  • More repetitions, explanations, additions, gestures and facial expressions

Xenolects in Second Language Acquisition - Danger of Fossilization?

The influence of xenolects on the fossilization processes in uncontrolled language acquisition is one of the central questions of second language acquisition research . Second language acquisition research produces ample hypotheses for and against the xenolects on this subject, but insufficient empirical data. Some theories blame the xenolects for fossilization, others praise the xenolects as an input that always adapts to the level of the learner. The interplay between the changed input and the respective second language acquisition level must first be observed over a longer period of time in order to determine how the xenolectal inputs change with increasing language acquisition and how the acquisition progression is guided by the xenolects.

Based on previous results it can be concluded that the xenolects are an attempt to ensure the success of communication in a linguistically unequal communication situation. In many aspects they are comparable to the “ code switching ” in bilingual communication and they should also be examined as part of intercultural communication . By evaluating the needs of the addressee by the informant, certain adaptations to the variety of the addressee are achieved and so naturally an understandable input is formed that the addressee can actually process. However, the direct confrontation of the addressee with the target-language utterance structures seems to be considerably more important. This means that the learners are not only confronted with targeted varieties via television and radio or through participation in conversations with third parties, they actively participate in direct negotiations with the native speakers, cf. Action orientation (foreign language teaching) . The view that the simplified xenolects are the real cause of the fossilization of the acquisition process must therefore be rejected in this strong form.

See also

Wiktionary: words that begin with xeno-  - explanations of meanings, word origins , synonyms, translations

literature

  • Peter Auer: Code-switching in Conversation. Language, Interaction and Identity. Routledge, London 1998, ISBN 0-415-15831-1 .
  • Peter Auer, Aldo di Luzio (eds.): Variation and convergence. Studies in social dialectology. (Sociolinguistics and language contact, 4). 1st edition. De Gruyter, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-11-011045-8 .
  • Manfred Bierwisch : Universal Grammar and the Basic Variety In: Second Language Research. 13, No. 4, 1997, ISSN  0267-6583 , pp. 348-366. (PDF; 0.1 MB)
  • Bernard Comrie : Universal Grammar and the Basic Variety In: Second Language Research. 13, No. 4, 1997, ISSN  0267-6583 , pp. 367-73. (PDF; 0.06 MB)
  • Wolfgang Klein , Clive Perdue: Basic Variety (or: Couldn't natural languages ​​be much simpler?) In: Second Language Research. 13, No. 4, 1997, ISSN  0267-6583 , pp. 301-347. (PDF; 0.17 MB)
  • Jörg Roche: Xenolects. Structure and variation in German towards foreigners. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1989, ISBN 3-11-011819-X .
  • Jörg Roche: Variation in Xenolects (Foreigner Talk). In: Ulrich Ammon (Ed.): Variationslinguistik / Linguistics of Variation / La linguistique variationelle. (Sociolinguistica, 12). De Gruyter, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-484-60417-4 , pp. 117-139.

swell

  1. ↑ Jürgen Meisel: Foreign German and German foreign workers. On the possible development of a pidgin in the FRG . In: Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics. No. 18, 1975, pp. 9-53; Evelyn Hatch: Simplified Input and Second Language Acquisition . In: Roger W. Anderson: Pidginization and Creolization as Language Acquisition . Rowley 1983, pp. 64-86.
  2. ^ The nativistic language learning theories, see: Lydia White: Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition . John Benjamin, Amsterdam / Philadelphia 1989.
  3. ↑ Vlg .: Peter Auer: Bilingual Conversation . Benjamin, Amsterdam / Philadelphia 1984.
  4. ^ Vlg .: Jörg Roche: Variation in Xenolects (Foreigner Talk) . In: Ulrich Ammon: Variationslinguistik / Linguistics of Variation / La linguistique variationelle. (Sociolinguistica, 12). de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1999, pp. 117-139.