VOLUME 11, 2021-2022
Title: CONSTRAINTS IN REALIZING LINGUISTICALLY SENSITIVE PRACTICES: A STUDY OF TEACHER PERCEPTIONS
Author(S): Uma Maheshwari Chimirala
Keywords: linguistically-sensitivepedagogic practices, teacher cognition, multilingualism, critical pedagogy, monolingual mindset
Abstract: In federally funded educational contexts, teachers are expected to provide the types ofassistance that multilingual learners need to successfully learn both academic content and skills through English while developing proficiency in English. Research claims that by adopting and sustaining linguistically sensitive practices teachers can capitalize on learners’ multilingual capabilities in two ways: one, to support literacy engagement and literacy development and; two, to nurture a possibility of educational equity and empowerment in multilingual learners. However, current literature also shows that teacher engagement in multilingual practices is not tension-free and that it is a deliberate choice made by the teacher.Pertinently the research concern has been to understand how teachers engaged in multilingual practices and; what they considered as constraints of their classroom and how they appraised the constraints in order to engage in multilingual practices? It is the second question that interests us in the Indian context. Hence this paper has two purposes: 1) to understand through a literature synthesis howand whyteachers engaged with multilingual practices and 2) to present the findings of a study which documented aspects that teachers deem constrains their multilingual practices for literacy engagement in the Indian context. Based on survey and interview responses of 16 (of 65English teachers)of government schools in Andhra Pradesh (India) the study identifies aspects that constraint their adoption of multilingual practices in the classroom.
Title: DERIVATIONAL AND INFLECTIONAL AFFIXATION IN VAIPHEI
Author(s): Khawlsonkim Suantak
KeyWords: derivational, inflectional, prefix, suffix, Vaiphei
Abstract:This paper examines derivational and inflectional affixation in Vaiphei language. Vaiphei is a Kuki-Chin language primarily spoken in southern part of Manipur, India. Being an agglutinative language, affixation plays a very important role in the structure of the language and in deriving new words. Affixation is one of the productive process that Vaiphei language employs in enriching their vocabularies. It is a dynamic process through which languages create new words from the existing ones. Through the word formation processes, languages enrich their vocabularies. However, this area lacks a thorough study in Vaiphei. Therefore, this paper tries to bridge the gap and attempts to document affixation in the language for developing and augmenting the Vaiphei language.
Title: GENDER VARIATION AND LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGY
Author(S): Mona Alshaghel, Umarani Pappuswamy
Keywords: language learning strategies, use of LLSs, writing proficiency, gender, writing instruction
Abstract: This study examined the gender variation in using language learning strategies (LLSs) by the foreign postgraduate students studying at two universities in India. It explored the influence of gender on the choice of strategies while writing academic essays in English and also investigated the impact of instructing LLS on the writing proficiency based on gender. An intervention study was conducted on 100 foreign postgraduate students (49 males and 51 females) who are non-native speakers of English. An adapted version of Oxford's (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) and a writing activity were administered as research instruments. The results demonstrated that gender does not affect the overall use and preferences of language learning strategies when writing in English except in one category, namely, monitoring and evaluation, as females indicate employing them more often than males. In addition, it revealed that gender plays no role in the impact of LLSs instruction on the students’ writing performance. The results suggest that students’ LLSs might be affected by other cultural or individual factors apart from gender, which can be used to interpret the differences, if they exist, in strategies preferred by male and female learners in other studies.
Title: LEXICON IN KOHISTANI: OUTCOME OF MULTILINGUALISM
Author(S): Nazrin B. Laskar, Zeeshan Khushboo
Keywords: Kohistani, Kashmiri, Urdu, multilingualism, borrowing
Abstract: Kohistani, a lesser known Dardic language is embedded in a complex multilingual situation at Ganderbal District in Jammu and Kashmir. The Kohistanis in Ganderbal are believed to have migrated from Southern Pakistan. In Ganderbal, Kohistani co-exists with many other speech varieties like Kashmiri, Gojri and Urdu. Hence, the Kohistanis are multilinguals having facility in Kohistani, Kashmiri (dominant language of the region) and Urdu. Studies on multilingual speech communities have thrown light on the phenomenon of language contact and their consequent linguistic outcomes. As the Kohistanis are engaged in a long standing multilingualism, they have incorporated a huge number of lexical terms from the languages, with which it co-exists. Thus, in this study, we make an attempt to explore the nature and dimension of borrowed lexicon in Ganderbal Kohistani, following the sociolinguistic framework adapted in studies of multilingual speech communities.
Title: A CARTOGRAPHIC APPROACH TO THE ANALYSIS OF MALAYALAM EXPLICATOR COMPOUND VERBS
Author(S): Gibu Sabu M
Keywords: Malayalam, explicator compound verbs, negation, argument structure, cartography
Abstract: Explicator Compound Verb is a defining feature of most of the languages in the Indian Subcontinent. It is also very significant in Malayalam. In this paper, I have tried to analyse the ECVs of Malayalam in the cartographic approach. I have argued in this paper that ECVs in Malayalam are generated at three different base positions. Firstly, the semantic import of the verb gives clues to the relative order of the ECVs within the cartographic spine. Secondly, I have taken into consideration the ECVs and their sensitivity to negation. Further, the argument structure of the simple verb and the ECV strengthens the base positions put forward in the proposal.
Title: STRUCTURE, DISTRIBUTION AND FUNCTIONS OF EMPHATIC MARKER IN KASHMIRI
Author(S): Musavir Ahmed, Javaid Aziz Bhat
Keywords: Kashmiri, emphatic marker, clitics, affixation, Indo-Aryan
Abstract: The paper reports on the structure, distribution, and function of the emphatic marker (EP) /-Ij/ in Kashmiri. The marker with several contextual variants/allomorphs has been found to function like a clitic which can be appended to words of all grammatical categories. Semantically, the marker has a broad meaning potential and can be found to add emphasis, definiteness, specificity, surprise, uniqueness etc. to the meaning of the host word. Available literature on Kashmiri has reported very little about this versatile EP. This paper is an attempt to elaborate on the clitic nature of the EP based on its structure, distribution, and functions. Concrete examples from everyday speech of Kashmiri speakers have been used to substantiate the clitic nature of the EP. As far as possible the Leipzig glossing rules have been followed.
Title: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF KUDMALI IN JHARKHAND
Author(S): S. Mohammad Fayez, Rajiv Ranjan Mahto
Keywords: Kudmali (Kurmali), official language, regional language, indigenous language, societal bilingualism and language endangerment
Abstract: While keeping pace with the dominant IA languages, there has been a gradual loss of linguistic space for Kudmali, a major language in the Indian state of Jharkhand. As there are no official figures yet for its number of speakers in the state, the status of Kudmali is a much-debated issue with both the policymakers and the linguists. The policymakers hurried to place it as a ‘regional’ language while the linguists oscillated between IA and Dravidian groups as its language family. In this paper, we attempt to weigh the influences that led this language into the ‘regional’ bracket in the state’s schemes and its continuous absence from the central government’s documents. We also demonstrate how the societal bilingualism has become a threat to its indigeneity and the probability of its endangerment.
Title: WORD-LEVEL PROMINENCE IN NALBARIYA VARIETY OF ASSAMESE AND ITS PHONETIC CORRELATE
Author(S): Asim-ul Islam Twaha
Keywords: lexical prominence, Nalbariya variety of Assamese, phonetic cue to prominence, moraic theory, trochaic rhythm
Abstract: The paper investigates lexical prominence in Nalbariya variety of Assamese (henceforth NVA) spoken in the district of Nalbari, Assam, and supplements the predictions phonetically with the help of an experiment. The claims in the paper are in conformity with Moraic theory of syllable structure and the universal foot inventory. The paper proposes a word-initial prominence pattern for the variety with left-to-right trochaic rhythm. Predictions regarding word-level prominence are made with regard to syllable length and word formation processes. The variety maintains strict foot binarity: a foot must contain two morae where the left mora is stronger than the right mora. Heavy syllables always attract prominence unless there is prominence clash since NVA avoids stress clash at the syllable level. The results of the phonetic experiment establish that in the variety coda consonants are moraic, and closed syllables are heavy.
Title: IDENTIFYING WORD CLASSES OF EXPRESSIVES IN BODO, DEORI AND MISING
Author(S): Mehsina Sabnam, Arup K Nath
Keywords: expressives, Bodo, Deori, Mising, word class, noun, verb
Abstract: This paper intends to identify the word classes of expressives in Bodo, Deori and Mising. Bodo, Deori and Mising are the offshoots of the Tibeto-Burman language family. Expressives being non-dictionary words at times become very intricate to categorize them into a particular word class. This study attempts to identify the parts of speech of a particular expressive, also to find out whether expressives that occur with the grammatical markers behave in the same way as the dictionary words. It is impossible to assign an expressive to a particular word class by merely looking at it, thus this study aims at providing valid reasons in identifying the word classes of expressive by studying them in the context of sentences. This study focuses on the study of the significance of expressives in a particular sentence and the grammatical markers that it takes. The method that this study has followed is the “test of substitution method” in order to assign an expressive in a particular word class. Since “nouns'' and “verbs'' are the two major categories found in every language, an attempt has been made through this paper to see whether it is true in case of expressives as well and to see if any other word classes of the expressives are available in the three languages. To identify the word classes of expressives this paper takes into consideration four different types of expressives with several examples from the three languages i.e. Bodo, Deori and Mising.
Title:PRE-PROCESSING AND ANNOTATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA TEXT FOR SAN'ANI ARABIC POS TAGGING SYSTEM
Author(S): Sabah Al-Shehabi, Mohammed Sharaf-Addin, K Rajyarama
Keywords: pre-processing, annotation, POS tagging, social media, San’ani Arabic
Abstract:Data pre-processing and annotation are crucial stages in data preparation for performing NLP tasks. In fact, they are considered fundamental steps that directly influence the accuracy of the output of any NLP application. In this paper, we present our pre-processing method and parts of speech annotation for San’ani Arabic social media text. Three approaches are adopted for converting messy data into computation-based data: Noise cleaning, Text normalization, and Tokenization (sentence and word segmentation). This methodology results in producing valid data ready for any computational use. Since the primary purpose of this data is training a part of speech tagger for San’ani Arabic, we enriched the data with parts of speech annotation using 24 tags. After applying the proposed pre-processing method, the data size shrank by 4% of tokens and 5.8% of types, viz., from 212,288 tokens and 26,244 types to 204,084 tokens and 24,712 types. In sentence tokenization, the data is tokenized into 8,163 sentences which imply that the average length of a sentence is 25 words.
Title: PHONOLOGY OF SYLHETI: AN OVERVIEW
Author(S): Abu Saleh Md Manjur Ahmed
Keywords: phonology, Sylheti, spirantization, language contact
Abstract:This paper presents a study of the phonology of Sylheti spoken in Barak valley, Assam. Sylheti is considered a variety of eastern Bengali belonging to the Indo-Aryan language family (Grierson, 1928, Chatterjee, 1971). Sylheti is spoken primarily in the southern part of Assam and Tripura in India and Sylhet District in north-eastern Bangladesh. This paper will discuss the segmental phonology of Sylheti. Since Sylheti is spoken in a region where it is in contact with many Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic languages, an attempt is also made to evaluate the outcome of contact in Sylheti by analyzing the various phonological processes that occur in Sylheti. The study is based on large corpus of natural speech data gathered from Barak valley, Assam, by adapting the Sociolinguistic framework.
Title: SEGMENTAL ADAPTATION OF ENGLISH LOANWORDS IN MARATHI AND VARHADI: AN OPTIMALITY THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
Author(S): Dipak Tryambak Morey
Keywords: loanword phonology, English loans, segmental adaptation, Varhadi, Marathi
Abstract: Borrowing is a cross-linguistic phenomenon. Since different languages have different phonological structures, the borrowed words need to undergo the process of adaptation to make themselves fit into the phonological structure of the borrowing language. The adaptation process is of paramount significance for linguists as it provides fascinating insights into the phonological grammar of both languages. The present study attempts to observe and analyse the adaptation process of English loanwords in Marathi and Varhadi at the segmental level. It takes into account all the natural classes such as stops, fricatives, affricates, nasals, approximants, and syllabic consonants and finally analyses their adaptations in the constraint-based optimality theoretical (OT) approach.
Title: NEGATION IN SIZANG (SIYIN)
Author(S): Bobita Sarangthem
Keywords: negation, Sizang, declarative, imperative, interrogative, Kuki-Chin
Abstract: An attempt is made in this paper to introduce a descriptive account of negation in Sizang, a Kuki-Chin language under Tibeto-Burman family. The paper discusses the functions of four main negative markers: (i) -?ol, (ii) -bo? (iii) -hiák and (iv) b?w /ba in different kinds of sentences, such as, declarative, imperative, and interrogative sentences. The paper investigates the role of negative marker -?ol as one of the basic marker this language uses for negating the different types of construction and itis also used to negate some of the morphologically simplest pairs in the formation of antonyms. The paper also explores the type and position of negative markers, and shows that there are no differences in tense/ aspect categories between the negatives and the corresponding affirmatives in this language. In addition,an attempt is also made in this paper to show how other negative conjunctive particles negate the condition and supposition of an action.
Title: TRANSLATING PROPER NAMES: A CASE STUDY OF THE SHADOW LINES AND CHAYAREKHALU
Author(S): NareshAnnem, S.Arulmozi, MendemBapuji
Keywords: translation, proper names, strategies, the shadow lines, chayarekhalu
Abstract: Translation of proper names is always a typical activity in any context. Proper names are culturally and semantically loaded in the source language and hence it is a challenging task for the translator. Literary genres such as novels are more creative and imaginative wherein we find the names of characters, places and so on which are rooted in the culture and customs. The unbound imagination of the author led to producing different types of names in the source language and attempting them to translate would be difficult for the translator. In the present paper, we have examined the translation of proper names with reference to The Shadow Lines novel by Amitav Ghosh and its Telugu translation Chayarekhalu by AnanthaPadmanabha Rao. Further, an attempt is made to analyse the proper names translated from English to Telugu and the strategies adopted by the translator while translating the proper names. For this purpose, we have followed the model proposed by Coillie (2006) in order to investigate the peculiarities of translating proper names from English to Telugu.
Title: GADDI SPEECH COMMUNITY OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR: THE SELF-CLAIMED DESCENDANTS OF LORD SHIVA
Author(S): Hilal Ahmad Dar, Aejaz Mohammed Sheikh
Keywords: Gaddi, linguistic diversity, kinship, vocabulary
Abstract: Jammu and Kashmir is well known for accommodating people of diverse ethnicities that differ on the basis of language, culture and religion. Apart from major speech communities like Kashmiri and Dogri, there are some minority speech communities as well living in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir. The minority communities in this region comprise of Pahari,Gaddi, Gojri, Poguli, Tibetan etc. Owing to the fact, this entire region is linguistically and culturally divergent. One of the minority communities of the region is Gaddispeeh community of Jammu region. The present paper aims to present the different linguistic and cultural domains like language, background of the community, basic vocabulary and kinship terminology of Gaddi speech community settled in Bhaderwah area of District Doda of Jammu and Kashmir. To carry the study, a fieldwork was conducted in different villages of Bhaderwah area and data was collected through questionnaire method, interview method and observational method.
