The present study was designed to understand the retrospective account of the learning experience of four successful learners of Russian who made substantial oral gains as measured by the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) during a semester study abroad (SA) program in Moscow, Russia. Each participant made as much as two sublevels' improvement on the ACTFL scale, even those who began with Advanced level proficiency. Specifically, the study examines what students believe, how they exercise their agency, cope with constraints, and take advantage of affordances in out-of-class contexts. The qualitative data includes semi-structured interviews while quantitative data consists of pre- and post-program OPI scores. This research addresses the question of second language learning in a foreign language immersion program through thick description and through cross-case analyses. Findings were interpreted in relation to van Lier's theory of the ecology of language learning (2004) and the notion of affordances which suggests that if learners are proactive and outgoing (or initiate interactions) they will perceive language affordances as valuable and will use them. This theoretical approach provides a means to understand how most students were able to improve in oral performance while lacking meaningful contact with native speakers (NSs) or struggling to make friends with them. Regardless of the difficulties encountered during their time in Russia, students exercised their agency through participating in more self-initiated non-interactive activities without being directed by others. Each of the students perceived the meaning of his or her learning experience in a different way, demonstrating how the SA experience is highly individualized. This study argues that regardless of students' individual differences, they have one key principle in common: autonomous behavior. Further research is needed to investigate what fosters learners' autonomy and contributes to learners' self-efficacy.

This study analyzes the production of Voice Onset Time (VOT) of natural Spanish-English bilinguals. VOT is a linguistic characteristic that measures the amount of aspiration occurring after the release of a stop consonant. In terms of VOT, English stop consonants differ substantially from their Spanish equivalents. This study analyzes whether or not natural bilinguals produce VOTs that approximate VOTs of monolingual speakers of each language. Participants completed two surveys to quantify their linguistic dominance in English and Spanish. They were then recorded performing similar speaking tasks in both languages. The conclusions show that natural bilinguals do not produce their English or Spanish VOTs within the monolingual norms defined in previous studies. If conclusions were to be drawn solely from this data, then the participants would theoretically have no monolingual-like language production of VOT. There is also no correlation between language dominance scores and production of VOT. These results support the conclusion that a natural bilingual is not the equivalent of two natural monolingual speakers. Significant correlations exist between VOT production and gender, age of learning English, and amount of time spent watching TV in each language. Another interesting conclusion is that many of the participants score more Spanish-dominant when a survey is given in Spanish and more English-dominant when the very same survey is given in English. This shows that even the language of a survey may skew responses slightly.

This thesis surveyed a group of second generation Mexican-American Spanish-English bilingual speakers in the Coachella Valley, California to determine common motives for code-switching in speech. In previous studies, motives or triggers to code-switching have been identified and recorded in major urban cities such as Los Angeles and New York, and this thesis seeks to identify this phenomenon in the rural and agricultural cities of the Coachella Valley, with focus on Indio and Coachella, CA. Furthermore, another goal of this study was to analyze research on code-switching in a sample of older adults ages 45-75 as compared to much of the research that tends to focus on young adults or children. This study also took into consideration the code-switching patterns between males and females.This thesis analyzed 10 audio-recorded interviews of second generation Mexican-American Spanish-English bilingual speakers. The interviews were recorded in Indio, CA in 2015. The data collected were analyzed for naturally occurring code-switching pattern frequencies, code-switching differences found between genders, and code-switching differences found in age groupings.The results showed similar findings to those found in previous studies on code-switching patterns, the greater code-switching frequency in women, and the stronger disapproval of code-switching in adults.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes towards anglicisms among Spanish speakers living in and having lived in Sweden for a minimum of five years. To participate in the study the informants had to have Spanish as their mother tongue as well as being relatively fluent in English. A total of 71 people, of which 54 were women and 17 were men, participated in the study. They were also divided into the age groups of 18-29, 30-54 and 55+. The direct method was used and the informants answered a questionnaire anonymously. In the first part of the questionnaire the informants were asked to choose, according to their preference, between anglicisms and their Spanish equivalents. In the second part the informants were asked to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement towards three positive and three negative statements concerning the use of anglicisms. The result from our investigation shows that there is a higher inclination to use an anglicism within the lower age groups. Compared to its Spanish equivalence, there was no difference between the genders regarding the usage of anglicisms. When it comes to attitudes, the pattern followed the result in the first part, with the lower age groups showing more positive attitudes towards anglicisms compared to the older ones. There was a slight difference between the genders, with the men being neutral and the women being slightly negative towards anglicisms.

This article is concerned with grammaticalization of prepositional elements in Slavic. It is argued that external prefixes are internal prefixes that underwent some grammaticalization process. After discussing the grammaticalization of the Slavic prefix po- it is shown that the Czech future po- differs from Russian and Polish non-future prefixes. Furthermore, it is proposed that the presence of future po- in grammatical systems of Czech, Slovak, Slovenian and Sorbian is a result of diachronic grammaticalization processes induced primarily by the German- Slavic language contact in the Holy Roman Empire.

Certains travaux en sociolinguistique présentent le langage des jeunes issus de l’immigration maghrébine en France comme une variété du français, caractérisée particulièrement par son emprunt à l’arabe. Cette vision basée sur la pratique d’une seule langue ne permet pas de cerner toutes les facettes de ce phénomène. Son fonctionnement et son sens s’éclairent par la prise en compte du bilinguisme de ses usagers. A partir d’un corpus recueilli auprès des jeunes issus de la même immigration à Bordeaux, nous explorons les faits du contact des deux langues en question, en rapport avec les conditions (sociales) de leur production. Sans les isoler dans un lieu et chez un groupe particuliers, nos analyses révèlent la présence de plusieurs variétés de langages de jeunes, reliés aux pratiques bilingues, adoptées en milieu familial et communautaire de base. Elles mettent en exergue la richesse de leur patrimoine linguistique et verbal, variable en fonction des situations et des interlocuteurs. En nous penchant sur les savoirs sociaux qui déterminent la gestion de cette hétérogénéité linguistique, nous palpons une fidélité à un système de valeurs et de représentations qui se perpétuent à travers les générations. Toutefois, n’étant pas figé dans l’expression d’une seule identité, ce langage exprime leur double identité linguistique et culturelle, construite dans la confrontation à l’Autre et au Même pour traduire leur situation spécifique, en contexte migratoire. / Some studies in Sociolinguisctics present the language of young people stemming from the Maghrebi immigration in France as a variety of French, characterized particularly with its borrowing from Arabic. This vision, based on the practice of one language, does not allow to identify all the facets of this phenomenon. Its functioning and its meaning are clarified when taking into consideration the bilingualism of its users. Starting from a corpus collected from young people stemming from the same immigration in Bordeaux, we explore the facts about the contact of the two languages in question, in relation to the conditions (social) of their production. Without isolating them in a place and in a particular group, our analyses reveal the presence of many language varieties of young people, linked to bilingual practices, adopted in a basic family and community environment. They highlight the richness of their linguistic and verbal heritage, which varies according to situations and interlocutors. Through our inclination towards the social knowledge that determine the management of the linguistic heterogeneity, we feel loyalty to a system of values and representations which are perpetuated through generations. Nevertheless, not being fixed in expressing one identity, this language expresses their double linguistic and cultural identity, constructed through the confrontation with the Other and the Self in order to translate their specific situation in the migratory context.

Cette thèse s’intéresse aux contacts de langues présents dans la formation des enseignants de français langue étrangère. Depuis quelques années, l’enseignement des langues étrangères se répand au Mexique. En 2009, 22 licences formaient des enseignants de langues, sans compter les institutions privées, et ce chiffre continue d’évoluer. Les étudiants y débutent leur contact avec le français avec certains imaginaires sociaux, issus de deux siècles de colonisation et de traditions culturelles nées des contacts de langues. Ainsi, plusieurs images restent ancrées dans l’imaginaire collectif, notamment celles de Malinche, et certaines idées sur l’altérité perdurent, suscitant des postures enseignantes particulières. À partir des imaginaires des langues et des locuteurs, nous analyserons les rapports de pouvoir existant dans le contact de langues en cours de français. Prenant en compte cet héritage comme un écran socio-culturel de perception de l’autre, notre étude repose sur les témoignages des enseignants et apprenants mexicains en licence de langues et en master de didactique du français, qui racontent leurs parcours linguistiques et leurs expériences lors des formations. / The main subject is the contact between languages present in the formation of French as a Foreign Language teachers. Globalization has fostered that teaching foreign languages, particularly French, spreads throughout Mexico. However, Mexican students have their first contact with the French language permeated by certain social imaginaries. Over time, the imaginaries -particularly those related to Malinche- have had a significant role. The different imaginaries surrounding foreign languages and their speakers bring back old conceptions and behaviours while interaction with the other and when we speak another language. Imaginaries also serve to analyse power relationships between languages. Thus, heritage can be considered a socio-cultural screen that shapes our perception of otherness.

The present study aims to capture linguistic variation in subject distribution of two typologically similar languages, Greek and Chilean Spanish, considering adult monolingual and bilingual speakers of Greek as a heritage/minority language in Chile. The focus is on null and overt third-person subjects in topic-continuity and topic-shift contexts. Such structures involve the interface between syntax and discourse/pragmatics, a vulnerable domain in bilingualism. Previous research has shown overextension of the scope of the overt subject pronoun in contexts where null subjects are discursively expected (e.g. Tsimpli, Sorace, Heycock & Filiaci 2004). The Interface Hypothesis (IH) (Sorace 2011) was formulated to account for such findings, which obtain even in pairs of two null subject languages (Sorace, Serratrice, Filiaci & Baldo 2009). The key question as to the language-contact effects on subject distribution in pairs of two null subject languages requires further exploration while the combination of Greek and Spanish has been so far understudied. The IH is evaluated with new empirical data from a bilingual situation not studied before. Data from oral narratives and aural pronominal anaphora resolution were elicited from monolinguals and three types of bilinguals, namely first-generation immigrants, heritage speakers and L2 speakers of Greek residing in Chile. The monolingual data revealed differences in the use and interpretation of overt subject pronouns between Greek and Chilean Spanish. The crosslinguistic difference lies in the strong deictic properties of the Greek pronoun compared to its Spanish counterpart; hence differences obtain because of the relative strength of the two pronominal forms. No overextension of the scope of overt pronouns was found in bilinguals, against predictions stemming from the Interface Hypothesis. This may relate to the typological similarity between Greek and Spanish as well as to the nature of the Greek pronoun, which makes its use relatively categorical. Such findings lend support to the Representational account (Tsimpli et al. 2004). On the contrary, null subjects gave rise to optionality presumably due to their complexity, which demands higher degrees of computational efficiency. The Vulnerability Hypothesis (Prada Pérez 2018) may also account for the findings.

The present study investigates the nature of communicative language ability as manifested in performance on the TOEFL iBT® test, as well as the relationship between this ability with test-takers' study-abroad and learning experiences. The research interest in the nature of language ability is shared by the language testing community, whereas understanding the factors that affect language acquisition has been a focus of attention in the field of second language acquisition (Bachman & Cohen, 1998). This study utilizes a structural equation modeling approach, a hybrid of factor analysis and path analysis, to address issues at the interface between language testing and second language acquisition. The purpose of this study is two-fold. The first has a linguistic focus: to provide empirical evidence to enhance our understanding of the nature of communicative language ability by examining the dimensionality of this construct in both its absolute and relative senses. The second purpose, which has a social and cultural orientation, is to investigate the possible educational, social, and cultural influences on the acquisition of English as a foreign language, and the relationships between test performance and test-taker characteristics. The results revealed that the ability measured by the test was predominantly skill-oriented. The role of the context of language use in defining communicative language ability could not be confirmed due to a lack of empirical evidence. As elicited by the test, this ability was found to have equivalent underlying representations in two groups of test-takers with different context-of-learning experiences. The common belief in the superiority of the study-abroad environment over learning in the home country could not be upheld. Furthermore, both study-abroad and home-country learning were proved to have significant associations with aspects of the language ability, although the results also suggested that variables other than the ones specified in the models may have had an impact on the development of the ability being investigated. From a test validation point of view, the results of this study provide crucial validity evidence regarding the test's internal structure, this structure's generalizability across subgroups of test-takers, as well as its external relationships with relevant test-taker characteristics. Such a validity inquiry contributes to our understanding of what constitutes the test construct, and how this construct interacts with the individual and socio-cultural variables of foreign language learners and test-takers.

Στην παρούσα διατριβή ερευνώ τη μορφολογική προσαρμογή λεξικών δανείων από τα Βενετσιάνικα και τα Ιταλικά στα Επτανησιακά, μια σύγχρονη νεοελληνική διάλεκτο. Υποστηρίζω ότι η προσαρμογή των λεξικών δανείων στα Επτανησιακά δεν είναι ένα ενιαίο, στατικό φαινόμενο αλλά συνιστά μια δυναμική διαδικασία, που αποτελείται από βαθμούς προσαρμογής/ενσωμάτωσης, όπως έχουν υποστηρίξει πολλοί ερευνητές γενικότερα για το δανεισμό μεταξύ διαφορετικών γλωσσικών συστημάτων, ανάμεσά τους, οι Bloomfield (1933), Haugen (1950: 213), Mackey (1970: 10), Jeffers & Lehiste (1979: 149), Filipović (1980,1981,1995), Poplack & Sankoff (1984: 106), Hock (1991: 397), Hoffmann (1991:102), McMahon (1994: 209), Αναστασιάδη - Συμεωνίδη (1994),Sočanac (1995), Hafez (1996: 3),Gorup (2000), Winford (2003: 59), Καραντζόλα & Φλιάτουρα (2004: 184), Katamba (2005: 164), Johanson (2002: 297), Gallova (2009: 26), Więcławska-Szymańska (2009: 39), Kayigema (2010: 104), Seidel (2010: 51), Creed (2012: 32), Galstyan (2012: 152) και Bogomolets (2014: 14). Οι βαθμοί ενσωμάτωσης των λεξικών δανείων που προτείνω είναι οι ακόλουθοι: α) Στοιχειώδης ενσωμάτωση με απλή μεταφορά των δανείων στη γλώσσα-στόχο, με θετικό μαρκάρισμα ως προς τη τιμή του γένους και τη γραμματική κατηγορία, αλλά χωρίς ένταξη στο κλιτικό σύστημα της γλώσσας-στόχου, χωρίς χρήση κάποιου παραγωγικού προσφύματος ως στοιχείου ενσωμάτωσης και χωρίς συμμετοχή των δανείων σε παράγωγους/σύνθετους σχηματισμούς, π.χ. καντσόνε (το) [Κεφ.] ‘το τραγούδι’ < ven. canzon (la) /it.canzone (la) ‘το τραγούδι’, β) Μερική ενσωμάτωση με προσαρμογή των δανείων στο κλιτικό σύστημα των Επτανησιακών και συχνά με χρήση ενός παραγωγικού προσφύματος ως στοιχείου ενσωμάτωσης, π.χ. κατζέλλο (το) [Ιθ.] ‘το συρτάρι’ < ven. scancello (il)/it. cancello (il) ‘το συρτάρι’, ατζαρδοσύνη (η) [Κεφ.] ‘το ρίσκο’ < it./ven.azzardo (il) ‘το ρίσκο’ + -οσύνη και γ) Πλήρης ενσωμάτωση με αφομοίωση των δανείων στο κλιτικό σύστημα της γλώσσας - στόχου και συμμετοχή σε παράγωγους αλλά και σύνθετους σχηματισμούς, π.χ. τυφλοκάντουνο (το) [Κεφ.] ‘ το αδιέξοδο’ < τυφλ(ός) + -ο- + καντούν(ι) (το) ‘ η πάροδος’ < it. cantone (il)/ ven. canton (il) ‘η πάροδος’. Προς επιβεβαίωση της παραπάνω υπόθεσης παραθέτω γλωσσικά δεδομένα από τα Επτανησιακά. / In this MA thesis I examine the morphological accommodation of lexical Venetian/Italian loanwords to Heptanesian, a Modern Greek dialect. Folowing Bloomfield (1933), Casagrande (1954/1955), Haugen (1950: 213), Filipović (1980, 1981, 1985), Clyne (2003: 144-145), Romaine (2010: 30-31), Creed (2012: 32) -among others- I assume that the morphological integration of lexical loanwords to Heptanesian is not a homogenous, fixed phenomenon, but it is a gradual process with levels of morphological integration. The levels of integration that I postulate are the following: a) Primary integration with simple transfer of the loanwords to the recipient-language. In primary integration, loanwords display gender assignment and assignment to a specific grammatical category. However, in this level loanwords do not demonstrate assignment to the inflectional system of Heptanesian. In addition, in this level loanwords do not exhibit participation to the productive morphological processes (e.g. compounding) of the recipient-language. b) Partial integration with accommodation of the loanwords to the inflectional system of the target-language. In this level, there is a usual use of a derivational affix as an integrator of the loanwords to the recipient-language, but loanwords do not function as a base for derivation and compounds. c) Total integration with absorption of the loanwords to all the morphological processes of Heptanesian. More particularly, loanwords exhibit gender assignment and assignment to a specific grammatical category. Furthermore, in this level almost all loanwords manifest inflectional adaptation to the inflectional system of Heptanesian. In total integration, loanwords participate to the productive schemas of Heptanesian (e.g. compounding). In confirmation of the above claim, I present data from Heptanesian.