Disentangling variation: A crosslinguistic investigation of bilingualism and non-standardization

Project Information

DIVA

Grant agreement ID: 746652

DOI

10.3030/746652

Project closed

EC signature date 20 March 2017

Start date 7 August 2017

End date 6 August 2019

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 196 400,40

EU contribution

€ 196 400,40

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITETET I TROMSOE - NORGES ARKTISKE UNIVERSITET
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DIVA (Disentangling variation: A crosslinguistic investigation of bilingualism and non-standardization)

Reporting period: 2017-08-07 to 2019-08-06

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This project investigated the ways in which variation in the linguistic input leaves its footprint on the developmental trajectory of language growth and its final outcome in different monolingual and multilingual populations. Through eliciting and examining acceptability judgments that target different domains of grammar, this project has implemented a novel, three-way comparison across (i) monolingual, bilingual, and bilectal speakers, (ii) different domains of grammar, (iii) varying developmental trajectories within the bilingual populations, including heritage speakers and L1 attriters. The combination of on-line (reaction times) and off-line (acceptability judgments on a Likert scale) measures has provided insights into the ways the various structures are processed by the human mind. This project has brought together both the social and the neurocognitive aspects of our ability to use language, through adopting a crosslinguistic approach to the investigation of language across populations with different trajectories. Ultimately, this project has generated solid experimental evidence about language processing in monolingual vs. plurilingual mind, which within the present context of globalization and increased multilingualism throughout the lifespan, are of interest to psycholinguists, sociolinguists, psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists. Last, the emphasis given to non-standard languages promotes linguistic diversity, concordant with European Union’s efforts to raise awareness about minority languages, thus the results are also relevant for educational policy makers.

The key objective of DIVA was to develop a multi-levelled description of language variation and its driving factors in a way that involves both the elicitation of novel data and their interpretation within a context of justification that brings together insights from both linguistics and closely allied disciplines, thus effectively creating interdisciplinary bridges between linguistics and the greater field of neurocognition. The secondary objective was to describe variation in three domains of grammar across three linguistic communities. Through comparing the attested variation across them, the DIVA project taps into the importance of factors such as language transfer, language standardization and sociolinguistic values which can be proxies for language use in different contexts and registers.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In terms of scientific impact, the DIVA project ran from 2017 to 2019 and generated three novel experimental tools and datasets, which are/will become publicly available to the scientific community in an Open Access format in order to maximize the impact of this research. DIVA involved crosslinguistic research across European countries, something that enabled the establishment of novel collaboration ties across different countries in the European territory (Norway, Greece, Cyprus, Spain). In terms of the overall structure and progress of this project, the 24 month duration of DIVA corresponded to 5 Work Packages. Working Package 1 involved the first deliverables: (i) completion of task development (3 novel tasks, one already published doi.org/10.18710/NTLLUF) and (ii) application for ethics screening and approval by the NSD, the body responsible for ethics screening in Norway. The tasks were also screened by the Cyprus National Bioethics Committee (i.e. the national body responsible for ethics screening in Cyprus) during the secondment for data collection in Cyprus, which took place in the second year of the fellowship. The CNBC waived the need for a full application during the prescreening session, due to the nature of the tasks and the tested populations (i.e. simple language tasks administered to neurotypical adults fully capable of informed consent). Working Packages 2 and 3 involved the recruitment, data collection, and coding of the results in Scandinavia (months 5-11) and Cyprus (months 12-14) respectively, as the secondment formed part of Working Package 3. More than 600 monolingual and bilingual speakers have been recruited and tested in this phase of the project. Months 7-24 (i.e. Working Package 4) were devoted to the analysis, interpretation, dissemination, and exploitation of the results. This resulted in five publications and one edited volume (see section Publications for a detailed list of all outcomes). A workshop on language variation was also planned as a deliverable for this Working Package. This workshop took place (TALV 1, http://site.uit.no/lava/talv-workshop-transdisciplinary-approaches-to-language-variation/). Apart from various talks at international conferences and workshops that disseminated the obtained results, the dissemination activities involved talks that raised awareness about the importance of MSCA actions (e.g. Evelina Leivada. 2017. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships: Career prospects and the road to a successful application. Workshop Transferrable Skills: Financial Mechanisms and Project Management, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Oslo, Norway, 1 November) and also through participation in EU initiatives of promoting regional research (e.g. What makes us human? EU in my Region https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/blog/detail.cfm?id=23) . Last, Working Package 5 ran throughout the fellowship and was dedicated to complementary training, progress monitoring, and continuous risk evaluation (months 4-23). Complementary training involved the participation of Dr. Leivada to various workshops, courses, and training activities (e.g. the Statistics training course at the Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU) in 2017, the AURORA Outstanding Program at UiT The Arctic University of Norway in 2018-2019, and the Mallorca Lectures on Neurolinguistics at the Universitat de les Illes Balears in 2019).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The findings of DIVA are made available to both academics and the general public at a national and international level. Local partners, including (psycho)linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists and speech pathologists, have been informed through internal seminars and reading group meetings at UiT. Dr. Leivada has created a webpage dedicated to the activities of DIVA in order to attract international attention. The use of social media is foreseen and a Facebook and a Twitter account have provided news about the project’s aims and progress, Marie Curie Actions, and more generally, research activities, also in relation to other projects that deal with language variation and the bilingual mind. As part of the dissemination activities, Dr. Leivada has published a number of articles in scientific journals of high visibility (e.g.,PeerJ) and has given talks at various conferences dedicated to bilingualism. Moreover, a workshop (TALV1) has been organized at UiT for the dissemination of the findings of DIVA. A second installment of TALV took place in Cyprus in 2019. Dr. Leivada gave an invited talk on key findings of the DIVA project (Transdisciplinary Approaches to Language Variation 2, Cyprus University of Technology & University of Cyprus, 15-16 February).

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