The study of the linguistic worldview in constructed languages

on the example of Esperanto

Ida Stria, Institute of Linguistics, AMU

Presentation overview

Linguistic worldview

Linguistic worldview is a language-entrenched interpretationof reality, which can be expressed in the form of judgments about the world […]. The interpretation is a result of subjective perception and conceptualization of reality performedby the speakers of a given language; thus, it is clearly subjective and anthropocentric but also intersubjective (social).

(Bartmiński 2009, cf. Grzegorczykowa 1999)

The EUROJOS project

Data required and their sources

systemic systemic hyponymsoppositessynonyms derivatives (also semantic)complexes and collectionscollocations proverbs (always with the source given)

dictionaries definitionsusage

texts and corpora

systemic data and usage*statistical recurrence

The EUROJOS project

Data required and their sources

“real-life”

texts and corpora

usage* and contextindividual opinions as instances of cultural relevance

questionnaires etc.

what is a genuine X? (additional questionsif needed)unbiased sample

• responses coded according to domains and descriptors(e.g. coral, crimson, burgundy – descriptor: red, domain: colour)

Esperanto: • a constructed international auxiliary language

• exhibits statistical proportions similar to other European languages (Manaris et al. 2006)

• fulfils the requirement of having a dynamically interacting and growing community

• therefore: might be regarded as a naturally changing language (see Jansen 2010; Fiedler 2006; Herring 2005), influenced by L1 of its users (Koutny 2010, 2012).

Introduction to Esperanto

The functional classification of Blanke (2000: 53-57)• 28 levels of development (e.g. the existence of journals, original

literature and specialized vocabulary)• step 12: community• step 26: native speakers• step 28: the development of an original “cultural” phraseology and the

evidence of language change most important

• Esperanto went through all stages

• developed specifically for planned languages• some ethnic languages and creoles do not meet all of the levels

Classifications: D. Blanke

Characteristics of Esperanto

feature Esperanto

non-codified norms yes, but non-native speaker community

spontaneous changes yes

development to new domains yes

linked to a specific populationand a territory

no (compare with minority/diaspora languages; Kimura, 2012)

native speakers yes, but none monolingual and never set the standards

planning yes (compare with e.g. English)

first form written

On the basis of Duličenko (in Schubert 1989), Liu (in Schubert 2000) and Lindstedt (2006) a natural language can be described according to the following criteria:

Teaching Esperanto to one’s children (Fiedler 2006):

• extreme form of language loyalty

• existence of nursery rhymes, songs, riddles and fairy tales

• new domains, e.g. baby-talk, onomatopoeia,and euphemisms

• research into native Esperanto means a contributionto linguistics, especially studies in bilingualism

Native speakers

Denaskuloj do not provide the norm (Fiedler 2006):

•too few native speakers/a community of L2 speakers

•native speakers might repeat idiosyncratic/erroneous patterns of their parents

•50% of denaskuloj (always at least bilingual) abandonthe language when grown up

Native speakers II

•only advanced users (native speakers included)

•responses coded according to domains and descriptors

•if compatible in terms of descriptors, the LWV might be assumed to be homogenous

•in the opposite case (as resulting from Koutny 2010)the responses grouped according to L1s must be compared with the already known WVs of these languages

Analysis: transfer from L1

• Esperanto might be regarded as natural

• therefore: can be analysed in the LWV paradigm

• the language contains all the elements needed for analysis

• Problems:

• L2 speakers as an overwhelming majority

• denaskuloj not as norm givers

• languages and cultures overlapping

• therefore: multilingualism survey as additional partof the LWV analysis

Summary and conclusions

Bartmiński, J. (2009). Aspects of cognitive ethnolinguistics. Equinox Publishing Ltd.

EUROJOS. http://ispan.waw.pl/default/pl/projekty-naukowe/eurojos

Fiedler, S. (2006). Standardization and self-regulation in an international speech community: the case of Esperanto. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 177, 67–90.

Fiedler, S. (2012). The Esperanto denaskulo. The status of the native speaker of Esperanto within and beyond the planned language community. In: Language Problems & Language Planning 36/1.

Grzegorczykowa, R. (1999). Pojęcie językowego obrazu świata. In: J. Bartmiński (Ed.), Językowy obraz świata. Wydawnictwo UMCS.

Herring, J. (2005). Syntactic and lexical changes in Esperanto: a corpus-based survey. 2nd Midwest Computational Linguistics Colloquium. http://cllt.osu.edu/mclc/paper/syntactic_herrring.pdf

Jansen, W. (2010). Esperanto: een taal van mij, een taal om van te houden/esperanto: lingvo malfremda, lingvo aminda. Interlingvistikaj Kajeroj, 1(1), 12-34. http://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/inkoj/article/view/485.

Kimura, G. (2012). Esperanto and minority languages: A sociolinguistic comparison. Language Problems & Language Planning 36 (2), 167–181.

Koutny, I. (2009). Esperanto im Rahmen der Sprachtypologie. In: S. Fiedler (Ed.): Esperanto und andere Sprachen im Vergleich (pp. 117-130).

Koutny, I. (2010). Esperantlingva bildo de la mondo. In: D. Blanke, & U. Lins (Eds.), La arto labori kune. Festlibro por Humphrey Tonkin (pp. 290-305). Rotterdam: UEA.

References

Koutny, I. (2012). Kiel niaj pensoj vortigxas? Kiun semantikan modelon sekvas esperanto? In Ch. Kiselman, & M. Maradan (Eds.), Leksikologio, frazeologio, historio, semantiko kaj terminologio: du kontinentoj renkontigxas en Hanojo (pp. 35-48). Rotterdam: UEA.

Lindstedt, J. (2006). Native Esperanto as a test case for natural language. In M. Suominen (Ed.), A man of measure: Festschrift in honour of Fred Karlsson on his 60th birthday (pp. 47-55). Turku: Linguistic Association of Finland.

Manaris, B. et al. (2006). Investigating Esperanto’s statistical proportions relative to other languages using neural networks and Zipf’s law. Proceedings of the 24th IASTED International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Applications 102-108.

Pavlenko, A. (2006) (Ed.). Bilingual minds: emotional experience, expression, and representation. Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Stria, I. (2013). Czy możliwe jest badanie językowego obrazu świata języków sztucznych? Rozważania wstępne. In: S. Puppel, & T. Tomaszkiewicz (Eds.), Scripta manent – res novae (pp. 409-414). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM.

Stria, I. (in press). Classifications of artificial languages. Język. Komunikacja. Informacja, VIII.

Schubert, K. (1989) (Ed.). Interlinguistics: aspects of the science of planned languages. Walter de Gruyter.

Schubert, K. (2000) (Ed.). Planned Languages: From Concept to Reality. Walter de Gruyter.

References cont.