Mmubn000001 220848351.Pdf
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/146184 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-10-09 and may be subject to change. Language Loss among Native Speakers of Moroccan Arabic in the Netherlands Abderrahman El Aissati Language Loss among Native Speakers of Moroccan Arabic in the Netherlands CIP-GEGEVENS KONINKLIJKE BIBLIOTHEEK, DEN HAAG Aissati, Abderrahman El Language loss among native speakers of Moroccan Arabic in the Netherlands / Abderrahman El Aissati. - [S.l. : s.n.] Proefschrift Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen. - Met lit. opg. ISBN 90-9009462-8 NUGI 941 Trefw.: taalverlies / tweetaligheid / Arabische taal ; Marokkanen ; Nederland. ° Abderrahman El Aissati, Nijmegen. Language Loss among Native Speakers of Moroccan Arabic in the Netherlands Een wetenschappelijke proeve op het gebied van de Letteren Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, volgens besluit van het College van Decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op dinsdag 7 mei 1996, des namiddags om 3.30 uur precies door Abderrahman El Aissati geboren in 1960 te Midar Promotores: Prof. dr. C.L.J, de Bot Prof. dr. C.H.M. Versteegh Manuscript commissie: Dr. Т.С.G. Bongaerts (voorzitter) Prof. dr. A.A.J.G. Extra (KUB) Dr. A.C.J, de Ruiter (KUB) Acknowledgements The research project which this book reports on was carried out at the Department of Applied Linguistics and Research Methodology of the University of Nijmegen. It has benefited from the help of a number of individuals and institutions. This research was made possible as part of the "Zwaartepuntprogramma," a project on language and minorities funded by the NWO, the University of Nijmegen , and the University of Tilburg. I thank my supervisors Kees de Bot and Kees Versteegh for their support and guidance during the ups and downs I went through in research land. My colleague Anneli Schaufeli, working on the Turkish part of the project, was always ready to step over to the Moroccan Arabic part whenever her help was needed. Thanks go also to Erik Schils, who has never rejected any of my hypotheses, except when statistics forced him to do so. I am grateful to Riet Evers for her patient and calm approach to research, and to Anne-Mieke Janssen-van Dieten for insightful comments and thought-provoking discussion. I also thank Theo Bongaerts and everyone in TTW for their support and encouragement. I am grateful to my teachers of the Center for Language Studies (CLS) for the courses I attended which greatly benefited my work. I thank all the 55 participants in this research, and the contact persons at the following schools which I visited during data collection; in Nijmegen: SSGN, de Klokkenberg, de Sprong, and Canisius MAVO; in Morocco: College Waliyyu Al And (Tangier), College Al Wahda (Oujda), and College Al Mustaqbal (Casablanca). Five and a half years ago I came to the Netherlands on a ten-month scholarship from the NUFFIC foundation. I thank Guus Extra and Jan Jaap de Ruiter of the University of Tilburg for their guidance during those months, and for informing me of the existence of this project. To my friends and family, both here and in Morocco, go special thanks. Without their support I would not have been able to pursue my studies thus far. I thank my wife Rosy for encouraging me in all I do. Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Theoretical considerations in the study of language loss 0. Introduction 3 1. Key terms in language attrition and language shift 3 1.1 Language attrition 3 1.2 Language loss 5 1.3 Language shift 5 1.4 The environment of language loss 7 2. The relation of language loss to language acquisition, language change, and pidginization 8 2.1 Language acquisition 9 2.2 Language change 10 2.3 Pidginization 10 3. Aspects of language loss 11 3.1 Linguistic features 12 3.2 Extra-linguistic aspects of language loss 18 3.3 How does language loss occur? 18 4. Methodological issues in language loss research 20 4.1 Language shift 20 4.2 Language attrition 21 4.3 Methodology of the present study 22 Chapter 2: Language choice, language proficiency, and language shift 0. Introduction 27 1. The sociolinguistics of MA 27 1.1 MA and other languages in Morocco 28 1.2 MA in the Netherlands 34 2. The background of the participants 39 2.1 The experimental group 39 2.2 The control group 42 3. Language choice 42 4. Language proficiency 47 5. Language use, language proficiency and language shift 56 6. Conclusion 58 Chapter 3: Plural formation in MA 0. Introduction 61 1. Plural formation in MA 62 1.1 Sound plurals 63 1.2 Broken Plurals 64 2. Plural formation test 66 2.1 Participants and procedure 66 2.2 The test 66 3. Results 68 4. Discussion 72 5. Conclusion 76 Chapter 4: Sentence Processing in MA 0. Introduction: 77 1. Cue validity studies on Dutch and MA: a review of the literature 77 1.1 Cues in Dutch 80 1.2 Cues in Arabic 82 1.3 Cue validity, bilingualism, and language loss 82 2. Cues in MA and Dutch 84 3. The cue validity experiment 88 3.1 Design 88 3.2 Material, participants, and procedure 89 4. Results 92 5. Discussion 100 6. Conclusion 103 Chapter 5: Phonological aspects of language loss 0. Introduction 107 1. A sketch of the phonology of MA and Dutch 107 1.1 The phonological inventory of MA 107 1.2 The phonological inventory of Dutch 108 1.3 A comparison between MA and Dutch phonological inventories 109 1.4 The syllable structure 111 1.4.1 The syllable structure of MA 111 1.4.2 The syllable structure of Dutch 112 1.5 Gemination 113 2. Perception of phonological oppositions 114 2.1 Participants, material, design and procedure 115 2.2 Results 116 3. Production 119 3.1 Sound substitution 120 3.2 Geminate reduction and syllable structure 125 3.3 Frequent insertion of pauses 129 4. Conclusion 130 Chapter 6: The perception and production of relative clauses 0. Introduction 131 1. Relative clauses: an overview 131 1.1 The structure of relative clauses 131 1.2 Perception of relative clauses 132 2. Relative clauses in MA 135 3. An experiment on the perception of relative clauses in MA 136 3.1 Results 137 3.2 Discussion 140 4. Production of relative clauses in MA 147 5. Conclusion 151 Chapter 7: Conclusions 153 1. Summary of results 153 2. Is there any language loss in MA? 155 3. Avenues for future research 158 References 161 Appendix 1 171 Appendix 2 181 Appendix 3 191 Appendix 4 195 Appendix 5 207 Dutch summary 209 Curriculum Vitae 213 Introduction This dissertation is about the function and structure of Moroccan Arabic (henceforth MA) as used by second generation adolescents of Moroccan origin in the Netherlands. By looking at the function of MA as a minority language in the Netherlands, we attempt to answer the question of whether there is any language shift from MA to Dutch, the majority language. A series of tests and experiments are conducted with the goal of examining the command of second generation adolescents of various linguistic skills in MA. In doing this, we try to bring to the surface any signs of attrition in these skills. The organization of the present work is as follows. Chapter 1 deals with the theoretical background of the study. The following central issues are tackled here. First, a definition of the different key terms like 'loss', 'shift', and 'attrition' in studies on languages in contact is attempted, and the meaning of these terms in this study is defined. Second, since MA in the Netherlands is a case of language contact, a review of studies on languages in contact is given, and a number of similarities between this line of research and research on language contact are noted. Third, the linguistic skills reported to be prone to attrition in the literature are examined. A selection of these skills is made so as to cover the different grammar components, namely semantics and the lexicon, phonology, morphology, syntax, and discourse. The fourth issue covered in this chapter is the process of language loss, i.e. how language attrition and language shift occur. Finally, the methodology of the present work will be presented, together with a discussion of the main methodological concerns in language loss in general. The question of whether there is any language shift from MA to Dutch is the core of chapter 2. Data on language choice, language use, and language proficiency are presented to substantiate the claim that there are signs of language shift from MA to Dutch. Before presenting these data, some information on the sociolinguistics of MA in Morocco and in the Netherlands is provided, together with information on the background of the participants in the present work. Chapter 3 deals with plural formation. Its goal is to show how the morphology of MA is affected by comparing plural formation strategies in second generation adolescents with those of adolescent native speakers of MA in Morocco. The different strategies used by second generation adolescents to deal with plural formation are examined, with particular attention to the role of language proficiency in shaping these strategies. 2 Introduction Chapter 4 is about processing strategies in MA. The bulk of this chapter is an analysis of the use of linguistic cues in interpreting the agent of an action in a sentence.