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Large pretrained masked language models have become state-of-the-art solutions for many NLP problems. While studies have shown that monolingual models produce better results than multilingual models, the training datasets must be sufficiently large. We trained a trilingual LitLat BERT-like model for Lithuanian, Latvian, and English, and a monolingu...
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... While J asserts the equal importance of all languages, the positioning of flags suggests a nuanced hierarchy, aligning with the core-to-periphery pattern observed in language portraits. Studies show that the languages in language portraits are depicted following a core-to-periphery pattern (e.g., Kusters and De Meulder, 2019;Kasap, 2021), thus the most significant languages, e.g., mother tongues, are colored in the head and the central parts of body like the heart or chest (Busch, 2006;Kasap, 2021). In J's portrait, Italian and Russian, depicted in the head and main body parts, reveal their significant roles as mother tongues. ...
... While J asserts the equal importance of all languages, the positioning of flags suggests a nuanced hierarchy, aligning with the core-to-periphery pattern observed in language portraits. Studies show that the languages in language portraits are depicted following a core-to-periphery pattern (e.g., Kusters and De Meulder, 2019;Kasap, 2021), thus the most significant languages, e.g., mother tongues, are colored in the head and the central parts of body like the heart or chest (Busch, 2006;Kasap, 2021). In J's portrait, Italian and Russian, depicted in the head and main body parts, reveal their significant roles as mother tongues. ...
Each multilingual transnational family is unique and thus deserves to be carefully studied in terms of its family language policy (FLP). Speaker-centered approaches can provide a deeper understanding of linguistic diversity in a multilingual setting. The studied Russian-Italian family is raising a multilingual boy (8:2) in Finland. The multilingual repertoire includes Russian, Italian, Finnish, English, and Hebrew. In this case-study, an ethnographic approach is used to explore the multilingual family repertoire by presenting their lived experiences and language practices. I discuss the FLP and child’s active role in shaping the family’s linguistic practices (child agency). The following methods were combined: semi-structured interviews, language background surveys, written diary entries, self-recordings of interactions in the family, and a language portrait that depicts the child’s multilingual repertoire. The interviews and other recordings were transcribed manually. The following research questions guided the study: (1) How do the family members describe their FLP? (2) How does the FLP evolve through everyday interactions (language practices)? (3) How does the child exercise his agency in the family setting? The results reveal that the family’s language practices follow predominantly an one person-one language (OPOL) strategy; consequently, the child speaks a different language with each parent. However, the analysis of the language ideologies reveals positive attitudes toward both multilingualism and all the languages in the family’s repertoire, which explains the multilingual practices having multiplicity and unexpectedness. FLP is shaping the family language practices. Evidence of language hierarchy can be explained by a number of family-external and family-internal social factors.
... "Language Portraits" (LPs) is a term initially proposed by Krumm and Jenkins [28] to investigate multilingual youths' language awareness and was further popularized by Busch [12] as a research method to elicit a subjective reconstruction of their language acquisition [29]. As a methodological approach, it is shaped by an empty body-shape silhouette. ...
The present study sets out to investigate how multilingual youth perceive and represent their linguistic repertoires. To achieve this goal, we introduced a computer-vision-aided analytical method to deal with the obtained visual data, which comprised digital images of language portraits created by a group of young multilingual speakers. An OpenCV module is used to build and complete the graphic data processing, enabling quantitative evaluations of participants' colored clusters and linguistic codes that express their language repertoires. In combination with oral narratives provided in their language portraits, the findings demonstrate that Macanese heritage speakers show a higher degree of "scope" than the Chinese mainland sojourners in Macao but a lower degree of "access". Follow-up interviews further corroborated the self-perceptions of their linguistic resources across different registers. Overall, the computer-vision-aided analysis of language portraits enhances the current understanding of the "scope" and "access" of multilingual repertoires in lived experience.
