Article

Dialect of Language Sensitive Tests: Which one is best for use with Haitian Creole speakers? A look at the BVAT and the DELV

December 2019

Authors:

Qatar Foundation

Howard University

Silvia Martinez

Howard University

Wilhelmina Harp

Howard University

The purpose of this study was to investigate intra- group performance differences for speakers of Haitian Creole (HC) on the Bilingual Verbal Ability Test (BVAT) and the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation (DELV). The BVAT is a language sensitive test, whereas, the DELV is a dialect sensitive test that eliminates the effects of features and rules of the particular variety of English spoken by the examinee. A total of 18 children who are HC speakers between the ages of 5;0 and 5;11 months participated in the study. The participants were administered the BVAT and DELV. Two tailed T-tests were conducted to analyze the data. No differences were found in the performance of HC speakers on the BVAT and DELV. Thus, it was concluded that both measures are appropriate with children who speak HC of this age group to evaluate language abilities.

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Phenomena of Contact and Mixing in the Arbëresh Dialects of San Marzano di San Giuseppe in Salento a...

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Interactions between Differential Object Marking and Definiteness in Standard and Heritage Romanian

February 2023 · Languages

[...]
Monica Irimia

The observation that not all grammatical realizations in heritage languages can be attributed to transfer from a dominant language has been emphasized in several recent works. This paper provides further arguments in this direction from heritage Romanian. As opposed to standard Romanian, the heritage Romanian data examined here do not exhibit a restriction which blocks overt definiteness on a ... [Show full abstract] differentially marked object (DOM), when the latter is unmodified but interpreted as definite. Moreover, in heritage Romanian there appear to be differences between the differential marker and (other) prepositions when it comes to interactions with overt definiteness. It is shown that the preservation of overt definiteness cannot be reduced to transfer; some of the dominant languages at stake, namely Serbian and Russian are determinerless, with nominals being used bare regardless of their syntactic function. The heritage data in turn give support to a theory under which the differential marker must be structurally set aside from (other) prepositions. If the latter spell out a P projection, the differential marker is the spell out of complex internal structure of certain classes of objects, which must project at least a DP. This structural complexity for DOM is transparent in other Romance languages, where definiteness is equally obligatory on the surface, if a definite interpretation is intended. Thus, the DOM-overt definiteness setting in the heritage data follows from predictable paths of language variation.