THE SIXTEENTH JONAS JABLONSKIS CONFERENCE

On October 3, 2008, the 16th Jonas Jablonskis Conference “Sociolinguistic Research on the Lithuanian Language” was held at Vilnius University. The conference was organized by researchers from the Language Culture Department of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and the Department of Lithuanian Language at Vilnius University. Seven papers were presented, discussing the sociolinguistic research currently being conducted at various institutions, its novelty, methodology, aims, and results.

In her paper “Language Use and Ethnic Identity in Lithuanian Cities,” Meilutė Ramonienė (Vilnius University) presented the “Cities and Languages” project, supported by the State Science and Studies Foundation and carried out in 2007–2008 by a research group from Vilnius University, Vytautas Magnus University, and the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, together with colleagues from the Netherlands and Great Britain. The project’s main aim was to analyze the relationship between the languages and other language varieties used in Lithuania’s major cities (Vilnius, Kaunas, and Klaipėda) and ethnic identity, as well as prospects for preserving identity. It also sought to investigate the languages used at home by residents of major cities; identify the dominant and other languages or language varieties in use, people’s choices to use them, and their vitality; examine tendencies in spoken and written language use; and assess respondents’ language proficiency and use in the public and private spheres, by occupational field and ethnic group. Quantitative surveys of schoolchildren (aged 8–10) and adult respondents were conducted using a prepared questionnaire.

Rita Miliūnaitė (Institute of the Lithuanian Language) introduced a new electronic form of language—the language of online diaries, or blogs. As the author described it in her paper “The Place of Blog Language in the Contemporary Usage Framework,” blog language is distinctive because it is created without intermediaries and is not specially regulated externally by anyone; however, the texts written in it are public.

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Lithuanian-language blogs appeared on the internet around the year 2000, so studying their expression makes it possible to draw conclusions about actual contemporary language use. In terms of its sphere of use, blog language can be considered a particular form of electronic communication; in terms of its linguistic features (mode of expression, public openness, and style of use), it is a genre of free electronic public usage in which new language tendencies and changes continually emerge.

Regina Koženiauskienė (Vilnius University) spoke about modifications of phraseology—the use of occasional phraseological expressions in spoken and written texts by politicians, lawyers, journalists, and advertising copywriters (“Controversial Phraseological Discourse: Manipulation and the Possibilities of Language Play”). The aim of such usage is not to convey information but to make it harder to understand, for various reasons: to attract readers’ attention, circumvent the law (for instance, in alcohol advertising), or ensure that a statement expressing a negative judgment of a person does not become grounds for an insult claim. Offensive, obscene idioms that function as nonstandard innuendo are particularly attention-grabbing, and can sometimes give rise to a need for linguistic expert assessment.

In her paper “Comprehensibility of Dialect Speech: A Study of Attitudes,” Daiva Aliūkaitė (Kaunas Faculty of Humanities, Vilnius University) analyzed data from the 2004–2006 study “Evaluation of Dialect Speech.” The questionnaire was prepared using perceptual dialectology methodology. The study was conducted in several ethnographic regions of Lithuania. When completing the questionnaire, participants chose from the following response options: dialect speech is completely incomprehensible; almost incomprehensible; partly comprehensible; easily comprehensible. Only 2–3 percent of respondents found dialect speech completely incomprehensible. Most respondents (more than 60 percent) thought that dialect speech was partly comprehensible. In their comments, they emphasized that dialect expression is understandable when it resembles the standard language or speech heard by the evaluator themselves or in their surroundings.

Laura Simanavičienė (Vytautas Magnus University) raised the question, “Do men and women ask questions differently?” (the title of the paper she prepared together with I. Balčiūnienė). Until now, research into differences between men’s and women’s language has usually been limited to analysis of written language or public spoken language (TV programs, presentations). At Vytautas Magnus University

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The creation of the Corpus of Spoken Lithuanian in 2006–2008 made it possible to analyze natural, spontaneous conversations. The aim of the study was to analyze interrogative sentences used in spontaneous speech and to determine how the structure of these sentences differs in men’s and women’s speech. The study sought to test three hypotheses: 1) men and women follow different conversational strategies, so questions should be more frequent in women’s speech than in men’s; 2) during conversation, women pay more attention to showing rapport with their interlocutor, so tag questions are likely to be more frequent in women’s speech, while special questions are more frequent in men’s speech; 3) women should use interrogative sentences with the particles ane, taip more often than men, at the end of a sentence, indicating that the speaker takes the listener’s opinion into account. The results did not disprove these hypotheses, but conference participants raised questions about the accuracy of the methodology and the representativeness of the selected data.

Mantrimas Danielius (Vilnius University, Vilnius College) examined Lithuanian Sign Language (“The Influence of the Lithuanian Language on Lithuanian Sign Language”)—an independent language used by more than 6,000 deaf people in Lithuania, with its own, entirely different mode of expression. Sign language differs from the word-for-word form of communication used by people who have become deaf and by hearing people, known as signed speech: when speaking Lithuanian, gestures are made at the same time. The speaker reviewed the ways in which Lithuanian influences the visually expressed sign language, which has a very different mode of expression. In the speaker’s view, one of the main and most clearly visible influences of Lithuanian on sign language is articulated lip movement. Also, under the influence of Lithuanian, the S–O–V sentence pattern characteristic of sign language is increasingly being replaced by S–V–O, while modifiers and prepositions are placed before the noun, and so on. Another very widespread form of interaction between sign language and Lithuanian is borrowing words. Words finger-spelled using the manual alphabet—usually personal names, place names, and names for new objects—are used as foreign words in Lithuanian Sign Language, but are replaced by signs very quickly.

In his paper “Colloquial Vocabulary: Usage and Its Relationship to Lithuanian Dictionaries,” Giedrius Tamaševičius (Institute of the Lithuanian Language) analyzed the results of a study of vocabulary characteristic of colloquial speech. Words for the questionnaire survey were selected from the Corpus of Spoken Lithuanian. The aim of the study was to find out how widespread certain words associated with colloquial speech or slang are among different age groups and respondents of different genders—

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—classified as slang. According to the speaker, such studies should prompt consideration of the possibility of including the most commonly used words characteristic of colloquial speech, or their meanings, in dictionaries.

At the end of the conference, participants exchanged opinions and advice on conducting sociolinguistic research and considered what the topic of next year’s Jonas Jablonskis Conference might be.

Received 2008 12 07

VILMA ZUBAITIENĖ

Vilnius University

Universiteto g. 5, LT-01513 Vilnius

[email protected]

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