Heritage Speakers as Part of the Native Language Continuum

We argue for a perspective on bilingual heritage speakers as native speakers of both their languages and present results from a large-scale, cross-linguistic study that took such a perspective and approached bilinguals and monolinguals on equal grounds. We targeted comparable language use in bilingual and monolingual speakers, crucially covering broader repertoires than just formal language. A main database was the open-access RUEG corpus, which covers comparable informal vs. formal and spoken vs. written productions by adolescent and adult bilinguals with heritage-Greek, -Russian, and -Turkish in Germany and the United States and with heritage-German in the United States, and matching data from monolinguals in Germany, the United States, Greece, Russia, and Turkey. Our main results lie in three areas. (1) We found non-canonical patterns not only in bilingual, but also in monolingual speakers, including patterns that have so far been considered absent from native grammars, in domains of morphology, syntax, intonation, and pragmatics. (2) We found a degree of lexical and morphosyntactic inter-speaker variability in monolinguals that was sometimes higher than that of bilinguals, further challenging the model of the streamlined native speaker. (3) In majority language use, non-canonical patterns were dominant in spoken and/or informal registers, and this was true for monolinguals and bilinguals. In some cases, bilingual speakers were leading quantitatively. In heritage settings where the language was not part of formal schooling, we found tendencies of register leveling, presumably due to the fact that speakers had limited access to formal registers of the heritage language. Our findings thus indicate possible quantitative differences and different register distributions rather than distinct grammatical patterns in bilingual and monolingual speakers. This supports the integration of heritage speakers into the native-speaker continuum. Approaching heritage speakers from this perspective helps us to better understand the empirical data and can shed light on language variation and change in native grammars. Furthermore, our findings for monolinguals lead us to reconsider the state-of-the art on majority languages, given recurring evidence for non-canonical patterns that deviate from what has been assumed in the literature so far, and might have been attributed to bilingualism had we not included informal and spoken registers in monolinguals and bilinguals alike.

Historical Review of Ethnopharmacology in Karelia (1850s-2020s): Herbs and healers

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

The traditional medicine of various peoples populating Russia is strongly underrepresented in the international anthropological literature. In addition, it has a multicomponent structure, a long history of relations with official medicine, and is still a living system with many people using folk remedies and visiting ritual specialists.

AIM OF THE STUDY

The article is a review of folk medicine in Karelia (north-west part of Russia) providing a short description of the history of medicine in this region and a comparison of folk medicine among Karelians and Russians.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The review analyzes and systematizes published and unpublished sources related to the main remedies used by the local populations - plants, animal products, minerals, etc. - from the 1850s-2000s, tracking the main tendencies in publications about the folk medicine of Karelians and Russians of Karelia.

RESULTS

A total of 104 medicinal plants belonging to 46 families were mentioned as medicinal. In total, they represented 386 uses which demonstrate the leading role of plant remedies in the folk medicine of Karelia. The plant species with the most uses were Betula sp., Plantago sp., Rubus idaeus, Viburnum opulus, Vaccinium vitis-idaea, and Daphne mezereum. Medicinal uses of other origins had more modest numbers: animal remedies included 146 uses, and mineral ones 43 uses. Among animal-based remedies, physiological discharges of the human body were the most popular; fish oil and bear body parts were the most used from the wild, while from the household various components of cows, horses, and dogs were used. Animal remedies were mostly used for healing furuncles, scrofula, frostbite, hernia, and lanugo. The most diversely used mineral remedy was salt.

CONCLUSIONS

Karelians and Russians are very disproportionally represented in the literature due to the lack of interest in the folk medicine of Russians in Karelia, in contrast to that of Karelians. The disparity does not allow adequate comparison, but nonetheless the available data demonstrate that the remedies shared by both ethnic groups are quite few. The review also contributes to research on the relationship of folk medicine and various state institutions in Russia/the Soviet Union.

Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead!

The category “native speaker” is flawed because it fails to consider the diversity between the speaker groups falling under its scope, as highlighted in previous literature. This paper provides further evidence by focusing on the similarities and differences between heritage speakers (HSs) and monolingually-raised speakers (MSs) of their heritage and majority languages. HSs are bilinguals who acquire a family (heritage) language and a societal (majority) language in early childhood. Naturalistic exposure from early childhood qualifies them as native speakers of their heritage language. Some HSs are simultaneous bilinguals, which makes them native speakers of their majority language as well. Others are early second language acquirers who may be indistinguishable from simultaneous bilinguals. Previous research shows that the heritage language productions of German HSs in the United States do not completely overlap with those of German MSs, who are, by default, native speakers. In overall clause type selection (independent main, coordinate main, and subordinate), the HSs differ from German MSs in German but are similar to English MSs in English. The present study examines the distribution of finite subordinate clauses and their types (relative, complement, and adverbial) across registers in 27 adolescent HSs of German in the United States, compared to 32 adolescent MSs of German and 32 MSs of English. All participants described a short video in two settings (formal/informal) and two modes (spoken/written). Results demonstrate that, even with respect to a specific phenomenon (subordinate clauses), HSs show similarities and differences to MSs of both languages. Concerning the distribution of subordinate clause types, HSs behave similarly to both English and German MSs. Concerning subordinate clauses in general, HSs use them less frequently than MSs in German. In English, the difference is more nuanced: HSs differentiate between settings in both modes, while MSs do so only in the written mode. This indicates that the category “native speaker” is not a meaningful descriptor since it covers speakers with varying production patterns. We propose that studies including native speakers should assure transparency and replicability of research by specifying and taking into account speaker characteristics such as bilingualism, proficiency, exposure and dominance.