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SUMMARY:The (socio)linguistics of Cypriot Greek as a heritage language in 
 present-day London - Dr Petros Karatsareas\, University of Westminster
DTSTART:20170302T163000Z
DTEND:20170302T183000Z
UID:TALK70452@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Giulia Bovolenta
DESCRIPTION:Since the early 20th century\, the United Kingdom has been hom
 e to a sizeable Greek Cypriot community\, whose population is presently es
 timated to fall between 200\,000 and 300\,000 individuals (Christodoulou-P
 ipis\, 1991\; National Federation of Cypriots in the UK). The members of t
 he Greek Cypriot parikia (‘expatriate community’) share a rich linguis
 tic repertoire. Alongside English\, this repertoire features an array of f
 orms of Cypriot Greek ranging from basilectal to acrolectal varieties alon
 g the continuum defined by Katsoyannou et al. (2006) and Tsiplakou et al. 
 (2006) as well as Standard Modern Greek\, which is used in official domain
 s of parikia life such as at supplementary schools\, the Church\, and the 
 Greek-speaking media. As is often the case with diasporas\, however\, the 
 parikia does not form a homogeneous speech community in that not all its m
 embers have an equally good command of all three languages. Rather\, diffe
 rent types of both monolingual and bilingual speakers are found.\nIn this 
 talk\, I focus on one particular type of Cypriot Greek bilingual that has 
 recently begun to draw significant attention in the literature: heritage s
 peakers (see Benmanoun et al. 2013\; Montrul 2008\; Polinsky & Kagan 2007)
 . Heritage speakers are British-born second-generation immigrants\, i.e.\,
  the children of first-generation immigrants who were born in Cyprus. They
  grew up acquiring Cypriot Greek at home until they started school at whic
 h time they started acquiring English. Gradually\, they became more fluent
  in the socially dominant language\, limiting the use of their heritage la
 nguage to the interaction with family and friends from the same ethnolingu
 istic background.\nIn the first part of the talk\, I aim to contribute to 
 the documentation of British Cypriot Greek by providing a description of t
 he heritage variety of the language that is spoken by second-generation Cy
 priots in London. I focus on (a) the preservation of basilectal forms and 
 variants\, both lexical and phonological\, that are falling out of use in 
 present-day Cyprus but which are still in use in the British capital such 
 as mavlúka ‘pillow’ instead of maksilári or lá[x]os ‘mistake’ i
 nstead of lá[θ]os\, and (b) the effects of language contact with English
  on the lexical and the grammatical level as evidenced\, among others\, by
  the phonological and morphological adaptation of English loanwords into C
 ypriot Greek\, and by gender and number agreement mismatches as in (1).\n(
 1)\néʃi\nmericés\nléksis\n…\npu\nén\níne\nsostá\n\nhas\nsome.f.pl
 .acc\nword(f).pl.acc\n\nthat\nnot\nare\ncorrect.n.pl.nom\n\n‘There are s
 ome words that are not correct.’\nIn the second part of the talk\, I dis
 cuss the current sociolinguistic situation of the British Greek Cypriot co
 mmunity focusing on attitudes towards Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Gr
 eek. Previous work has shown that\, in Cyprus\, Standard Modern Greek carr
 ies high prestige. Speakers of Cypriot Greek describe speakers of the stan
 dard as more attractive\, more ambitious\, more intelligent\, more interes
 ting\, more modern\, more dependable\, more pleasant and more educated tha
 n speakers of the dialect (Papapavlou\, 1998\; see also Sciriha\, 1995\; P
 apadakis\, 2003). I show that the prestige relation between the two variet
 ies that holds in Cyprus has been transplanted to the parikia. The standar
 d language is widely perceived as prestigious and is described in positive
  terms such as ‘correct’ or ‘proper’. This attitude is strongly re
 inforced by the system of complementary education\, which is offered exclu
 sively in the standard by such bodies as the Cypriot Educational Mission (
 Κ.Ε.Α.) and the Greek Orthodox Church. Cypriot Greek\, on the other han
 d\, is perceived as an integral part of the British Cypriot identity but a
 lso as ‘heavy’ and ‘peasanty’ due to the history of Cypriot migrat
 ion to the UK. The use of lexical and grammatical variants that are tradit
 ionally associated with basilectal varieties of Cypriot Greek as well as h
 eritage language features\, especially the adoption of morphologically ada
 pted loanwords from English\, is actively discouraged by the first generat
 ion not only in the public domain but also in private domains such as the 
 home.\nI conclude with a discussion of the prospects of language maintenan
 ce for the dialect arguing that different manifestations of negative attit
 udes towards the dialect\, which are inherent within the parikia\, pose th
 e most serious threat for the intergenerational transmission of Cypriot Gr
 eek in London.\n
LOCATION:GR06/7 English Faculty\, Sidgwick Site
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