Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 985

Part of Session 162: Urban linguistic practice and performance in the Greek-speaking city (Other abstracts in this session)

Intergenerational attitudes towards texts written in the Greek Cypriot Dialect: Greek vs. Roman characters

Authors: Themistocleous, Christiana (1); Sophocleous, Andry (2)
Submitted by: Themistocleous, Christiana (University of Reading, United Kingdom)

Spoken language is widely investigated within the field of sociolinguistics. Written language, however, has attracted relatively less attention, despite the fact that it has obvious connections with ethnicity, ideology and identity (Sebba 2007). In this paper, we investigate language attitudes towards the written form of the Greek Cypriot Dialect (GCD).

GCD is a non-standard variety of Greek spoken on the island of Cyprus. It does not have a standard, official orthography and it is rarely used in writing, with the exception of folk literature, advertising, script plays and cartoons.

With technological advance and the emergence of the internet and mobile phones, written GCD is now widely used in text-based Computer-mediated Communication, especially among members of the younger generation in Cyprus (Themistocleous 2008). What is interesting, however, is the fact that instead of using the conventional Greek characters, many Greek-Cypriot CMC users employ Roman characters in their written interactions, even though Greek fonts are nowadays available in this domain. Furthermore, data obtained from a group of young girls at an urban school in Lefkosia (capital city), indicates that usage of Romanised GCD is no longer solely a characteristic of CMC language, but has been transferred from CMC to the girls’ everyday handwritten interactions (Themistocleous & Sophocleous 2011).

There are numerous studies on language attitudes in Cyprus; however, most of them focus on spoken aspects of GCD (Sophocleous 2009, Tsiplakou 2004). The aim of this study is to investigate intergenerational attitudes towards written GCD. Instead of using recorded spoken data, we are adapting the matched-guise technique to investigate language attitudes towards examples of written texts obtained both form CMC and offline sources. We illustrate examples of written texts to our participants, written in either Roman characters or in the Greek alphabet. An intergenerational comparison of attitudes emerges from two focus groups in Lefkosia: a) a middle-aged group (aged 50-65) and b) a young group (aged 19-26). Quantitative data was also collected using semantic differential scales, where issues such as reading difficulty, degree of seriousness, and novelty of writing are examined. The results indicate that language attitudes differ between the two age groups, with senior participants feeling considerably less positive towards Romanised GCD, especially outside the domain of CMC.

References:

Sebba, Mark (2007). Spelling and society: The culture and politics of orthography around the world. Cambridge: CUP.

Sophocleous, A. (2009). Language attitudes towards the Greek Cypriot Dialect: Social factors contributing to their development and maintenance. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Kingston upon Thames: Kingston University.

Themistocleous, C. (2008). The use of Cypriot Greek in synchronous CMC. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Manchester.

Themistocleous, C. & Sophocleous, A. (2011). Dialect writing in Cyprus: Usage, ideology and implications for language policy. Presented at the Symposium of Modern Greek Studies Association, NYU, October 2011.

Tsiplakou, Stavroula (2004). Στάσεις απέναντι στη γλώσσα και γλωσσική αλλαγή: Μια αμφίδρομη σχέση; Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Greek Linguistics, September 2003, Crete.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

Intergenerational attitudes towards texts written in the Greek Cypriot Dialect: Greek vs. Roman characters