Writing in a non-standard Greek variety: Romanized Cypriot Greek in online chat

Themistocleous, Christiana

doi:10.1093/wsr/wsq008

Cited by 17 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 24 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The use of CyGr in writing has traditionally only been acceptable in folk literature. That said, the use of CyGr in writing has increased in recent decades thanks to computer-mediated communication, which has allowed for the writing of the dialect using mainly Roman but also Greek characters in new communicative contexts that fall outside the remit of the traditional diglossic straitjacket (Themistocleous, 2009(Themistocleous, , 2010 Similarly, SModGr is also sometimes used in domains in which the use of the High variety would normally seem unexpected or unjustified, especially in informal instances of communication between CyGr speakers. It therefore seems that, especially when communicating orally, CyGr speakers use both CyGr and SModGr in a wide array of contexts.…”

Section: Cygr and Smodgr: The Linguistic Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes towards Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek in London’s Greek Cypriot community

Καρατσαρέας

2018

International Journal of Bilingualism

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

AimTo investigate whether the positive attitudes towards Standard Modern Greek and the mixture of positive and negative attitudes towards Cypriot Greek that have been documented in Cyprus are also present in London's Greek Cypriot community. ApproachUnlike previous quantitative works, the study reported in this article was qualitative and aimed at capturing the ways in which attitudes and attitude-driven practices are experienced by members of London's diasporic community. Data and AnalysisData were collected by means of semi-structured, sociolinguistic interviews with 28 members of the community. All participants were second-generation heritage speakers, successive bilinguals in Cypriot Greek and English, and successive bidialectal 2 speakers in Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek. The data were analysed qualitatively (thematic analysis).

show abstract

Section: Cygr and Smodgr: The Linguistic Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes towards Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek in London’s Greek Cypriot community

Καρατσαρέας

2018

International Journal of Bilingualism

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Various researchers on the island argue that today’s CG has expanded in domains which previously dismissed the dialect as inappropriate: its use has taken over both formal and informal domains replacing the use of SMG in a substantial number of cases (Themistocleous, 2009, 2010; Papapavlou, 2010, 2017). For example, contemporary CG (or at least its acrolectal levels) are now used in formal or semi-formal domains such as the court, public speeches, university lectures and the media.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although rare, when writing occurs in the dialect, it is usually restricted to everyday informal communication events and involves forms of writing that are closer to speech such as instant messaging and online text-based communication among teenagers and young adults (Themistocleous, 2009, 2010; Sophocleous and Themistocleous, 2010). Due to the wide use of the Roman alphabet in online interactions, a romanized version of written CG (rather than one based on the Greek alphabet) is also very often employed, adding further to the multiplicity of writing systems that exist for the dialect.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Skewed Sociolinguistic Awareness of a Native Non-standard Dialect: Evidence from the Cypriot Greek Writing of Greek Cypriot Students

Ayiomamitou

Yiakoumetti

2017

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the last 50 years, sociolinguistic research in settings in which a regional, social, or ethnic non-standard linguistic variety is used alongside the standard variety of the same language has steadily increased. The educational implications of the concomitant use of such varieties have also received a great deal of research attention. This study deals with regional linguistic variation and its implications for education by focusing on the Greek Cypriot educational context. This context is ideal for investigating the linguistic profiles of speakers of proximal varieties as the majority of Greek Cypriots are primarily educated in just one of their varieties: the standard educational variety. The aim of our study was to understand Greek Cypriot primary school pupils’ sociolinguistic awareness via examination of their written production in their home variety [Cypriot Greek (CG) dialect]. Our assumption was that, because written production is less spontaneous than speech, it better reflects pupils’ conscious awareness. Pupils were advised to produce texts that reflected their everyday language with family and friends (beyond school boundaries). As expected, students’ texts included an abundance of mesolectal features and the following were the ten most frequent: (1) palato-alveolar consonants, (2) future particle [ená] and conditional [ítan na] + subjunctive, (3) consonant devoicing, (4) CG-specific verb stems, (5) final [n] retention, (6) [én/ éni] instead of [íne], (7) CG-specific verb endings, (8) [én/é] instead of [ðen], (9) elision of intervocalic fricative [ɣ], and (10) CG-specific adverbs. Importantly, in addition to the expected mesolectal features that reflect contemporary CG, students included a significant and unexpected number of basilectal features and instances of hyperdialectism (that are not representative of today’s linguistic reality) which rendered their texts register-inappropriate. This led us to conclude that Greek Cypriot students have a skewed sociolinguistic awareness of variation within their first dialect and a distorted impression of their own everyday language. We argue that the portrayal of CG in its basilectal form was performed intentionally by students in an effort to distance themselves from a socially constructed identity of a rural, uneducated, and stigmatized non-standard-dialect speaker. The study is of international relevance as it deals with sociolinguistic issues that pertain to all bidialectal speakers.

show abstract

“…iii According to a survey conducted by the International Peace Research Institute, 699,673 people crossed the border in 2008 only (United Nations Development Programme, 2017). iv Despite the lack of standard official orthography, writing in the Cypriot-Greek dialect is evident in local literature and poetry, traditional songs, advertisements (Pavlou 2004), political cartoons (Themistocleous 2010a) and social media (Themistocleous 2010b;. The presence and use of the Cypriot-Greek dialect is not usually expected in public space as this is mainly an oral variety (Karoulla-Vrikkis 2013).…”

Section: Official Signsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Firstly, the creator of the second sign initiates a dialogue between himself/herself and the producer of the first sign, supporting the desire for unification. Secondly, the phrase 'οι πελλάρες...' is in the Cypriot-Greek dialect, the variety that does not have a standard orthography and is rarely used for written purposes (see alsoThemistocleous 2010aThemistocleous , 2010b). This code choice here indicates that the creator of the second sign is Greek-Cypriot but also by using the dialect instead of Standard Modern Greek it indexes a strong local Greek-Cypriot identity, challenging also notions of normativity in written linguistic behavior (see alsoTsiplakou 2017).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Conflict and unification in the multilingual landscape of a divided city: the case of Nicosia’s border

Themistocleous

2018

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Republic of Cyprus is a country characterised by long-term conflict which resulted in the geopolitical division of the island. Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots have lived in separation for more than 30 years until the border reopened in 2003, allowing people to cross and visit 'the other side'. One of the crossing points is located in the heart of the commercial area in Nicosia, the capital. This study explores the visibility of the two official languages, namely Greek and Turkish, and also English in the multilingual public space near the border. Unlike previous quantitative Linguistic Landscape investigations, this study is using a qualitative Semiotic Landscape approach (Scollon & Scollon, 2003; Jaworski and Thurlow, 2010) to understand how the public space that divides the two communities interacts with written discourse, visual modalities, spatial arrangements and dimensions of history and culture to create meaning and project ideologies, identities and power relations. The findings show that traditional discourses of separation and conflict are dominant in the public space but at the same time new discourses of unification, peace and integration slowly begin to surface.

show abstract

Writing in a non-standard Greek variety: Romanized Cypriot Greek in online chat

Cited by 17 publications

References 24 publications

Attitudes towards Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek in London’s Greek Cypriot community

Attitudes towards Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek in London’s Greek Cypriot community

Skewed Sociolinguistic Awareness of a Native Non-standard Dialect: Evidence from the Cypriot Greek Writing of Greek Cypriot Students

Conflict and unification in the multilingual landscape of a divided city: the case of Nicosia’s border

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About