Southern California has one of the most diverse linguistic populations in the world. The widespread
Spanish speaking communities from Central and South America, the Vietnamese community in
Orange County, the Armenian community in Glendale, the largest Korean diaspora in Koreatown
Los Angeles, people speaking various Chinese languages in the San Bernardino valley, several
South Asian language communities in Artesia, Russian, Polish, Thai communities in West LA, and
many more. Your task is to select one linguistic community of Southern California, other than your
native language, and write a report about it.
The report should be 4-5 pages, size 12 Times New Roman fonts, 1.5 spaced with 1-inch
margin on all sides. The project is due on Dec 10th 2015 by the end of the day (11:59 pm).
Please email a pdf copy of the project to both Vatche and me at: arunimac@uci.edu &
vbaboyan@uci.edu
You may choose to work in groups of no more than five people, but you must write up and submit
the project report independently. If you choose to work in a group, please mention the names of
your group members on your report.
You will need to do your own research, as well as talk to native speakers of your selected language.
You are required to include viewpoints of the native speakers of the language along with the
findings of your research.
If you select the Chinese speaking community, then you must focus on a particular variety of
Chinese (e.g. Mandarin, Cantonese, or others). However, for the purpose of survey and statistics, if
you are unable to find information specific to a variety, then only for the purpose of section I, you
may include data for Chinese as a group of languages.
For every resource you use you will need to provide citations. For information you gather from
native speakers of the linguistic community, you will cite it as ‘Personal communication’ in
parenthesis. If you are not clear about how to cite, please contact Vatche or me well before the
submission deadline.
You must comply with UC Irvine’s academic integrity policies. Read HERE!
The report will be divided in 4 sections:
Section I: Survey and Statistics (25 points)
In this section you will report surveys and statistics that provide quantitative information about the
linguistic community of your choice. First you will provide information about the area(s) where the
community is concentrated in Southern California. Next, you will report the number of speakers
there are for the linguistic community in US as well as in Southern California. You should look for
recent US and California census reports. If you find graphs and figures, include them in your report.
Section II: History of immigration (10 points)
In brief this section you will report the history of the linguistic community. Specifically, you will
try to report (but not limited to): When did the community begin to immigrate to the USA? Was
there any mass immigration that took place? Were there any specific factors due to which the
community immigrated to the USA? Feel free to include any interesting information about the
linguistic community that you may uncover in your research.
Section III: Linguistic features (25 points)
In this section you will report some of the linguistic information and features about the language:
– The primary language family and the sub-family the selected language belongs to
– Some cognates of the selected language
– The word order of the language along with some sample sentences.
– Number of consonant and vowels of the language, and the basic syllable structure.
– Some unique properties and concepts in the language that you think are not found in other
languages or are not directly translatable. (See unit on linguistic relativity- color terms,
number system, concepts, etc.)
Section IV: Language use and Language Maintenance (40 points)
In this section you will report the extent of the use of the selected language in within the linguistic
community and in Southern California. Some of the points you will cover include (but not limited
to) are:
– To what extent the speakers of the language continue using it within the community.
– To what extent the young generation speakers of the language are using the language and
trying to maintain it.
– Is the language being used in the modern day pop culture of Southern California by the
younger generations? If yes, provide some examples.
– Is the language taught at the public schools in Southern California? Are there after school
language programs for the young people to learn the language, and is the community
interested in sending their children to learn and maintain the heritage language?
– Are there restaurants in the community and/or outside the community with menus in the
heritage language? Are there newspapers, magazines, radio/ tv channels, or other resources
available in the selected language? Please include pictures if you can.
– Are there public/government documents available or translated in the selected language?
Just for example, check DMV instructions; can a native speaker of the selected language
take a driving test in the heritage language?
– To what extent the speakers of the language code-switch. If yes, provide some codeswitching
examples in that language. Are there positive or negative attitudes towards code
switching in the community? Further, explore the reasons behind the positive or negative
attitudes towards code-switching.
– What attitudes do the younger as well as the older generations have towards their language
and linguistic community? Is the attitude positive or negative? If negative, try to explore the
factors behind the negative attitude.
– Do the speakers of the community think that the use of the language is declining? If yes,
what are the primary reasons for the decline in the language use? If no, what factors are
playing a key role in the maintenance of the language?
– Along with discussing these issues with a native speaker, you may look for sociolinguistic
studies that try to explore issues related to language maintenance among immigrant
communities in the US for more ideas.

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