Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

By Kara Burritt

Professor David Andrews, professor of Slavic Languages at Georgetown University, can predict how a person might define a bird, or the color aqua, or the term "to take," based on what language he or she speaks.

"If I asked you what a good example of a bird is, you are probably not going to tell me penguin," he said. "You’re going to think of a sparrow or a robin. We know intellectually that a penguin is a bird, but it is on the periphery of the category versus in the center. It is not the prototype."

A prototype is the member of a category generally accepted as best illustrating that category. Yet the best illustration of an animal species, for example, is subject to vary by culture. Robins are native to North America, so the bird prototype of South Americans might be the parrot instead.

As a linguist, Andrews acknowledges that emigrants acquiring a new dominant language do not simply translate their native prototype terms, but rather they adopt the prototypes of their new culture. Yet Andrews claims that this tendency is not just a case of adopting the popular vocabulary of the new language. He argues that the use of such primary terms in speech reflects a shift in the speaker’s concept of the category.

For example, if a speaker is asked for an example of a bird and says robin, that speaker also likely understands a bird to be a robin-like creature—not an owl or ostrich.  

Andrews' current research deals with such prototype shifts as a facet of emigrant, or émigré, language acquisition, specifically in the speech of Russian émigrés. His contention that a cognitive shift accompanies the change of the prototype is a new idea in the field of linguistics. Previous research on prototype theory has focused on language acquisition’s effect on word choice, rather than the cognitive processing that causes it.

For instance, English-dominant Russian emigrants generally adjust their use of two primary terms for blue shades—goluboj for light, sinij for dark—to a single basic term for all blue shades. This is due in part to their perception of light blue and dark blue as distinct colors shifting to a single color, as in English's treatment of blue as a single category. Rather than just borrowing English terms, bilinguals' language reflects their altered processing of the color spectrum.

Andrews is writing a book that will demonstrate the cognitive changes in Russian emigrants’ perception of prototypes; it is tentatively titled, "Prototype Categories in Émigré Russian: Cognitive Shift and the Role of Culture."

“I’m trying to articulate a theory of language change that gives equal weight to both external cultural motivations and internal cognitive motivations,” Andrews said. “The two go hand-in-hand.”

Andrews established his interest in Russian linguistics, particularly that of émigré Russians, when he experienced life as a foreigner in Moscow during an undergraduate study abroad experience. Several Russian acquaintances he made during that experience later immigrated to the United States, where he was able to observe their acculturation process firsthand. Andrews continued his education to earn two master’s degrees, in Russian and in Slavic Linguistics, as well as a doctoral degree in Slavic Linguistics. He also completed a second year of coursework in Moscow to complement his prior studies there.

Taking advantage of his own previous experience with Russian emigrants, as well as that of other researchers, Andrews' upcoming book will examine previously completed fieldwork for cognitive shifts. He noted, "I am looking at examples that I’ve already previously analyzed or other people have analyzed, but through this different prism."

Change in perception is reflected in the basic terms used for categories such as colors and animals, yet more complex evidence is necessary to prove the cognitive shift that accompanies changes in verbal aspect or grammatical endings in émigré language. To address this need in his book, Andrews is analyzing case studies of Russian émigré communities in French- and German-speaking countries, in addition to the United States. By evidencing common phenomena among Russian émigrés in multiple countries with different native languages, Andrews intends to prove that the complete acquisition of any language breaks down the native system of perception.
 
"The native tendencies are still there, but somehow they change," explained Andrews. "It's not just that there is interference from [the new language] but that actually—mentally—their prototypes of certain categories have changed."

One aspect of this linguistic phenomenon that informs Andrews' teaching is that the influence of English language patterns on Russian speech produces an effect that draws criticism from other Russian speakers.

"Types of English interference might cause a negative social reaction from Russians in the motherland," he said.

 Social effects of language is a theme throughout the courses that Andrews teaches at Georgetown, yet it serves as a common starting point for the freshmen in his Ignatius seminar, "Language Around Us, Language Inside Us," which he has taught for the past three fall semesters. Early in the semester, Andrews puts the students through a linguistic experiment that gauges their reaction to non-standard speech forms, such as the Southern American or Brooklyn accents.

Andrews reflected, "The first topic we discuss is linguistic prejudices and nonstandard forms, so that topic is out there in play already. Even when people are steeling themselves against falling victim to these linguistic prejudices, no matter how many times this experiment is done, it is the same basic pattern."

Students are inevitably surprised by their own prejudices against non-standard speech forms, especially because many of the students who enroll in this class each fall are bilingual or at least familiar with multiple languages. Andrews enjoys the students' enthusiasm for learning more about surprising, and even difficult, concepts. "Things they don’t understand they want to talk about," he said. "They want to master it."

Andrews' passion for teaching and his field make it natural for him to infuse his classes with the exciting findings of his research—and vice versa. Andrews' upcoming book will develop the relatively new idea that categories are not discrete. Claiming that prototypes are, in fact, fluid according to a person's dominant language is a theory that affirms language’s influence on culture, something Andrews consistently relays to the students in his Ignatius Seminar.

"I think they walk away with the resounding importance of language in any type of human endeavor," said Andrews. "We know this intellectually. But unless you’ve really read a lot and thought a lot on it, we kind of take for granted the impact language has on every sort of human interaction, human cultural endeavor, anything."

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