Greek Heritage Language Corpus (GHLC)
The Greek Heritage Language Corpus (GHLC) was developed as part of the research program "Varieties of Greek as a Heritage Language: Creation of a Corpus and Comparative Study" (Project Code: OPS (MIS) 5006199), under the scientific supervision of Zoi Gavriilidou, Professor at the Department of Greek Philology, Democritus University of Thrace. Due to the lack of similar linguistic resources, the GHLC was created to collect, for the first time, linguistic data that contribute to the study of Greek as a heritage language, as spoken in three geographically distant Greek communities: The Greek community of Chicago, USA The Greek community of St. Petersburg, Russia The Greek community of Moscow, Russia The GHLC data contribute to theoretical discussions on heritage languages and have practical applications for the future development of appropriate curricula, syllabi, and effective teaching methods for Greek as a heritage language. This effort aims to preserve and enhance Greek language knowledge and usage, which is gradually diminishing under the influence of majority languages. GHLC Contents:
The GHLC consists of:
- Audio recordings of narratives and discussions with speakers of Greek as a heritage language residing in Chicago, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. Specifically, the corpus includes approximately 90 hours of transcribed audio material (30 hours from each location).
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Transcriptions of the audio files, enriched with basic metadata, marking overlaps, pauses, intonation, pitch variations, and other speech characteristics (see the transcription symbol chart). The total transcribed material exceeds 130,000 words (85,000 words from Chicago, 25,000 from St. Petersburg, and 20,000 from Moscow). Metadata from background questionnaires, available in SPSS format.
Access to the transcriptions with basic metadata is available upon request.
For more information on accessing GHLC materials, see: Πρόσβαση στο GHLC
References
Gavriilidou, Z & L. Mitits (2019), Profiling Greek Heritage Language Speakers in U.S.A. and Russia, European Journal of Language Studies, 6(1), 28-42. 15. Gavriilidou, Z. & Mitits, L. (2021), The Socio-linguistic Profiles, Identities, and Educational Needs of Greek Heritage Language Speakers in Chicago, Journal of Language and Education 7(1), 80-97.
Gavriilidou, Z.. Mitits, L., Mavrommatidou, S. Chatjipapa, E., Dourou, Ch. (2019). The compilation of Greek heritage language corpus (GHLC): a language resource for spoken Greek by Greek communities in the U.S. and Russia. European Journal of Language Studies, 6 (1), 61-74.
http://www.idpublications.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Full-Paper-PROFILING-GREEK-HERITAGE-LANGUAGE-SPEAKERS-IN-THE-USA-AND-RUSSIA.pdf