Butqui c'est la différence? Discourse markers in Louisiana French: The case ofbutvs.mais

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie Dajko ◽  
Katie Carmichael
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Text Organization ◽  
Louisiana French ◽  
The Status ◽  
Functional Distribution

AbstractThis article examines the use of English discourse markers in Louisiana French, focusing in particular on Englishbutand its French counterpartmais. Based on data collected in Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes, we examine the speech of bilinguals to determine the status of these markers, which provide a window onto the role of discourse markers in situations of language contact. Though the markers show an overlapping semantic and functional distribution,butmore often appears in the context of at least one pause. We also provide acoustic evidence and an analysis of the markers in different functions to conclude that the need for iconic contrast via language mixing (Maschler 1994, 1997; de Rooij 2000) is only one possible motivation for the use of foreign markers. We conclude that discourse markers may carry social meaning and be the site of identity construction as much as they are the site of text organization. (Discourse markers, bilingual discourse, codeswitching, language shift)*

Language Use and Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Policy-Makers and Educators in Northeast Vietnamese Areas

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130
Author(s):  
Ha Ngan Ngo ◽  
Maya Khemlani David
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The Status ◽  
Wedding Songs

Vietnam represents a country with 54 ethnic groups; however, the majority (88%) of the population are of Vietnamese heritage. Some of the other ethnic groups such as Tay, Thai, Muong, Hoa, Khmer, and Nung have a population of around 1 million each, while the Brau, Roman, and Odu consist only of a hundred people each. Living in northern Vietnam, close to the Chinese border (see Figure 1), the Tay people speak a language of the    Central    Tai language group called Though, T'o, Tai Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, or Pa Di. Tay remains one of 10 ethnic languages used by 1 million speakers (Buoi, 2003). The Tày ethnic group has a rich culture of wedding songs, poems, dance, and music and celebrate various festivals. Wet rice cultivation, canal digging and grain threshing on wooden racks are part of the Tày traditions. Their villages situated near the foothills often bear the names of nearby mountains, rivers, or fields. This study discusses the status and role of the Tày language in Northeast Vietnam. It discusses factors, which have affected the habitual use of the Tay language, the connection between language shift and development and provides a model for the sustainability and promotion of minority languages. It remains fundamentally imperative to strengthen and to foster positive attitudes of the community towards the Tày language. Tày’s young people must be enlightened to the reality their Tày non-usage could render their mother tongue defunct, which means their history stands to be lost.

scholarly journals A Bridge to Portugal: Language and Identity in Bridgeport, CT

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-140
Author(s):  
Fabio Scetti
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
American English ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Language And Identity ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Status

Here I present the results of BridgePORT, an ethnographic study I carried out in 2018 within the Portuguese community of Bridgeport, CT (USA). I describe language use and representation among Portuguese speakers within the community, and I investigate the integration of these speakers into the dominant American English speech community. Through my fieldwork, I observe mixing practices in day-to-day interaction, while I also consider the evolution of the Portuguese language in light of language contact and speakers’ discourse as this relates to ideologies about the status of Portuguese within the community. My findings rely on questionnaires, participant observation of verbal interaction, and semi-structured interviews. My aim is to show how verbal practice shapes the process of identity construction and how ideas of linguistic “purity” mediate the maintenance of a link to Portugal and Portuguese identity.

Atlantic

2020 ◽  
pp. 160-173
Author(s):  
Friederike Lüpke
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Genetic Group ◽  
Language Family ◽  
The Status ◽  
Noun Class ◽  
Lexical Data

Atlantic is one of the controversial branches of the Niger-Congo language family. Both its validity as a genetic group and its internal classification are far from being settled. The longstanding debate on the status and structure of Atlantic cannot be closed before the descriptive situation of these languages allows for sufficient and reliable lexical data; before attempts at applying the comparative method have been made; and before the extensive role of language contact for shaping the languages in question is taken into account. Although no typological feature or feature combinations characterizes the group as a whole, several features are considered typical for Atlantic languages, including noun class systems, consonant mutation, and complex systems of verbal derivation, which have been used to justify suggested genealogical groupings. Atlantic languages, with the exception of Fula, are attested in an area from Liberia to Senegal, stretching from the Atlantic coast to the hinterland.

Language shift and apparent standardisation in Early Modern English

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remco Knooihuizen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
English Education ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Dialect Contact ◽  
Isle Of Man ◽  
Modern Period

AbstractIt has been observed that language-shift varieties of English tend to be relatively close to Standard English (Trudgill and Chambers 1991: 2–3). An often-used explanation for this is that Standard English was acquired in schools by the shifting population (Filppula 2006: 516). In this paper, I discuss three cases of language shift in the Early Modern period: in Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Shetland. I offer evidence that the role of Standard English education was, in fact, fairly limited, and suggest that the standard-likeness of Cornish English, Manx English and Shetland Scots is most likely due to the particular sociolinguistic circumstances of language shift, where not only language contact, but also dialect contact contributed to a loss of non-standard-like features and the acquisition of a standard-like target variety. This atelic and non-hierarchical process is termed apparent standardisation.

scholarly journals Yos Sebagai Pengintegrasian Masyarakat Desa Pedawa

HUMANIS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 297
Author(s):  
Ni Putu Arik Febriani ◽  
I Wayan Suwena ◽  
Aliffiati .
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Village Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Village Communities

Pedawa Village community, Banjar sub-district, Buleleng Regency has two kawitan namely kulit and kawitan lokal. Kawitan kulit that found in Pedawa Village is the general kawitan in Bali, meanwhile kawitan local of the Pedawa Village community refers to Yos which must be owned by all Pedawa Village communities. The Yos has a highly glorified God and the god closest to the community because the God is believed to be a protective deity, with the existence of the Yos the formation of social class in society. This reserach aimed to know the status and role of community members based on Yos, and to reveal the implications of Yos for the social structure of the Pedawa Village community. The results of the study revealed that there were 14 types of Yos. From several types of Yos, there are several members of community who have the status and role in a ceremony namely as Balian Desa, Premas, Headman, Janbangul, Pedewasan, and Sekaa Gong. Yos also has important implications and meanings toward the Pedawa Village community. The implications of Yos on aspects of the pedawa Village community belief system, besides the implications there are also meanings of Yos covering religious meaning, social meaning and cultural meaning.

The Status of Endangered Contact Languages of the World

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 301-318
Author(s):  
Nala H. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Mixed Languages

This article provides an up-to-date perspective on the endangerment that contact languages around the world are facing, with a focus on pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages. While language contact is often associated with language shift and hence language endangerment, languages arising from contact also can and do face the risk of endangerment. Recent observations and studies show that contact languages may be at twice the risk of endangerment and loss compared with noncontact languages. The loss of these languages is highly consequential. The arguments that usually apply to why noncontact languages should be conserved also apply to many of these contact languages. This article highlights recent work on the documentation and preservation of contact languages and suggests that much more can be done to protect and conserve this unique category of languages.

scholarly journals The role of suppressive language policies in language shift and language loss

1989 ◽  
pp. 123-135
Author(s):  
Eduardo Hernández Chávez
Keyword(s):  
Language Shift ◽  
The United States ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
The Status ◽  
Linguistic Human Rights ◽  
Political Conditions

The Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson analysis of linguistic human rights is used as a basis for understanding language replacement phenomena in the United States. Use of Spanish in Chicano communities is shifting rapidly to English despite the huge numbers of recent immigrants who are dominant in Spanish. Accompanying this shift is a precipitous loss of proficiency by Spanish speakers. Such replacement of a language does not depend on personal choices made by speakers, but on the socio-political conditions within the country. Political goals of profits, exploitation, and hegemony drive classist, racist and ethnicist policies whose purpose is to neutralize resistance to the status quo. These are couched in liberal-sounding myths that justify linguicism, which strives to suppress minority cultures and to acculturate their members in order to pacify perceived ethnic group conflict. The Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson Linguicism Continuumn is used to demonstrate the degree of linguistic repression in selected U.S. institutions.

scholarly journals Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language use

Pragmatics ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 439-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jef Verschueren
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
The Status ◽  
Specific Manifestation

Against the background of a general theory of pragmatics, reflections are formulated on the central role of metapragmatic awareness as a specific manifestation of salience, the status of processes of meaning generation in language use in relation to the cognitive apparatus. First the notions of metalanguage and metapragmatics, as used in linguistics, are discussed. Then metalinguistic and metapragmatic phenomena are presented as reflections of metapragmatic awareness. Two ways in which indicators of metapragmatic awareness function in language use are distinguished: Their functioning as anchoring devices locating linguistic form in relation to context, and their functioning as signals of the language users’ reflexive interpretations of the activities they are engaged in. Finally, some social implications of metapragmatic functioning are discussed, in particular in relation to language ideologies and identity construction.

Home-comers as a source of language contact: Return Azorean emigrants’ English code-switching practices

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-154
Author(s):  
Emily Linares
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Performance Data ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
The Status ◽  
Level I ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
The Individual

Abstract The aim of this paper is two-fold: first, it seeks to highlight the potential of return emigrants — or home-comers — to introduce lexical change in their first language (L1). Second, it represents a contribution to Lusophone linguistics and Romance linguistics more broadly in examining speech performance data from home-comers of an under-researched Portuguese variety, a dialect of Azorean Portuguese. Drawing on Backus’s notion of entrenchment, I first present home-comers as a possible source of language change due to their contact with and potential use of L2 lexical items encountered abroad, and I highlight the Azores as an important yet overlooked site for language contact and change. In analyzing spontaneous oral narratives of emigration collected in the Azores, I demonstrate how home-comers’ ideological attitudes and linguistic resources serve as the ground on which linguistic changes occur. After examining the import of performance data on the individual level, I consider the status of a particular lexical category of code-switches — English discourse markers (i.e. ‘so’ and ‘you know’) — in Romance and their potential to become lexicalized and regarded as Portuguese in this particular contact situation.

scholarly journals Stance-taking via ya′ani / ya′anu: A discourse marker in a Hebrew-Arabic language contact situation

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Michal Marmorstein ◽  
Yael Maschler
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Functional Association ◽  
Colloquial Arabic ◽  
Contact Situation

ABSTRACTWe explore two stance-taking patterns in casual Hebrew conversation involving ya′ani/ya′anu, a discourse marker originating in colloquial Arabic. In the first, ya′ani/ya′anu, the same as Arabic yaʕni (lit. ‘it means’), frames reformulations of prior discourse serving to enhance interpersonal involvement and mutuality regarding the interlocutor's stance toward what has been said, thereby constructing intersubjectivity. The second pattern consists of a prosodic variant, ya′ani/ya′anu, functioning as a double-voiced ironic hedge. The latter is an innovation of Hebrew, brought about by its functional association with Hebrew ke′ilu ‘like’. The two uses of ya′ani/ya′anu elucidate two different processes that discourse markers in language contact situations may undergo: persistence of lexically motivated metalingual meaning, and extension of lexically unmotivated meaning. The considerably low frequency of ya′ani/ya′anu vis-à-vis ke′ilu is explained by its devaluated social meaning in current Israeli discourse, as an index of nonhegemonic religious and ethnic groups such as Arabs and Mizrahi Jews. (Discourse markers, language contact, stance-taking, (re)formulations, irony, metalanguaging, indexicality, intersubjectivity)*

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