Language Contact

1995 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 81-90
Author(s):  
Peter Hans Nelde
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
The World ◽  
Linguistic Inquiry

Regardless of one's gastronomic persuasion, the point of the questions above have nothing to do with food; rather, they have to do with language. Even if a person speaks no German, French or Italian, words like wienerschnitzel, vinaigrette, and cappucino are very likely part of his or her vocabulary, the result of contact between speakers of English and those of other languages, leading to the introduction of foreign words into English. Although this little culinary example is not by itself significant, it does represent a phenomenon that is extremely widespread throughout the world, since contact between speakers of different languages is the rule rather than the exception. Thus, language contact and its consequences constitute a very rich area of linguistic inquiry.

English as lingua franca: Double talk in global persuasion. Karin Dovring. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997. Pp. 153.

2000 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-566
Author(s):  
Marcyliena Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Language ◽  
World Language ◽  
Technology Industry ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Ideological Influence ◽  
Contact Language ◽  
Mary Louise Pratt

As we journey into the new millennium, few among us would bother to argue against the importance of English as a world language, especially considering its role in technology, industry, and politics. Many people of the world are introduced to English as a modern version of a contact language, since the need to know it occurs simultaneously with the need for specific knowledge (to negotiate borders and so on). Of course, there is much to the story of language contact. As Mary Louise Pratt (1992) observed, contact situations are often catastrophic events involving power relations that include conquerors and the conquered, intermediaries, onlookers, and more. The position of English as a national language in many countries and its worldwide influence have occurred within the context of civil wars, political negotiation, constant transmigration, globalization, and the formulation and reconstruction of nationalist ideologies and identities. Though the nature of today's contact may seem benign, its result may still be catastrophic and have far-reaching consequences, as the ideology and practices that accompany English may not complement all societies and situations. Today, the United States often represents the global influence of English, and as America becomes the symbol of border and civil war negotiation and policing, technology, art, conflict and power, so too does English. Predictably, the people and polities throughout the world wrestle with America's ideological influence by participating in the invigoration and transformation of English to suit their needs.

Uh, bueno, em … : Filled pauses as a site of contact-induced change in Boston Spanish

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Erker ◽  
Joanna Bruso
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Filled Pauses ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Linguistic Inquiry ◽  
A Site ◽  
Do So

AbstractThere is mounting evidence that the filled pauses that pervade spontaneous speech constitute a rich site of linguistic inquiry. The present study uses a comparative variationist method to explore possible effects of language contact on pause behavior, examining 3810 filled pauses produced by 24 Spanish-speaking residents of Boston, Massachusetts. Interspeaker differences in pause behavior correlate with intensity of contact. Participants who have lived in the United States for a larger fraction of their lives, who use English more frequently, and who do so more proficiently fill pauses differently when speaking Spanish than do those who have spent less time in the contact setting and whose English skills and usage are more restricted. Results show that a greater degree of contact corresponds to increased use of centralized vowels in phonologically filled pauses (i.e., more frequent use of [a(m)] and [ə(m)] at the expense of [e(m)]). This pattern is interpreted as evidence of contact-induced change.

Language Contact Considering Signed Language

2020 ◽  
pp. 678-693
Author(s):  
David Quinto-Pozos ◽  
Robert Adam
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
American English ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
The World

Language contact of various kinds is the norm in Deaf communities throughout the world, and this allows for exploration of the role of the different kinds of modality (be it spoken, signed or written, or a combination of these) and the channel of communication in language contact. Drawing its evidence largely from instances of American Sign Language (ASL) this chapter addresses and illustrates several of these themes: sign-speech contact, sign-writing contact, and sign-sign contact, examining instances of borrowing and bilingualism between some of these modalities, and compares these to contact between hearing users of spoken languages, specifically in this case American English.

Multilingualism and Language Contact: An Introduction

1997 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 3-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Richard Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Geographical Spread ◽  
The World ◽  
General Topic

Various facets of the general topic of multilingualism have been dealt with in previous ARAL volumes and as a major substantive focus in Volumes 6 and 14. Nonetheless, it does not seem at all surprising that we return to the topic in Volume 17 given the worldwide incidence of the phenomenon and the attention, and often controversy, which it arouses. Despite pressures and influences toward commonality from a seemingly pervasive mass media, the residents of the world continue to speak an amazing array of mutually unintelligible languages (see, for example, Bright 1992, Cheshire 1991, Comrie 1987, Edwards 1995). These languages vary in typological characteristics, geographical spread, and number of speakers. If written, they also vary in terms of the type of system that is used to record them (e.g., alphabetic, logographic, syllabic-alphabetic).

4. INTERPRETERS, INTERPRETING, AND THE STUDY OF BILINGUALISM

2003 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 58-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guadalupe Valdés ◽  
Claudia Angelelli
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Minority ◽  
Language Transfer ◽  
Minority Populations ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The World ◽  
High Level ◽  
Professional Audience

In this chapter we present a brief overview of the literature on interpreting focused specifically on issues and questions raised by this literature about the nature of bilingualism in general. It is our position that research carried out on interpreting—while primarily produced with a professional audience in mind and concerned with improving the practice of interpreting—provides valuable insights about complex aspects of language contact that have not been thoroughly addressed by the existing literature on bilingualism. Examination of the literature emphasizing a category of bilinguals, who have been referred to as “true” bilinguals (Thiery, 1978a, b), provides perspectives on both individual and societal bilingualism that can complement, and possibly refocus, some current views of the linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic characteristics of language contact. For applied linguists who study language minority populations around the world, the literature on interpreting suggests important new directions for research focusing on areas such as the process of high level development of two languages in diglossic contexts; the effects of instruction on the development of nonsocietal languages; the nature of language transfer; and the characteristics of communication between speakers of societal and nonsocietal languages.

scholarly journals Fake News on Twitter in 2016 U.S. Presidential Election: A Quantitative Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Karmvir Padda
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Quantitative Approach ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Word Count ◽  
Analytical Thinking ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
The World ◽  
Linguistic Inquiry ◽  
Election Results

The flow of misinformation and disinformation around the 2016 U.S. presidential election put the problem of “fake news” on the agenda all over the world. As a result, news organizations and companies have taken measures to reduce or eliminate the production and dissemination of fake news. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was employed in the current study to examine 1,500 randomly selected tweets that were used to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Results showed fake news are less likely to have analytical thinking. Moreover, both alt-Right troll accounts and alt-Left troll accounts posted fake news on Twitter. Lastly, Cluster analysis revealed that the fake news tweets are more likely to be retweeted and use fewer analytical thinking. APA Citation Padda, K. (2020). Fake news on Twitter in 2016 U.S. presidential election: a quantitative approach. The Journal of Intelligence, Conflict, and Warfare, 3(2), 18-45. https://journals.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/jicw/article/view/2374/1810.

The Oxford Handbook of Polysynthesis

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Northern Australia ◽  
The Third ◽  
Geographical Regions ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
The World ◽  
Linguistic Analyses ◽  
Definition Of

This handbook offers an extensive cross-linguistic and cross-theoretical survey of polysynthetic languages, in which single multi-morpheme verb forms can express what would be whole sentences in English. These languages and the problems they raise for linguistic analyses have long featured prominently in language descriptions, and yet the essence of polysynthesis remains under discussion, right down to whether it delineates a distinct, coherent type, rather than an assortment of frequently co-occurring traits. Chapters in the first part of the handbook relate polysynthesis to other issues central to linguistics, such as complexity, the definition of the word, the nature of the lexicon, idiomaticity, and to typological features such as argument structure and head marking. Part II contains areal studies of those geographical regions of the world where polysynthesis is particularly common, such as the Arctic and Sub-Arctic and northern Australia. The third part examines diachronic topics such as language contact and language obsolence, while Part IV looks at acquisition issues in different polysynthetic languages. Finally, Part V contains detailed grammatical descriptions of over twenty languages which have been characterized as polysynthetic, with special attention given to the presence or absence of potentially criterial features.

Are we making a difference?

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 3.1-3.14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Clyne
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Professional Groups ◽  
Professional Societies ◽  
The World ◽  
Making A Difference ◽  
Special Responsibilities

Language is crucial in our lives and to all disciplines. It affects our well-being individually and collectively and touches important sociopolitical issues. Linguists/applied linguists have exciting opportunities for interdisciplinary research and to work in contexts personally meaningful to them. While language is the concern of all people, professionals have special responsibilities to provide leadership in understanding how it works and responsible insights into the uses and abuses of language in society.Australian language specialists can offer the rest of the world experience with language policy, typological and language contact studies, and bilingual language acquisition. Some Australians have advanced linguistic knowledge through studies of indigenous languages. Many have worked with indigenous, ethnic and other communities and professional groups, providing evidence in court or advice to teachers and families. Some broadcast regularly or occasionally. But have we succeeded in contesting the monolingual mindset of the mainstream? The Australian authors represented in language sections of most general bookshops are not linguists.Far more collaboration and coordination of initiatives through the professional societies is needed to put languages back on the national agenda and make Australia more language-aware. This should lead to recognizing, valuing, fostering and transmitting, supporting and sharing our linguistic diversity. Australia’s rich language potential has only been partly realized.

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 Classical Languages and Their Actual Contribution - The Case of German and Greek

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
Elvis Bramo ◽  
Salian Cullhaj
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
Linguistic Interference ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Actual Contribution

In our research on lexical and linguistic interference from one language to another, the case of the Greek language contact with German has drawn our attention. Greek, as one of the most widespread classic languages in the world, came through the Latin channel to convey her words, mostly science (eg mechanics) and the arts (eg aesthetics) in German-speaking countries.

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