scholarly journals Comic performance and the articulation of hybrid identity

Pragmatics ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Jaffe
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Hybrid Identity ◽  
Language Practices ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Mixed Language ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mixed Codes ◽  
Do So

This article describes how comedians and radio professionals in Corsica draw on a bilingual linguistic and metalinguistic cultural repertoire. In the context of Corsica’s history of language domination, language shift, and linguistic revitalization efforts, many of the products of language contact - mixed codes and compentences - are socially stigmatized. In the logic of dominant language ideologies, these mixed codes do not ‘count as’ language and depreciate individual speakers and collective identitities. Comic performances, it is argued, derive part of their tension and effect from the dominant view of languages as fixed and bounded codes which index single identities. Yet at the same time, performers make use of bilingual repertoires in ways that validate mixed language practices and identities. They do so by making maximal use of fluidity and indeterminacy in speaker stances towards mixed codes and identities. Bilingual comic performance also validates mixed codes and identities by evoking an ‘expert’ bilingual audience.

Reconstructing the history of languages in northwest New Britain

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-132
Author(s):  
Malcolm D. Ross
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Contact Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Britain

William Thurston (1982, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1994) analyzes the history of the languages of the northwest area of New Britain. This history has included much contact among the area’s languages, all of which are Oceanic Austronesian with the exception of the Papuan language Anêm. Thurston, however, took the position that all linguistic speciation is brought about by language contact, especially by language shift. In this paper, the comparative method is applied to Thurston’s (and others’) data to reconstruct a partial history of the languages of the area, exemplifying how the comparative method may be applied in contact situations. Reanalysis of his data shows that a number of his conclusions about the histories of the area’s Austronesian languages are wrong, but validates his claim that language shift is manifested in copied specialist vocabulary, a conclusion that is important for historical contact linguistics, as such cases may provide few or no other clues that shift has occurred.

scholarly journals Continuity and hybridity in language revival: The case of Manx

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Christopher Lewin
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Ideology ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
L1 Norm ◽  
Language Revival ◽  
Revival Movement ◽  
Linguistic Purism ◽  
Prototypical Model

Abstract This article presents a typology of phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexical features illustrative of factors conditioning the usage of speakers and writers of Revived Manx, including substratal influence from English; language ideologies prevalent within the revival movement, especially forms of linguistic purism; and language-specific features of Manx and its orthography. Evidence is taken primarily from a corpus of Revived Manx speech and writing. The observed features of Revived Manx are situated within Zuckermann's (2009, 2020) framework of ‘hybridization’ and ‘revival linguistics’, which takes Israeli Hebrew as the prototypical model of revernacularization of a non-L1 language. However, Manx arguably provides a more typical example of what to expect when a revived minority language remains predominantly an L2 for an indefinite period, with each new cohort of speakers able to reshape the target variety in the absence of a firmly established L1 norm. (Manx, Celtic, language revival, language ideology, language shift, language contact)*

Transcription as embodied entextualization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jillian R. Cavanaugh
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Culturally Specific ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Do So

Abstract This article analyzes transcription as a form of knowledge production, distinguishing between the role of transcription as a tool and the contingent nature of transcription as a process. It uses the lens of embodied entextualization, or the culturally specific ways bodies are incorporated into as well as produce texts (Cavanaugh 2017), to illuminate the interdiscursive process of transcription and how it is shaped by social factors such as race, gender, politics, and class. I do so by presenting and analyzing text-objects from my own research on language ideologies and language shift in northern Italy at various stages of entextualization, highlighting the multiple choices that shape transcription and how such choices are in turn shaped by a number of factors often invisible in the final, or at least public, versions of these texts that circulate the most widely. Transcripts such as the ones I discuss endure as evidence, in published and other forms, even as intertextual gaps punctuate their interdiscursive reproduction across instantiations. This work raises questions about the role of transcripts as evidence, their authority, and their varying ontological statuses as text objects in order to further conversations about how scholarship about language in use may be reflexively undertaken.

Bilingual speech in Jaru–Kriol conversations: Codeswitching, codemixing, and grammatical fusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692110369
Author(s):  
Josua Dahmen
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
High Definition ◽  
Interactional Linguistics ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Mixed Language ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Nominal Morphology

Aims and objectives: Language contact in the Yaruman community of Western Australia has led to prevalent bilingual practices between the endangered language Jaru and the creole language Kriol. This study examines ordinary conversations in the community and investigates whether the observable bilingual practices are interactionally relevant, and whether codemixing has led to the emergence of a conventionalised mixed language. Approach: The research is based on a qualitative analysis of bilingual speech in natural conversation. The approach combines the methodological framework of interactional linguistics with an analysis of the grammatical structures of conversational data. Data and analysis: The analysed data consist of two hours and thirty minutes of transcribed video recordings, comprising 13 casual multi-party conversations involving all generations in the Yaruman community. The recordings were made using lapel microphones and two high-definition cameras. Findings: Bilingual Jaru–Kriol speakers use codeswitching as an interactional resource for a range of conversational activities. In many cases, however, speakers’ code choices are not interactionally relevant. Instead, codemixing is often oriented to as a normative way of speaking and participants exploit their full linguistic repertoire by relatively freely combining elements from both languages. There are also signs of morphological fusion in the mixed speech of younger Jaru speakers, who more frequently combine Kriol verb structure and Jaru nominal morphology. However, this morphological split is not fully conventionalised and variation is still substantial. Originality: The bilingual speech continuum is supported by the analysis of conversational data in a situation of language shift. This article shows that fusion involving core grammatical categories can occur among a subgroup of speakers without developing into a community-wide mixed language. Significance: The study contributes to a better understanding of community bilingualism and bilingual practices in a situation of language shift. It demonstrates how codeswitching, codemixing, and grammatical fusion can co-exist in a bilingual community.

Language Contact in the Sahara

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lameen Souag
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Local Influence ◽  
Sahara Desert ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
Effective Barrier ◽  
History Of ◽  
Central Sahara ◽  
Core Vocabulary

As might be expected from the difficulty of traversing it, the Sahara Desert has been a fairly effective barrier to direct contact between its two edges; trans-Saharan language contact is limited to the borrowing of non-core vocabulary, minimal from south to north and mostly mediated by education from north to south. Its own inhabitants, however, are necessarily accustomed to travelling desert spaces, and contact between languages within the Sahara has often accordingly had a much greater impact. Several peripheral Arabic varieties of the Sahara retain morphology as well as vocabulary from the languages spoken by their speakers’ ancestors, in particular Berber in the southwest and Beja in the southeast; the same is true of at least one Saharan Hausa variety. The Berber languages of the northern Sahara have in turn been deeply affected by centuries of bilingualism in Arabic, borrowing core vocabulary and some aspects of morphology and syntax. The Northern Songhay languages of the central Sahara have been even more profoundly affected by a history of multilingualism and language shift involving Tuareg, Songhay, Arabic, and other Berber languages, much of which remains to be unraveled. These languages have borrowed so extensively that they retain barely a few hundred core words of Songhay vocabulary; those loans have not only introduced new morphology but in some cases replaced old morphology entirely. In the southeast, the spread of Arabic westward from the Nile Valley has created a spectrum of varieties with varying degrees of local influence; the Saharan ones remain almost entirely undescribed. Much work remains to be done throughout the region, not only on identifying and analyzing contact effects but even simply on describing the languages its inhabitants speak.

Language Contact and Endangered Languages

2020 ◽  
pp. 240-260
Author(s):  
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The Impact

A major reason for language endangerment is intensive contact with another group whose language has gained, or is gaining, greater political, social and economic prestige and advantages. Speakers of an endangered language will gradually lose the capacity to fully communicate in the language, and fully understand it. As a consequence, an endangered language will gradually become obsolescent. The process of language obsolescence ultimately leads to language shift and language loss. The impact of the increasingly dominant language onto an endangered language tends to involve a massive influx of non-native forms from the dominant language; a high amount of structural diffusion; reinforcement of forms and patterns shared with the dominant language; and the loss of forms or patterns absent from the dominant language. Language endangerment and impending language shift may result in dialect leveling, and creating new mixed, or ‘blended’ languages. A major difference between contact-induced language change in ‘healthy’ and in endangered languages lies in the speed of change. A high degree of individual variation between speakers and disintegration of language communities result in the lack of continuity and stability of linguistic change.

Modern Greek V V dvandva compounds: A linguistic innovation in the history of the Indo-European languages

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Ralli
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Compound Formation ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Late Medieval Period ◽  
European Languages ◽  
History Of ◽  
Internal Change ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
Asian Languages

This paper deals with [V V] dvandva compounds, which are frequently used in East and Southeast Asian languages but also in Greek and its dialects: Greek is in this respect uncommon among Indo-European languages. It examines the appearance of this type of compounding in Greek by tracing its development in the late Medieval period, and detects a high rate of productivity in most Modern Greek dialects. It argues that the emergence of the [V V] dvandva pattern is not due to areal pressure or to a language-contact situation, but it is induced by a language internal change. It associates this change with the rise of productivity of compounding in general, and the expansion of verbal compounds in particular. It also suggests that the change contributes to making the compound-formation patterns of the language more uniform and systematic. Claims and proposals are illustrated with data from Standard Modern Greek and its dialects. It is shown that dialectal evidence is crucial for the study of the rise and productivity of [V V] dvandva compounds, since changes are not usually portrayed in the standard language.

Home, Sweet Home: Negotiating Intimacy in Brazilian Elitist Closed Condominiums

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 374-395
Author(s):  
Rafael Ignacio Estrada Mejia ◽  
Carla Guerrón Guerron Montero
Keyword(s):  
Collective Mode ◽  
Living Arrangement ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Social Distinction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Collective Production ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

This article aims to decrease the cultural invisibility of the wealthy by exploring the Brazilian emergent elites and their preferred living arrangement: elitist closed condominiums (BECCs) from a micropolitical perspective.  We answer the question: What is the relationship between intimacy and subjectivity that is produced in the collective mode of existence of BECCs? To do so, we trace the history of the elite home, from the master’s house (casa grande) to contemporary closed condominiums. Following, we discuss the features of closed condominiums as spaces of segregation, fragmentation and social distinction, characterized by minimal public life and an internalized sociability. Finally, based on ethnographic research conducted in the mid-size city of Londrina (state of Paraná) between 2015 and 2017, we concentrate on four members of the emergent elite who live in BECCs, addressing their collective production of subjectivity. 

Los textos del contacto y el discurso jurídico en los Andes (siglos XVI y XVII)

Allpanchis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (79) ◽  
pp. 91-111
Author(s):  
Carlos Garatea Grau
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
Andean Spanish ◽  
History Of

El propósito de este artículo es mostrar el complejo universo textual producido en el Perú durante el inicial contacto de lenguas y situarlo en la historia del español colonial. A partir de referencias y ejemplos se avanza sobre una compleja realidad, marcadamente heterogénea, que refleja la diversidad inherente al contacto durante los siglos XVI y XVII. Al mismo tiempo, se ofrecen testimonios sobre la importancia del discurso jurídico en el registro del español andino y se concluye enfatizando la notable capacidad verbal de Guamán Poma de Ayala. Abstract The aim of this article is to show the complex textual universe produced in Peru during the language contact and, in particular, in the history of the Spanish colonial. From references and examples when traveling over a complex reality, markedly heterogeneous, that reflects the diversity inherent in the language contact during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At the same time, offer testimonials about the importance of legal discourse in the register of the Andean Spanish and concludes by highlighting the notable verbal capacity of Guaman Poma de Ayala.

De splitsing van de Belgische Socialistische Partij. Twee verklarende documenten

2008 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-114
Author(s):  
Pieter-Jan Van Bosstraeten
Keyword(s):  
Socialist Party ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Do So

Op 11 oktober 1978 splitste de Belgische Socialistische Partij zich als laatste van de drie unitaire partijen op in twee autonome partijen. Langs Franstalige zijde werd éénzijdig de Parti Socialiste opgericht, twee jaar later volgde de Socialistische Partij. De splitsing vormde het eindpunt van een lange en bewogen geschiedenis van de socialistische eenheidspartij.Ondanks het feit dat heel wat auteurs reeds een licht hebben geworpen op de belangrijkste gebeurtenis uit de na-oorlogse geschiedenis van de BSP, is het antwoord op de vraag naar de oorzaken van de splitsing vrij eenduidig. Overwegend wordt aangenomen dat de splitsing van de BSP het gevolg is van een moeilijke samenwerking in het kader van het communautaire dossier. Andere oorzaken worden amper aangehaald, of onvoldoende verduidelijkt. Tevens wordt slechts het politiek-tactische aspect van het communautaire dossier uitvoerig besproken. In de bestaande literatuur wordt zo goed als nergens dieper ingegaan op de inhoudelijke elementen die binnen de partij problemen teweegbrachten.Onderzoek van twee cruciale documenten heeft de mogelijkheid geboden het verhaal van de splitsing beter te reconstrueren. Daarbij is gebleken dat de splitsing van de partij in een ruimer kader dient te worden geïnterpreteerd dan het communautaire dossier. Aan de splitsing van de partij ging een lang proces van autonomisering en vleugelvorming vooraf. Bovendien werd aangetoond dat de problematiek inzake het Egmont-Stuyvenbergpact niet de enige directe oorzaak vormde voor de splitsing van de partij, in de periode 1977-1978. Enkele andere oorzaken hebben daartoe eveneens bijgedragen.________The division of the Belgian Socialist Party. Two explanatory documentsOn 11 October 1978 the Belgian Socialist Party divided into two autonomous parties, the last of the three unitary parties to do so. First the French speaking section unilaterally founded the ‘Parti Socialiste’, two years later the ‘Socialistische Partij’ followed. The division constituted the termination of the long and eventful history of the socialist unitary party.In spite of the fact that many authors have already shed light on the most important event from the post-war history of the BSP, the answer to the question about the causes for the division are fairly unequivocal. The majority of opinions favour the view that the division of the BSP was the consequence of the difficulty of collaborating within the framework of the community dossier. Other causes are hardly cited, or insufficiently elucidated. Moreover only the politico-tactical aspect of the community dossier is discussed in detail. The existing literature hardly ever carries out a more thorough examination of the intrinsic elements that caused problems within the party.The investigation of the two crucial documents has offered the opportunity to provide a better reconstruction of the division. This showed that the division of the party should be interpreted within a larger framework than the community dossier alone. A long process of autonomisation and the formation of political wings preceded the division of the party. It also demonstrated that the issues concerning the Egmont-Stuyvenberg pact were not the only direct cause for the division of the party, during the period 1977-1978. There were several other causes that also contributed to this division.

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