scholarly journals Bidirectionality of language contact: Spanish and Catalan vowels

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 159
Author(s):  
Annie Helms
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Balearic Islands ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Front Vowel ◽  
Vowel Production ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Disproportionate Number ◽  
Probabilistic Nature ◽  
Contact Effects

The disproportionate number of studies in Barcelona and the Balearic Islands observing Spanish contact effects in Catalan production, rather than Catalan contact effects in Spanish production, is an oversight of bidirectionality and the probabilistic nature of social factors in situations of language contact. Accordingly, the present study analyzes both Catalan and Spanish mid front vowel production data from Barcelona to investigate whether Catalan contact effects occur in Spanish via a process of dissimilation, and whether such effects are strengthened in younger speakers due to the relatively recent implementation of Catalan linguistic policy in the educational and public spheres. The results are suggestive of dissimilation, where phonetic distinctions are maintained between Spanish /e/ and the two Catalan mid front vowels across both F1 and F2. Additionally, analyses of variance across F1 and F2 reveal that Spanish /e/ productions across F1 are more diffuse in younger speakers and Catalan mid front vowels across F2 are less diffuse, providing evidence of reciprocity in contact effects. These results underscore the bidirectional nature of language contact and advocate for the use of variance of F1 and F2 as a metric of phonological contact effects.

Bilingualism and sound change: perception in the /ʎ/-/j/ merger process in Majorcan Spanish

2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-133
Author(s):  
Assumpció Rost Bagudanch
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Balearic Islands ◽  
Chance Level ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Inhibiting Effect ◽  
Change Perception ◽  
Merger Process ◽  
Linguistic Behaviour ◽  
Contact Effects

AbstractYeísmo has been accounted for as a merger process occurring in Spanish irrespective of language contact effects though some scholars have claimed that the interference between Spanish and the variety of Catalan spoken in Majorca (Balearic Islands, Spain) has an inhibiting effect on yeísmo. This paper focusses on whether this inhibiting effect can be demonstrated at the perception level and whether it has an effect in the linguistic behaviour of bilinguals. To examine these effects, we conducted an identification experiment with three groups of listeners (Majorcan Catalan-dominant bilinguals, Spanish-dominant bilinguals and a control group of Spanish monolinguals). Results show that Catalan dominants do recognise [ʎ] stimuli, but Spanish dominants only identify [ʎ] at chance level. Consequently, it would seem that bilingual subjects display a bimodal performance at the perception level.

scholarly journals Language Contact and Morphosyntactic Complexity: Evidence from German

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Maitz ◽  
Attila Németh
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Corpus Data

The article focuses on the hypothesis that the structural complexity of languages is variable and historically changeable. By means of a quantitative statistical analysis of naturalistic corpus data, the question is raised as to what role language contact and adult second language acquisition play in the simplification and complexification of language varieties. The results confirm that there is a significant correlation between intensity of contact and linguistic complexity, while at the same time showing that there is a need to consider other social factors, and, in particular, the attitude of a speech community toward linguistic norms.*

scholarly journals Vowel Dispersion in English Diphthongs: Evidence from Adult Production

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacy Jennifer Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Distance ◽  
Additional Constraint ◽  
Acoustic Properties ◽  
Strong Preference ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Dispersion Theory ◽  
Vowel Production ◽  
Distance Constraints ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
Additional Constraints

In this paper, I address the problem of including diphthong vowels into a Dispersion Theory (Flemming 2004) framework. First, I review the main aspects of Dispersion Theory in Flemming (2004), which gives an analysis of vowel inventories using a perception-based account of contrast, but noticeably omits diphthongs, which–while different from monophthongs–are highly productive, contrastive members of vowel inventories. Next, in order to correctly represent and incorporate diphthongs, I discuss acoustic properties of diphthongs and their presence in vowel inventories cross-linguistically. Diphthongs are compared to the monophthong inventory using production data to assess their relative positions in the vowel space. The English vowel production data should reflect the language-specific constraint ranking of *Effort with the maximum contrast and minimum distance constraints as predicted in Flemming's theory.                To derive diphthongs, Flemming (2004)’s constraints as well as additional constraints from Minkova & Stockwell (2003) are used to account for the distance between the two offset targets. An additional constraint is proposed to account for the strong preference in the English production data to centralize the onset targets. Derivations for individual diphthong productions compared to possible surrounding candidates are provided in the analysis.

Theories of Language Contact

2020 ◽  
pp. 50-74
Author(s):  
Donald Winford
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Mechanisms Of Change ◽  
Processes Of Change ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Principled Explanation

This chapter depicts major theories of language contact, including those relating to the outcomes of borrowing, creole formation and other bilingual mixtures, with special emphasis on the framework proposed by Frans van Coetsem. This framework is multi-disciplinary in nature, built around linguistic, sociolinguistic, and psycholinguistic approaches. I first discuss the contributions of sociolinguistic approaches to our understanding of the ways in which social contexts and social factors influence the outcomes of language contact. I then evaluate various linguistic frameworks that have been proposed for describing the linguistic outcomes of language contact, the mechanisms involved, and the classification of contact phenomena. I argue that van Coetsem’s (1988, 2000) model of language contact offers a more consistent, accurate and principled explanation of the processes of change associated with different types of contact. Following that, I show how a wide variety of contact phenomena can be accounted for in terms of just two universal mechanisms of change—borrowing and imposition. Finally, I discuss ways in which psycholinguistic models of language production can contribute to our understanding of these mechanisms of contact-induced change.

Alveolar and Velarized Laterals in Albanian and in the Viennese Dialect

2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 488-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Moosmüller ◽  
Carolin Schmid ◽  
Christian H. Kasess
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
The Other ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Front Vowel ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Other Hand

A comparison of alveolar and velarized lateral realizations in two language varieties, Albanian and the Viennese dialect, has been performed. Albanian distinguishes the two laterals phonemically, whereas in the Viennese dialect, the velarized lateral was introduced by language contact with Czech immigrants. A categorical distinction between the two lateral phonemes is fully maintained in Albanian. Results are not as straightforward in the Viennese dialect. Most prominently, female speakers, if at all, realize the velarized lateral in word-final position, thus indicating the application of a phonetically motivated process. The realization of the velarized lateral by male speakers, on the other hand, indicates that the velarized lateral replaced the former alveolar lateral phoneme. Alveolar laterals are either realized in perceptually salient positions, thus governed by an input-switch rule, or in front vowel contexts, thus subject to coarticulatory influences. Our results illustrate the subtle interplay of phonology, phonetics and sociolinguistics.

A sparkling apéritif or old wine in new bags?

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 748-750
Author(s):  
PIETER MUYSKEN
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
First Language ◽  
List Type ◽  
Type Number ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Communicative Strategies

In the keynote article “Language contact outcomes as the result of bilingual optimization strategies” (Muysken, published online May 31, 2013; henceforth KA), I have tried to accomplish three things: (a)linking a number of fields of language contact research (code-switching, Creole studies, contact-induced language change, bilingual production), by(b)assuming four roles that the contributing languages may play ((i) first language dominant, (ii) second language dominant, (iii) neither language dominant – patterns common to the two languages, and (iv) neither language dominant – language-neutral communicative strategies), and(c)modeling these four roles in terms of bilingual optimization strategies, which may be implemented in an Optimality Theoretic (OT) framework. Bilingual strategies are conditioned by social factors, processing constraints of speakers’ bilingual competence, and perceived language distance. Different language contact outcomes correspond to different interactions of these strategies in bilingual speakers and their communities.

English and Celtic: contact-induced change in history

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (s2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Hickey
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Anglophone World ◽  
Contact Effects

AbstractThis paper offers an overview of current research into the contact between English and Celtic, both in its historical and geographical dimensions. It attempts to classify contact scenarios by their type and the linguistic effects they engender. A number of examples are discussed which illustrate typical contact effects, and generalizations are made about contact-induced language change which can be taken to apply to further cases of language contact beyond the anglophone world.

scholarly journals Negotiating social meanings in a plural society: social perceptions of variants of /l/ in Singapore English

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasper Hong Sim
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Social Perceptions ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Local Standard ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Plural Society ◽  
Speech Features ◽  
Different Parts

This study illustrates how differential speech features that emerged from language contact and acquisition in a linguistically and culturally pluralistic society can accrue diverse social-indexical meanings over time. The social perceptions towards three variants of coda /l/ in Singapore English, namely dark-l, the variant associated with prescriptive norms, and clear-l and vocalised-l, which are variants that arose through language contact, were examined. The findings revealed that the meanings of the local variants are equally diverse, but have evolved differently; vocalised-l is an emerging local standard, whereas clear-l remained largely stigmatised. The diverse meanings are also shown to be connected by social factors within a larger network of interrelated signs, and that their interpretations are dependent on the hearer’s experiences, such that we are observing different parts of the sociolinguistic reality. Restricted experiences with the social world and regulation of social perception were also shown to potentially contribute to accent-based prejudices.

scholarly journals Non-Dravidian elements and (non)diasystematic change in Malayalam

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Savithry Namboodiripad
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Attractive Alternative ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
Loanword Phonology ◽  
Fundamental Distinction ◽  
Ideal Framework ◽  
Dravidian Language ◽  
Semantic Domains ◽  
Contact Effects

By introducing a distinction between diaconstructions, which are language non-specific, and idioconstructions, which are language-specific, Diasystematic Construction Grammar (DCxG) cap- tures the fact that the borders between languages are often blurred (Höder 2012). Building on other construction-theoretic approaches, DCxG characterizes all languages as consisting of emergent sub-patterns of constructions. This includes hybrid or high-contact languages, which differ only in that those sub-patterns can be attributed (by analysts, not necessarily speakers) to a particular language. As such, DCxG provides an ideal framework for analyzing high-contact languages while also capturing smaller-scale contact effects. Crucially for those studying language contact, this does away with a need for a fundamental distinction between high- and low-contact languages (e.g., Faraclas & Klein 2009, Mufwene 2000).This chapter presents a DCxG analysis of non-Dravidian sounds and words in Malayalam, a Dravidian language with considerable influence from Sanskrit and English, as spoken in Kerala, India. Both Sanskrit- and English-origin words are highly frequent and appear across a variety of semantic domains. Analogous to Latinate and Germanic morphophonological sub-patterns in English, Sanskrit and English words in Malayalam have phonological patterns which are not found in Dravidian-origin words, such as heteroorganic clusters, certain codas, and voiced aspirated stops. I argue that any analysis of Malayalam must account for non-Dravidian sub-patterns, and I consider DCxG to be an attractive alternative to constraint-based approaches to loanword phonology.

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