
CHAPTER IV: LANGUAGE CONTACT
Multilingualism and language contact has likely been common
throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are
multilingual. In tribal hunter-gatherer societies, multilingualism was common,
as tribes must communicate with neighboring peoples and there is often
inter-marriage. In present-day areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where there is
much variation in language over short distances, it is usual for anyone who has
dealings outside their own town or village to know two or more languages.
When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is
typical for their languages to influence each other. Languages normally develop
by gradually accumulating dialectal differences until two dialects cease to be
mutually understandable, somewhat analogous to the species barrier in biology.
Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum languages, or
as the result of migration, with a “disturbing” language acting as either a
super-stratum or a sub-stratum.
Language contact occurs in a variety of phenomena, including
language convergence and borrowing. The most common products are code-switching
and mixed languages. Other hybrid languages, such as English, do not strictly
fit into any of these categories.
The most common way that languages influence each other is the
exchange of words. Much is made about the contemporary borrowing of English
words into other languages, but this phenomenon is not new, nor is it very
large by historical standards. The large-scale importation of words from Latin,
French and other languages into English in the 16th and 17th centuries was more
significant. Some languages have borrowed so much that they have become
scarcely recognizable. Armenian borrowed so many words from Iranian languages,
for example, that it was at first considered a branch of the Indo-Iranian
languages. It was not recognized as an independent branch of the Indo-European
languages for many decades.
A. Adoption of Other Language Features
The influence can go deeper, extending to the exchange of even
basic characteristics of a language such as morphology and grammar. The
language of Nepali, for example, spoken in Nepal, is a Sino-Tibetan language
distantly related to Chinese, but has had so many centuries of contact with
neighboring Indo-Iranian languages that it has even developed noun inflection,
a trait typical of the Indo-European family but rare in Sino-Tibetan. It has
absorbed features of grammar as well, such as verb tenses. Romanian was
influenced by the Slavic languages spoken by neighboring tribes in the
centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, not only in vocabulary but also
in phonology and morphology.
English has a few phrases, adapted from French, in which the
adjective follows the noun: court-martial, attorney-general, Lake Superior. It
is easy to see how a word can diffuse from one language to another, but not as
obvious how more basic features can do the same; nevertheless, this phenomenon
is not rare.
B. Language Shift
The result of the contact of two languages can be the replacement
of one by the other. This is most common when one language has a higher social
position. This sometimes leads to language endangerment or extinction.
However, when language shift occurs, the language that is replaced
(known as the substratum) can leave a profound impression on the replacing
language (known as the superstratum), when people retain features of the
substratum as they learn the new language and pass these features on to their
children, leading to the development of a new variety. For example, the Latin
that came to replace local languages in present-day France during Roman times
was influenced by Gaulish and Germanic. The distinct pronunciation of the
dialect of English spoken in Ireland comes partially from the influence of the
substratum of Irish. Outside the Indo-European phylum, Coptic, the last stage
of ancient Egyptian, is a substratum of Egyptian Arabic.
C. Creolization And Mixed Languages
Language contact can also lead to the development of new languages
when people without a common language interact closely, developing a pidgin,
which may eventually become a full-fledged creole language through the process
of creolization. A prime example of this is Saramaccan, spoken in Suriname, which
has vocabulary mainly from Portuguese, English and Dutch, but phonology and
even tones which are closer to African languages.
A much rarer but still observed process is the formation of mixed
languages. Whereas creoles are formed by communities lacking a common language,
mixed languages are formed by communities fluent in both languages. They tend
to inherit much more of the complexity (grammatical, phonological, etc.) of
their parent languages, whereas creoles begin as simple languages and then
develop in complexity more independently. It is sometimes explained as
bilingual communities that no longer identify with the cultures of either of
the languages they speak, and seek to develop their own language as an
expression of their own cultural uniqueness.
D. Mutual and Non-Mutual
Influence
Change as a result of contact is often one-sided. Chinese, for
instance, has had a profound effect on the development of Japanese, but the
Chinese language remains relatively free of Japanese influence, other than some
modern terms that were re-borrowed after having been coined in Japan based on
Chinese precepts and using Chinese characters.
In India, Hindi and other native languages have been influenced by
English up to the extent that loan words from English are part of day to day
vocabulary. In some cases, language contact may lead to mutual exchange,
although this exchange may be confined to a particular geographic region. For
example, in Switzerland, the local French has been influenced by German, and
vice-versa. In Scotland, the Scots language has been heavily influenced by
English, and many Scots terms have been adopted into the regional English
dialect.
E. Linguistic Hegemony
Obviously, a language's influence widens as its speakers grow in
power. Chinese, Greek, Latin, Portuguese, French, Spanish, Arabic, Persian,
Sanskrit, Russian, German and English have each seen periods of widespread
importance, and have had varying degrees of influence on the native languages
spoken in the areas over which they have held sway.
Some forms of language contact affect only a particular segment of
a speech community. Consequently, change may be manifested only in particular
dialects, jargons, or registers. The South African dialect of English has been
significantly affected by Afrikaans, in terms of lexis and pronunciation, but
English as a whole has remained almost totally unaffected by Afrikaans. In some
cases, a language develops an acrolect which contains elements of a more
prestigious language. For example, in England during a large part of the
Medieval period, upper-class speech was dramatically influenced by French, to
the point that it often resembled a French dialect. A similar situation existed
in Tsarist Russia, where the native Russian language was widely disparaged as barbaric
and uncultured.
F. Code Mixing
Code-mixing refers to the mixing of two or more languages or
language varieties in speech. Some scholars use the terms
"code-mixing" and "code-switching" interchangeably,
especially in studies of syntax, morphology, and other formal aspects of
language. Others assume more specific definitions of code-mixing, but these
specific definitions may be different in different subfields of linguistics,
education theory, communications etc.
Code-mixing is similar to the use or creation of pidgins; but while
a pidgin is created across groups that do not share a common language,
code-mixing may occur within a multilingual setting where speakers share more
than one language.
Some linguists use the terms
code-mixing and code-switching more or less interchangeably. Especially in
formal studies of syntax, morphology, etc., both terms are used to refer to
utterances that draw from elements of two or more grammatical systems. These
studies are often interested in the alignment of elements from distinct
systems, or on constraints that limit switching. While many linguists have
worked to describe the difference between code-switching and borrowing of words
or phrases, the term code-mixing may be used to encompass both types of
language behavior.
While the term code-switching emphasizes a multilingual speaker's
movement from one grammatical system to another, the term code-mixing suggests
a hybrid form, drawing from distinct grammars. In other words, code-mixing
emphasizes the formal aspects of language structures or linguistic competence,
while code-switching emphasizes linguistic performance.
While linguists who are primarily interested in the structure or
form of code-mixing may have relatively little interest to separate code-mixing
from code-switching, some sociolinguists have gone to great lengths to
differentiate the two phenomena. For these scholars, code-switching is
associated with particular pragmatic effects, discourse functions, or
associations with group identity. In this tradition, the terms code-mixing or
language alternation are used to describe more stable situations in which
multiple languages are used without such pragmatic effects.
In studies of bilingual language acquisition, code-mixing refers to
a developmental stage during which children mix elements of more than one
language. Nearly all bilingual children go through a period in which they move
from one language to another without apparent discrimination. This differs from
code-switching, which is understood as the socially and grammatically
appropriate use of multiple varieties.
Beginning at the babbling stage, young children in bilingual or
multilingual environments produce utterances that combine elements of both (or
all) of their developing languages. Some linguists suggest that this
code-mixing reflects a lack of control or ability to differentiate the
languages. Others argue that it is a product of limited vocabulary; very young
children may know a word in one language but not in another. More recent
studies argue that this early code-mixing is a demonstration of a developing
ability to code-switch in socially appropriate ways.
In psychology and in psycholinguistics the label code-mixing is
used in theories that draw on studies of language alternation or code-switching
to describe the cognitive structures underlying bilingualism. During the 1950s
and 1960s, psychologists and linguists treated bilingual speakers as, in
Grosjean's term, "two monolinguals in one person.” This "fractional
view" supposed that a bilingual speaker carried two separate mental
grammars that were more or less identical to the mental grammars of
monolinguals and that were ideally kept separate and used separately. Studies
since the 1970s, however, have shown that bilinguals regularly combine elements
from "separate" languages. These findings have led to studies of
code-mixing in psychology and psycholinguistics.
Sridhar and Sridhar define code-mixing as "the transition from
using linguistic units (words, phrases, clauses, etc.) of one language to using
those of another within a single sentence.". They note that this is
distinct from code-switching in that it occurs in a single sentence (sometimes
known as intrasentential switching) and in that it does not fulfill the
pragmatic or discourse-oriented functions described by sociolinguists. (See
Code-mixing in sociolinguistics, above.) The practice of code-mixing, which
draws from competence in two languages at the same time suggests that these
competences are not stored or processed separately. Code-mixing among
bilinguals is therefore studied in order to explore the mental structures
underlying language abilities.
A mixed language or a fused lect is a relatively stable mixture of
two or more languages. What some linguists have described as "code
switching as unmarked choice" or "frequent code switching" has
more recently been described as "language mixing", or in the case of
the most strictly grammaticalized forms as "fused lects". In areas
where code-switching among two or more languages is very common, it may become
normal for words from both languages to be used together in everyday speech.
Unlike code-switching, where a switch tends to occur at semantically or
sociolinguistically meaningful junctures, this code-mixing has no specific
meaning in the local context. A fused lect is identical to a mixed language in
terms of semantics and pragmatics, but fused lects allow less variation since
they are fully grammaticalized. In other words, there are grammatical
structures of the fused lect that determine which source-language elements may
occur.
A mixed language is different from a creole language. Creoles are
thought to develop from pidgins as they become nativized. Mixed languages
develop from situations of code-switching. There are many names for specific mixed
languages or fused lects. These names are often used facetiously or carry a
pejorative sense. Named varieties include the following, among others:
Chinglish,Denglisch,Dunglish,Englog,Franglais,Franponais,Greeklish,Hinglish,Konglish,Manglish,Maltenglish,Poglish,Porglish,Portuñol,Singlish,Spanglish
and Tanglish.
G. Code Switching
In linguistics, code-switching is switching between two or more
languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation.
Multilingual—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of
multiple languages in conversing with each other. Thus, code-switching is the
use of more than one linguistic variety in a manner consistent with the syntax
and phonology of each variety.
Code-switching is distinct from other language contact phenomena,
such as borrowing, pidgins and creoles, loan translation (calques), and
language transfer (language interference). Borrowing affects the lexicon, the
words that make up a language, while code-switching takes place in individual
utterances. Speakers form and establish a pidgin language when two or more
speakers who do not speak a common language form an intermediate, third
language.
On the other hand, speakers practice code-switching when they are
each fluent in both languages. Code mixing is a thematically related term, but
the usage of the terms code-switching and code-mixing varies. Some scholars use
either term to denote the same practice, while others apply code-mixing to
denote the formal linguistic properties of said language-contact phenomena, and
code-switching to denote the actual, spoken usages by multilingual persons.
In the 1940s and 1950s, many scholars considered code-switching to
be a sub-standard use of language. Since the 1980s, however, most scholars have
recognized it is a normal, natural product of bilingual and multilingual
language use.
The term code-switching is also used outside the field of
linguistics. Some scholars of literature use the term to describe literary
styles which include elements from more than one language, as in novels by
Chinese-American, Anglo-Indian, or Latino/writers. In popular usage
code-switching is sometimes used to refer to relatively stable informal
mixtures of two languages, such as Spanglish, Franponais or Portuñol.
Both in popular usage and in sociolinguistic scholarship, the name
code-switching is sometimes used to refer to switching among dialects, styles
or registers, such as that practiced by speakers of African American Vernacular
English as they move from less formal to more formal settings.
There may be many reasons that people code-switch. Code-switching
relates to, and sometimes indexes social-group membership in bilingual and
multilingual communities. Some sociolinguists describe the relationships
between code-switching behaviors and class, ethnicity, and other social
positions. In addition, scholars in interactional linguistics and conversation
analysis have studied code-switching as a means of structuring talk in
interaction. Some discourse analysts, including conversation analyst Peter
Auer, suggest that code-switching does not simply reflect social situations,
but that it is a means to create social situations.
The Markedness Model, developed by Carol Myers-Scotton, is one of
the more complete theories of code-switching motivations. It posits that
language users are rational, and choose (speak) a language that clearly marks
their rights and obligations, relative to other speakers, in the conversation
and its setting. When there is no clear, unmarked language choice, speakers
practice code-switching to explore possible language choices. Many
sociolinguists, however, object to the Markedness Model’s postulation that
language-choice is entirely rational.
Scholars such as Peter Auer and Li Wei argue that the explanation
of the social motivation of code-switching lies in the way code-switching is
structured and managed in conversational interaction; in other words, the
question of why code-switching occurs cannot be answered without first
addressing the question of how it occurs. Using conversation analysis (CA),
these scholars focus their attention on the sequential implications of
code-switching. That is, whatever language a speaker chooses to use for a
conversational turn or part of a turn has implications for the subsequent
choices of language by the speaker as well as the hearer. Rather than focusing
on the social values inherent in the languages the speaker chooses (brought
along meaning), the analysis should try to concentrate on the meaning that the
act of code-switching itself creates (brought about meaning).
The Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), developed by Howard
Giles, professor of communication at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, seeks to explain the cognitive reasons for code-switching and other
changes in speech, as a person seeks either to emphasize or to minimize the
social differences between him- or herself and the other person(s) in
conversation. Prof. Giles posits that when speakers seek approval in a social
situation they are likely to converge their speech with that of the other
person speaking. This can include, but is not limited to, the language of
choice, accent, dialect, and paralinguistic features used in the conversation.
In contrast to convergence, speakers might also engage in divergent speech,
with which an individual person emphasizes the social distance between him- or
herself and other speakers by using speech with linguistic features
characteristic of his or her own group.
In a diglossic situation, some topics and situations are better
suited to one language over another. Joshua Fishman proposes a domain-specific
code-switching model (later refined by Blom and Gumperz) wherein bilingual
speakers choose which code to speak depending on where they are and what they
are discussing. For example, a child who is a bilingual Spanish-English speaker
might speak Spanish at home and English in class, but Spanish at recess.
Bilinguals who code-switch report grammatical intuitions such that
switching at some grammatical boundaries is licit while switching at other
boundaries is illicit. In this sense, code-switching exhibits speakers'
intuitions about grammaticality just as monolingual language does. Linguists
have made significant effort toward defining the difference between borrowing
(loanword usage) and code-switching. Generally, borrowing occurs in the
lexicon, while code-switching occurs at either the syntax level or the
utterance-construction level.
In studying the syntactic
and morphological patterns of language alternation, linguists have postulated
specific grammatical rules and specific syntactic boundaries for where
code-switching might occur. Historically, research on the grammar of
code-switching has focused on constraint-oriented approaches and
constraint-free approaches.
Attempts to formulate grammatical constraints on code-switching
include the Free-morpheme Constraint, which stipulated that a code-switching
cannot occur between bound morphemes, and the Closed-class Constraint, which
posited that closed class items (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, etc.),
cannot be switched.
The Equivalence Constraint suggests that code-switching can occur
only in positions where "the order of any two sentence elements, one
before and one after the switch, is not excluded in either language."
Thus, the sentence: "I like you porque eres simpático" ("I like you because you are nice")
is allowed because it obeys the syntactic rules of both Spanish and English.
The Functional Head Constraint is another constraint-based theory. It holds
that code-switching cannot occur between a functional head (a complementizer, a
determiner, an inflection, etc.) and its complement (sentence, noun-phrase,
verb-phrase).
Although constraint-based theories are widely discussed, linguists
continue to debate apparent counter-examples to each proposed constraint.
The constraint-free approach views explicit reference to
code-switching in grammatical analysis as tautological, and looks to explain
specific instances of grammaticality in code-switching in terms of the unique
contributions of the grammatical properties of the languages involved in the
construction of interest. Jeff McSwan characterized this approach with the
research program refrain, "Nothing constrains code switching apart from
the requirements of the mixed grammars." This approach focuses on the
repudiation of any rule or principle which explicitly refers to code switching
itself.
Working within a speech production framework advocated by Willem
Levelt, Carol Myers-Scotton has proposed the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model
of code-switching which distinguishes between the roles of the participant
languages. Some theories, such as the Closed-class Constraint, the Matrix
Language Frame model, and the Functional Head Constraint, which make general
predictions based upon specific presumptions about the nature of syntax, are
controversial among linguists positing alternative theories. In contrast,
descriptions based on empirical analyses of corpora, such as the Equivalence
Constraint, are relatively independent of syntactic theory, but the code-switching
patterns they describe vary considerably among speech communities, even among
those sharing the same language pairs.
Scholars use different names for various types of code-switching.
Intersentential switching occurs outside the sentence or the clause level (i.e.
at sentence or clause boundaries). It is sometimes called
"extra-sentential" switching Whereas, Intra-sentential switching
occurs within a sentence or a clause. Tag-switching is the switching of either
a tag phrase or a word, or both, from language-B to language-A, (common
intra-sentential switches).Intra-word switching occurs within a word, itself,
such as at a morpheme boundary.
Researcher Ana Celia Zentella offers this example from her work
with Puerto Rican Spanish-English bilingual speakers in New York City. In this
example, Marta and her younger sister, Lolita, speak Spanish and English with
Zentella outside of their apartment building.
Zentella explains that the children of the predominantly Puerto
Rican neighborhood speak both English and Spanish: "Within the children’s
network, English predominated, but code-switching from English to Spanish
occurred once every three minutes, on average."
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