Linguistics: Contact Languages

Study Notes

A common language between speakers with different native languages is used for communication, e.g., between husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, siblings, and parent and child.

A lexifier is the language that provides the basis for the majority of a contact language's vocabulary or lexicon.
Often, this language is also the dominant or superstrate language, but not always.

Messages or text refer to any recorded messages (writing, audio-recording, videorecording) that are physically independent of the sender and receiver.
Text is an assemblage of signs (words, images, sounds, and/or gestures) constructed and interpreted with reference to the conventions associated with a genre and in a particular medium of communication.

Very Formal, Frozen, or Static Register: A "frozen" register in time and content that rarely or never changes, e.g., poetry, The Lord's Prayer, laws, marriage vows, insurance policies.
Neighbour Register: The normal style of speaking between people who use mutually accepted language that conforms to formal societal standards, e.g., conversations between strangers, teacher and students, superior and subordinate, doctor and patient, lawyer and client.
Informal, Group, or Casual Register: Informal language between friends and peers, using slang, vulgarities, and colloquialism, e.g., conversations, chats, emails, blogs, tweets, and personal letters.
Very Informal, Personal, or Intimate Register: Private, intimate language reserved for family members or intimate people.

Varieties of English used by three identified concentric circles of societies:
- Inner Circle: England, USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
- Outer Circle: Former colonies, e.g., India, Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and Bangladesh.
- Expanding Circle: China, Japan, Germany, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Korea, and Taiwan.

Ethnocentrism: Belief that one's culture is better than any other, judging out-group cultures by one's own in-group norms.

Examples of words ending in -er and -re, e.g., center/centre, liter/litre, theater/theatre.
Examples of words ending in -or and -our, e.g., color/colour, neighbor/neighbour.