Introduction to Dialectology III PDF

Introduction to Dialectology III South Africa  contents 01 02 Effects of Language/dialect language/dialect contact...

Introduction to Dialectology III South Africa  contents 01 02 Effects of Language/dialect language/dialect contact contact 03 04 Koinéization Borrowing Fiji  contents 05 06 Dialect levelling Pidginization 07 08 Language shift & Creolization language death 9 India Recap  0 1 Language/ Dialect contact Nigeria  language/dialect contact Language contact occurs when speakers of two (or more) languages or dialects consistently interact due to geographical proximity, social closeness, or both, for example. The varieties affect each other to different degrees. The outcome may be asymmetric, with one variety affecting the other more.  language/dialect contact The mutual influence which results from such contact leads to changes in the structure – or at least in the lexicon – of one or both languages/dialects/varieties. When there is prolonged contact, the varieties, usually dialects, become more similar in their structural features, i.e., structural convergence (phonological, morphological, syntactic, or semantic) occurs. Structural convergence means speakers favour similarities between the varieties rather than discarding or reducing marked differences (levelling). In convergence, especially when there is bilingualism, speakers may use, for example, the lexis of one variety and the syntax of the other.  language/dialect contact Various reasons exist for different groups of people coming into contact throughout history. This contact occurs due to geographical or cultural closeness, foreign invasions, colonization, economic and enslaved persons trade, migration and refugee movements, among other reasons. The extensive use of the internet and technologically-mediated communication may also be counted as a language/dialect contact situation, even without face- to-face interaction.  language/dialect contact Several factors influence the outcomes of language contact. Some crucial factors are the social status of the speech communities involved, including the relative power and prestige of the speakers, the relatedness or genetics of the languages in contact, and the socioeconomic context in which the contact happens.  language/dialect contact Contact can be temporary, intensive, or last centuries. The levels of language affected (pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, morphology) and the nature of the contact determines how the languages or dialects are affected. The intervention of all the previously mentioned factors leads to different results.  0 2 Effects of language/dial ect contact Bahamas  Effects of language/dialect contact The types of contact are classified according to social aspects, like a) the intensity of contact, b) presence or absence of systematic learning, c) speaker’s attitudes, d) form or feature complexity or ‘markedness’, e) the degree to which the features and forms are integrated into the linguistic system and f) the degree of structural difference or similarity (genetics) between the varieties involved.  Effects of language/dialect contact Raymond Hickey (2000) classifies 4 language contact scenarios according to the factors previously mentioned. The first type of contact mentioned is indirect or ‘cultural’ contact, with no interaction with speakers like in English and other languages today. Or little contact with almost no bilingualism. This is exemplified in the contact situation between French and Middle English in late Medieval times.  Effects of language/dialect contact The effect, according to Hickey, is only lexical borrowings or ‘cultural borrowings’ with no impact on the grammar of the receiving language. If there is bilingualism, code-switching (moving from one language/dialect to another) and code-mixing (including features of the intervening languages/dialects in the same utterance)may appear. However, the contact between Norman French and English also borrowed morphological features; one example is the adoption of the suffix ‘-able’.  Effects of language/dialect contact The second type of contact implies strong speaker interaction. There is an approximation of one or both languages. The example Hickey provides is the contact between Old English and Old Norse during the Viking invasions. In this case, the effects are either koinézaition or dialect levelling (in the case of koinéization, dialect levelling must occur first).  Effects of language/dialect contact The third type of contact occurs in situations of imposed contact (e.g. invasions). It implies abandoning a native variety in favour of a dominant one, like Irish in favour of English in Ireland; English also has displaced Bhojpuri and Tamil (both originally from India) in South Africa and Native American languages in the United States and Canada. The effect is called language shift, and it may involve the transfer of language features of the abandoned language into the foreign one.  Effects of language/dialect contact The fourth type of contact implies restricted input (Use of strictly necessary language) and unguided acquisition (No systematic learning of any language). This kind of contact was common during the English colonial period in the Caribbean and many islands in the Pacific.  Effects of language/dialect contact The effect is pidginization (creating a new variety with restricted functions). Pidginization primarily involves grammatical restructuring and use of the vocabulary of one of the languages). According to the most accepted theory, the use of the pidgin by later generations produces creolization. Hickey also mentions the discontinuity of indigenous languages (the interruption in the transmission of language across generations). (Hickey, 2006, p. 77)  0 3 Borrowing Papua New Guinea  Borrowing Common language or dialect contact effects consist of taking linguistic material (words, sounds, phonological rules, morphemes, syntactic patterns, semantic associations, or discourse strategies) from another language or dialect and adopting it as part of their language or dialect. (Campbell, 2020). The phenomenon is called borrowing. This frequently includes taking lexical items known as loanwords, loans, or borrowings. Do not forget that not only words can be borrowed.  Borrowing Whenever a language borrows linguistic elements, it usually means that some people in both the borrowing language (recipient language) and the language it borrows from (donor language) have some level of bilingualism or bidialectalism (Campbell, 2020). These speakers are the ones who spread loanwords according to historical linguistics.  Borrowing One primary reason for borrowing words arises out of necessity. When speakers learn a new concept or acquire a new object, they need a name for it, usually borrowed from their foreign name. Prestige is another important factor for borrowing words from other languages or dialects. Adopting a foreign term occurs because it is held in high regard socially, often due to the status of its native users.  Borrowing During the dominance of Norman French in England, numerous words from Norman French were incorporated into the English language due to the higher social status and perceived prestige of French compared to English. (Campbell, 2020, p. 64). Lexical items that refer to foodstuff are abundant in English (cuisine, mouton, pork, lettuce, salad).  Borrowing In the early stages of language contact, loanwords are adjusted to fit the sound structure of the recipient language. Bilinguals introduce these loanwords, and through phonetic interference, unfamiliar sounds contained in the loanwords are adapted to native sounds. This process is called adaptation or phoneme substitution. Loanwords with non-native phonological patterns (phonotactics) are also adjusted to fit the phonological structure of the borrowing language  Borrowing In adaptation, a foreign (donor) sound in borrowed words that does not exist in the receiving language is replaced by the nearest phonetic equivalent in the borrowing ( = receiving) language. Phonotactics undergoes adjustment, where loanwords with sound patterns like consonant clusters, for example, that are not permitted in the native language (recipient) are modified to fit the phonological combinations permitted in the borrowing language through deletion (elision), addition, or recombination of sounds.  Borrowing "In situations of more extensive, long-term or intimate contact, new phonemes can be introduced into the borrowing language together with borrowed words which contain these new sounds, resulting in changes in the phonemic inventory of the borrowing language; this is sometimes called direct phonological diffusion. For example, before intensive contact with French, English had no phonemic /ʒ /. This sound became an English phoneme through the many French loans that contained it, which came into English, such as ‘rouge’ /ruʒ /." (Campbell, 2020, pp. 65-66).  0 4 Koinéization Dominica  Koinéization A straightforward definition of koinéization describes it as the development of a new, mixed variety following dialect contact (Kerswill, 2000). In a dialect contact situation where speakers of several varieties of the same language interact, like migration to a new town from different parts of the country, accommodation occurs.  Koinéization Accommodation is a sociolinguistic theory which suggests that speakers modify their speech patterns to align with those of their conversational partners for various reasons, ranging from gaining acceptance to fostering mutual understanding. Speakers try (consciously or unconsciously) to adapt their speech to make it more similar to their interlocutors' speech. From the accommodation process, the variants of certain linguistic features most speakers use (features of mainstream dialects) are chosen over the markedly regional features.  Koinéization Regional forms or features are disfavoured, so the number of forms available or variants available is reduced, and the mainstream forms are usually selected. However, as the contact continues, variability is further reduced because the following generation will eventually use intermediate or neutral forms rather than mainstream dialect forms. Paul Kerswill and Ann Williams (2000) demonstrated in their research on the English 'new town' Milton Keynes that most of the vowel sounds used by the children of this location were intermediate between the regional realizations and the mainstream ones.  Koinéization Another characteristic of koinéization is that "phonologically and lexically simple features are more often adopted than complex ones." (Kerswill, 2000, p. 89 ). When there is a whole generation of native speakers, the koiné becomes stable, and a new dialect has developed out of the initial mix of differing linguistic dialect features brought by speakers from different regions and social backgrounds at the beginning of the contact situation.  0 5 Dialect levelling Seychelles  Dialect levelling Dialect levelling is a linguistic process of simplifying or reducing variability in a continuous dialect contact situation. The distinct features that characterize different dialects are minimized through dialect levelling, resulting in increased similarity between the dialects in contact. This phenomenon is driven by accommodation.  Dialect levelling & Koinéization Dialect levelling leads to creating a koiné, so the two concepts are related. However, a koiné implies a mix of forms from which new forms are developed, and dialect levelling is an essential precursor to this stage. In dialect levelling, there is no mixture of forms or creation of new ones; instead, there is a reduction of the marked or more distinct variants (Trudgill, 1986). The outcome of this levelling process is that dialects become more similar or homogeneous, but it does not necessarily involve the creation of new forms.  0 6 Pidginization Kenya  Pidginization Pidginization originates in situations of close and repeated contact, as a transactional language or lingua franca, in very specific situations by speakers of mutually unintelligible languages. Pidgins emerge from an initial prepidgin or jargon that, through regular use, becomes a more stable means of communication. At the moment of acquiring structural rules or norms that have to be learned, the jargon becomes a new language called pidgin.  Pidginization A pidgin is not a mother tongue or first language; it is a secondary language with a stable structure and rules, used in specific trade contexts like marketplaces, the harbour, on ships, or labour environments like plantations as a bridge language to perform restricted functions. Pidgins may stay long if they are transmitted and for as long as the contact situation occurs. Pidgins were created, for example, by Chinese merchants and European sailors and importers in Canton, an important port city; between enslaved African workforce and Europeans on plantations in the Caribbean; by local domestic staff and English colonizers in India; and between mine workers and Belgian colonizers in Congo. (Velupillai, 2015)  Pidginization In the construction of a pidgin, input languages unintelligible among them get into contact, in many cases more than two or three; in the case of plantation pidgins, for example, these are West African languages (Akan, Ewe, Yoruba) and European languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese), a dominant language, usually the European language, act as a lexifier, i. e., it contributes with most of the lexis or vocabulary of the pidgin.  Pidginization These lexifiers are also called superstrate languages because they are used by speakers in positions of power and are imposed over the other input languages. The grammar of the pidgin is mainly taken from the African languages. These are called substrate languages because they "influence the structure and/or use of a more dominant variety in a community." (Velupillay, 2015, p. 6)  Pidginization "A stable pidgin is normally quite restricted in function, but in some cases it may later extend into wider areas. As a result, the language becomes lexically and grammatically more complex. It is then called an expanded pidgin. An example is Melanesian Pidgin, now spoken as three main dialects: Tok Pisin (also considered a creole) in Papua New Guinea, Pijin in the Solomon Islands, and Bislama in Vanuatu." (Siegel, 2010) Pidginization Solomon Islands Pijin  0 7 Creolization Jamaica  Creolization A creole emerges from a pidgin that has become the mother tongue of a community. Regarding its structure, a creole is more complex than a pidgin. It has expanded its vocabulary, morphology, and grammatical rules. Creole speakers can use it to fulfil any language function or communicative situation. Creoles present considerable variation based on region and the social status of its speakers.  Creolization In creole studies (creolistics), variation occurs along a continuum, just like the continuum between dialects of the same language, with the acrolect nearest the lexifier language or the standard which presents no regional variation and is used by upper and upper middle social classes at one extreme and the deepest regional creole that presents the most regional variation and is used by speakers at the bottom of the social scale, the basilect. In between these two extremes is the mesolect. Speakers of the middle classes use it, and it is less regional than the basilect but not completely standard as the acrolect.  Creolization From Practical Phonetics and Phonology ( 3rd ed. p. 3 ), by B. Collins and I. Mees, 2013, Routledge.  Creolization Whether creoles should be considered dialects of their lexifier languages or different languages is a matter of debate. There are also theories suggesting that creoles develop apart from pidgins, i.e., follow a separate development based on population structure and socioeconomic context (Mufwene, 2019).  Creolization Papua New Guinea Tok Pisin English: Once upon a time now there was a child, a little girl. She lived with her mother in the forest. The two of them lived there together.  Creolization Jamaican Creole 1. Acrolect (Standard Jamaican English) 2. Mesolect 3. Basilect (Creole)  0 Language 8 shift and language death Saint Kitts and Nevis  Language shift and language death Language shift is the contact-induced change where speakers of a native dialect or language abandon their use due to the enormous pressure of a language introduced by a group in a position of power, usually by invasion or because speakers have migrated. Speakers of the abandoned language adopt the foreign language for reasons like social acceptance or mobility, imposition of foreign religions or government policies and education conducted in the introduced language.  Language shift and language death Some examples of language shift are the displacement of Irish (Irish Gaelic ) by English in Ireland, Indigenous languages in North America by English, Tamil with Malay and then by English in Malaysia, and Indigenous languages in South and Central America by Spanish.  Language shift and language death Language shift is a process that extends through several generations. It starts with increasing bilingualism from generation to generation, with the younger ones eventually willingly quitting the native variety, followed by other circumstances like restricting the native dialect or language to social interaction with peers and traditional customs exclusively, and language attrition, defined as loss of proficiency in a language. With time, syntactic structures and lexis are more challenging to recall or are lost. However, older generations may retain some of the native language, and in some cases, written evidence of the native language remains.  Language shift and language death The death or extinction of a variety is preceded by language shift. However, the shift to another variety does not always lead to language death (Irish is being revitalized, for example). The extinction of a language is gradually produced. However, other more extreme factors produce the sudden extinction of a language, such as natural disasters and genocide.  Language shift and language death Tamboran, spoken in Sumbawa, an island in Indonesia, disappeared after the death of all its speakers due to a catastrophic volcanic eruption. “The Yashi language, last spoken by a man known as Ishi, believed to be the last survivor of his tribe, was murdered by white settlers in California” (Romaine, 2010 from Kroeber, 1964 ). Genocide is also the cause of the extinction of the Selk’nam language in Chile and the Tasmanian aboriginal languages in Australia. In both cases, though, revitalization efforts are being made based on remnants of these languages.  Language shift and language death Gradual language death happens over generations. The language is no longer used for all purposes or functions. As time passes and transmission decreases, speakers who once had high proficiency in the language gradually forget it and eventually lose it due to lack of use. Loss and forgetting lead to a cycle of attrition. As people forget more, it becomes harder to remember words and other expressions, mainly when they refer to things that are no longer used because of changes in customs or obsolete traditions (Romaine, 2010).  Philippines Recap  Recap Language contact implies the continuous interaction between languages or dialects of a language. Language contact induces changes in the varieties involved. One of those changes may be structural convergence; the varieties become structurally (syntax, lexis, morphology, phonology) more similar. Geographical vicinity, voluntary or forced migration through enslavement, commerce, colonialism and refugee movements are some causes of language/dialect contact.  Recap The outcome of language/dialect contact depends on many factors, such as the social status of speakers, distribution of power, perceived prestige, genetic similarity of the varieties and socioeconomic context that motivates the contact. Language/dialect contact can affect all the levels of language. The contact outcomes are usually different since each contact situation is unique. However, there are outcomes associated with the type of contact. The typology of contact situations includes intensity, systematicity of learning, speaker's attitudes, language structure complexity, the extent of integration of features or forms, and the genetic distance between varieties.  Recap The type-effect contact scenarios described include indirect contact with no interaction among speakers. This leads to borrowing and, if some degree of bilingualism exists, code-switching and code-mixing. Direct contact between genetically related languages or among dialects of the same language induces dialect levelling and koinéization. Direct forced or imposed contact results in language-shift if the pressure or imposing of the foreign language is intense.  Recap Another case of direct and intense contact without any intention of learning or teaching the different varieties -that in some situations can be several- brings about the creation of a whole new variety achieved by a syntactic restructuring of the different varieties (substrate varieties) and adoption of most vocabulary from one of the varieties (superstrate variety). This new variety is a pidgin, which acquires complexity and eventually becomes a mother tongue called creole.  Recap Borrowing is the most common effect of contact: taking linguistic forms at any language level, but most commonly lexis, from one of the contact languages. The most familiar effect of contact is borrowing: taking linguistic forms at any language level, but most commonly lexis, from one of the contact languages. Loanwords having foreign sounds go through adaptation or phoneme substitution. Phonological patterns in loanwords are adjusted to the receiving language patterns through elision, addition, or recombination. Direct phonological diffusion refers to adopting a new phoneme by the receiving language.  Recap Konéization involves developing a new variety from the mixture of several varieties of the same language. The process begins with accommodation followed by dialect levelling and the production of new variants, which results in the creation of a koiné. Pidginization arises from the necessity to communicate in very specific situations. It implies a superstrate language and substrate language. The former contributes to vocabulary, and the latter contributes to syntax. A pidgin creates a whole new variety by restructuring the varieties involved. Pidgins may be expanded in vocabulary and grammar to fulfil more communicative contexts. They are called extended pidgin. Expanded pidgins are still present in Melanesia and Africa.  Recap When the pidgin passes over to the following generations, speakers make it more complex in grammar and vocabulary and reaches full use scope. The new variety becomes the native language of a whole speech community and has evolved into a creole. Creoles present considerable variation based on the region and social status of the speaker. The variations run along a continuum from the basilect, passing through an intermediate variety called mesolect, to the acrolect.  Recap Language shift occurs due to the introduction of a dominant foreign language imposed over the native one. Through gradual lack of transmission and attrition, the native language becomes extinct. The death of a language can also be abrupt in circumstances of natural disasters and genocide. In cases where remnants or enough records of the extinct language are available, it can be revitalized.  References Adamou, E., Bullock, B. E., & Toribio, A. J. (2023). Understanding language contact. Taylor & Francis. Burridge, K., & Kortmann, B. (2008). The Pacific and Australasia. Walter de Gruyter. Campbell, L. (2021). Historical Linguistics, fourth edition: An Introduction. MIT Press. Durrleman, S. (2008). The Syntax of Jamaican Creole: A Cartographic Perspective. John Benjamins Publishing. Grant, A. P. (2020). The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact. Oxford University Press. Hickey, R. (2014). A Dictionary of Varieties of English. John Wiley & Sons. Hickey, R. (2012). The Handbook of Language Contact. John Wiley & Sons.  References Mufwene, S. S. (2008). Language evolution: Contact, Competition and Change. Bloomsbury Publishing. Mühlhäusler, P., Dutton, T. E., & Romaine, S. (2003). Tok Pisin Texts: From the beginning to the present. Romaine, S. (2020). Language death [The]. In R. Hickey (Ed.), The Handbook of Language Contact. John Wiley & Sons. Sebba, M. (1997). Contact languages: Pidgins and Creoles. Bloomsbury Publishing. Thomason, S. G. (2019). Language contact: An Introduction. Edinburgh University Press. Trudgill, P. (1986). Dialects in Contact. Blackwell Velupillai, V. (2015). Pidgins, Creoles and Mixed Languages: An Introduction. John Benjamins Publishing Company.