The Mixed Language Debate

The Mixed Language Debate PDF

Author: Yaron Matras

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2008-08-22

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 3110197243

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Mixed Languages are speech varieties that arise in bilingual settings, often as markers of ethnic separateness. They combine structures inherited from different parent languages, often resulting in odd and unique splits that present a challenge to theories of contact-induced change as well as genetic classification. This collection of articles is devoted to the theoretical and empirical controversies that surround the study of Mixed Languages. Issues include definitions and prototypes, similarities and differences to other contact languages such as pidgins and creoles, the role of codeswitching in the emergence of Mixed Languages, the role of deliberate and conscious mixing, the question of the existence of a Mixed Language continuum, and the position of Mixed Languages in general models of language change and contact-induced change in particular. An introductory chapter surveys the current study of Mixed Languages. Contributors include leading historical linguists, contact linguists and typologists, among them Carol Myers-Scotton, Sarah Grey Thomason,William Croft, Thomas Stolz, Maarten Mous, Ad Backus, Evgeniy Golovko, Peter Bakker, Yaron Matras.

New Perspectives on Mixed Languages

New Perspectives on Mixed Languages PDF

Author: Maria Mazzoli

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-06-08

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1501511254

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A growing number of language varieties with diverse backgrounds and structural typologies have been identified as mixed. However, the debate on the status of many varieties and even on the existence of the category of “mixed languages” continues still today. This volume examines the current state of the theoretical and empirical debate on mixed languages and presents new advances from a diverse set of mixed language varieties. These cover well-known mixed languages, such as Media Lengua, Michif, Gurindji Kriol, and Kallawaya, and varieties whose classification is still debated, such as Reo Rapa, Kumzari, Jopará, and Wutun. The contributions deal with different aspects of mixed languages, including descriptive approaches to their current status and origins, theoretical discussions on the language contact processes in them, and analysis of different types of language mixing practices. This book contributes to the current debate on the existence of the mixed language category, shedding more light onto this fascinating group of languages and the contact processes that shape them.

Language Change in Contact Languages

Language Change in Contact Languages PDF

Author: J. Clancy Clements

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2011-12-16

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 9027282552

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The studies in Language Change in Contact Languages showcase the contributions that the study of contact language varieties make to the understanding of phenomena such as relexification, transfer, reanalysis, grammaticalization, prosodic variation and the development of prosodic systems. Four of the studies deal with morphosyntactic issues while the other three address questions of prosody. The studies include data from the Atlantic creoles (Saramaccan, Sranan, Haitian Creole, Jamaican Creole, Trinidadian Creole, Papiamentu), as well as Singapore English. This volume, originally published as special issue of Studies in Language 33:2 (2009), aims to make the work of several language contact experts available to a wider audience. The studies will be of use to any student or scholar interested in different approaches to contact-induced language processes, particularly as they relate to morphosyntax and prosody.

Multidisciplinary Approaches to Code Switching

Multidisciplinary Approaches to Code Switching PDF

Author: Ludmila Isurin

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2009-07-10

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 902728928X

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The volume presents a selection of contributions by leading scholars in the field of code-switching. In the past the phenomenon of code-switching was studied within different subfields of linguistics and they all took their own perspectives on code-switching without taking into account findings from other subdisciplines. This book raises a question of a much broader multidisciplinary approach to studying the phenomenon of code-switching; calls for integration of disciplines; and illustrates how frameworks from one subfield can be applied to models in another. The volume includes survey chapters, empirical studies, contributions that use empirical data to test new hypotheses about code-switching, or suggest new approaches and models for the study of code-switching, and chapters that discuss principles and constraints of code-switching, and code-switching vs. transfer. The book is easily accessible to anyone who is interested in the phenomenon of code-switching in bilinguals.

Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages

Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages PDF

Author: Gerrit J. Dimmendaal

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2011-06-08

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 9027287228

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This advanced historical linguistics course book deals with the historical and comparative study of African languages. The first part functions as an elementary introduction to the comparative method, involving the establishment of lexical and grammatical cognates, the reconstruction of their historical development, techniques for the subclassification of related languages, and the use of language-internal evidence, more specifically the application of internal reconstruction. Part II addresses language contact phenomena and the status of language in a wider, cultural-historical and ecological context. Part III deals with the relationship between comparative linguistics and other disciplines. In this rich course book, the author presents valuable views on a number of issues in the comparative study of African languages, more specifically concerning genetic diversity on the African continent, the status of pidginised and creolised languages, language mixing, and grammaticalisation.

The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact

The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact PDF

Author: Anthony P. Grant

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-02-07

Total Pages: 788

ISBN-13: 0199945098

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"In thirty-three chapters, The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact examines the various forms of contact-induced linguistic change and the levels of language which have provided instances of these influences. In addition, it provides accounts of how language contact has affected some twenty languages, spoken and signed, from all parts of the world."-- Jaquette.

Irish Traveller Language

Irish Traveller Language PDF

Author: Maria Rieder

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-03

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 3319767143

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This book explores the Irish Traveller community through an ethnographic and folk linguistic lens. It sheds new light on Irish Traveller language, commonly referred to as Gammon or Cant, an integral part of the community’s cultural heritage that has long been viewed as a form of secret code. The author addresses Travellers’ metalinguistic and ideological reflections on their language use, providing deep insights into the culture and values of community members, and into their perceived social reality in wider society. In doing so, she demonstrates that its interrelationship with other cultural elements means that the language is in a constant flux, and by analysing speakers’ experiences of language in action, provides a dynamic view of language use. The book takes the reader on a journey through oral history, language naming practices, ideologies of languageness and structure, descriptions of language use and contexts, negotiations of the ‘authentic’ Cant, and Cant as ‘identity’. Based on a two-year ethnographic fieldwork project in a Traveller Training Centre in the West of Ireland, this book will appeal to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, language in society, language ideology, folk linguistics, minority communities and languages, and cultural and linguistic anthropology.

Loss and Renewal

Loss and Renewal PDF

Author: Felicity Meakins

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2016-04-11

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 1501501038

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Felicity Meakins was awarded the Kenneth L. Hale Award 2021 by the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) for outstanding work on the documentation of endangered languages Australia is known for its linguistic diversity and extensive contact between languages. This edited volume is the first dedicated to language contact in Australia since colonisation, marking a new era of linguistic work, and contributing new data to theoretical discussions on contact languages and language contact processes. It provides explanations for contemporary contact processes in Australia and much-needed descriptions of contact languages, including pidgins, creoles, mixed languages, contact varieties of English, and restructured Indigenous languages. Analyses of complex and dynamic processes are informed by rich sociolinguistic description.

Case-marking in Contact

Case-marking in Contact PDF

Author: Felicity Meakins

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 9027252610

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Until recently, mixed languages were considered an oddity of contact linguistics, with debates about whether or not they actually existed stifling much descriptive work or discussion of their origins. These debates have shifted from questioning their existence to a focus on their formation, and their social and structural features. This book aims to advance our understanding of how mixed languages evolve by introducing a substantial corpus from a newly-described mixed language, Gurindji Kriol. Gurindji Kriol is spoken by the Gurindji people who live at Kalkaringi in northern Australia and is the result of pervasive code-switching practices. Although Gurindji Kriol bears some resemblance to both of its source languages, it uses the forms from these languages to function within a unique system. This book focuses on one structural aspect of Gurindji Kriol, case morphology, which is from Gurindji, but functions in ways that differ from its source.