Language Contact

1
Language Contact

• presented by
• Michael L. Friesner
• August 6, 2007

Thank you to Gillian Sankoff for sending me her
PPT slides (among other things).
2
Two Main Types ofLanguage Contact

• Agent Nonnative speakers affecting a language
  they come to speak
• language shift
• interference (or sometimes imposition)
• L2 effects
• Agent Native speakers adopting nonnative
  features
• language contact through maintenance
• borrowing
• influence on L1
• (Third type Extreme Contact Formation of
  Contact Languagespidgins and creoles)

3
The Data Im Using to Demonstrate

• 2004-2005 A Sociolinguistic Study of Northeast
  Philadelphia (Friesner, Dinkin, and Wallenberg)
• Speakers native Russian and English speakers in
  Northeast Philadelphia

• 2006-2008 The Outcomes of Borrowing in Montréal
  (Friesner)
• Speakers native French and Spanish speakers in
  Montréal (mostly in French)

• 1993 The L2 Corpus of Anglo-Montrealers (Sankoff
  et al.)
• Speakers bilingual native English and French
  speakers in Montréal (in both languages)

4
Reasons for Languages to Be in Contact

• war/conquest
• colonialism
• slavery
• forced migration
• but also...
• voluntary migration
• intermarriage
• trade
• often (always?) results in social inequality
  between language groups...

5
Influence of Contact on Society

• Stable bilingualism (usually a lot of borrowing,
  esp. into less dominant language)
• India, Québec, Belgium, large parts of Africa
• Language shift
• immigrant communities, communities that end up in
  a different country because of conquest/border
  changes

6
Influence on Language

• Interference (L2 effects)
• most frequently affects structure syntax,
  phonology (accent), word choices (interlingual
  identifications)
• may only be features of nonnative speakers, but
  in high contact situations may be incorporated
  into the language as a whole (e.g., Irish
  pronunciation and structures in Irish English)
• bilingual communities also often code-switch
• Borrowing (influence on L1)
• most frequently affects lexicon
• some words may only be used by those who master
  both languages, while others may be used by the
  community as a whole
• especially used to express concepts that were
  introduced through cultural contact (tons of
  these in English taco, lo mein, matzah ball,
  spaghetti)

7
Interference Vincent, Age 24 (1993)

• What is Vincent saying?

I work(ed) uh three summer(s) in uh Bitumar --
asphált prodúcts
8
Interference Marina, Age 25 (2004)

• (Did you fight with anyone here?)
• a Of course, my neighbor from upstairs.
• b He hates my guts.
• c He called cops on me three times.
• (Is that the same one with the-- uh-- trash,
  or a different-- ?)
• d Uh-huh! He hates me. Oh he hates me!
• (So, when else di- when else did he call the
  cops on you?)
• f Um-- he called once
• g and he said that I was throwing the-- uh-- the
  cooking,
• um-- what is it called, the cooking,
  um--
• (oil, or the-- ? no--)
• ______
• Examples of lexical or structural infelicities
  are in red

9
Interference Marina, Age 25 (2004)

• h The plita, uh--
• (the- the oven???)
• Yeah. Like that oven, look at it.
• i The whole oven. The whole thing!
  
• j --that I was throwin it out of the window,
• k actually, I threw it out-- threw it out of the
  window!
• l You know what was my question?
• m Not that I didnt do it.
• n You know what was the first thing I said?
• o How did I picked it up? laugh
• p I mean, its the size of me, the damn thing!
• q I mean, it takes some moron to come up with
  something like that.

10
Interference Marina, Age 25 (2004)

• r Like, how much can you hate me to come up with
• something stupid like that?
• (But, it was-- there was no basis for-- where
  did he get that idea?)
• s He was just-- hes a very lonely man.
• t Hes uh-- hes a-- he likes--
• note CODE SWITCH to Russian, a
  language spoken by interviewer
• M.F., to describe the neighbor in
  very unflattering terms
• u Hes about fifty-five or sixty.
• v Hes very lonely.
• w He lives in a very, very small space.
• x And, you know, he uses drugs,
• y he doesnt work,
• z he says all the time that his back hurts,
• aa and he lives on the welfare and stuff--

11
Borrowing

• What constitutes a borrowing
• e.g., are expressions like Hasta la vista and
  déjà vu part of the English language, or not?
• How do words change pronunciation when they are
  borrowed into another language? Clara
• Phonological adaptation (Spanish r -gt English r)
  Clara
• Phonetic adaptation (Spanish r -gt English d/t)
  Clodda/Clotta
• Importation of nonnative segments (Spanish r -gt
  Spanish r (in English)) (pronounced as in
  Spanish)
• What factors affect pronunciation use of
  loanwords?
• language internal factors (difficulty of the
  sound, distance between the two languages, type
  of word)
• external factors (degree of bilingualism of
  individual and community, style, age, social
  class, attitudes)
• orthography(spelling)

12
Loanwords in French

• Variables in adaptation
• /r/ (posterior R, retroflex r, (or apical))
• /h/ (present or absent in loanword)
• hip-hop / rap h h r
• Michèle, 22, grad student, int. Eng. Ø Ø R
• Nathalie, 32, adv. deg., int. Eng., teacher h h r
• Murielle, 24, grad student, int. Eng. h h R
• Nathan, 34, univ., low Eng., job placer Ø Ø r
• Mélanie, 24, comm. coll., low Eng., baker h Ø r

13
Variable Gender Assignment (ex. sandwich)

• Un club-sandwich, puis un sandwich au smoked
  meat, ça, cest vraiment différent...
  (Michèle, 22, univ. , grad student, int.
  Eng.)
• A club sandwich and a smoked meat sandwich,
  those are really different...
• Euh- club-sandwich, cest- um- cest un sandwich,
  trois étages, au poulet- euh- tomates, laitue-
  euh- puis cest à peu près ça...
• (Daniel, 24, univ. , grad. student, fluent Eng.)
• A club sandwich is a sandwich with three levels,
  with chicken, tomatoes, lettuce, and thats about
  it...
• La sandwich au smoked meat, cest typiquement
  montréalais, ça, le smoked meat, euh- cest un-
  disons, cest une sandwich juste avec deux
  tranches de pain... (François, 29, adv.
  deg., engineer, fluent Eng.)
• A smoked meat sandwich is typical of Montreal,
  smoked meat, and its- um- a sandwich with just
  two slices of bread.
• Et une sandwich au smoked meat, cest une
  sandwich avec de la viande fumée, donc cest
  totalement différent, cest- euh- cest une
  sandwich ordinaire mais avec de la viande fumée à
  lintérieur.
• (Nicolas, 24, Grade 11, bartender, int. Eng.)
• A smoked meat sandwich is a sandwich with smoked
  meat, so its totally different, its an ordinary
  sandwich but with smoked meat inside.

14
Borrowing by social class and Level of English
(examples with proper names, comparing English
and French pronunciations)

• Harper will choose this man Harper revoit
  son cabinet
• (Harper reexamines his cabinet)
• Minister Rona Ambrose La ministre Rona
  Ambrose ()
• Mireille, 47, Grade 8, bar employee, very little
  English
• Nicolas, 24, Grade 11, bartender, intermediate
  English
• Chantal, 24, univ. , medical student, low int.
  English
• Daniel, 24, univ. , graduate student, fluent
  English

15
Borrowing community norms ltllgt (also
orthography)

• Ben, il fait des ceviches, des- euh- des paellas.
• (Laura, 24, child of Uruguayan immigrants)
• Well, he makes ceviches, and- uh- paellas.
• ...entre unos tres puen- tres punto doce- dos
  millones de Montreale(n)ses...
• (Laura in Spanish reading passage)
• ...among the approximately 3.2 million
  Montrealers...
• Ben, les paellas sont- sont bonnes.
• (Domingo, 25, Mexican, immigrated at age 21)
• Well, the paellas are- are good.

16
The pronunciation of borrowings is subject to
style shifting (examples from Domingo)

• LIST STYLE (most formal)
• Uh- burrito, enchilada et fajitas.
• READING STYLE
• On aime sy réchauffer en dégustant des fajitas,
  un molé typiquement mexicain, des enchiladas
  tierra blanca, des burritos ou même des crevettes
  sautées à la tequila.
• People like warming up there while tasting
  fajitas, a typically Mexican mole, enchiladas
  tierra blanca, burritos, or even tequila-sauteed
  shrimp.
• SPEAKING STYLE
• Mais, cest quoi, la différence? Uh- les burritos
  et la fa- les fajitas, cest pas de la bouffe
  mexicaine, cest de la bouffe du sud des É- des
  États-Unis...
• But, whats the difference? Uh- burritos and
  fajitas are not Mexican food, theyre food from
  the southern United States...
• Je pense que la différence entre le burrito puis
  la enchilada, cest quil y a pas de sauce sur
  les burritos.
• I think that the difference between a burrito
  and an enchilada is that theres no sauce on
  burritos.

17
There may be variation according to age in both
loanword pronunciation and which loanwords are
used (e.g., hovercraft)

• Murielle, age 24 - Javais jamais vu le mot
  hovercraft. Ive never seen the word
  hovercraft before.
• Nathalie, age 32 - Hovercraft, je connais pas.
  Hovercraft, I dont know it.
• Sébastien, age 37 - Hovercraft- cest la
  première fois que je vois ce mot-là.
  Hovercraft- this is the first time Ive
  seen this word.
• Alice, age 53 - Hovercraft - aéroglisseur, cest
  la même chose- même, même, même, même chose.
  Hovercraft - aéroglisseur, its the same
  thing- the same exact thing.
• Maryse, age 58 - Hovercraft - aéroglisseur, pour
  moi cest la même chose. Au début quand jen ai
  entendu parler de laéroglisseur, on lappelait
  lhovercraft, mais voilà. Hovercraft -
  aéroglisseur, for me its the same thing. Early
  on when I heard talk about the aéroglisseur, they
  called it a hovercraft, but there you go.

18
Language attitudes may affect pronunciation and
can be gleaned from interviews
Comments on which language is necessary for a job
by two bilingual speakers

• Daniel, age 24
• Cest assez facile davoir une job si tu parles
  juste français cest assez tough davoir une job
  si tu parles juste anglais. Uh- cest ça, cest
  toujours un atout de parler en anglais, euh- mais
  cest pas- cest pas- cest pas si nécessaire que
  ça quand même.
• Its pretty easy to get a job if you speak only
  French its pretty tough to get a job if you
  speak only English. Uh- thats right, its always
  an asset to speak in English, but its not all
  that necessary anyway.

Philippe, age 26 Je trouve que ça devient de plus
en plus dur de parler français à Montréal... I
find that its becoming harder and harder to
speak French in Montreal... Quelquun qui parle
pas un mot danglais trouvera jamais une
job. Someone who doesnt speak a word of English
will never find a job.
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So, in English...

• Some cases of variation in adaptation patterns
• /x/ Chanukah / Bach / Loch Ness
• bruschetta (/sk/ vs. /?/)
• stress differences (U.S. garáge vs. Brit. gárage)