Convergence and Divergence in Language Contact Situations
Published on 12. November 2009
Book
Hardback
241 pages
978-90-272-1928-2 (ISBN)
Description
This book deals with the consequences of converging and diverging processes and their development in language contact situations. It provides insights into the various forms of language contact and the conditions under which bilingual speakers master their every-day life in bilingual communities. Its nine contributions cover both theoretical and typological aspects, such as the classification of languages, the role of language contact, linguistic complexity and spontaneous speech innovations, and convergence and divergence processes in translation, (morpho)syntax and phonology/phonetics. Taken together, these studies provide challenges for linguistic theories that generalize from situations of monolingualism suggesting instead that a sound linguistic theory cannot be a theory for just one single, isolated language but must be a theory for at least two languages. It must also account for the fact that some structures involved in contact situations are not kept apart but develop in such a way that the distance decreases between the languages involved.
Reviews / Votes
This collection makes it clear that no language system should be viewed in isolation; instead these pieces urge us on toward a future in which contact and multilingualism are acknowledged as central to the story of language evolution. This volume will be a useful resource for a number of experts, especially as a review of relevant theoretical issues, and will be particularly welcomed by language contact specialists on Scandinavian, Germanic and Iberian languages. -- William B. Bangs, California State University, Fullerton, in Journal of Historical Linguistics Vol. 2(2): 293-297, 2012More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 245 mm
Width: 164 mm
Weight
605 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-272-1928-2 (9789027219282)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Kurt Braunmüller | Juliane House
Convergence and Divergence in Language Contact Situations
E-Book
11/2009
1st Edition
John Benjamins Publishing Company
€93.49
Available for download
Persons
Content
1. Introduction; 2. Part I. Challenges to accepted views of convergence and divergence in language contact situations; 3. Divergence, convergence, contact: Challenges for the genealogical classification of languages (by Bossong, Georg); 4. Increases in complexity as a result of language contact (by Dahl, Osten); 5. Converging genetically related languages: Endstation code mixing? (by Braunmuller, Kurt); 6. Part II. Convergence and divergence in different varieties in oral and written discourse; 7. Converging languages, diverging varieties: Innovative relativisation patterns in Old Swedish (by Hoder, Steffen); 8. Converging verbal phrases in related languages: A case study from Faro-Danish and Danish-German language contact situations (by Kuhl, Karoline); 9. Convergence and divergence of communicative norms through language contact in translation (by Becher, Viktor); 10. On the importance of spontaneous speech innovations in language contact situations (by Vann, Robert E.); 11. Part III. Phonological processes of variation and change in bilingual individuals; 12. Gradient merging of vowels in Barcelona Catalan under the influence of Spanish (by Cortes, Susana); 13. Comparing the representation of iambs by monolingual German, monolingual Spanish and bilingual German-Spanish children (by Arias, Javier); 14. Author index; 15. Subject index