scholarly journals Structural effects of English–German language contact in translation on concessive constructions in business articles

2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Bisiada
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Hierarchical Structures ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
German Language ◽  
Structural Effects

AbstractStudies on a variety of languages have observed a shift away from hypotactic, hierarchical structures towards paratactic, incremental structures, and have attributed this to language contact with English in translation. This paper investigates such a shift towards parataxis as the preferred structure of concessive constructions in German business articles. To this effect, a diachronic corpus method that has been applied to popular science articles in existing studies is adopted and applied to business articles, in an attempt to reproduce existing findings for this genre. This method is complemented by a corpus of manuscripts which allow to control for the effect of editing on the translated texts. Based on the analysis of hypotactic and paratactic translations of English concessive conjunctions between 1982/83 and 2008, I argue that hypotactic structures are indeed used less frequently in translated texts, but that this development is restricted to translated language. In non-translated texts, the use of hypotactic conjunctions has increased. The use of sentence-initial conjunctions, however, does seem to spread in this genre (as was reported for popular science), which may be further evidence for it to be a case of language change through contact in translation.

scholarly journals Bilingualism and the Serbo-German Bilingual Community of Serbs in Ingolstadt

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julijana M. Vuletić
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Change Process ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
German Language ◽  
Third Generation ◽  
Research Results ◽  
The Third ◽  
Receptive Bilinguals

In this study we represent the bilingual language situation in the ethnolinguistic community of Serbs in Ingolstadt, recorded over the period of time from 2010 until 2013. The paper also addresses the occurrences of bilingualism and diglossia in the context of contact linguistics, their classification, as well as the samples of bilingualism in the researched corpus, with the accompanying phenomena of language contact. The obtained cross-section of the sociolinguistic and linguistic situation of the researched ethnolinguistic community, as well as the research results, refer to the specific community and specific corpus. Nonetheless, obtained results with certainty allow introspect into the life cycle dynamics tendency for the Serbo-German bilingual communities.  Reflecting upon the research results we may conclude that our investigated sample, which can expand onto the entire research corpus, can be regarded as being almost in the second last phase of the language change process. A rather significant part of the corpus in the further development of the language change process would certainly be the third generation of working migrants. Further direction of the bilingual community development will most likely be dependent upon this generation, as well as other accompanying factors. In the researched sample we can observe different percentual representation of balanced bilinguals and dominant bilinguals, as well as passive and receptive bilinguals. The fact that there is a significant percentual presence of passive and receptive bilinguals among the third group of migrants explains the situation that one part of the second generation of working migrants in the researched community is powerless before the pressure of social networks, economic and social relations that we find in the social majority group. They abandon teaching their children the Serbian language, and they perceive the German language as the capital asset through which those who belong to the third generation of working migrants can gain top positions in the education system and in the market as well. In the language practice of bilingual speakers there is the phenomenon of language contact from the first to the third generation, specifically in the occurrence of transference (mixing of two language systems on the basis of phonetics, morphology, syntax) or in code switching (mixing of two languages from the communicative aspect). Transference, as a phenomenon in the direct and indirect language contact, may have multiple results which will be considered in future papers on the issue of language contact phenomenon. Finally, under the environmental effect (standard German language, German dialects), as well as the effect of different language community dialects the members of the first generation of working migrants come from, a new language is developed. This new language cannot be called the Serbian language spoken by the Serbs in the homeland but namely we propose a new term Serbian diaspora language in Germany. This language as such is then transferred onto the new generations and/or its use declines in one and sustains in other domains. Ultimately, at the end of this process, as many contact linguistic researches have illustrated, an inevitable situation may occur where a life cycle of the bilingual community might come to an end and there might be a complete language change of the minority with the majority community.

The visual-gestural modality and beyond

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Mohr
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Main Part ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
Modal Language ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Native Signers

The article analyses cross-modal language contact between signed and spoken languages with special reference to the Irish Deaf community. This is exemplified by an examination of the phenomenon of mouthings in Irish Sign Language including its origins, dynamics, forms and functions. Initially, the setup of language contact with respect to Deaf communities and the sociolinguistics of the Irish Deaf community are discussed, and in the main part the article analyses elicited data in the form of personal stories by twelve native signers from the Republic of Ireland. The major aim of the investigation is to determine whether mouthings are yet fully integrated into ISL and if so, whether this integration has ultimately caused language change. Finally, it is asked whether traditional sociolinguistic frameworks of language contact can actually tackle issues of cross-modal language contact occurring between signed and spoken languages.

scholarly journals Introduction to language acquisition, bilingualism and copula choice in Spanish

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
PEDRO GUIJARRO-FUENTES ◽  
KIMBERLY L. GEESLIN
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
Areas Of Interest

In several of the most widely read Spanish grammars an entire chapter is devoted to the two copular verbs in Spanish, ser “to be” and estar “to be”, and their many contexts of use (Bull, 1965; Solé and Solé, 1977; Whitley, 1986; Bosque and Demonte, 1999; King and Suñer, 1999; Butt and Benjamin, 2000). For some, the interest in this structure stems from the range of meanings that can be expressed with these two forms, whereas for others it is the variability in the use of these verbs with adjectives, existing between groups, individuals and particular social contexts, that generates inquiry. The combination of these two traits makes the contrast difficult to acquire and likely to be lost or weakened in contexts of language attrition or language contact (Silva-Corvalán, 1986; Geeslin, 2002) and this complexity makes the copula contrast in Spanish an excellent mechanism for exploring broader issues such as theories of acquisition and language change, which are of value to a readership well beyond those working directly on Spanish. After a brief description of the distribution of ser and estar, we provide an overview of the various theoretical descriptions of the copula contrast that exist and their implications for research on bilingualism. Next, we provide a description of the papers in this volume, and outline the areas of interest for readers whose research extends beyond Spanish grammar.

Introduction: Multicultural youth vernaculars in Paris and urban France

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNY CHESHIRE ◽  
PENELOPE GARDNER-CHLOROS
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Nursery School ◽  
Peer Groups ◽  
Recent Immigrant ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Linguistic Backgrounds

The papers in this Special Issue present some of the results of theMulticultural London English/Multicultural Paris Frenchproject, supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) from October 2010 to December 2014 and by the FrenchAgence Nationale de la Recherche(ANR) from 2010–2012. The project compared language variation and change in multilingual areas of London and Paris, focusing on the language of young people of recent immigrant origin as well as that of young people whose families had lived in London or Paris for many generations. Similar projects in other European cities have documented the emergence of new ways of speaking and rapid language change in the dominant ‘host’ language, which are attributed to the direct and indirect effects of language contact; see, for example, Wiese 2009 on young people's language in Berlin, Quist 2008 on youth language in Copenhagen, and Svendsen and Røyneland 2008 on Norwegian). In London, young children from diverse linguistic backgrounds tend to acquire English in their peer groups at nursery school rather than from their parents, many of whom do not speak English or are in the early stages of learning English. Since their peers speak a wide range of different languages, the only language the young children have in common is English; and since many of their friends are also acquiring English, there is no clear target model, a high tolerance of linguistic variation, and plenty of scope for linguistic innovation. By the time they reach adolescence, young people's English has stabilized, and many innovations have become part of a new London dialect, now known as Multicultural London English (Cheshire et al., 2013). New urban dialects and language practices such as these have been termed ‘multiethnolects’: they contain a variable repertoire of innovative phonetic, grammatical, and discourse-pragmatic features. In multiethnic peer groups, where local children from many different linguistic backgrounds grow up together, the innovative features are used by speakers of all ethnicities, including those of local descent such as, in London, young monolingual English speakers from Cockney families. Nevertheless they tend to be more frequent in the speech of bilingual young people of recent immigrant origin, and by young speakers with highly multiethnic friendship groups (see further Quist 2008 for an account of the use of features associated with a multiethnolect in conjunction with nonlinguistic ‘markers’ of style, such as tastes in music and preferred ways of dressing). Our project aimed to determine whether a similar outcome had occurred in multicultural areas of Paris.

Sources of auxiliation in the perfects of Europe

2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 599-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Drinka
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Peripheral Areas ◽  
Explanatory Mechanism ◽  
Scribal Tradition

This paper explores the complex role of language contact in the development of be and have auxiliation in the periphrastic perfects of Europe. Beginning with the influence of Ancient Greek on Latin, it traces the spread of the category across western Europe and identifies the Carolingian scribal tradition as largely responsible for extending the use of the be perfect alongside the have perfect across Charlemagne’s realm. Outside that territory, by contrast, in “peripheral” areas like Iberia, Southern Italy, and England, have came to be used as the only perfect auxiliary. Within the innovating core area, a further innovation began in Paris in the 12th century and spread to contiguous areas in France, Southern Germany, and northern Italy: the semantic shift in the perfects from anterior to preterital meaning. What can be concluded from these three successive instances of diffusion in the history of the perfect is that contact should be regarded as one of the essential “multiple sources” of innovation, and as a fundamental explanatory mechanism for language change.

Some properties of texts in terms of ‘information distribution’ across languages

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erich Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Information Distribution ◽  
Intuitive Notion ◽  
Micro Level

On a global level, an attempt will be made to relate relatively macro-level intuitions about properties of texts to more micro-level notions and to empirically testable lexicogrammatical properties. The strategy will be to (a) partly reduce an intuitive notion of ‘information distribution’ in texts and sentences to more technical and better understood notions of ‘information structure’, ‘informational density’ and ‘grammatical metaphoricity’, and (b) operationalize these latter notions in such a way as to make them empirically testable on electronic corpora, using the ‘shallow’ concepts of ‘explicitness, density, and directness’ as properties of semantics-to-grammar mapping in sentences. It will furthermore be suggested that aspects of intuitive qualities of texts, such as ‘content orientation’ vs. ‘interactant orientation’ and others can be partly modelled in terms of (a) and (b). The argumentation in this paper thus proceeds from intuitive text-level notions to more technical and clause-based concepts, and from these concepts to operationalizations. It then moves ‘upwards’ again to text-level properties, exploring the relationships between the two levels. Finally, an outline is attempted of some implications for studies of language contact and language change.

Special Language Domain in Which Grammatical Rules May Be Violated Legitimately in Chinese

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Xu ◽  
Yewei Qin
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Core System ◽  
Linguistic Rules ◽  
Future Direction ◽  
Economic Zones ◽  
Special Language

“Special language domain” (SLD) refers to domains or areas of language use in which linguistic rules may be violated legitimately. The SLD is similar to “free trade zones,” “special administrative regions,” and “special economic zones” in which tariff, executive, and economic regulations may be legitimately violated to an extent. Innovative use in SLD is another major resource for language evolution and language change as well as language contact and language acquisition, since some temporary and innovative forms of usage in SLD may develop beyond the SLD at a later stage to become part of the core system of linguistic rules. Focusing on relevant grammatical phenomena observed in the Chinese language, poetry in various forms, titles and slogans, and Internet language are the three major types of SLD, and their violation of linguistic rules is motivated differently. Furthermore, although core linguistic rules may be violated in SLD, the violations are still subject to certain limits and restrictions. Only some language-particular rules can be violated legitimately in SLD; the principles of Universal Grammar, applicable generally for all human languages, have to be observed even in the SLD. The study of a special language domain provides an ideal and fascinating window for linguists to understand language mechanisms, explain historical change in language, and plausibly predict the future direction of language evolution.

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