Linguistics at U of T

Paper presented at Bilingual Workshop in Theoretical Linguistics, University of Toronto, Dec. 10, 2010

Quantifying Degree of Contact:
Determining the Factors Significant for Heritage Language Speakers

Joanna Chociej

In conducting research on contact linguistics, it is important to identify the degree of contact each speaker has had with both the minority and the majority language. This task is particularly difficult when dealing with heritage language speakers who were exposed to both languages from birth. When the linguistic data for these speakers points to varying degrees of influence of the majority language, the challenge is to determine why one speaker has been influenced more than another. This includes not only identifying the social factors that may affect a heritage language, but also identifying the factors that are superfluous. Once the questions based on these factors have been decided on, how are the speakers’ answers to be quantified? The complicated task of quantifying a speaker’s answers is further compounded by situations where the speaker’s linguistic environment has changed drastically over the years, or where the speaker has made conflicting statements within the same interview. The methodological issues above are just some of the problems I have encountered in my recent sociolinguistic research on Polish heritage language speakers in Toronto. Each issue will be illustrated with an example from that study. In conducting research on contact linguistics, it is important to identify the degree of contact each speaker has had with both the minority and the majority language. This task is particularly difficult when dealing with heritage language speakers who were exposed to both languages from birth. When the linguistic data for these speakers points to varying degrees of influence of the majority language, the challenge is to determine why one speaker has been influenced more than another. This includes not only identifying the social factors that may affect a heritage language, but also identifying the factors that are superfluous. Once the questions based on these factors have been decided on, how are the speakers’ answers to be quantified? The complicated task of quantifying a speaker’s answers is further compounded by situations where the speaker’s linguistic environment has changed drastically over the years, or where the speaker has made conflicting statements within the same interview. The methodological issues above are just some of the problems I have encountered in my recent sociolinguistic research on Polish heritage language speakers in Toronto. Each issue will be illustrated with an example from that study.