A comparative model of contact-induced language change
Linguists since the Neogrammarians have stressed the need to examine social
factors in the study of language change. However, there is still little
consensus regarding the roles that these factors play-- or even what the factors
are. Eckert (1989:254), for example, argues explicitly that gender roles differ
over time from community to community. Implicitly, there is the suggestion that
any social factor may have different effects in different communities and at
different times. My question is, would that really be the case if everything
else could be held constant?
While many extensive and detailed studies of the interaction of social and
linguistic factors have been conducted, each has been undertaken in an
independent framework, making comparison across cases difficult or impossible.
The root of the problem lies in the fact that, in general, linguists who devote
themselves to detailed analysis of particular contact situations do not also
propose useful wide-ranging principles for the field as a whole. On the flip
side, theoretical linguists who write grand treatises on How Language Changes do
not generally report detailed facts regarding particular situations of language
change. My aim here is to show how this gap can be bridged. In order to see
whether social factors actually have constant effects, a uniform
multi-dimensional approach is necessary. In this paper, I outline a proposal for
a large-scale research project to do that in the field of contact-induced
language change.
Since Labov's early work, sociolinguists have used a similar paradigm to
analyze spontaneous change and variation, calling upon a core group of factors
relevant to speakers' social identities, experience and position within their
communities. When these factors don't account for all of the variance, other
factors such as ethnicity, level of education, and network membership may be
added. Such sets of core and peripheral social factors are not recognized in the
field of language contact.
Focusing on intensity of contact as the primary correlate of contact-induced
change, I propose that, in order to make progress in the study of how contact
induces language change, a number of comparable case studies is necessary. A
paradigm for conducting such studies is set up, building on the factors which
have been shown to be pertinent in earlier studies. A set of factors which
should be addressed in all studies is established, and I have indicated how the
factors are to be aligned along three axes. A method for combining the effects
of these factors, using a logistic equation, is proposed. Once a set of such
equations is available from a series of similarly conducted studies, the set of
equations is, in principle, solvable, and sociolinguists will have a model of
how social factors affect language change in contact communities. In combination
with work on linguistic structure effects and typological difference effects, a
complete model of language change will be within reach.
Reference
Eckert, P. (1989). "The whole woman: Sex and gender differences in
variation." Language Variation and Change 1:245-67.
Paper presented at:
The 1997 Meeting of the Modern Language Association
Title: The politics of being bilingual
Author: Naomi Nagy
Affiliation: University of New Hampshire
Return to list of Naomi's research
interests.
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