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Situations of multilingualism and language contact in which language varieties are small in scale and relatively equal in social status are important phenomena affecting processes of language change throughout human history. Despite this, our knowledge about the outcomes of multilingualism and language contact in this kind of setting remains limited. The current thesis provides insight into the linguistic consequences of interaction between closely-related, recently-described, small-scale language varieties in the community and in the minds of bilinguals, and works to overcome some of the methodological challenges associated with the study of language contact and multilingualism in this type of setting. The studies of the thesis investigate lexical and semantic outcomes of multilingualism and language contact in egalitarian foragers speaking the closely-related Northern Aslian (Austroasiatic) language varieties Jedek and Jahai in northern Peninsular Malaysia. Study I provides grammatical description of the newly discovered Northern Aslian language variety Jedek. Study II finds a high degree of lexical convergence in the language production of Jedek and Jahai speakers in contact, and presents a novel methodology for investigation of the linguistic consequences of language contact. Studies III and IV highlight the role of both social and linguistic factors in influencing bilingual outcomes, and provide evidence of symmetric (Study IV) and asymmetric (Study III) semantic interaction in two groups of Jedek-Jahai bilinguals in two different semantic domains. By combining perspectives from the fields of multilingualism, language contact and primary linguistic documentation and description, the thesis points to the potential of research in lesser-known linguistic settings to advance our theories of multilingualism, language contact and language change.

Policies aimed at sustainable landscape management recognise the importance of multiple cultural viewpoints, but the notion of landscape itself is implicitly assumed to be homogeneous across speech communities. We tested this assumption by collecting data about the concept of “landscape” from speakers of seven languages of European origin. Speakers were asked to freely list exemplars to “landscape” (a concrete concept for which the underlying conceptual structure is unclear), “animals” (a concrete and discrete concept) and “body parts” (a concrete concept characterised by segmentation). We found, across languages, participants considered listing landscape terms the hardest task, listed fewest exemplars, had the least number of shared exemplars, and had fewer common co-occurrence pairs (i.e., pairs of exemplars listed adjacently). We also found important differences between languages in the types of exemplars that were cognitively salient and, most importantly, in how the exemplars are connected to each other in semantic networks. Overall, this shows that “landscape” is more weakly structured than other domains, with high variability both within and between languages. This diversity suggests that for sustainable landscape policies to be effective, they need to be better tailored to local conceptualisations.

Supplemental material, Oct_5_Yager_Gullberg_Supplementary_Colorfigs_For_WEBSITE for Asymmetric semantic interaction in Jedek-Jahai bilinguals: Spatial language in a small-scale, non-standardized, egalitarian, long-term multilingual setting in Malaysia by Joanne Yager and Marianne Gullberg in International Journal of Bilingualism