Search

This dissertation presents the results of a tripartite exploration of English use by Latinxs in post-Katrina New Orleans, defined here as an ethnolinguistic repertoire that I call New Orleans Latinx English (NOLAE). The project considers how contemporary English use differs from that found in a pre-Katrina sample, how social network geometry influences linguistic performance, and how the localized discursive articulation of the Latinx community shapes the sociolinguistic context. I find that while vowel realization patterns provide no evidence of large-scale deviation across the pre-and-post Katrina samples, there are four vowels which exhibit statistically significant divergence. In each of these cases, the post-Katrina sample is more variable. I also illustrate that the geometry of the local Latinx social network, defined in terms of neighborhood affiliations, has a statistically significant impact on the realization of linguistic variables. Finally, I demonstrate that Spanish and Spanish-influenced English are discursively constructed as marked linguistic performance, leading local Latinxs to aspire to 'standard' English performance in public spaces. Differential experiences of this pressure is posited to underlie much of the linguistic variation observed in NOLAE, both across the pre-and-post-Katrina samples and within the contemporary sample. Methodologically, this project is grounded in Zentella's (Zentella, 1995, 1997, 2003) call for an anthropolitical linguistics, which develops interdisciplinary methodologies in order to make explicit the links between linguistic performance and the political realities in which marginalized communities exist. I apply a tripartite methodology. First, I consider patterns of vowel realization across pre-and-post-Katrina samples by plotting normalized formant values for vowel realizations from a subset of two corpora: an archive of oral histories provided by Latinxs in the city in the 1980s and 1990s and my corpus of sociolinguistic interviews conducted in the city during 2017 and 2018. Vowel distributions were checked for similarity by applying a variation of the Bhattacharyya's distance metric (Bhattacharyya, 1946; Fieberg & Kochanny, 2005). Second, I modeled the local Latinx social network using a bipartite affiliation graph (Latapy, Magnien, & Del Vecchio, 2008) and treated metrics calculated off of a projection of this graph as additional independent variables in order to investigate which factors predicted linguistic variation in the contemporary sample in terms of prosodic timing and /ae/ realizations. Finally, I conducted a qualitative analysis of the contemporary sample in order to determine the role of Latinx Threat Narratives (Chavez, 2008) in shaping and constraining language use among local Latinxs. This project addresses a gap in the sociolinguistic literature, as no previous research into English use among Latinxs in New Orleans exists. In addition, researchers have noted a dearth of sociolinguistic exploration of English use in New Orleans. This project contributes to ongoing efforts, including a large scale study by Katie Carmichael and Nathalie Dajko, to document English use in the city. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this project participates in an ongoing effort to explore how raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015; Rosa, 2016; Rosa & Flores, 2017) position linguistic performance among marginalized communities as deficient, which necessitates a shift in focus from simply describing the linguistic performance of marginalized groups to understanding how the perceptions of the listening subject (Inoue, 2006) constrain the types of linguistic identity work available to racialized speakers. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Using data from Arizona, United States, the present study seeks to further our understanding of lone other language items (LOLIs) in bilingual discourse and their status as either borrowings or codeswitches by measuring the degree of incorporation that can indicate a LOLI's status as a borrowing or codeswitching. To accomplish this aim, nouns from 40 sociolinguistic interviews from 8 Spanish monolingual speakers from Sonora, Mexico, 8 English monolingual speakers from Arizona, and 24 Spanish-English bilinguals from Arizona (from Sonoran families) are compared. Codeswitching can be defined as the "juxtaposition of sentences or sentence fragments, each of which is internally consistent with the morphological and syntactic (and optionally, phonological) rules of the language of its provenance" (Poplack, 1993, p. 255). Borrowing involves the incorporation of LOLIs from a donor language incorporated into a recipient language and need to be morphologically and syntactically adapted into the recipient language (Poplack, Sankoff, and Miller, 1988; Sankoff, Poplack, and Vanniarajan, 1990). Accordingly, the key difference between codeswitching and borrowing is that borrowings are morphosyntactically incorporated into the recipient language while codeswitches are not incorporated. It is important to note that in terms of LOLIs' status, phonological integration has been discarded for being too variable and therefore not a reliable factor in discerning one-item codeswitches from borrowings (Poplack and Sankoff, 1984; Poplack, Sankoff, and Miller, 1988). In order to measure the degree of incorporation that can in turn indicate the LOLI's status as a borrowing or a codeswitch, the present study applies a sociolinguistic comparative method to loanwords, following Poplack and Meechan (1995, 1998) by comparing nouns from Spanish (recipient language), nouns from English (donor language), and LOLIs from English in Spanish discourse. Since phonology has not been applied to the method of analysis, this study also seeks to explore if phonological integration is correlated to morphosyntactic integration of determiner realization of LOLIs. The results show, in accordance to previous studies, that the LOLIs overall act morphosyntactically like patrimonial Spanish words in terms of the variables that condition determiner usage. In terms of how phonological integration interacts with morphosyntactic integration, it does seem that the two correlate. LOLIs with Spanish morphology are more morphosyntactically similar to Spanish patrimonial nouns and LOLIs with English phonology are more morphosyntactically similar to English patrimonial nouns in both overall frequencies and the factors that condition determiner usage, leading to the hypothesis that LOLIs that are integrated phonologically are established borrowings and LOLIs that are not integrated phonologically are either codeswitches or nonce borrowings. We provide further evidence for this hypothesis by examining the pauses and false starts that are present before LOLIs with Spanish versus English phonology. The results indicate that LOLIs with English phonology are more often preceded with pauses and false starts than LOLIs with Spanish phonology. The findings of this study suggest that phonological integration is a factor that should be brought back to the discussion on discerning LOLIs' status as a borrowing or a codeswitch. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Greek-Aramaic bilingualism was wide-spread throughout Late Antique Syria and Mesopotamia. Among the various Aramaic dialects, Syriac underwent a particularly intense and prolonged period of contact with Greek. This contact led to changes in both languages. The present study provides a new analysis of contact-induced changes in Syriac due to Greek, from the earliest attestations of Syriac at the turn of the Common Era up until the beginning of the eighth century when the socio-linguistic situation changed due to the Arab conquests. More specifically, the study argues that Syriac is the outcome of a particular socio-linguistic situation in which inherited Aramaic material was augmented and adapted through contact with Greek. Augmentation refers to the fact that Syriac-speakers added a large number of Greek loanwords to their inherited Aramaic vocabulary. Greek loanwords in Syriac are the subject of Chapters §4-7 of the study. Adaptation, in contrast, refers to instances in which speakers of Syriac replicated inherited Aramaic material on the pattern of Greek. This type of change, which is termed grammatical replication in this study, is the subject of Chapters §8-10. It is proposed that the augmentation and adaptation of inherited Aramaic material was a factor in the development of Syriac as it is now known. This study is located at the intersection of two fields: contact linguistics and the study of ancient languages. It is based on the premise that these two fields can, and should, exist in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship. To this end, the study analyzes the relevant data within a contact-linguistic framework. This enables a more precise description of the changes than has previously been possible. In addition, by analyzing the data from the perspective of contact linguistics, the study has been able to illuminate part of the previously hidden socio-historical context of ancient Syriac-speakers. This study also shows how an ancient language such as Syriac, with its large and diverse written record, can inform the field of contact linguistics as well as historical linguistics more generally. It documents in detail various types of contact-induced change over a relatively long period of time with a wealth of data. Of particular interest to the field of contact linguistics, the study presents several examples of the transfer of semantic-conceptual grammatical structure in a contact situation in which the agents of change were linguistically dominant in the recipient language. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The influence of English on German has been an ongoing subject of intense popular and academic interest in the German sphere. In order to better understand this language contact situation, this research project investigates anglicisms--instances of English language material in a German language context--in the German hip hop community, where the use of novel anglicisms is especially frequent. This investigation takes a methodologically diverse approach, including complementary corpus, sociolinguistic, and ethnographic analyses. In this dissertation, I focus primarily on an original 12.5-million-word German-language corpus of hip hop discussions from the Internet forums at MZEE.com which includes 11 years of computer-mediated discourse. I supplement these data with an English-language hip hop discussion corpus and a set of ethnographic interviews conducted with hip hop fans and artists in Hamburg in the summer of 2010. I first detail the development of a computational classifier which identifies novel anglicisms in the MZEE.com corpus with high accuracy, yielding a list of 850 frequent anglicisms which is in turn used to identify unexpected wordforms--those which have a non-canonical morphological or orthographic nativization. Through an exploration of the linguistic properties, frequency, and distribution of these forms, I demonstrate the close link between orthographic, morphological, and phonological expressions of these anglicisms and argue that these forms are the result of extraordinary interaction of German and English linguistic-orthographic rules. The next analysis investigates the diachronic fate of anglicisms in the MZEE corpus, finding that frequency in an initial time window is significantly, and negatively, correlated with change in frequency for the set of 850 anglicisms--and this correlation is much stronger for anglicisms than for native German words, indicating the limited shelf life of anglicisms' stylistic utility, a situation corroborated by the subsequent analysis of ethnographic interviews with linguistic actors in the German hip hop community. That analysis reveals systematic and enduring constellations of attitudes toward German, English, and the use of anglicisms which interact with what I term the standard language ideology complex for German (including the related ideologies of the standard language, language purism, and Herderian ideology)--finding a surprising basis of linguistic conservatism which, even when opposed by individual actors, seems to reliably frame metalinguistic discourses. In combination, these findings, 1) that the nativization of anglicism wordforms is rule-governed, even when it appears haphazard or disruptive; 2) that many novel anglicisms seem to have a limited timeframe of popularity; and 3) that the standard language ideology complex and other related ideological stances toward anglicisms are dominant, even in a subcultural community where English material is ubiquitous and linguistic "resistance" is hypothesized; suggest that concerns about the imminent decline or loss of the German language are (to borrow from Mark Twain, an infamous student of the language) "an exaggeration". [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

As historical relationships of Slavs and Albanians in the western Balkans have been subject to a wide range of scholarly interpretations, this dissertation seeks to present the facts of linguistic evidence of Slavic-Albanian contact, and apply them to an informed understanding of Slavs' and Albanians' interactions historically. Although individual linguistic features are important for establishing the historical fact of language contact, only a systematic, comprehensive analysis of the several interrelated parts of language--vocabulary, phonology, and morphosyntax--can indicate how the languages, and the communities speaking them, have been affected by the long-standing contact. This study also considers the languages from the perspective of several language-contact theories, creating a multifaceted approach that reveals strengths and weaknesses of each theory, and also paints a multidimensional picture of the effects of language contact and socio-cultural reasons for the languages' changes. This layered analysis demonstrates that contact between Slavs and Albanians has brought about many linguistic changes, particularly in dialects that have remained in contact with one another. While the most obvious effects are the plenteous lexical borrowings, language contact is also present in phonology and morphosyntax, thus affecting every aspect of the dialects in contact. As the linguistic data shows, Albanian and Slavic communities have enriched one another linguistically and likely in other aspects of their cultural inheritances as well. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Recent research in language contact has investigated bilingual deviations from monolingual norms where syntax interfaces with the lexical and discourse components of the grammar (e.g. Iverson & Rothman 2008; Lozano 2006; Montrul 2004, 2005; Sorace & Filiaci 2006; Tsimpli et al. 2004). Such studies generally show that the "external" syntax-discourse interface displays more optionality in language contact and is more vulnerable to attrition than the "internal" syntax-lexicon interface, and this is termed the "Interface Vulnerability Hypothesis" (see Dominguez, 2009; Montrul, 2011). This dissertation further investigates the syntax-lexicon and syntax-discourse interfaces through a study of word order with unaccusative and unergative predicates in different focus contexts for native speakers of Bajio Mexican Spanish. The factors that constrain subject-verb or verb-subject word order in Spanish have been the subject of previous studies (e.g. Bolinger, 1991; Delbecque, 1988; Silva-Corvalan, 1982), and the word order of intransitive verbs has recently received attention in studies using variationist approaches (e.g. Rivas, 2008; Mayoral Hernandez, 2006; Ocampo, 2005) and structuralist approaches (e.g. Hertel, 2000; Hertel & Perez-Leroux, 1998; Lozano, 2003, 2006a; Montrul, 2005a, 2005b, 2006). A number of lexical and discourse-related factors have been reported to constrain the variable use of preverbal or postverbal subjects with intransitive verbs, but they are often overlooked in studies of word order, and other relevant factors, such as the "Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy" (Sorace, 2000, 2004), a continuum of lexico-semantic notions underlying unaccusativity, have not been thoroughly investigated. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate language-internal and language-external factors that may constrain word order variation at the syntax-lexicon and syntax-discourse interfaces in Bajio Mexican Spanish. For this study, an oral production task and an acceptability judgment task were administered to native speakers of Bajio Mexican Spanish residing near Irapuato, Mexico, and the results for 29 participants were included in the analyses. The results of these tasks reveal instability at both the syntax-discourse and syntax-lexicon interfaces and show that focus type, definiteness, subject NP weight, the position of adverbial phrases, and the verb categories of the "Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy" significantly favor particular word orders. Previously unnoticed verbal constructions that relate to word order are identified, and it is also suggested that cyclical migrants may influence the word order of Bajio Mexican Spanish. This dissertation is an important addition to current research because it identifies, tests, and ranks several language-internal and language-external variables for their effects on word order at the syntax-lexicon and syntax-discourse interfaces. In addition, the Interface Vulnerability Hypothesis is shown to be relevant for native speakers of Spanish living in Mexico because more word order variation is found to occur for these speakers at the syntax-discourse interface than at the syntax-lexicon interface in the production task. The results of this study do lend support for the Interface Vulnerability Hypothesis, but also show times in which "external" interfaces may show less word order variation than "internal" interfaces. This research makes a significant contribution to studies of unaccusativity in Spanish by comparing and reanalyzing the results of previous studies of unaccusativity in Spanish and by noticing parallels with historical changes and contact Spanish. This study also demonstrates that the "Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy" can help to explain word order in Spanish and should be termed the "Split Intransitivity Hierarchy" because of its cross-linguistic application. A "cutoff point" or transition zone between unergativity and unaccusativity is found for Spanish that situates Spanish crosslinguistically as being similar to Italian, but not yet like Dutch or French. A list of twenty proposed tests for unaccusativity in Spanish is also compiled for future research. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation is a study of Castilian transcodic markers in the Catalan written on the Internet. Thirty Castilian transcodic markers representing five categories were run through the interface of the Corpus d'Us del Catala a la Web (CucWeb) to collect information in order to conduct both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The major research questions to be answered deal with the absolute and relative frequencies of these transcodic markers in the CucWeb and the factors behind the production of these non-standard forms. In addition to the frequency of the Castilian transcodic markers in the CucWeb, the initial study provides qualitative analysis of the thirty transcodic markers that highlight patterns of usage. The second investigation consists of ten case studies that utilize multivariate analysis to determine the generic, regional, and linguistic factors behind the usage of these selected transcodic markers. The results of the study indicate that the overall relative frequency of these thirty transcodic markers is low, although the range is wide. Some transcodic markers do occur at a higher frequency than the prescriptive terms; however, the terms that demonstrate higher relative frequencies consistently show low absolute frequencies. Certain transcodic makers, nouns that show semantic extension, occur at higher relative frequencies when collocated with certain adjectives, indicating a degree of grammaticalization or lexical priming. In the case studies, genre was determined to be a statistically significant factor in the production of four transcodic markers. Region was found to be a significant factor in five case studies, although both region and genre were found to be factors in the production of only two transcodic markers. Three case studies determined only linguistic factors to be statistically significant. These results indicate that there are generic, regional, and linguistic factors behind the occurrence of Castilian transcodic markers in Internet Catalan, although not all of these factors are significant in every case. Individual analysis of specific transcodic markers shows evidence that Catalan is resisting Castilian influence in some cases, but adapting Castilian forms in others. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation project examines the language contact situation of Chipilo, a Veneto-Spanish bilingual community of immigrant origin in central Mexico, focusing both on the social motivations for the sustained bilingualism observed and the linguistic outcomes in the Spanish of the community. Chipilo is a unique community in that Veneto, a Northern Italian dialect, has been maintained for over 127 years and is the first language of many, if not all, of the bilinguals in Chipilo. Both community languages are ascribed high prestige, therefore slowing the process of language shift from the immigrant language to the national language. Chipilo was founded in 1882 by a homogenous group of approximately 560 immigrants from Veneto-speaking towns in northern Italy as a result of colonization efforts on the part of the Mexican government. During the initial years the town remained relatively isolated and the linguistic homogeneity of the group allowed for the continued use of Veneto as the preferred language of intra-ethnic communication. Today, changing social conditions brought about by the proximity of Puebla, the fourth largest city in Mexico, and an increase in contact with Spanish and mainstream national Mexican culture may affect the bilingualism observed in Chipilo. With respect to the social context of Chipilo, this dissertation explores the differences in language use patterns and language attitudes across different gender, age, and L1 groups. Results reveal significant differences between men and women and across age and L1 groups with respect to language use patterns and attitudes towards both Spanish and Veneto. Women view Veneto as more important both at an individual and societal level and identify more with Veneto than do men. L1 is a strong indicator of language use patterns and attitudes in that L1 Veneto bilinguals use more Veneto and demonstrate more favorable attitudes towards Veneto than L1 Spanish bilinguals. Across age groups, younger generations view Spanish as less important to the community and identify less with Mexican culture than older generations. This is attributed to the positive prestige associated with Veneto and the strong link between Veneto and ethnic identity that persists today in the distinction between "chipilenos and mexicanos". The intense Veneto-Spanish bilingualism observed in the community has linguistic consequences for the contact languages. Sociolinguistic interviews provided speech samples that were transcribed and analyzed for interlingual influence. Instances of language switching, lexical borrowings, and substratum effects, such as double negation, are identified and discussed. Interlingual influence was also examined by reference to the expression of overt subjects. In the case of Chipilo, Veneto and Spanish are both null subject languages, although the languages differ markedly in that Veneto employs obligatory subject clitics that occur in the 2SG, 3SG, and 3 PL verb forms, which could be reanalyzed as subject pronouns in bilingual Chipilo Spanish. Statistical analysis revealed no increase in the overall rate of subject pronoun expression in bilingual Chipilo Spanish. Moreover, patterns of subject expression in this contact variety are similar to/identical to the variables implicated in monolingual varieties: the language-internal factors of person (and number), verb form ambiguity, and co-referentiality were all returned as significant in the expression of subject pronouns in bilingual Chipilo Spanish. Furthermore, the language-external factors of age and gender were also returned as significant. Women and older speakers (Group 3, age 51-64) favor overt forms, whereas men and other age groups favor null forms. This is attributed to the fact that women and older speakers may use more Veneto than Spanish and may be more likely to reanalyze Veneto subject clitics as subject pronouns in Spanish. Properties of the grammar commonly found to be subject to contact effects in other bilingual populations (heritage speakers, L2 learners, attrited speakers) were also examined. Variability in production was attested in bilingual Chipilo Spanish with respect to the preterite/imperfect distinction and variability in the use of imperfect subjunctive, variability in the lexical mapping of psychological predicates and use of the indirect object marker a, and variability in the use of clitic-doubling in inalienable possession constructions. This dissertation contributes to a variety of linguistic fields, including social psychology of language, sociolinguistics, language contact, and theoretical linguistics. The language contact situation in Chipilo provides further insight into the processes of language maintenance and shift and the role that factors such as prestige, language attitudes, and identity play in the maintenance of a minority language. Furthermore, research in Chipilo offers a unique perspective to work in language contact and to the linguistic consequences of bilingualism in a situation of sustained contact. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

There is a system of English mouthing during interpretation that appears to be the result of language contact between spoken language and signed language. English mouthing is a voiceless visual representation of words on a signer's lips produced concurrently with manual signs. It is a type of borrowing prevalent among English-dominant bilingual-bimodal sign language interpreters who use American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English when interpreting for deaf consumers (Davis, 1989; Weisenberg, 2003). It is distinct from other systems of grammatical mouthing observed in native deaf signers. Bilingual-bimodal interpreters have the advantage of simultaneity : the two channels of expression are distinctly different: one, a visual-gestural channel, the other, oral-aural. When sign language interpreters organize abstract oral English discourse into a concrete visual-spatial form, they borrow from their dominant language, English. This study tested audience effects during interpretation from spoken English to ASL. Interpreters shifted their style to accommodate their addressees. A style shift was measured by the rate of English mouthing. Based on an analysis of variance (ANOVA) F(1,3) = 6.25, p = 0.08, the study demonstrates that the perceived cultural identity of the audience has more of an effect on English mouthing than topic, F(1, 3) = 0.046, p = 0.84. A pattern of mouthing reduction was also discovered. At least two experimental contexts contained technical terminology that was repeated. When there were no manual equivalents in ASL, interpreters interpreted these terms by overlapping mouthing with a manual sign of approximate meaning. Once they had expressed the combination, the mouthing was reduced or removed completely. This study confirms what is a commonly held notion in audience design, that speakers adjust their language in reaction to their addressees, and also opens up an inquiry to the use of the sign language interpreting context as a means of examining neologisms and language variability. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]