Language Contact Situations

Monolingual, Bilingual, Multilingual

Language Contact

• It occurs when speakers of different languages interact and their languages influence each other

• The study of Language contact is called contact Linguistics

Language Contact• A situation that arises when – two or more languages are spoken in the same or adjoining

regions• And – when there is a high degree of communication between the

people speaking them• Can result in – Language loss or even language death– Borrowing– Bi- / multilingualism– Language change

Situations of language contact• mixed population and bilingualism• migration:• mixed marriage • refugees • trade• captives of war• multilingualism in the city• seasonal work• education• radio

Monolingualism

• David Crystal defines a monolingual is a person/community with only one language, is also called unilingual

• a person who has an active knowledge of only one language, though perhaps a passive knowledge of others

Bilingualism (Multilingualism)

• The ability of societies or individuals to engage on regular basis with more than one language in their day to day lives

• Individual Bilingualism – the use of two (or • more) languages by an individual– E.g., an individual who speaks both English and Spanish – Societal Bilingualism – the use of two (or more)

languages within a given community– E.g., the bilingual setting in India, Canada, Switzerland,

Malaysia, etc.

• The term ‘bilingualism’ may mean different things to different people. – To the average person, bilingualism can be loosely

defined as: • the use of two languages or • the native-like control of two languages.

75% of the world’s population speak two or more languages.

Not all bilinguals speak two languages at the same level.

By the age of 2.5, a bilingual child begins to make choices in language use, usually the majority language.

Degree of Bilingualism - DefinitionsBloomfield (1933): native-like control of two

languages Mackey (1962): the ability to use more than

one language Weinriech (1953): the practice of alternately

using two languages Haugen (1953): the point where a speaker can

first produce complete meaningful utterances in the other language

• Bilinguals may be • Balanced bilinguals- Individuals fully

competent in both languages • Dominant bilinguals-Individuals who are

dominant in one language. – Less dominant language = ‘subordinate.’ – Dominance does not apply to all domains.

• Passive bilinguals-Individuals who are gradually losing competence in one language, usually because of disuse. – common among immigrant groups– often loose productive skills while retaining

receptive skills• Semi bilinguals- Individuals who appear to

have limited proficiency in both languages.

Multilingual

• The ability of an individual speaker or a community of speakers to use multiple languages. Contrast with monolingualism, the ability to use only one language.

• A person who can speak multiple languages is known as a polyglot or a multilingual.

• Multilingualism has various advantages: • a) Accessibility to knowledge of other

cultures; • b) Communication between different

linguistic and cultural groups become easier; • c) Increases job opportunities; • d) High cognitive development of a child; • e) A broader world view, etc.

reasons for multilingualism can be:

• a) Migration or labour mobility. • b) Cultural contact • c) Annexation and colonialism • d) Commercial • e) Scientific • f) Technological • g) Territorial conquest, etc.

Degrees of Multilingualism

• If a person has native like command in all the languages he knows, then it is known as

• Ambilingualism. • if a person has equal degree of competence in

the languages he uses, is known as Equilingualism.

• Individual Multilingualism: The ability of an individual to have competence in two or more languages is known as Individual multilingualism.

• Societal Multilingualism: The linguistic diversity present in a society is known as Societal Multilingualism.

Interference

• The term interference refers to the influence of one language (or variety) on another in the speech of bilinguals who use both languages.

• "Those instances of deviation from the norms of either language which occur in the speech of bilinguals as a result of their familiarity with more than one language, i.e. as a result of language contact, will be referred to as INTERFERENCE phenomena." (Weinreich 1953:1)

• It refers to speakers or writers applying knowledge from their native language to a second language

• The effect can be on any aspect of language: grammar, vocabulary, accent, spelling and so on.

• Interference can take place at all levels of the linguistic system, i.e. in phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon etc.

Phonological interference

• Phonological interference is a common type of interference, its most prominent manifestation being a “foreign accent”.

• Incorrect learner English: Finger (*/ˈfɪŋə/ ) • Correct R.P.: Finger (/ˈfɪŋgə/ ) • Words including the combination “ng” may be pronounced incorrectly

in English, since they are realized as [ŋ] in Dutch. In that case, the [ŋ] pronounced by a native speaker of Dutch would be transferred to the learner language English, where [ŋɡ] would be the correct pronunciation. Therefore, the realization of “ng” as [ŋ] in the native language would interfere with the pronunciation of the learner language, e.g. the “ng”-combination in Finger: Dutch: [ŋ] vs. Received Pronunciation: [ŋɡ] .

• Voiced and aspirated features are resulted Malayalam due to the contact with Sanskrit.

• Loan words from Indo- Aryan languages have integrated into Malayalam. Following are the prosodic phonological changes observed:

• (i) Deaspiration of stop and loss of /h/ and replacement of ‘/h/ by -am:

• Ma.taṭākam ‘lake’ <Skt. taḍāgah • Ma. šāntam ‘calm’ < Skt. šāntah• Ma. sāgaram ‘sea’ < Skt. sāgarah

Syntactic interference

• German: Gestern habe ich Ball gespielt. • Incorrect Learner English: *I have played ball yesterday. • Correct Received Pronunciation: I played ball yesterday. • Since the German Perfect (habe gespielt) is not used in the same

way as the English Present Perfect, it may come to interference at the syntactic level (cf. the learner English-example). Speakers of German apply the Perfect in similar contexts (here: a narrative use) as the German Imperfect (the German equivalent of the Past Tense), whereas this is different with the English Present Perfect and the English Past Tense. Here, reference to definite moments in the past requires the Past Tense.

• entaanu ningalute problems• What is your problem-s

Lexical interference

• English: He wrote the letter on the blackboard. • Incorrect Learner German: Er schrieb den *Brief an die Tafel. • Correct German: Er schrieb den Buchstaben an die Tafel. • In English, letter carries various meanings. This example illustrates

especially the following ones:• i) the letter that one can mail by post and • ii) the letter as an element of the alphabet. Since each of the two

meanings has its particular counterpart in German, interference at a lexical level could arise. Therefore, a strict word-by-word translation (i.e. with the help of a dictionary) could result in the incorrect choice of Brief although the context of the English letter implied the German Buchstabe.

Code• A code is a system that is used by people to communicate

with each other. When people want to talk each other they have to choose a particular code to express their feeling

• According to Stock Well a code is a symbol of nationalism that is used by people to speak or communicate in a particular language, dialect or register or accent or style in different occasions and for different purpose

• the code is a form of the language variation that is used by a society make communication with other people

Code Mixing• Code mixing refers to any admixture of linguistic elements of two

or more language systems in the same utterance at various levels:

• phonological, lexical, grammatical and orthographical. Code-mixing is the change of one language to another within the same utterance or in the same oral/ written text.

• It is a common phenomenon in societies in which two or more languages are used. Studies of code-mixing enhance our understanding of the nature, processes and constraints of language and of the relationship between language use and individual values, communicative strategies, language attitudes and functions within particular socio-cultural contexts.

Code mixing

1. Speakers use more than one language in a discourse unit ( a sentence, a paragraph).

2. Code mixing suggests that the speaker is mixing up codes indiscriminately, perhaps because of incompetence, whereas code switching refers to a more active manipulation of the symbolic and social meanings of a language choice.

1. In “situational switching,” speakers code switch according to factors (topics, situations, participants).

2. More rarely, a skillful code switch can operate like a metaphor to enrich communication without any change in the situation (no change of topic, no new participants, no change of scene).

Code switching• Switching may be :• Inter-sentential switching: is switching outside the sentence or clause level, for

example at sentence or clause boundaries. • Example, He came here because ñān vilḷccu. [He came because I called him ]

• Intra-sentential switching : is switching within a sentence or clause. • Example, Listen dayavaayi call him [‘dayavaayi’ is ‘please’ in malayalam)

• Tag-switching : is switching a tag phrase or word from language B into language A. (This is a common intra-sentential switch.)

• Example, He will came alle? (alle isn’t it) • Intra-word switching is switching within a word itself, such as at • a morpheme boundary. Example, God is imirimious [imirimi in Igbo means

mysterious, deep or complex but the suffix ‘ous’ is English and helps in giving the word imirimi an English status

Codeswitching

• Code switching: The juxtaposition within the same speech exchange of passages belonging to two different grammatical systems or subsystems (Gumperz 1982)

• Lexical borrowing: Words from one system adapted phonologically and morph-syntactically and used regularly in another system and