LSLT 17: Language Contact and Language Shift: Grammatical and Sociolinguistic Perspectives

Language Contact and Language Shift: Grammatical and Sociolinguistic Perspectives

Kelechukwu Ihemere
University of Westminster

Language Contact and Language Shift are topics that generate a great deal of attention for researchers, academics and other interested parties. These are by no means new phenomena but rather are the usual linguistic situation in most areas of the world, with monolingualism being the exception. However, advances in modern transportation systems, communication technology and increase in migration have meant that speakers of different languages interact closely. It is, therefore, typical for their languages to influence each other. The influence could be as common as the exchange of words or what is termed vocabulary borrowing in the literature. It can also go deeper, extending to the exchange of even basic characteristics of a language such as morphology and grammar.

In some cases, the result of the contact of two languages can be the replacement of one by the other. This is most common in asymmetric relationship between languages, and sometimes leads to language shift. This book is a collection of recent research papers on aspects of language contact phenomena and language shift by researchers adopting varied perspectives and approaches ranging from the grammatical to sociolinguistic paradigms and a fusion of both ends of the paradigmatic spectrum to enhance our understanding of these issues.

Contributors

1 Introduction
Kelechukwu Ihemere

Part 1 Language Contact

2 Complex Morphologies in Contact: The Case of Ingrian Finns in Estonia
Helka Riionheimo

3 Attrition in Greek Diaspora: Grammars in Contact or Incomplete Acquisition?
Katerina Zobolou

4 The Catalinization of Occitan: The Case of Vingrau
Claudi Balaguer

5 Double objects in Mauritian Creole and their distribution in creole languages: a convergence solution
Anand Syea

Part 2 Language Shift

6 Language Choice and Language Shift in Port Harcourt
Kelechukwu Ihemere

7 Tha Changing Role of French in Morocco: Maintenance or Shift?
Dawn Marley

8 The Incorporation of English Words into Yorùbá
Akinloye Ojo

9 Language Maintenance and Loss among Afro-Asians in South Asia
Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya

Index

ISBN 9783862880522. LINCOM Studies in Language Typology 17. 200pp. 2011.