Language Contact
seminar for 2nd through 5th year students
Instructor: Dr. Anna Fenyvesi
Prerequisites: Academic English I, Introduction sociolinguistics
Course description:
The aim of the course is to give an overview of the most important linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of language contact, i.e. linguistic situations where two (or more) languages affect each other in bilingual (or multilingual) individuals and/or speech communities. The main topics of the course will include mechanisms of contact-induced change (such as transfer, borrowing, interference through shift, and codeswitching) as well as outcomes of language contact of various intensity (such as dialect accommodation, convergence, mixed languages, pidgins, creoles, and language death). In addition to familiarizing students with the historical and sociolinguistic contexts in which language contact can be studied, it will also introduce some analytical methods of comparing linguistic structures in order to provide a tool for linguistic analysis in language contact.
Requirements and evaluation:
- - 3 assignments; see below (7.5 + 7.5 +15 = 30%)
- - final exam 30% (extra questions for 4th and 5th year students)
- - participation 10%
Readings:
- Thomason, Sarah Grey. 2001. Language contact: An introduction. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. (referred to as SGT in schedule)
- Campbell, Lyle. 1998. Chapter 3: Borrowing. In: Historical linguistics: An introduction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 57-87. (referred to as LC in schedule)
(Readings available at Irinyi xerox center.)
Grading:
- 89 - 100%: excellent (5)
- 76 - 88%: good (4)
- 63 - 75%: average (3)
- 51 - 62%: pass (2)
- 0 - 50%: fail (1)
Schedule:
- Week 1: Introduction
- Week 2: Contact onsets and stability (SGT Chs 1-2)
- Week 3: Multilingualism in nations and individuals (SGT Ch 3)
- Week 4: Lexical borrowing (LC; Assignment 1 due)
- Week 5: Contact-induced language change: Results 1 (SGT Ch 4 thru p.77)
- Week 6: Contact-induced language change: Results 2 (SGT Ch 4)
- Week 7: Linguistic areas (SGT Ch 5)
- Week 8: Contact-induced language change: Mechanisms (SGT Ch 6; Ass. 2)
- Week 9: Mixed languages: Pidgins and creoles (SGT Ch 7)
- Week 10: Mixed languages: Other mixed languages (SGT Ch 8)
- Week 11: Language death (SGT Chs 9-10; Assignment 3)
- Week 12: Final exam
- Week 13: Conclusion
Assignments:
For the three assignments, you need to choose a situation of language contact where you are familiar with, preferably, both (or all) of the languages in contact that are involved.
- Assignment 1. Annotated bibliography of 5-15 items, with 5 of them annotated.
- Assignment 2. A sketch of the socio-historical background of the contact situation. (3-5 pages)
- Assignment 3. A description of the phonological and morphological adaptation of loanwords. (7-10 pages)
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