ricardo napoleão de souza...r. napoleão de souza • explanatory factors for language change...

EXPLANATORY FACTORS FOR LANGUAGE CHANGE

UNDER DIFFERENT SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONDITIONS

Ricardo Napoleão de Souza

(on behalf of the GramAdapt Team)

University of Helsinki

[email protected]

Overview

1. Contact explanations – unresolved issues

2. Research goals

3. Our suggestion

4. Multiprong approach

5. Preliminary findings

6. Limitations and future directions

R. Napoleão de Souza • Explanatory Factors for Language Change GramAdapt • Nov, 2020

Background – contact explanations

It is common to see in the literature

Structure X derives from contact

The existence of X in this language is due to contact with Y

The fact that languages Y, Z share this suggests contact

HOW does contact cause language change?

WHAT does contact-induced change look like in real time?

GramAdapt • Nov, 2020R. Napoleão de Souza • Explanatory Factors for Language Change

GramAdapt investigates:

Contact situations,

Contact-induced language change,

or LINGUISTIC ADAPTATION

GramAdapt • Nov, 2020R. Napoleão de Souza • Explanatory Factors for Language Change

Background (iii)

Researchers have proposed a variety of factors that may determine the distribution of linguistic structure:

• Openness of the speech community (e.g. Dahl 2004, Wray & Grace 2007, Trudgill 2011)

• Geographic spread (e.g. Nichols 1992, Atkinson 2011)

• Population size (e.g. Hay & Bauer 2007)

• Number of linguistic neighbors (e.g. Lupyan & Dale 2010)

• Proportion of L2 speakers in a community (e.g. Bentz & Winter 2013)

• among others

R. Napoleão de Souza • Explanatory Factors for Language Change GramAdapt • Nov 2020

Unresolved issues

Openness of speech community, Geographic spread, Population size…

Although useful, these variables paint a fragmented picture of the fundamental processes through which language structure changes in contact scenarios

What are the cognitive mechanisms behind contact-induced change?

Which mechanisms explain which changes?

Which types of social structure contribute to which changes?


Research goals

Understanding the link between linguistic structure and its distribution and diffusion necessitates

• Accounting for mechanisms of language change, including:• Indentifying the types of linguistic change (e.g. analogy, lenition, etc.)

• Discussing psycholinguistic principles of language processing

• Accounting for contact-induced change, including:• Sociolinguistic contexts

• Second language acquisition/Multilingualism


What are the factors that have been proposed to explain contact-induced change?


Our suggestion

A first step towards uncovering the possible factors that could explain language change under contact situations

With this lit review, we aim to:

• Identify the different proposals

• Group explanations by broad type

• Provide a summary of the different proposals

• Assess the evidence for each type of explanation


method

Comprehensive lit review

Multiprong approach covering studies in the following areas:

• Contact studies

• Historical linguistics

• Sociolinguistics

• Psycholinguistics

• Cognitive linguistics

• Second language acquisition/Bilingualism


Method (ii) – Breaking studies down

Identification DetailsTheoreticalBackground

EmpiricalSupport

ReplicabilityLinguisticSpecificity

How do authors identify the mechanism?

How does this mechanism operate?

Upon which research is this mechanism based?

What type of data do authors provide to support their proposal?

To what extent can this mechanism be tested in different scenarios?

To whichlinguistic areas does this mechanism apply?

To what extent does this mechanism relate to any other proposal?

To what extent does this mechanism relate to language change?

What is the focus of the proposal (social or

How methodologically sound are the data presented?

To what extent does this reflectgeneral sociocognitive processes?

How readily would this mechanism apply to a different area?




EmpiricalSupport



In which ways does this mechanism operate?






To what extent does this mechanism relate to diachronic change?








EmpiricalSupport










What is the focus of the proposal (sociolinguistics, SLA, etc.)?







EmpiricalSupport

















EmpiricalSupport



In which waysdoes this mechanism operate?






To what extent does this mechanism relate to diachronic change?

What is the focus of the proposal (sociolinguistics, SLA, etc.)?





findingsa preliminary assessment

General findings (i)

Variety of data types

There is a wide variety of data types linked to the proposals

• In-depth case studies

• Uncontrolled case studies (cherry-picking)

• Controlled experiments

• Fieldwork data

• Census-type data

Fragmented evidence

There is little (explicit) overlap between the areas

• Area-specific issues and methods

• Focus on case studies • SLA: classroom-focused• Bilingualism: European-style

• Post-hoc analyses very frequent in contact studies


General findings (ii)

Over 20 different proposals have been identified so far

We have categorized them into four major categories

• Cognitive processing

• Dyadic interactions

• Social networks

• Macrocontexts of language use


Cognitive processing

• Involves domain-general processes

• Focus on the individual

• Emphasizes second language learning

• Experiments but also case studies form the basis of the data

• Ex: perceptual magnet (Blevins 2017)


Dyadic interactions

• Also involve domain-general processes

• Focus on communication between inviduals

• Emphasize second language use

• Data from case studies but also experimental contexts

• Ex: foreigner-directed speech (Ferguson 1975, Uther et al 2007)


Social networks

• Focus on pathways of information flow

• Emphasize dynamics of in-group and between-group communication

• Investigate the diffusion of linguistic variables

• Data tend to come from fieldwork & case studies

• E.g.: social network structure (Milroy & Llamas 2003)


Macro-contexts of language use

• Focus on broad factors that influence the use of language

• Emphasize top-down factors imposed on language users

• Include socio-historical and socioeconomic variables

• Data come from a variety of sources, fairly non-linguistic (census type)

• E.g.: language vitality (Mufwene 2017)


discussion & conclusion

27

Ongoing work

The lit review is still ongoing

We are exploring overlaps between the four types of explanatory factors (i.e. Cognitive processing, Dyadic interactions, Social networks, Macro-contexts of language use)

However four major explanatory factors have already proven useful in the structuring of the sociolinguistic questionnaire - more on Dec 12th

Ultimate goal to develop comprehensive model of the mechanisms behind contact-induced change


Limitations

Different studies with highly specific goals• Difficulties in comparing proposals

• Possibility of proposing new types of explanatory factors

Multiprong approach means not all studies may be concerned with contact

• e.g. SLA studies usually focus on two languages

The model being develop would still need testing


Conclusion

Contact explanations to language change often conjectural & fragmented

There seems to be little dialogue between the various fields tackling contact-induced change

The current lit review and future model aim to bridge the different areas, and offer a comprensive tool for researchers to investigate a variety of contact scenarios, and test hypotheses


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