Colonial dialect contact in the history of European languages: On the irrelevance of identity to new-dialect formation
It is often supposed that dialect contact and dialect mixture were involved in the development of new colonial varieties of European languages, such as Brazilian Portuguese, Canadian French, and Australian English. However, while no one has denied that dialect contact took place, the role of dialect...
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Published in | Language in society Vol. 37; no. 2; pp. 241 - 254 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
New York, USA
Cambridge University Press
01.04.2008
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | It is often supposed that dialect contact and dialect mixture were involved in the development of new colonial varieties of European languages, such as Brazilian Portuguese, Canadian French, and Australian English. However, while no one has denied that dialect contact took place, the role of dialect mixture has been disputed. Among those who do not accept a role for it, some have also considered the role of identity, especially new national identities, to be self-evident. This article argues for the role of dialect mixture and against the role of identity. It presents case studies from pre-16th-century colonial expansions of European languages, an era when any role for national identities would be very hard to argue for. Instead, it suggests that dialect mixture is the inevitable result of dialect contact, and that the mechanism which accounts for this is quasi-automatic accommodation in face-to-face interaction.NOTE: Very many thanks for help with this article go to David Britain, Brian Joseph, Lesley Milroy, James Milroy, and especially Max Wheeler. |
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Bibliography: | istex:C00C5C8CF315D9F8D36FBF01289012FBCF42CB97 PII:S0047404508080287 ark:/67375/6GQ-GLKJ4LFW-X ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-2 ObjectType-Feature-1 |
ISSN: | 0047-4045 1469-8013 |
DOI: | 10.1017/S0047404508080287 |