Language choice in multilingual communities

Question 1

How does one become multilingual?

Answer 1

Migration (historical or modern), Colonization, Trade and Commerce, Urbanization, Language Policies

Question 2

Diglossia definition?

Answer 2

Ferguson 1956: Two varieties of the same language (i.e dialects) used in clearly demarcated domains
Note: we use whether they are dialects or different languages

Question 3

What is a domain?

Answer 3

(in a typical example) interactions between participants in settings
Who is the addressee (social distance)?
What’s the setting?
What’s the topic of the conversation?

Question 4

What is high language?

Answer 4

formal contexts, standardized, used in writing, used in schools, not learned at hoome

Question 5

What is low language?

Answer 5

informal contexts, not codified and varies widely, used orally, not taught in schools, learned at home

Question 6

What are the expanding concepts of diglossia?

Question 7

What are some situations of H/L diglossia

Question 8

What are some situations of H/L bilingualism

Question 9

What is code switching (CS)?

Answer 9

alternate use of two or more languages within the same conversation or situation. Can occur within or outside sentence or phrase boundaries and within a word

Question 10

What is lexical borrowing? (vs CS)?

Answer 10

the incorporation of lexical elements from one language into another. It is adapted to match the languages speech and form
Ex: sofa, algebra, tempo, mosquito

Question 11

What are the types of CS?

Answer 11

intra sentential: within sentence clause boundaries (switching within one sentence)
inter sentential: outside the sentence clause boundaries (two separate sentences)
lexical: embedding one word from language A into language B, type of intra but more restrictive

Question 12

What are CS attitudes and fluency?

Answer 12

seen as lazy or unknowledgable
Reality:
More proficient multilinguals > intrasentential CS
Multilinguals more dominant in one language > lexical insertions, inter-sentential CS

Question 13

What are the types of CS by function?

Answer 13

situational, emblematic, referential, metaphorical

Question 14

What is Situational CS?

Answer 14

indicates change in topic, situation or interlocutor

Question 15

What is Emblematic CS?

Answer 15

used to show ethnic identity and solidarity with interlocutor, short switches of tags or interjections, common in speakers who are not proficient

Question 16

What is referential code-switching?

Answer 16

change based on content that is more appropriately or easily expressed in a different language (cultural references, proverbs, sayings), often to quote someone else’s words

Question 17

What is metaphorical CS?

Answer 17

used to convey meanings (anger, amusement, swearing), rhetorical device, often no reason behind the switch, if not other categories it is this type of CS

Question 18

What is equivalence constraint in CS?

Answer 18

Speakers maintain grammaticality in both languages by switching at syntactic boundaries that are equivalent in both languages
Ex: big house and grande maison match adjective and noun order and can be switched

Question 19

What are the findings from early studies on CS?

Answer 19

Espinosa (1917) and Baker (1940): US Mexican-American bilinguals
findings: more frequent in youth, varies by topic, many discourse functions, strong marker of group membership
Findings remain true tuday

Question 20

What is diglossia with bilingualism?

Answer 20

H and L are used for separate sets of functions, bilingualism is required to cover all domains
Ex: Spanish (H) and Galican (L) in Galicia before 1978

Question 21

What is diglossia without bilingualism?

Answer 21

Two languages coexist in one area, each group speaks their separate language
Ex: colonial English or French spoken by elite with local languages used by everyone else

Question 22

What is bilingualism without diglossia?

Answer 22

Most bilinguals and languages are not restricted by domains
Ex: Galican taught in schools and used in private and public domains today

Question 23

What is neither bilingualism nor diglossia?

Answer 23

A monolingual society
Ex: Spanish in Cuba and DR where Indigenous languages have been exterminated