Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-qhdkw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-16T06:17:28.599Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Myths and facts about loanword development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2012

Shana Poplack  and
Nathalie Dion
Shana Poplack
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
Nathalie Dion
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study traces the diachronic trajectory and synchronic behavior of English-origin items in Quebec French over a real-time period of 61 years. We test three standard assumptions about such foreign incorporations: (1) they increase in frequency; (2) they originate as code-switches and are gradually integrated into recipient-language grammar; and (3) the processes underlying code-switching and borrowing are the same. Results do not support the assumptions. Few other-language items persist, let alone increase. Linguistic integration is abrupt, not gradual. Speakers consistently distinguish lone other-language items from multiword fragments on each of five linguistic diagnostics tested. They borrow the former, and code-switch the latter. Code-switches are not converted into borrowings; instead the decision to code-switch or borrow is made at the moment the other-language item is accessed. We explore the implications of these findings for understanding the processes by which other-language incorporations achieve the status of native items and their consequences for theories of code-switching and borrowing.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , October 2012 , pp. 279 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Adalar, Nevin, & Tagliamonte, Sali. (1998). Borrowed nouns; bilingual people: The case of the “Londrali” in Northern Cyprus. International Journal of Bilingualism 2(2):139–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Backus, Ad. (2005). Code-switching and language change: One thing leads to another? International Journal of Bilingualism 9 (3–4):307–340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauer, Laurie. (1983). English word-formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ben-Rafael, Miriam. (2001). Codeswitching in the language of immigrants: The case of Franbreu. In Jacobson, R. (ed.), Codeswitching worldwide II. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 251–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentahila, Abdelâli, & Davies, Eirlys E. (1991). Constraints on code-switching: A look beyond grammar. Papers for the symposium on code-switching in bilingual studies: Theory, significance and perspectives. Strasbourg: European Science Foundation. 369–404.Google Scholar
Bentahila, Abdelâli, & Davies, Eirlys E. (1998). Codeswitching: An equal partnership? In Jacobson, R. (ed.), Codeswitching worldwide. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 25–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhatt, Rakesh. (1997) Code-switching, constraints, and optimal grammars. Lingua 102:223–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Sally. (1993) Attrition or expansion? Changes in the lexicon of Finnish and American adult bilinguals in Sweden. In Hyltenstam, K. & Viberg, Å. (eds.), Progression and regression in language: Sociocultural, neurophysical, and linguistic perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 386–411.Google Scholar
Boztepe, Erman. (2003). Issues in Code-Switching: Competing Theories and Models. Working Papers in TESOL and Applied Linguistics 3, 2: 1–27.Google Scholar
Bullock, Barbara E. (2009). Phonetic reflexes of code-switching. In Bullock, B. & Toribio, J. (eds.), Linguistic code-switching. Cambridge: University Press. 163–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan. (2006). From usage to grammar: The mind's response to repetition. Language 82(4):711–733.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clyne, Michael. (2003). Dynamics of language contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubois, Sylvie, & Sankoff, David. (1997). L'absence de flexion sur les emprunts à l'anglais dans le français cadjin. In Auger, J. & Rose, Y. (eds.), Explorations du lexique. Québec: CIRAL. 163–176.Google Scholar
Eastman, Carol M. (1992). Codeswitching as an urban language-contact phenomenon. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 13(1–2):1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eliasson, Stig. (1989). English-Maori language contact: Code-switching and the free morpheme constraint. Reports from Uppsala University Department of Linguistics 18:1–28.Google Scholar
Eze, Ejike. (1997). Aspects of language contact: A variationist perspective on code switching and borrowing in Igbo-English bilingual discourse. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Ottawa.Google Scholar
Field, Frederic. (2002). Linguistic borrowing in bilingual contexts. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner-Chloros, Penelope. (2009). Code-switching. Cambridge: University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner-Chloros, Penelope, & Edwards, Malcolm. (2004). Assumptions behind grammatical approaches to code-switching: When the blueprint is a red herring. Transactions of the Philological Society 102(1):103–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghafar Samar, Reza, & Meechan, Marjory. (1998). The null theory of code-switching versus the nonce borrowing hypothesis: Testing the fit in Persian-English bilingual discourse. International Journal of Bilingualism 2(2):203–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasplemath, Martin. (2009). Lexical borrowing: Concepts and issues. In Haspelmath, M., & Tadmor, U. (eds.), Loanwords in the world's languages: A comparative handbook. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 35–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haugen, Einar. (1950). The analysis of linguistic borrowing. Language 26:210–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Jeffrey. (1989). From code-switching to borrowing: A case study of Moroccan Arabic. London: Kegan Paul International.Google Scholar
Hohenhaus, Peter. (2005). Lexicalization and institutionalization. In Stekauer, P. & Lieber, R. (eds.), Handbook of word-formations. Dordrecht: Springer. 353–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hohenhaus, Peter. (2007). How to do (even more) things with nonce words (other than naming). In Munat, J. (ed.), Lexical creativity, texts and contexts. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Rodolfo. (1998). Conveying a broader message through bilingual discourse: An attempt at contrastive code-switching research. In Jacobson, R. (ed.), Codeswitching worldwide. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 51–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johanson, Lars. (1993). Code-copying in Immigrant Turkish. In Extra, G. & Verhoeven, L. (eds.), Immigrant languages in Europe. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 197–221.Google Scholar
Jones, Mari C. (2005). Some structural and social correlates of single word intrasentential code-switching in Jersey Norman French. French Language Studies 15:1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klapka, Lyne. (2002). Étude comparative: L'accord du genre en français québécois au XIXième et au XXième siècles. M.A. mémoire, University of Ottawa.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1969). Some sociolinguistic principles. In The study of non-standard English. Champaign: National Council of Teachers of English, & Washington DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. 19–38.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Lipka, Leonhard. (1994). Lexicalisation and institutionalization in English and German. Linguistica Pragensia 35:1–13.Google Scholar
Meechan, Marjory, & Poplack, Shana. (1995). Orphan categories in bilingual discourse: Adjectivization strategies in Wolof-French and Fongbe-French. Language Variation and Change 7:169–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mougeon, Raymond, Béniak, Edouard, & Valois, Daniel. (1985). Répertoire classifié des emprunts lexicaux à l'anglais dans le français parlé de Welland (Ontario). Toronto: Centre for Franco-Ontarian Studies.Google Scholar
Muysken, Pieter. (1981). Half-way between Spanish and Quechua: The case for relexification. In Highfield, A. & Valdman, A. (eds.), Historicity and change in creole studies. Ann Arbor: Karoma. 52–78.Google Scholar
Muysken, Pieter. (2000). Bilingual speech: A typology of code-mixing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Myers-Scotton, Carol. (1993a). Duelling languages: Grammatical structure in code-switching. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers-Scotton, Carol. (1993b). Common and uncommon ground: Social and structural factors in codeswitching. Language in Society 22(4):475–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers-Scotton, Carol. (1997). Code-switching. In Coulmas, F. (ed.), The handbook of sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. 217–237.Google Scholar
Myers-Scotton, Carol. (2002). Contact linguistics: Bilingual encounters and grammatical outcomes. Oxford: University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers-Scotton, Carol. (2006). Multiple voices: An introduction to bilingualism. Malden: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Nishimura, Miwa. (1995). A functional analysis of Japanese/English code-switching. Journal of Pragmatics 2(3):157–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, Hyeon-Sook. (2006). Structural characteristics of proper nouns in Korean-Swedish discourse. International Journal of Bilingualism 10(1):17–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana. (1989). The care and handling of a mega-corpus. In Fasold, R. & Schiffrin, D. (eds.), Language change and variation. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 411–451.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana. (1993). Variation theory and language contact. In Preston, D. (ed.), American dialect research: An anthology celebrating the 100th anniversary of the American Dialect Society. Amsterdam: Benjamin. 251–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana. (2012). What does the Nonce Borrowing Hypothesis hypothesize? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 15(3):644–648.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana, Bourdages, Johanne S., & Dion, Nathalie. (2009). Normes et variation: l’école a-t-elle une influence? CAAL. Carleton University: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & Meechan, Marjory. (1998). How languages fit together in code-mixing. International Journal of Bilingualism 2(2):127–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana, Pousada, Alicia, & Sankoff, David. (1982). Competing influences on gender assignment: Variable process, stable outcome. Lingua 57(1):1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana, Sankoff, David, & Miller, Chris. (1988). The social correlates and linguistic processes of lexical borrowing and assimilation. Linguistics 26(1):47–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & St-Amand, Anne. (2007). A real-time window on 19th century vernacular French: The Récits du français québécois d'autrefois. Language in Society 36(5):707–734.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & Tagliamonte, Sali (2001). African American English in the Diaspora. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, Walker, James, & Malcolmson, Rebecca. (2006). An English “like no ther?”: Language contact and change in Quebec. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 51(2):185–213.Google Scholar
Sankoff, David, Poplack, Shana, & Vanniarajan, Swathi. (1990). The case of the nonce loan in Tamil. Language Variation and Change 2(1):71–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santorini, Beatrice, & Mahootian, Shahrzad. (1995). Codeswitching and the syntactic status of adnominal adjectives. Lingua 96:1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmid, Hans-Jörg. (2008). New words in the mind: Concept-formation and entrenchment of neologisms. Anglia 126(1):1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stammers, Jonathan R., & Deuchar, Margaret. (2012). Testing the nonce borrowing hypothesis: Counter-evidence from English-origin verbs in Welsh. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 15(3):630–643.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali. (2001). Comparative sociolinguistics. In Chambers, J., Trudgill, P., & Schilling-Estes, N. (eds.), The handbook of language variation and change. Malden: Blackwell Publishers. 729–763.Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah G. (2001). Language contact: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah G. (2003). Contact as a source of language change. In Janda, R. D. & Joseph, B. D. (eds.), A handbook of historical linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. 687–712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline. (2004). Convergence as an optimization strategy in bilingual speech: Evidence from code-switching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7(2):165–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torres Cacoullos, Rena, & Aaron, Jessi Elana. (2003). Bare English-origin nouns in Spanish: Rates, constraints, and discourse functions. Language Variation and Change 15(3):287–326.Google Scholar
Treffers-Daller, Jeanine. (2005). Evidence for insertional codemixing: Mixed compounds and French nominal groups in Brussels Dutch. International Journal of Bilingualism 9(3–4):477–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turpin, Danielle. (1995). “Le français, c'est le last frontier”: La structure nominale dans le discours bilingue français/anglais. M.A. thesis, University of Ottawa.Google Scholar
Van Coetsem, Frans. (2000). A general and unified theory of the transmission process in language contact. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Whitney, William Dwight. (1881). On mixture in language. Transactions of the American Philosophical Association 12:1–26.Google Scholar
Winford, Donald. (2003). An introduction to contact linguistics. Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Winford, Donald. (2005). Contact-induced changes: Classifications and processes. Diachronica 22(2):373–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winford, Donald. (2009). On the unity of contact phenomena and their underlying mechanisms. In Isurin, L., Winford, D., & de Bot, K. (eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to code switching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 279–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yoon, Keumsil Kim. (1992). New perspectives on intrasentential code-switching: A study of Korean-English switching. Applied Psycholinguistics 13:433–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar