With over 6,000 languages spoken worldwide and a history of colonialism and nationalism, people commonly have proficiency in the indigenous language of a region or of a non-localized minority group (ethnic, religious, Deaf, etc.), as well as in a national language. Monolingual or multilingual, dictionaries are products of their sociolinguistic environment. Though dictionaries may be treated by the public as a way to make the language into a static, bounded entity, lexicographers must contend with a lack of clear boundaries as to where their object languages end, given that their language communities include multilingual speakers. Despite this widespread bilingualism, language contact has not been thoroughly treated in English-language literature on lexicography. This chapter synthesizes the different ways that language contact manifests itself through dictionaries. It demonstrates that the asymmetry between the social standing of languages in contact manifests itself in the production and composition of dictionaries. It explores the difficulties that come with establishing the boundaries of the object language, with particular attention to Creoles and signed languages. The chapter details the problems that such difficulties pose to dictionaries of foreignisms. We conclude with an exploration of how language contact can and should inform the future of dictionary creation.

This book sets out to look at what language is and what languages are with a view to arriving not at one practical theory of language, but rather at ways of assembling practical ways of thinking about language, or understanding applied linguistics as a practical assemblage. Rather than thinking about applied linguistics in disciplinary or interdisciplinary terms, this view suggests the coming together of language-oriented projects (social or educational endeavours that involve language), practical theories of language (different ways of approaching linguistic questions) and critical appraisals (ethical, material and political concerns). As applied linguists, we have to start to take responsibility for the ways we think about language. Approaches to language that derive from attempts to describe language structures or to account for language use in structural terms may not be so useful. The terrain has changed from when applied linguistics was first seen as the application of linguistic knowledge to real-world contexts. We can now start to think seriously about practical theories of language or ways of thinking about language that derive from contexts of practice.

In this chapter, we will explore constructionist approaches to language variation and change in English. As part of this, we will see how classic sociolinguistic studies can be accounted for by a usage-based constructionist perspective. Then, we will look at how Construction Grammar offers a cognitive explanation of the evolution of new first and second language varieties of English around the world. Finally, you will learn how Construction Grammar approaches analyse diachronic linguistic change.

The chapter looks at the effect of natural barriers on linguistic configuration and diffusion through illustrations of cases from Arabic and other languages. It provides examples of how different types of topographical features either facilitate or hinder communication, thus affecting the diffusion of linguistic features. It also provides a thorough introduction to the Arabic linguistic atlases available, from 1915 into the twenty-first century. The chapter highlights cases of language isolation and language contact involving Arabic.

Often studied as a transitory step towards the late consolidation of Italian opera in Mexico, the activities of the Spanish tenor and composer Manuel García in Mexico City from 1827 to 1829 call for a more nuanced analysis. The spatial reconceptualisation pursued by transnational and global histories as well as the redefinition of cultural borders triggered by postcolonial studies give us the tools to address García’s Mexican career as a key moment in terms of understanding the effects and issues raised by the spread of Italian opera in Latin America at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The chapter rethinks García's activities in Mexico City as comprising one of the first (while at the same time highly problematic) cultural encounters between Europe and the young Latin American nation after its emancipation from Spain (1821). Until then, mutual perceptions between Europe and Mexico were distorted by the intrusive cultural politics of imperial Spain. After independence, such misperceptions became more marked. Perceived as a familiar expressions of Europeanness, Italian opera became the arena where issues of identity and otherness were discussed. A close reading of the operas García composed for Mexican audiences will reveal how Italian opera changed by absorbing and reflecting the multiple postcolonial tensions of Mexico City.

This chapter gives an overview of the contacts Spanish experienced since the beginning of colonization. It first sketches the earliest contacts of Latin on the Iberian Peninsula, before outlining the settings in which new varieties of Spanish emerged as it spread into the world. It presents varieties along a continuum of increasing contact intensity from high-contact and mixed varieties, such as Caribbean Spanish and Paraguayan Jopará, to the few Spanish-lexified creole languages. It also discusses the challenges encountered in the description and classification of Afro-Hispanic varieties as intermediate varieties to show which methodological challenges still need to be addressed and how they contribute to larger theoretical issues, particularly those concerning the synchronic classification of creole languages and the creole prototype. The conclusion gives an outlook towards possible directions the discipline of Spanish contact linguistics could take in the future.

Chapter 8 provides a report on versions of general extenders, that is, their translation equivalents, in languages other than English. There are studies of two Creoles, in Trinidad and Hawai‘i, with an analysis of the phonological processes involved in their development. Comparable expressions are documented in a variety of languages, including Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Lithuanian, Persian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. Notable differences between the expressions in Montreal French versus Parisian French are investigated. The relatively low frequency of disjunctive forms recorded in other languages is compared to English. Some observations are presented on where differences typically occur and the fact that several languages make use of interesting (non-referential) melodic expressions of a type not found in English, revealing some kind of aesthetic difference.

Pidgins and creoles are typically depicted as involving an unusually high degree of variation. This is also often taken to be indicative of a lack of proper grammatical structuring and language-hood. Variation is presented as an obstacle to standardization and for exclusion from official domains, particularly formal education. For speakers, creoles represent the ‘voice of truth’, convey belonging and are often the main means of communication. Pidgins and creoles were eventually allowed into formal contexts due to pragmatic considerations such as for proselyting and for the mitigation of educational problems rather than identity-based considerations. This has acted as an important catalyst for their wider recognition. Discussions about how to deal with variation continue to hamper processes of standardization and implementation, however. This chapter reviews approaches to and issues in the standardization of creoles and discusses the ongoing standardization of Nenge(e) (Eastern Maroon Creoles) in French Guiana. It is argued that variation is integral to all languages and can be accommodated once pluricentric norms and wider notions of literacy are adopted. Careful attention to language ideologies, including views about variation, are crucial for successful acceptance and use of the outcomes of standardization.

This chapter explores how slave insurrections in the Caribbean and West Indies throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries impacted upon British and American Gothic writing. In particular, it argues that the Gothic mode became, and remains still, haunted by an ever-present racialised discourse, one which reveals the horror of modernity’s constructions and their inheritances. From the nineteenth century onwards, Gothic texts not only ask what it means to be a (wo)man among the human race, but anxiously investigate the lie of racial difference. Examining texts by Charlotte Dacre, Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, Herman Melville and Florence Marryat, the chapter explores how the Gothic depicts acts of black rebellion in unequivocal tones of horror, and the extent to which their black (enslaved) characters assume the place of the utterly monstrous while also betraying anxiety over the blurry line separating blacks from whites. Such fictions, the argument holds, debate the justice of violent black revolution and express the concern that, while slavery itself may be responsible for the violence of the enslaved, slavery may in fact debase white subjects too.

By juxtaposing the trial of a Yucatecan Hispanic landowner, Manuel Jesus Castillo, with the proceedings of a Public Meeting leading to centenary celebrations of the Battle of St. George’s Caye, this chapter illuminates the centrality of the language and theme of loyalty in official attempts to exert control over the multiethnic, stratified – often discordant – colonial society that emerged in Belize in the aftermath of the Caste War. The power of the language of loyalty lay in its ability to simplify and reduce the complexity of Belizean multiethnic society to a binary (loyal vs. disloyal) that determined the “Britishness” of the colony’s subjects and consequently their place in the official vision of a colonial nation. The power and dominance of colonial officials and Crown representatives in Belize were not absolute but rather contested at various points in the nineteenth century. By the end of the 1890s, the language of loyalty provided beleaguered colonial officials with the vehicle for attempting to restore the power and privilege that they had progressively lost to the unofficial members of the colonial government.

This chapter discusses “newer” (i.e. in the last 400 years or less) varieties of English spoken in the Caribbean, in particular the relationship between the Caribbean and Central American varieties on the western edge of the Caribbean. It also presents a short discussion of the influences that have shaped these varieties and various popular heuristics for imagining their emergence as well as a description of the geographical locations in the Caribbean where these varieties are spoken. The social contexts of their emergence are also discussed as well as a grammatical sketch pointing out similarities and differences and a discussion of several theoretical issues of relevance to the field.

Kate Chopin’s classic The Awakening can be interpreted through the lens of Chopin’s own intellectual and social development to show how the novel tells a story at once similar to and different from that of its author’s life. In this reading, the main character of the novel begins as a figure with almost no exposure to the realm culture and ideas, but develops a keen appetite for independent thinking and undergoes, in the course of the novel, an education – one that, at the end of the book, is perhaps only really beginning in earnest. Chopin’s own development is both mirror and foil to that of the novel’s heroine.