LanguageContact.docVIP

Language Contact Abstract: Languages have been in contact for thousands of years, as soon as people speak more than one language. Language contact is everywhere: there is no evidence that any languages have developed in total isolation from other languages (Thomason 2001). In modern society, with frequent social and geographic mobility, language contact is inevitable. Some language contacts are more stable, with both languages being maintained, at least over the short run, leading to bilingualism. However, the current situation is more often unstable: urbanization, industrialization, migration of the country. It seems to be causing a swing towards language shift. The most common outcome of language contact is change in some or all of the languages: typically, though not always, at least one of the languages will exert some influence on at least one of the other languages. This paper demonstrates some facts caused by language contact: dialect leveling, bilingualism, pidgin and Creole and dialect contact in China owing to the construction of the Sanxia. This study may achieve the explanatory adequacy to a certain extent, and attempts to deepen our understanding of the relationship between language contact and language change. Key Words: language contact, dialect leveling, contact-induced bilingualism, pidgin and creole 1. Introduction: Issue of language contact in sociolinguistics A trend in social dialectology has been to address the debate in historical linguistics surrounding the relative contributions of ‘internal’(system-driven) and ‘external’(contact-driven) factors in linguistic change(Croft 2000, cited in Torgersen and Kerswill 2004).To these we may add ‘extra-linguistic’ motivations, which may include social-psychological factors, especially identities and attitudes(Torgersen and Kerswill 2004). Labov(1994) is perhaps the most detailed account yet published on internal, structural motivations for linguistic change, especially for English vowel shifts. A mor