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Language Contact in Borderlands
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Language Contact in Borderlands

A special issue of Languages (ISSN 2226-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2023) | Viewed by 9318

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Katherine O'Donnell Christoffersen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Writing and Language Studies, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX 78539, USA
Interests: sociolinguistics; bilingualism; language learning
Dr. Ryan M. Bessett

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Literature, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
Interests: sociolinguistics; language variation and change; Spanish in contact; bilingualism; Spanish as a heritage language; language acquisition; Spanish phonology
Dr. Ana Maria Carvalho

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
Interests: sociolinguistics; languages in contact; bilingualism; language variation and change

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue focuses on borderlands in which two or more languages are spoken within the same community. The goal of this issue is to further our understanding of bilingual/multilingual language in context and to highlight communities along political/geographic borders. This volume will provide a state of the field examination of research on the language spoken in border communities. We welcome sociolinguistic research, which discusses bilingual/multilingual speech in any borderland context from around the world. All subfields of sociolinguistics and sociolinguistic methodologies are welcome; this includes (but is not limited to) quantitative and qualitative research, language variation and change, bilingualism/multilingualism, language contact, language choice, linguistic landscapes, language attitudes, language ideologies, borrowing, codeswitching, and language policy and planning.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words, summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors ([email protected]) or to the Languages editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purpose of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Tentative completion schedule:

  • Abstract submission deadline: 1 June 2023
  • Notification of abstract acceptance: 1 July 2023
  • Full manuscript deadline: 15 October 2023

Dr. Katherine O'Donnell Christoffersen
Dr. Ryan M. Bessett
Dr. Ana Maria Carvalho
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • borders
  • sociolinguistics
  • language contact
  • bilingualism
  • multilingualism

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 5282 KiB  
Article
Semiotic Language Use in Schoolscapes on the Arctic Borderland
by Outi Toropainen and Josefine Inga
Languages 2024, 9(12), 367; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9120367 - 28 Nov 2024
Viewed by 347
Abstract
The article explores the visible, semiotic use of languages in two schoolscapes on the Arctic borderland and how these schoolscapes stimulate the learning of languages and cultures. The schools are situated in a historically multilingual area with several languages present. However, since the [...] Read more.
The article explores the visible, semiotic use of languages in two schoolscapes on the Arctic borderland and how these schoolscapes stimulate the learning of languages and cultures. The schools are situated in a historically multilingual area with several languages present. However, since the 17th century, the area has undergone Swedification, resulting in the current situation where all languages other than Swedish are endangered minority languages. The schoolscapes were studied through visual ethnography, and 229 photographs were analysed by qualitative content analysis. The results show that in one school in the middle of Sápmi, the Sámi languages were almost entirely excluded, despite their relevance and importance in maintaining bilingualism. Conversely, in a school where some pupils were from the Finnish side of the national border, the Finnish language was present in the form of various subject-relevant books. However, in both schools, all formal information is given to pupils in Swedish, with only a few exceptions permitted by the school management. Overall, the visual use of semiotic language is mainly teacher-produced, and the pupils’ opportunities to use the schoolscape as an affordance for active bilingualism through social participation are minimal. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Contact in Borderlands)
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20 pages, 2701 KiB  
Article
Sociolinguistic Style, Awareness, and Agency among Southern California Latinx Spanish–English Bilinguals
by Claudia Holguín Mendoza and Eve Higby
Languages 2024, 9(10), 323; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9100323 - 8 Oct 2024
Viewed by 808
Abstract
This study examined different degrees of awareness regarding the stigmatization of Southern California (SoCal) Spanish across four groups of Spanish–English bilinguals from Southern California (n = 87). The participants were presented with Spanish sentences and asked to decide which profile of speaker [...] Read more.
This study examined different degrees of awareness regarding the stigmatization of Southern California (SoCal) Spanish across four groups of Spanish–English bilinguals from Southern California (n = 87). The participants were presented with Spanish sentences and asked to decide which profile of speaker would likely express that sentence, given six options, such as: “someone living in Los Angeles/SoCal who grew up in Mexico” or “a Spanish-English bilingual who grew up in Los Angeles/SoCal”. Experimental stimuli included seven different linguistic categories of stigmatization, including English contact forms. The participants tended to attribute the stigmatized forms to bilinguals who grew up in Southern California. Central Colloquial and Taboo categories were more salient and perceived as forms used by people in Mexico. In contrast, English borrowings and redundancies seemed to be recognized by the participants, particularly for simultaneous bilinguals who grew up in Southern California, as salient forms of an identified Southern California Spanish variety. The results are interpreted within Exemplar Theory, with certain stigmatized forms indexing “Mexican Spanish” exemplars, and English borrowings identified as exemplars of SoCal Spanish. We advocate for usage-based approaches to understanding language perceptions and critical approaches to interrogating academic discourses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Contact in Borderlands)
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33 pages, 10446 KiB  
Article
¿Soy de Ribera o Rivera?: Sociolinguistic /b/-/v/ Variation in Rivera Spanish
by Vanina Machado Araujo and Owen Ward
Languages 2024, 9(10), 308; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9100308 - 24 Sep 2024
Viewed by 594
Abstract
This study investigates the impact of language contact on three generations of bilingual Spanish and Uruguayan Portuguese speakers in Rivera City, Uruguay, located on the Uruguayan–Brazilian border. Focusing on the confirmed presence of the Portuguese-like/b/and/v/phonemic distinction, and the lower frequency of the Montevideo [...] Read more.
This study investigates the impact of language contact on three generations of bilingual Spanish and Uruguayan Portuguese speakers in Rivera City, Uruguay, located on the Uruguayan–Brazilian border. Focusing on the confirmed presence of the Portuguese-like/b/and/v/phonemic distinction, and the lower frequency of the Montevideo Spanish-like approximantized stops in Riverense Spanish (RS), the research examines the production of <v> and <b> in 29 female Rivera Spanish bilinguals belonging to different age groups. More specifically, the aim was to see if the previously observed differential use of language-specific phonological variants could be accounted for by using precise measurements of relative intensity, duration, and voicing coupled with a distributional analysis of realizations derived from auditory coding. At the same time, their production is compared to that of 30 monolingual Montevideo Spanish (MS) speakers, who served as the control group, offering a first description of the production of <v> and <b> within this distinct Rioplatense Spanish variety. Riverense’s higher overall relative intensity, duration, and voicing values support auditory coding results, providing evidence of the expected phonological differences between both Uruguayan Spanish varieties. In particular, an exclusive presence of fricative/v/and less approximantization of/b/in RS speech exposed the influence of Portuguese in Rivera bilinguals and their divergence from MS. In addition, as predicted, the findings reveal a higher presence of Portuguese-like productions of [v] and [b] in older bilinguals when compared to younger generations. This illustrates a continuum from Portuguese-like forms to Spanish-like forms, which is confirmed by both acoustic and distributional analyses. Finally, evidence of the existence of innovative forms resulting from mixing Portuguese and Spanish phonological systems in RS are presented. This study’s findings contribute to sociolinguistics and bilingualism by exposing cross-linguistic influence in a border setting with rigorous analytical methods that offer reliable results and go beyond a basic analysis based on auditory identification. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Contact in Borderlands)
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17 pages, 4914 KiB  
Article
Language Perceptions of New Mexico: A Focus on the NM Borderland
by Kathryn P. Bove
Languages 2024, 9(5), 161; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9050161 - 28 Apr 2024
Viewed by 1147
Abstract
New Mexico is located along the U.S.–Mexico border, and as such, Spanish, English, and language mixing form an integral part of the New Mexican identity. New Mexico is often divided into a northern and a southern region with the north known for Spanish [...] Read more.
New Mexico is located along the U.S.–Mexico border, and as such, Spanish, English, and language mixing form an integral part of the New Mexican identity. New Mexico is often divided into a northern and a southern region with the north known for Spanish archaisms due to historic isolation, and the south associated with ties to a Mexican identity due to the location of the U.S.–Mexico border. The current study uses perceptual dialectology to capture the way in which speakers in the south of New Mexico perceive this north/south divide and communicate their identity. Overall, there is evidence of the north/south divide, but speakers in southern New Mexico focus much more on language use such as Spanglish, English, and Spanish than on their northern counterparts. Participants reference language mixing over language “purity” and borders over an explicit rural/urban divide. Like previous accounts, we see reference to the “correctness” of both English and Spanish, examples of specific terminology used in different parts of the state, and descriptions of accents throughout the state. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Contact in Borderlands)
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20 pages, 1624 KiB  
Article
On the Functional Convergence of Pragmatic Markers in Arizona Spanish
by Brandon Joseph Martínez
Languages 2024, 9(4), 148; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9040148 - 17 Apr 2024
Viewed by 1065
Abstract
Tags, compared to other types of pragmatic markers (PMs), are typically considered as separate yet related phenomena and are usually differentiated by their syntactic positions and discourse functions, among other factors. The current work explores this differentiation utilizing 36 sociolinguistic interviews with Spanish-English [...] Read more.
Tags, compared to other types of pragmatic markers (PMs), are typically considered as separate yet related phenomena and are usually differentiated by their syntactic positions and discourse functions, among other factors. The current work explores this differentiation utilizing 36 sociolinguistic interviews with Spanish-English bilinguals in southern Arizona, USA. Standard language variation and change (LVC) methodologies were used in the extraction, coding, and statistical analyses of this dataset (n = 591), with four PM variants identified for study through an exploratory methodology: the tags no and qué no and the discourse markers (DMs) you know and saber. The results of our analyses indicate that, while utterance position, self-reported gender, and length of residence were all significant in the multivariate analysis, discourse function was dropped from the statistical model. Therefore, we interpret this finding as an indication that functional differences between these two pragmatic resources have been levelled through grammaticalization, demonstrating that for Arizona Spanish, tags and DMs belong in the same functional category of PMs. Furthermore, an analysis of codeswitching behavior triggered by the incoming variant you know demonstrates that it is becoming incorporated into the Spanish pragmatic system, patterning similarly to its counterpart saber in terms of function and position, without attrition of the native variant. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Contact in Borderlands)
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21 pages, 2699 KiB  
Article
Spanish Loyalty and English Prestige in the Linguistic Landscape of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
by Natalia Mazzaro, Natalia Minjarez Oppenheimer and Raquel González de Anda
Languages 2024, 9(2), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9020041 - 25 Jan 2024
Viewed by 2341
Abstract
Linguistic landscape (LL) studies in bilingual regions can reveal power dynamics between two languages, providing important information regarding their status and vitality. To analyze the relationship between Spanish and English in Ciudad Juárez, a city on the south side of the U.S.-Mexico border, [...] Read more.
Linguistic landscape (LL) studies in bilingual regions can reveal power dynamics between two languages, providing important information regarding their status and vitality. To analyze the relationship between Spanish and English in Ciudad Juárez, a city on the south side of the U.S.-Mexico border, we collected 1649 pictures of public signs in several sections of the city, whose “wellness levels” differ from each other. Pictures were coded for several factors, including language choice, business type, sign type, and the main and informative section, amongst others. Results show that while Spanish is the most frequently used language, English has a strong presence in the LL of Ciudad Juárez. The main factor affecting language choice is “business type”. Certain businesses within the “beauty” category tend to favor the use of English, while businesses within the “home” category favor the use of Spanish. An analysis of socio-economic status (SES) and language choice revealed a direct relationship between them: English is favored in high-income neighborhoods, while Spanish is favored used in low-income areas. The analysis of the main and informative sections on signs further confirmed the prestige assigned to English, which appears mostly in the main and most prominent sections of a sign. Our research shows that although Spanish vitality in Ciudad Juárez is strong, English is used in advertising because it is prestigious and increases the value of products and services, making them more appealing to shoppers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Contact in Borderlands)
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