3 research outputs found
Compensatory strategies in child first language attrition within an Atlantic Creole
No full textThis study investigates compensatory strategies in lexical attrition that are applicable to Creole contact. There is evidence of lexical borrowing from a second language (L2), which is paired with discourse strategies such as exemplification and paraphrasing. Word coinage, metonymy, conversion and semantic contiguity are also all strategies implemented in an aim to compensate for lexical retrieval difficulties brought on by language attrition. It is found that an L2 User whose first language (L1) has become susceptible to language change may not solely employ a single strategy in an act of discourse, but may rather incorporate varying strategies, some of which serve the purpose of complementing other types of strategies in enabling successful communication. In the implementation of these strategies, though there may be influence from an L2, this L2 may not be dominant in the L2 users’ repertoire and L2 features borrowed into the L1 may be imperfectly acquired.
Attrition of a creole : the syntactic effects of the L2 acquisition of papiamentu on Jamaican creole
No full textThis study investigates the attrition of Jamaican Creole (JC), in a Papiamentu (Pp)
dominant environment, to determine the syntactic features of JC first language
(L1) attrition, a projected timeline during which each feature may fall prey to
attrition and the degree to which features of the grammar may be affected. No
known research on the attrition of Creole languages has previously been done.
Five data types were collected from 20 informants, who shared a similar
sociolinguistic profile and who had been residing in Curaçao for periods between
1 and 21 years. These data were collected via natural use, clinical elicitation,
experimental elicitation, metalinguistic judgements and self-report data. The data
were analysed to determine recurring deviations that were common to informants
who were placed in three categories according to their years of residence in the
second language (L2) country: 1-5 years, 6-10 years and >10 years.
Recurring deviations were identified at the level of the Determiner Phrase (DP),
the Verb Phrase (VP) and the Sentence. Changes in the grammar were found to
result from cross-linguistic influence. In addition, there were ‘internally induced’
changes, that is, changes that could not be attributed to influence from an L2. It
was also found that changes in the affected L1 could become apparent after one
year of contact and that most changes in the attriting grammar occurred within the
first 5 years of migration.
Implications of this study include the following: in an effort to maintain native
speaker functionality in the L1, and in formal L1 instruction, emphasis should be
on features found to be susceptible to language attrition; priority ought to be given
to those features which have proven to be most susceptible to change; given that
the majority of stable changes take place within the first 5 years of contact, to
achieve optimum success, maintenance efforts should be most intense during
these early years; and finally, success at maintenance may be less likely after 10
years of contact as the majority of changes were found to have occurred by the
Social and structural aspects of language contact and change
No full textThis book brings together papers that discuss social and structural aspects of language contact and language change.
Several papers look at the relevance of historical documents to determine the linguistic nature of early contact varieties, while others investigate the specific processes of contact-induced change that were involved in the emergence and development of these languages. A third set of papers look at how new datasets and greater sensitivity to social issues can help to (re)assess persistent theoretical and empirical questions as well as help to open up new avenues of research. In particular they highlight the heterogeneity of contemporary language practices and attitudes often obscured in sociolinguistic research.
The contributions all focus on language variation and change but investigate it from a variety of disciplinary and empirical perspectives and cover a range of linguistic contexts
