Carmen Silva-Corvalán

Language Contact and Change: Spanish in Los Angeles.

Although the large Hispanic community of Los Angeles is basically a geographically stable urban community, bound by historical, social, linguistic, and cultural factors, both its boundaries and its internal structure are impermanent and undergoing constant change. In this original study of Spanish-English bilinguals in Los Angeles County, Carmen Silva-Corvalan explores in depth the linguistic, cognitive, and social processes underlying language maintenance, as well as changes characteristic of language shift and loss. She brings together analytical techniques employed in sociolinguistics, functional syntax, and discourse analysis.

Tense and Aspect in Oral Spanish Narrative: Context and Meaning

This quantitative and qualitative study of the distribution of tense and aspect in oral Spanish narrative shows that the meaning of certain verb forms is in part delimited by the narrative structural context in which they occur. The historical present/preterit alternation, an issue that has attracted recent controversy (Wolfson 1979, Schiffrin 1981) is examined, and the results show that the Spanish historical present functions as an internal evaluation mechanism.*

The gradual loss of mood distinctions in Los Angeles Spanish

This article focuses on a change affecting Spanish in contact with English in the United States: namely, simplification and loss of Subjunctive (Sub) mood morphology. Conversational data from 17 Mexican-American bilinguals living in the eastern section of Los Angeles are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The speakers represent three different immigrant groups, according to length of family stay in the United States. The variation between Indicative (Ind) and Sub usage attested in the Spanish-speaking world results from the continuing modifications which have affected the distribution of Ind and Sub forms through the diachronic development of Spanish: previously obligatory contexts for the use of Sub are now categorically Ind or allow both Sub and Ind to different degrees across social and geographic parameters. In the Spanish of Los Angeles, the internal tendencies toward a reduction of the obligatory use of the Sub are strengthened, as may be expected in a situation of language contact in which obligatory contexts for the use of a form are more resistant to change than those that allow a selection between two or more forms with closely related meanings.

Spanish in Four Continents: Studies in Language Contact and Bilingualism.

This collection is the first to examine the effects of bilingualism and multilingualism on the development of dialectal varieties of Spanish in Africa, America, Asia and Europe. Nineteen essays investigate a variety of complex situations of contact between Spanish and typologically different languages, including Basque, Bantu languages, English, and Quechua. The overall picture that evolves clearly indicates that although influence from the contact languages may lead to different dialects, the core grammar of Spanish remains intact. Silva-Corvalans volume makes an important contribution both to sociolinguistics in general, and to Spanish linguistics in particular. The contributors address theoretical and empirical issues that advance our knowledge of what is a possible linguistic change, how languages change, and how changes spread in society in situations of intensive bilingualism and language contact, a situation that appears to be the norm rather than the exception in the world.

The Limits of Convergence in Language Contact

This article discusses the contact situation between English and Spanish in the United States, a situation characterized by both maintenance of the minority language and shift to English. Of relevance to understanding the linguistic phenomena that develop in this situation of societal bilingualism is the fact that the minority language is constantly being revitalized by interaction with large groups of immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries.The article identifies some of the linguistic changes that affect the minority language at different points in the proficiency continuum or different stages of attrition, and argues that in this particular contact situation convergence toward English is constrained by the structure of the minority language undergoing change.

Editorial: State of BLC

As Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (BLC) enters its 12th year of publication, we the editors of the journal are pleased to report to the BLC readers that the state of the journal is strong.

Simultaneous bilingualism: Early developments, incomplete later outcomes?

Purpose: Research on the language of heritage speakers has shown that in situations of societal bilingualism the functionally restricted language evidences the simplification of some grammatical domains. A frequent question is whether this stage of grammatical simplification is due to incomplete or interrupted acquisition in the early years of a bilingual’s life, or a result of processes of attrition of acquired knowledge of the underused language. This article considers the issue of incompleteness through an examination of the relationship between bilingual children’s developing grammars and the more or less changed bilingual systems of adult second and third generation immigrants (“heritage speakers”) in the USA. Methodology: The issue of incompleteness is examined in two corpora: (1) Recordings of 50 Spanish-English adult Mexican-American bilinguals; and (2) Longitudinal data obtained during the first six years of life of two Spanish-English bilingual siblings. Data analysis: Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the grammar of subjects, verbal clitics, and verb tenses of the Spanish of the bilinguals under study. Findings: The outcome of reduced exposure and production of a minority language in simultaneous bilingual acquisition reflects the incomplete acquisition by age 6;0 of some aspects of the input language. The bilingual siblings’ unequal control of the minority language is shown to parallel the range of proficiencies identified across the adult heritage speakers. Significance: Some linguists argue that heritage speakers’ grammars are less restrictive or “different” in some respects but not incomplete. In contrast, this article demonstrates that at least some of the reduced grammars of heritage speakers result from a halted process of acquisition in the early years of life. Furthermore, while difference is not an explanatory construct, incomplete acquisition due to interrupted development caused by restricted exposure and production offers an explanation for the range of proficiencies attested among adult heritage speakers.

Past and present perspectives on language change in US Spanish

This paper deals with processes of change that affect the verb system of Los Angeles Spanish. I will discuss issues examined in linguistic studies of bilingualism and then present my own research within the historical perspective of studies of Spanish in the United States. Recent linguistic studies of bilingualism have been motivated, on the one hand, by the question of permeability of a linguistic system to influence from another, and, on the other hand, by the need to develop an adequate model for the description of bilingual competence which could account for the possibility that this competence may involve one, two, or even three grammatical systems, corresponding, in this case, to Spanish, English, and a mixed variety. Through an examination of the changes which may affect a secondary language, and of the role that a primary language may play in the shaping of such changes, it is expected to contribute to our understanding of what is a possible linguistic change, how languages change, and how change spreads through both the linguistic and the social systems. The present study examines changes in the verb system of an intergenerational sample of speakers in the eastern area of Los Angeles. At the same time it describes the bilingual continuum present in this Spanish-English bilingual community.

Infantes bilingües y hablantes de herencia adultos: ¿Qué los vincula?

of phenomena that seemingly result from the close contact of two (or more) grammatical systems. Societal bilingualism is characterized by constant and rapid changes which may be observed as they arise and spread in the linguistic and social systems. Likewise, bilingual first language acquisition is characterized by constant changes as children become cognitively and linguistically more mature. This article compares aspects of the grammars of two developing English-Spanish bilinguals with those of adult bilinguals in order to examine the general issue of intergenerational continuity and change in a situation of societal bilingualism. Two types of contact-induced change are identified: copy, a qualitative mechanism that underlies the notion of transfer, and quantitative influence, that is, patterns that are frequent in one language affect the frequency of parallel patterns in a contact language. Changes caused by copying are clearly the result of contact, while those that result from influence may have an internal or an external motivation, or both. The study supports the hypothesis that crosslinguistic interaction affects the lexicon and discoursepragmatics,but not the core syntax of the languages. Some concrete connections are indentified between early bilingual grammars and those of adult bilinguals, namely the increased production of overt subject pronouns and preverbal subjects,a reduced verbal system, and the reproduction of the meaning of word combinations from English into Spanish. The theoretical implications of the parallels identified between the children’s linguistic behavior and that of adult bilinguals are discussed.

The acquisition of Spanish by third generation children

In societal bilingualism, the functionally restricted language evidences, among other phenomena, the simplification of some grammatical domains. In this context, a recurring question is whether this stage of grammatical simplification is due to incomplete acquisition in the early years of a bilinguals life, or a result of processes of attrition or loss. This paper point out similarities between the developing bilingual siblings and adult heritage speakers in the preceding discussion.