Catherine E. Travis

Testing convergence via code-switching: priming and the structure of variable subject expression:

In this study, we test the hypothesis that code-switching promotes grammatical convergence by investigating Spanish first-person singular subject (yo ‘I’) expression in bilingual conversations of New Mexican speakers of Spanish and English. We find that variable yo expression in New Mexican Spanish follows the same grammatical patterning as has been identified for non-contact varieties, and that this is the case regardless of the degree of bilingualism of the speakers. We observe a slightly higher rate of subject expression in the presence of code-switching; however, this is found to be attributable not to the code-switching per se, but to the presence of an English expressed first-person singular subject (I) in the preceding discourse. We interpret this as a cross-linguistic priming effect, and note that the presence of I increases the proportion of first singular subjects that occur in the context where the previous coreferential subject was expressed (be that Spanish yo or English I), an environment that favors yo expression. We conclude that, despite prolonged contact, the data do not support Spanish convergence with English in this variety, nor code-switching as a mechanism of language change. Instead, multivariate analyses indicate that cross-linguistic priming may play a role in ostensible contact-induced change by modestly raising the rate of a superficially similar construction, without accompanying changes in language-particular grammatical patterns.

The ethnopragmatics of the diminutive in conversational Colombian Spanish

Abstract This paper considers the cultural values manifested in the use of the diminutive suffix -ito/-ita in a corpus of conversational Colombian Spanish. It will be demonstrated that this suffix is highly frequent (occurring approximately 600 times in the 70,000-word corpus), and that from its core uses in relation to children and expressing small size it has taken on the pragmatic functions of expressing affection, hedging speech acts and expressing contempt. Wierzbicka (1992) has shown that the frequent use of the diminutive in languages such as Russian and Polish plays a valuable role in realizing the cultural goal of the expression of good feelings towards others. The same can be said of its use in Colombian Spanish, but analysis of the diminutive in conversation reveals that it goes beyond this to realize a range of essential cultural ideals in interaction. Based on a semantic analysis of some of the central uses of the diminutive, I propose a set of cultural scripts to capture the role played by the diminutive in a variety of speech events, scripts which form an important part of the basis for interaction in Colombian society.

Gauging convergence on the ground: Code-switching in the community

Is grammatical convergence between bilinguals’ two languages inevitable and does code-switching inherently promote it? Despite the burgeoning of bilingualism studies, this question—and even what should count as code-switching—remains contentious. Cumulative scientific advances will depend on attention to the social context in which bilingual phenomena arise, proper handling of spontaneous speech data, and consideration of the probabilistic constraints underlying occurrence rates of linguistic forms. We put forward this program of study as implemented in systematic quantitative analysis of linguistic structures in the New Mexico Spanish-English Bilingual (NMSEB) corpus. This unique compilation of bilingual speech by members of the Hispanic northern New Mexican community in the United States records both borrowing and—vitally—copious multi-word code-switching. Advancing the study of bilingualism is community-based data collection and accountable analysis of the linguistic conditioning of variation in both of the languages in contact as used by the bilinguals themselves, in comparison with appropriate benchmarks, again of both languages (monolingual, or earlier, varieties). The role of code-switching in convergence is evaluated through a novel on-line measure, comparisons based on the proximity of spontaneous use of the other language. Implementation of this test of proximate code-switching confirms a disjunction between bilinguals’ phonology, which is more labile, and morpho-syntax, which is stable. Variation is conditioned by intra-linguistic contextual features, the distribution of which, however, may shift under code-switching, shaping patterns in the bilingual community.

Making Voices Count: Corpus Compilation in Bilingual Communities

Corpus compilation is of great relevance in linguistics today, with growing appreciation of studies based on spontaneous speech, in particular for minority communities. This paper puts forward a model for corpus compilation in bilingual communities, illustrated through the New Mexican Spanish–English Bilingual corpus, in which the same speakers—from a long-standing minority community in the United States—use both Spanish and English in the same conversations, smoothly alternating between their languages. We advocate community-based fieldwork for the collection of speech data by community members; the formation of a corpus which comprises recordings of spontaneous interactions and is thus of widespread usability (rather than being tied to any particular set of research questions or elicited linguistic features); scrupulously compiling information about the demography and the linguistic history of the participants that may shape their patterns of language use; and comprehensive transcription of the data taking into account prosodic aspects and making considered decisions about how to responsibly represent the speech. This community-based approach yields linguistic data situated in its social context and amenable to systematic quantitative analysis, which allows for confronting the many claims about language contact with the facts of bilingual usage.

Two languages, one effect: Structural priming in spontaneous code-switching

We investigate here the contribution of code-switching and structural priming to variable expression of the Spanish first person singular subject pronoun in the New Mexican bilingual community. Comparisons with both Spanish and English benchmarks indicate no convergence of Spanish toward English grammar, including in the presence of code-switching, where the linguistic conditioning of variant selection remains unaltered. We find a language-internal and cross-language priming effect, albeit of differing strength, such that speakers’ preceding coreferential (Spanish and English) subject pronouns favor subsequent pronouns, whereas unexpressed subjects tend to be followed by unexpressed subjects. Given the rarity of unexpressed subjects in English, in the presence of code-switching fewer tokens occur with unexpressed primes. Thus, code-switching has no intrinsic effect. Instead, it results in associated shifts in the distribution of contextual features relevant to priming, contrary to the convergence-via-code-switching hypothesis and in accordance with the contextual distribution-via-code-switching hypothesis, which we put forward here.

The Role of Frequency in First-Person Plural Variation in Brazilian Portuguese: Nós vs. a gente

Abstract This paper investigates the conditioning of the variation between two first-person plural forms in contemporary spoken Brazilian Portuguese, an older pronoun nós used with first-person plural agreement and a newer pronoun a gente, derived from an NP meaning ‘the people’, used with third-person singular agreement. This is part of a broader change in the language involving the breakdown of verbal agreement as third-person marking extends to the domains of first- and second-person. We consider the conditioning of use of these forms in spoken Brazilian Portuguese from Fortaleza and uncover a phenomenon that as yet has not been noted in relation to this variation, namely frequency. We find that the high type frequency of a gente contributes to the spreading use of this form, and the high token frequency of nós in specific constructions slows it down. We predict that these highly frequent constructions (such as nos temos ‘we have’, digamos ‘let’s say’ and vamos + V-INF ‘let’s V’) may remain a last vestige of nós in Brazilian Portuguese as a gente comes to take over the realm of first-person plural.

Cross-language priming: A view from bilingual speech ∗

In the current paper we report on a study of priming of variable Spanish 1sg subject expression in spontaneous Spanish–English bilingual speech (based on the New Mexico Spanish–English Bilingual corpus, Torres Cacoullos & Travis, in preparation). We show both within- and cross-language Coreferential Subject Priming; however, cross-language priming from English to Spanish is weaker and shorter lived than within-language Spanish-to-Spanish priming, a finding that appears not to be attributable to lexical boost. Instead, interactions with subject continuity and verb type show that the strength of priming depends on co-occurring contextual features and particular [pronoun + verb] constructions, from the more lexically specific to the more schematically general. Quantitative patterns in speech thus offer insights unavailable from experimental work into the scope and locus of priming effects, suggesting that priming in bilingual discourse can serve to gauge degrees of strength of within- and cross-language associations between usage-based constructions.

Different registers, different grammars? Subject expression in English conversation and narrative

As a so-called non-null subject language, it has been proposed that in English, unexpressed subjects occur only in registers that have specific grammatical properties. We test this hypothesis through a comparison of the conditioning of subject expression for third-person singular human specific subjects in English conversation and narrative. Despite a stark difference in the rates of nonexpression (4% in conversation vs. 22% in narratives), there is no evidence of different grammars across the registers—in both, outside of coreferential clauses conjoined with a coordinating conjunction, unexpressed subjects only occur in prosodic initial position in main clause declaratives. Within the variable context, in both registers, expression is sensitive to accessibility, priming, and temporal sequentiality. A register effect is, however, evident in the contextual distribution, with a larger proportion of the narrative tokens occurring in contexts propitious to unexpressed subjects, and it is this that accounts for the higher rate of nonexpression in this register.

Introducción a la lingüística hispánica: La lingüística: ciencia cognitiva

Objetivos • Este capitulo es una breve introduccion a la linguistica moderna y a los temas que se trataran en mas detalle en el resto de los capitulos del libro. Los principales temas que veremos son: • las diferentes concepciones historicas del lenguaje y de la gramatica como objetos de estudio de la linguistica • las caracteristicas del lenguaje humano, que lo separan de los sistemas de comunicacion de los animales • las teorias sobre el mecanismo de adquisicion del lenguaje en los ninos • la relacion entre la capacidad humana del lenguaje y la estructura del cerebro humano • las criticas a algunos de los postulados basicos, tanto teoricos como metodologicos, de la linguistica moderna • la definicion de las areas centrales del estudio del lenguaje a las que dedicaremos cada uno de los capitulos del libro. Introduccion La linguistica es la disciplina que estudia el lenguaje humano. El lenguaje es, posiblemente, el comportamiento estructurado mas complejo que podemos encontrar en nuestro planeta. La facultad de lenguaje es responsable de nuestra historia, nuestra evolucion cultural y nuestra diversidad; ha contribuido al desarrollo de la ciencia y la tecnologia y a nuestra capacidad de modificar nuestro entorno al tiempo que nos ha permitido desarrollar formas de apreciacion estetica y artistica y una enorme variedad de modos de comunicacion interpersonal. El estudio del lenguaje es, para empezar, un reto intelectual y una actividad fascinante en si misma, el intento de recomponer y de desentranar el funcionamiento de un rompecabezas enormemente estructurado y complejo, responsable en gran parte de lo que los seres humanos somos como especie en el mundo natural.

Introducción a la lingüística hispánica: Los sonidos de la lengua: fonética y fonología

Objetivos En este capitulo estudiaremos la estructura fonica del espanol. Los principales temas que veremos son: • como se describen y clasifican los sonidos del habla • cuales son los sonidos contrastivos o fonemas de la lengua espanola • la variacion en la realizacion de los fonemas segun el contexto • las principales diferencias de pronunciacion entre las variedades geograficas del espanol • la estructura de la silaba en espanol • las reglas de acentuacion del espanol • la estructura entonativa de los enunciados mas basicos. Algunos conceptos Concepto de fonema Una caracteristica importante de las lenguas humanas es que mientras que nos permiten expresar un numero ilimitado de enunciados con significados diferentes, todas las palabras, todos los enunciados posibles en la lengua, se pueden descomponer en un numero relativamente pequeno de unidades de sonido contrastivas que, de por si, carecen de significado. Asi en la palabra pan , por ejemplo, podemos distinguir tres sonidos: /p/, /a/, /n/, y en la palabra guerra , cuatro: /g/, /e/, /r/, /a/. (Usamos el simbolo /r/ para representar el sonido de la “ r fuerte”, escrita - rr - en guerra y r - en roca . Notemos tambien que el grupo ortografico gu - representa un solo sonido /g/.) Como hemos dicho, aunque el lexico de una lengua y el numero de enunciados expresable con este lexico son en principio ilimitados, cada lengua tiene solo un numero reducido de sonidos contrastivos. En espanol, solo tenemos cinco sonidos vocalicos contrastivos y menos de veinte sonidos consonanticos (su numero exacto depende del dialecto).