Patterns of lexical correlation and divergence in Casamance

Watson, Rachel

doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2018.04.014

Cited by 10 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Thirdly, multilingualism can be perceived as a guarantee of peace, a way to prevent conflicts, realizing the urge to be distinct through languages (cf. Evans, 2010, p. 277; Rumsey, 2018, p. 240; Sutton, 1997; Vaughan & Singer, 2018, p. 86, with Australian evidence, and Watson, 2018, p. 173, with African cases). Drawing on an Australian example, Singer (2018, p. 107), discusses “the importance of creating a context in which people can be ‘different together’.” Fourthly, multilingualism can be justified as a positive politeness move, a way to accommodate to interlocutors.…”

Section: Ideologies Of Small-scale Multilingualismmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Drawing on an Australian example, Singer (2018, p. 107), discusses “the importance of creating a context in which people can be ‘different together’.” Fourthly, multilingualism can be justified as a positive politeness move, a way to accommodate to interlocutors. As Watson (2018, p. 173) puts it for Casamance: “people take pride in being linguistically adaptable and in many cases will take the trouble to learn the language of their hosts or guests” (see also Lüpke, 2016, p. 48). The same is reported for the Arawakans in the Vaupés by Aikhenvald (2002, p. 23, 2003, p. 3).…”

Section: Ideologies Of Small-scale Multilingualismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A typology of small-scale multilingualism

Pakendorf

Dobrushina

Khanina

2021

International Journal of Bilingualism

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Aims: The paper aims at providing an exhaustive overview of studies of small-scale multilingualism, a type of language ecology typical of—but not exclusive to—indigenous communities with small numbers of speakers. We identify the similarities and differences among situations of such multilingualism, which lay the foundations for a future typology of this kind of language ecology. Approach and data: We outline the importance of language ideologies for multilingualism in small-scale societies, highlight the sources of this type of language ecology, with a special focus on the impact of marriage patterns, discuss to what extent situations of small-scale multilingualism are truly egalitarian and symmetric, and survey the different methods used in the study of this domain. In order to do so, we survey studies devoted to multilingualism in indigenous communities of all continents: the New World (especially South America), Australia, Melanesia, Africa, Europe and Asia. Conclusions: The multilingual ecologies of the pre- and postcolonial world are extremely diverse, with many factors playing a role in their constitution. They are also highly endangered, and thus their study is of the utmost urgency. Originality: The domain of small-scale multilingualism is still novel for sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. Although the researchers working with indigenous groups have been describing the peculiarities of multilingual repertoires, language acquisition and language attitudes in various parts of the world, the domain lacks the kind of comparison and generalizations that we provide here. Significance: The increased interest in small-scale multilingualism has been boosted by the realization of its significance for reconstructing the social conditions that favoured linguistic diversity in the precolonial world. Furthermore, insights into this type of multilingualism—which differs considerably from the better-studied situations of bi- and multilingualism in urban contexts and large nation states—are of prime importance for a better understanding of the human language faculty.

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Section: Ideologies Of Small-scale Multilingualismmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Ideologies Of Small-scale Multilingualismmentioning

confidence: 99%

A typology of small-scale multilingualism

Pakendorf

Dobrushina

Khanina

2021

International Journal of Bilingualism

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“…For Jóola languages, differences are partly maintained through the preservation of salient contrasts, which in many cases may become iconic or emblematic of a given aspect of sociolinguistic identity (Irvine & Gal 2000;Silverstein 2003; see Watson (2018Watson ( , 2019 for a detailed discussion). This is illustrated neatly in traditional Jóola greeting formulas, which involve the question-response pair "[Is there] peace?"…”

Section: Vignette: Multilingualism As the Maintenance Of Minimal Differences -Jóola Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing Rural Multilingualism in Lowland South America and Western Africa

Lüpke¹,

Stenzel²,

Cabalzar³

et al. 2020

Anthropological Linguistics

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This article explores and compares multilingualism in small-scale societies of Western Africa and Lowland South America. All are characterized by complex and extensive multilingual practices and regional exchange systems established before the onset of globalization and its varying impacts. Through overviews of the general historical and organizational features of regions, vignette case studies, and a discussion of transformative processes affecting them, we show that small-scale multilingual societies present challenges to existing theorization of language as well 2 as approaches to language description and documentation. We aim to bring these societies and issues to the fore, promoting discussion within a broader audience.

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“…74–76). All other things being equal—for example, taking into account such factors as resistance to lexical borrowing—the more intense the bilingualism, the higher the number of loanwords from the donor to the recipient language is expected to be (e.g., Brown, 1994; Scotton & Okeju, 1973; Watson, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small-scale multilingualism through the prism of lexical borrowing

Ilya

Daniel²,

Verhees

2021

International Journal of Bilingualism

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Aims and Objectives: We assess whether data on lexical borrowing obtained through field elicitation may point not only to a specific donor language but also to its specific regional variety, and whether these data are a reliable tool for reconstructing unknown historical patterns of interaction between ethnic subgroups. Methodology: We use quantitative analysis of the data obtained by loanword probing—elicitations of short wordlists from speakers of minority languages—to calculate the amount and identify the source of lexical transfer. We compare the results across several areas with varying degrees of bilingualism and different contact varieties of the donor language to see how this influences our results. Data: The data for this study come from a large-scale field study in Daghestan, with 72 people from 19 villages speaking four languages. Findings: Our method suggests that speech communities clearly indicate one of the regional varieties of Azerbaijani as the donor, depending on the area of data collection. We also observe that the degree of lexical convergence with the donor depends not only on the level of bilingualism observed in the specific village but also on the native language of this village, suggesting language borders as a natural constraint to the spread of lexical borrowing. Originality: The study is novel in that it is fully based on analysis of data on lexical convergence obtained through fieldwork on minority languages and provides quantitative results that can be compared across speech communities in the survey. Implications: We conclude that the method is sensitive enough to trace donorship to specific regional varieties of the donor language. Limitations: Our observations on the relative weight of the level of bilingualism and language affiliation of a speech community as predictors of the degree of lexical convergence require more data obtained both from other linguistic environments and by different methods.

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Patterns of lexical correlation and divergence in Casamance

Cited by 10 publications

References 19 publications

A typology of small-scale multilingualism

A typology of small-scale multilingualism

Comparing Rural Multilingualism in Lowland South America and Western Africa

Small-scale multilingualism through the prism of lexical borrowing

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