Annual Public Lecture
 Lenore Grenoble
Switch or Shift: Code-Mixing, Contact-Induced Change and Attrition
When: 6 pm, Monday 22 February, 2010
Where: Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS, Russell Square, London ... location information
The Annual Public Lecture is organised by the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project at SOAS and is part of Endangered Languages Week 2010.
Abstract
When languages are in prolonged contact and the speakers are bi- or multi-lingual, it is common for them to switch between languages. It is often not clear, however, when they are speaking one language and inserting material (even borrowing) from the other, and when they are actually alternating between two languages. This can be seen as a difference between code-switching, alternations between codes; code-mixing, when the speaker speaks one language, and the material from the other language is “inserted” into that matrix language; and borrowing, transfer of linguistic features due to contact. To this we can add one more distinction, linguistic transfer without transfer of phonetic substance, i.e. transfer of forms or structure.
How does one distinguish between instances of borrowing, code-switching and code-mixing? These can be thorny issues even when the languages involved are robustly spoken; in situations of endangerment and shift they are even more complicated. The occurrence of code-mixing and switching are generally approached from two different ways, from the standpoint of the social or discourse functions of code-mixing or from the standpoint of the structural or morphosyntactic restrictions or conditions on code-switching.
After investigating these issues, I discuss the possible correlation between the degree of interference and the occurrence of code-switching and mixing as a sign of language shift (and therefore attrition). Extensive linguistic transfer (or structural “borrowing”) is often an indication of interference and ongoing shift. I draw on examples from a range of contact situations and languages and bring in my own data from fieldwork conducted in Siberia over the last 10 years.
Professor Lenore Grenoble
Lenore Grenoble is the Carl Darling Buck Professor at the University of Chicago, where she is a world leader in research on endangered languages, with several influential publications and extensive fieldwork experience. She is an ELDP panel member and is involved in several other major international projects.
The public lecture is free and open to everyone, however you can reserve your place by emailing elap@soas.ac.uk by Thursday 18 February.
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