A Combined Sociolinguistic and Experimental Phonetic Approach to Loanword Variation and Adaptation
出版項
2018
說明
1 online resource (269 pages)
文字
text
無媒介
computer
成冊
online resource
附註
Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 80-05, Section: A
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis
Advisor: Blake, Renee;Davidson, Lisa
Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, 2018
Includes bibliographical references
When two languages are in contact, one of the most common and likely things that will happen is that one language will borrow a word from the other (Haugen 1950; Thomason 2001; Sankoff 2002). Of course, since they are not the same language, the borrowing language will likely have to adapt the word's sound form to some degree, therefore not resulting in an exact replication of the source form. The sound system of the borrowing language will dictate this in large part: e.g., the word might contain sounds that the borrowing language doesn't have, so the most similar sound available to the borrowing language is used in its stead. Sometimes, though, the end result is not so clear-cut and loanwords can become variable between different pronunciations. In some cases, this can be attributable to the intensity of contact between the two languages and the speaker's degree of familiarity with the source language, where a speaker might use a more source-like pronunciation by maintaining sounds that otherwise wouldn't be considered allowed in the borrowing language (Poplack et al. 1988). But, in other cases, a loanword might vary between pronunciations that more or less closely resemble a loanword's source form in spite of each pronunciation being readily available in the borrowing language's native sound system. It is the latter kind of variation that this dissertation is concerned with. The variation of loanwords in American English between more vs. less source-like pronunciations is examined and tested for how social factors even further removed from intensity of language contact might explain it. It is hypothesized that speakers' relation to or attitude toward the source might predict whether they are more strongly inclined to use a more source-like pronunciation, in line with sociolinguistic theories and evidence that speakers are more likely to resemble each other in their language depending on how much they identify with and want to resemble each other (Labov 1972; Bell 1984; Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985; Giles et al. 1991; Milroy and Milroy 1992; Eckert 2004). Furthermore, it is considered that the social relation of interest might not only be the singular language contact situation particular to a loanword's specific source language. Instead, loanwords as a broad class may pattern together, similarly reflecting something about the social relation of the speaker with respect to foreign languages and/or people as a broader group. The backdrop to the pursuit at hand is Hall-Lew et al.'s (2010) previous study of the variable pronunciation of Iraq in the speech of US politicians, which they observe to pattern with speakers' political identity-Republicans preferring the less source-like [Special characters omitted] pronunciation and Democrats preferring the more source-like [Special characters omitted] pronunciation. Instead, in Chapter 2, it is hypothesized and empirically corroborated that this political variation falls out from and reflects the attitudes and ideologies that also pattern with political identity in the US political zeitgeist. It is observed that, yes, even amongst non-politicians this variation patterns with political identity; but, other factors like the speaker's source-directed attitude and alignment with a globalist/nationalist ideology are identified as better predictors when accounted for alongside political identity. It is especially the latter factor that is the strongest predictor: A speaker who is more globalist-aligning is more likely to use a more source-like pronunciation. Furthermore, this pattern holds across loanwords of various kinds, sound variables, and sources, reflecting that this ideological alignment regards the broader world and the speaker's relationship to it. Results do, however, suggest that some variation can still be explained by political identity, which is interpreted to suggest that loanword variation has gained a second-order (Silverstein 2003; Eckert 2008) political indexicality. In Chapter 3, people's perceptions of loanword variation are examined to shed further light on its indexicality. Similar to how it patterns in speech production, the use of more source-like pronunciations is perceptually indexed as more globalist-aligning and globally oriented, as well as being associated with prestige and linguistic security (Labov 1966). While these indexations are apparent in both implicit, matched-guise testing (Lambert et al. 1960) and an explicit, metalinguistic questionnaire, a significant political indexation only surfaces when examined in an explicit method. This is interpreted to corroborate that the political indexation of loanword variation is second-order, with the difference between implicit perceptual activation vs. explicit commentary suggesting a layered indexicality parallel to how loanword variation is observed to pattern in speech production. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest, 2020
