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Bilingual discourse marking: code switching, borrowing, and convergence in some German-American dialects

Bilingual discourse marking: code switching, borrowing, and convergence in some German-American... Bilinguals frequently use discourse markers (such as English well or you knowj from one language while speaking another. This has long been considered emblematic or extrasentential code switching (for example by Poplack 1982). In American German varieties spoken in central Texas (and other areas), English markers are used in conversation to the normal exclusion of the German discourse-marking system. After showing how American English markers are used in some German American dialects, I argue that English discourse markers themselves do not represent code switching in the present corpus but instead have the status of borrowings (in line with recent discussions of that distinction), while the discourse-marking systems of German and English have undergone convergence. This conclusion is relevant to other bilingual situations and could entail reclassifying such phenomena as borrowings or convergence where these have been assumed to represent switches. A rough distinction between borrowing and code switching can be drawn, but it appears far more difficult to distinguish borrowing from convergence for the present corpus. This analysis also underscores the necessity of including 'convergence' -- in addition to borrowing and code switching -- in the study of bilingual!multilingual communities. Introduction This paper examines a bilingual conversational phenomenon http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Linguistics - An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences de Gruyter

Bilingual discourse marking: code switching, borrowing, and convergence in some German-American dialects

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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Walter de Gruyter
ISSN
0024-3949
eISSN
1613-396X
DOI
10.1515/ling.1990.28.3.453
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Bilinguals frequently use discourse markers (such as English well or you knowj from one language while speaking another. This has long been considered emblematic or extrasentential code switching (for example by Poplack 1982). In American German varieties spoken in central Texas (and other areas), English markers are used in conversation to the normal exclusion of the German discourse-marking system. After showing how American English markers are used in some German American dialects, I argue that English discourse markers themselves do not represent code switching in the present corpus but instead have the status of borrowings (in line with recent discussions of that distinction), while the discourse-marking systems of German and English have undergone convergence. This conclusion is relevant to other bilingual situations and could entail reclassifying such phenomena as borrowings or convergence where these have been assumed to represent switches. A rough distinction between borrowing and code switching can be drawn, but it appears far more difficult to distinguish borrowing from convergence for the present corpus. This analysis also underscores the necessity of including 'convergence' -- in addition to borrowing and code switching -- in the study of bilingual!multilingual communities. Introduction This paper examines a bilingual conversational phenomenon

Journal

Linguistics - An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciencesde Gruyter

Published: Jan 1, 1990

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