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Constraints on Language Variation and Change in Complex Multilingual Contact Settings
Constraints on Language Variation and Change in Complex Multilingual Contact Settings explores an innovative proposal: that linguistic similarities identified in different forms of contact-influenced varieties of language use (including translation, native and non-native varieties of English, and language use of bilinguals more generally) can be accounted for in a coherent framework grounded in the notion of ‘constrained communication’. These varieties have hitherto been studied in independent scholarly traditions, especially translation studies and world Englishes, leaving the potential underlying unity underexplored, both conceptually and empirically.
The chapters collected in this volume aim to develop such a unified perspective by drawing on corpus data across a range of languages and language varieties, with a focus on written language, a neglected data source in research on multilingual contact settings. The findings point to shared general characteristics across individual contact settings, which result from (probabilistically conditioned) manifestations of the same deeper regularities – constraints – present in diverse language-contact settings.
The chapters collected in this volume aim to develop such a unified perspective by drawing on corpus data across a range of languages and language varieties, with a focus on written language, a neglected data source in research on multilingual contact settings. The findings point to shared general characteristics across individual contact settings, which result from (probabilistically conditioned) manifestations of the same deeper regularities – constraints – present in diverse language-contact settings.
[Contact Language Library, 60] 2024. vi, 293 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 12 June 2024
Published online on 12 June 2024
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- Chapter 1. Introduction: The constrained communication framework for studying contact-influenced varietiesHaidee Kotze and Bertus van Rooy | pp. 1–28
- Chapter 2. Afrikaans influence on genitive variation in South African English? A comparative diachronic study of Afrikaans and White South African EnglishAnette Rosenbach and Johanita Kirsten | pp. 29–57
- Chapter 3. Language contact and change through translation in Afrikaans and South African English: A diachronic corpus-based study of genitive variationKarien Redelinghuys | pp. 58–86
- Chapter 4. Investigating the complementiser that in the verb complementation of Black South African EnglishMaristi Partridge | pp. 87–119
- Chapter 5. Lexical use in spoken New Englishes and Learner Englishes: The effects of shared and distinct communicative constraintsGaëtanelle Gilquin | pp. 120–152
- Chapter 6. The effect of directionality on lexico‑syntactic simplification in French><English student translationLaura Penha-Marion, Gaëtanelle Gilquin and Marie-Aude Lefer | pp. 153–190
- Chapter 7. The complex case of constrained communication: A corpus-driven, multilingual and multi‑register search for the common ground between non‑native and translated languageIlmari Ivaska, Silvia Bernardini and Adriano Ferraresi | pp. 191–222
- Chapter 8. Comparing contact effects in translation and second language writingStella Neumann, Elma Kerz and Arndt Heilmann | pp. 223–254
- Chapter 9. Conclusion: Cumulative insights into constrained communicationBertus van Rooy and Haidee Kotze | pp. 255–286
- Index | pp. 287–293
“Constraints on Language Variation and Change in Complex Multilingual Contact Settings is a valuable interdisciplinary contribution to the study of language change in complex multilingual contexts. Kotze and van Rooy develop a robust framework of “constrained communication” essential for framing the volume and integrating perspectives from sociolinguistics, translation, language acquisition, and corpus linguistics. Thus, this work not only broadens the understanding of linguistic variation, but also lays the groundwork for future research to address both micro- and macro-contextual factors in the analysis of linguistic change and diversity.”
Cristina Illamola, Universitat de Barcelona, in Sociolinguistic Studies 19:3-4 (2025).
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
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