Contact Linguistics. Chap

Exercise: Weinreich (1953) suggests a number of factors that seem to promote borrowing by unilinguals and bilinguals alike. All of these are related to the concept of "need" as a factor promoting lexical borrowing. They include:

• The existence of homonyms in the recipient language, creating the need to resolve potential ambiguity (p. 57).

• The ever present need for synonyms in certain semantic fields (p. 58).
• A perception that certain semantic fields are insufficiently differentiated in one of the languages (p. 59).

Examine in detail any case of substantial lexical borrowing involving a newly standardized vernacular (such as Indonesian) and try to determine which loans are motivated by each of Weinreich’s factors. Suggest other motivations of your own.

Other kinds of borrowings under distant contact seem to be motivated more by considerations of fashion or prestige. The spread of English loanwords into many languages across the globe within the last fifty years may be attributed partly to these factors. As we have seen in the case of Japanese, the growth of global avenues of communication such as television and the internet has had enormous influence on the spread of American English in particular.

In situations of bilingualism, the reasons for lexical borrowing are more complex. The motivations in these situations depend on a range of macro- as well as micro-sociolinguistic factors that vary from one community to another. The macro-level factors include those relating to notions like "intensity of contact", "cultural pressure" and language attitudes. As we've seen, intensity of contact is a function of factors such as demographic ratios, the socio-political relationships between the groups, the length of the contact, and the degree of bilingualism across groups. Cultural pressure is a function of the social motivations that promote the adoption of foreign features into a group's L1. These include the social and economic advantages that follow from such borrowing, including social advancement, employment, educational opportunity, etc. Finally, degree of borrowing is dependent on the social values attached to each language, that is, their relative prestige, the degree of loyalty to each, and other ideologies regarding the tolerance of foreign interference or language mixture of any type.
As Bloomfield (1933) noted, borrowing is usually from a more prestigious into a socially subordinate language. Speakers may find it more sophisticated to borrow from the higher language. The French-Dutch contact described earlier for Brussels is a good example. Treffers-Daller (1994) finds that there are ten times as many (tokens of) French borrowings in her Dutch data (2.55%) as there are in her French data (0.29%). This can be attributed to the relatively high status of French, reflecting the historical dominance of French-speaking Walloons over Dutch-speaking Flemings, as well as the numerical preponderance of French speakers in Brussels itself. Another often-cited example is the borrowing of items like beef, pork, veal, etc. from French into Middle English. English, of course, already had equivalent words, cow, pig, etc., but apparently the French items had a more sophisticated air to them. A similar motive appears to lie behind the use of English loanwords in Japanese advertising. The borrowings case the products or services offered in a superior or more appealing light (Loveday 1996). Borrowing may also provide speakers with stylistic choices, allowing them to display their learning by using both foreign and native words with the same meaning. Thus educated Indonesians may use kontrol and pengendalian, spesial and khusus, and so on (Moeliono 1994:383).
In general, then, notions like “need” and “prestige” must be understood in relation to the social aspects of the contact situation, particularly the kinds of culture contact and social interaction that characterize the relationships between the groups involved. For example, the pattern of borrowing from English into American Norwegian, as described by Haugen (1953), is directly related to the new domains in which Norwegian immigrants had to interact with speakers of English. Thus, “the chief foci of influence were the store, the government and the American neighbor” (1953:93). Hence there was a preponderance of lexical borrowings in the economic and official spheres of activity. One the other hand, very little borrowing affected the vocabulary used at home or in religion, where interaction remained within the group.
Other factors that may come into play in bilingual situations relate to degrees of social solidarity and accommodation (Giles et al. 1991). Much research has been done on these kinds of motivation for code-switching (Chapter 4). But there have been few studies of how they influence patterns of lexical or other borrowing.
Poplack et al. (1988) were the first to attempt a detailed examination of the macro- and micro-level factors that influence the degree and type of lexical borrowing in a given community. They examined the frequency of English loanwords in the French of monolingual and bilingual speakers in the Canadian urban area of Ottawa/Hull - a community on the border of Ontario, where English is the majority language, and Quebec, where the majority speak French. They found that the rates of borrowing correlated with differences in social class (upper-class speakers use fewer loans than members of other classes) and neighborhood (with higher rates of loanwords in Ottawa). Other factors such as sex, age and language proficiency had relatively little effect on rates of borrowing.
Overall, their subjects displayed few differences in the rates of "established" loans (that is, loans that are frequent throughout the community and permanently established as part of French vocabulary). However, bilingual speakers used more "nonce" (that is, not widely used) borrowings, particularly in Ottawa neighborhoods where English is dominant. This higher frequency of nonce borrowings was also typical of speakers who were more proficient in English. The general conclusion that Poplack et al. draw from these findings is that rate of borrowing (especially of nonce loans) is dependent on the norms of community behavior, rather than on lexical need. In that sense, nonce borrowing is similar to code-switching, which varies according to convention as well. To put it differently, borrowing here seems to be motivated by accommodation to the conventions of use in the social networks of the speakers.
Support for Poplack et al.'s findings comes from a comparison of borrowing and code-mixing patterns in Anderlecht and Brussels, two municipalities that are part of the greater Brussels metropolitan area in Belgium. Treffers-Daller (1994) shows that French borrowings and code-switches in (municipal) Brussels Dutch is significantly more frequent than in Anderlecht. These differences are related to the fact that Anderlecht residents have attended Dutch-speaking schools more than French-medium ones, have had more exposure to Dutch in the mass media, and are generally more proficient in Standard (Belgian) Dutch, which they use in many situations. Thus, their need for borrowings is satisfied by Standard Dutch rather than by French, and they may resist code-mixing because of the puristic norms of the standard language. By contrast, Brusselers tend to have more contact with French (speakers), and therefore incorporate more of it into their Dutch. A social networks analysis reveals that the occurrence of French borrowings is significantly higher among subjects whose networks include more French speakers (1994:80). Once more, it seems that degree of borrowing and mixture is determined by the behavioral norms and network structures of each community.
Another important factor affecting degree of borrowing is language ideology. Loyalty to one's native language and pride in its autonomy may encourage resistance to any foreign incursions. Indeed, some nations have enacted language policies, even legislation, to prevent or eliminate foreign borrowings into their languages. A well-known example of this is the continuing effort by the French to rid their language of foreign, especially English, loans. On the other hand, there are situations where borrowing from external sources may be favored because it avoids taboo associated with some native words. For instance, Herbert (1995:59) suggests that the borrowing of click consonants and new words from Khoesan into Southern Bantu languages (particularly the Nguni subgroup) was motivated by the practice of hlonipha. The term conveys the sense of “respect through avoidance,” and refers to a range of social avoidance customs practised by Nguni speakers. For instance, it is taboo for women to pronounce the names of senior male relatives such as their fathers-in-law. In some cases, even the syllables contained in such names must be avoided. According to Herbert (ibid.), Nguni speakers accomplished this either by substituting other native sounds or foreign sounds such as Khoesan clicks for the sounds that had to be avoided. In some cases, inherited words were replaced with a foreign hlonipha alternative.
Differences in borrowing or code-mixing patterns across bilingual communities have also been explained in terms of differences in perceptions of group identity. For instance, mixing of Alsatian and French in Strasbourg is common and well-tolerated by members of the community, who regard the mixed vernacular as a symbol of their ethnic identity (Gardner-Chloros 1985:166). By contrast, the relative rarity of language mixture in Brussels, especially among younger speakers, reflects the fact that such mixture is no longer seen as a marker of Brussels identity. The growing social distance between French and Dutch speakers encourages each group to identify more exclusively with its own language (Treffers-Daller 1994:85). Despite the differences in patterns of code-mixing, however, both Strasbourg and Brussels display a relatively low incidence of actual lexical borrowing between the languages in contact. Moreover, there is practically no structural borrowing across any of the languages. Despite what appears to be a situation of close contact, each language seems to preserve its autonomy quite well. Precisely what social factors are responsible for this is difficult to say. At any rate, it is clear that borrowing in the strict sense and code-mixing in bilingual situations must be viewed as potentially quite different phenomena, governed by separate dynamics. The process by which foreign vocabulary becomes established as an integral part of a group's native language must be distinguished from the processes of accommodation that lead bilinguals to adopt "nonce" borrowings from an external source language when they engage in code-mixing or code-switching. The line between the two, however, is often hard to draw. More comparative studies are clearly needed to determine more clearly how sociolinguistic factors influence patterns of lexical borrowing, and determine which items become permanently installed in the recipient language, as distinct from being employed as nonce switches in bilingual code switching. Further discussion of the similarities and differences in code-switching patterns in bilingual contact situations will be found in Chapter 4.
6. The processes and products of lexical borrowing.

What exactly is a lexical borrowing? We’ve proceeded so far as though the answer to this question was clear. However, the phenomena that have been referred to by this label are quite varied. Some are close imitations of foreign items (e.g., rendezvous borrowed from French into English). Others are items that have been thoroughly transformed in shape (e.g. Costan Rican Spanish chinchibí from English gingerbeer), while still others are inventions that employ only recipient language materials in imitation of some foreign pattern (e.g. Spanish rascacielos modeled on English skyscraper). In fact, many so-called “borrowings” are not the result of a direct or complete adoption of a foreign item with both its form and meaning intact. The process of borrowing can be very selective, adopting a foreign form but assigning it a new meaning (e.g., Japanese sumato “slim, slender” < Eng. smart), or adopting a foreign meaning or concept and assigning it to a native form (e.g., Japanese sara, extended to include Western-style “plate”). Also, many of the outcomes of lexical borrowing involve innovations or creations that have no counterpart in the donor language. Some of these innovations may be created out of donor materials (e.g., Japanese wan-man-ka “bus without a conductor” < English one+man+car). Others may be created out of native materials, for example Zapotec éxxuwí “fig” < exxu “avocado” + wí “guava” and (older) coinages in the Pima language such as “wrinkled buttocks” for “elephant” and “dog person” for “monkey” (Herzog 1941:68). Still other creations are blends of native and foreign items (e.g. Yaqui líosnóoka “pray” < Span. Dios “God” + Yaqui nóoka “speak”). It would appear that the composition of lexical entries can be manipulated and rearranged in a variety of ways to produce these outcomes of contact. ¹

Attempts to establish a coherent framework for dealing with contact-induced changes in the lexicon began as early as the19th century with Paul (1886) and others, and continued in the first decades of the 20th century with scholars like Seiler (1907-1913) and later Kaufman (1939). Perhaps the most comprehensive of the early frameworks was that of Betz (1949), whose basic distinction between Lehnwort (loanword) and Lehnprägung (loan-coinage) still forms the basis for current descriptions.
Haugen (1950a, b; 1953) added a new dimension to existing classifications with his distinction between importation and substitution - a dichotomy based on the presence or absence of foreignness markers (1950b). Importation refers to the adoption of a foreign form and/or its meaning, and may involve complete or only partial imitation. Substitution refers to the process by which native sounds or morphemes are substituted for those in the donor model. For example, in producing rendezvous, English speakers generally fail to reproduce the velar [R] of French, using their own continuant [®] instead. This is a case of phonemic substitution. Cases where a meaning or concept is borrowed but expressed by a native form are instances of morphemic substitution. An example is Spanish rascacielos, discussed above. In short, for Haugen, “every loan [is] part importation and part substitution” (1953:388).
Following Haugen (1953), we can classify lexical contact phenomena into two broad categories – lexical borrowings, which involve imitation of some aspect of the donor model, and creations, which are entirely native and have no counterpart in the donor language. Lexical borrowings can be further subdivided into two categories. First, there are loanwords in which all or part of the morphemic composition of the loan derives from the external source language. Secondly, there are loanshifts, in which the morphemic composition of the item is entirely native, though its meaning derives at least in part from the donor language. Each of these categories can be further subdivided, according to the types of importation and substitution involved.
Loanwords may be divided into two categories; “pure loanwords” and “loanblends.”
Pure loanwords may consist either of single words like rendezvous or compounds like chincibiri. Sometimes these undergo semantic modification of some sort. For instance, the English word corner is borrowed into Dutch only in its football (soccer) sense, to refer t oa corner kick. As usual, borrowed compounds or phrases may also be adjusted both phonologically and syntactically, like the phrase objetores conscientes borrowed into Florida Spanish from English conscientious objectors (Ortoz 1949, cited in Weinreich 1953:50).
Loan blends" involve the transfer of part of the foreign model and the reproduction of the rest (importation of a foreign morpheme combined with substitution of a native one). Examples of such "hybrids" include Pennsylvania German (PaG) esix-jug "vinegar jug" and home-plato in Tampa Spanish (Weinreich 1953).
Loan shifts or loan meanings fall into the following sub-types. In some cases, a native word may undergo extension of its meaning on the model of a foreign counterpart. These are cases of “extensions” or “semantic loans.” For example, Yakut tahym, originally "water level", was extended to mean all kinds of level, both concrete and abstract (e.g., of water, of skill, of development, etc.) on the model of Russian uroven´ (Mordinov & Sanz*ejev 1951:41, cited by Weinreich 1953:48). In other cases, native morphemes are employed to express new meanings imported from foreign sources. For instance, American Portuguese (Am. P) humoroso originally "capricious", acquired the meaning "humorous" on the model of its English counterpart.
Loan shifts or coinages involving compounds allow for a wider variety of results combining direct transfer with "substitutions" of various types. For example, loan shifts may take the form of " pure loan translations" or calques in which the foreign model is replicated exactly by native words, for example American Portuguese estar direito "to be right" modeled on English. Sometimes the model is adjusted somewhat to fit native patterns of order, like Spanish rascacielos modeled on English skyscraper. Similar to this are "loan renditions" in which the model compound provides a general hint for the native imitation, like German Wolkenkratzer, lit. 'cloud scraper', also based on English skyscraper. We also find "loan creations", i.e., new coinages based on a foreign model, for example Yiddish mitkind, lit. "fellow-child", modeled on English sibling, German Geschwister and the like (Weinreich 1953:51). For the sake of simplicity, we will refer to all of these compound loan formations as “loan translations.”
Table 3 presents a brief summary of types of lexical contact phenomena, based on Haugen’s (1953) classification. I have modified his terminology and description somewhat. I have also expanded his category of “Native Creations” to include a third subcategory (“Creations using only foreign morphemes” e.g., Japanese wan-man-ka), which was not included in Haugen’s classification.


Table 3. A classification of lexical contact phenomena.

I BORROWINGS (Modeled on the donor language)