STUDIES IN LANGUAGE CONTACTS: TRADITIONAL AND INNOVATIVE APPROACHES

Abstract

The article discusses some theoretical issues of language change and deals with the diversity of opinions expressed by linguists on nature and factors of language evolution. The complexity of language change and variation cannot be treated without studying either internal or external factors. The article considers language contacts as being efficient extralinguistic stimuli of linguistic variability. As is commonly stated, linguistic interaction is conditioned by two opposite processes of diversification or approximation of languages in contact. It is argued, though, that convergence and divergence parallelism is found in the development of Afrikaans. Contact scenarios involving African autochthonous languages, European migrant languages, and mixed (i.e. piginized and creolized) forms of communication along with other factors played a crucial role in the formation of Afrikaans, the youngest Germanic language.

The article provides systematization of views on the nature of linguistic contacts. It traces the historical dynamics in linguistic interpretation of such important notions as ‘language mixing, interaction, and contact’. The paper reviews various features of modern interdisciplinary approaches to language contact. Sociolinguistic point of view emphasizes on social factors that shape language modifications. Psycholinguistic approach to language contacts is mostly concerned with individual bilingualism, coexistence of mental lexicons and harmonization of bilingual speakers’ world views. It also investigates the role of background knowledge and code switching in communication performance by means of two or more languages. Cognitive perspective elucidates language contact in the context of speakers experience and knowledge. It establishes connections between speakers’ information base, their previous experience, and attitudes towards the gained knowledge. It also explores how this knowledge is stored, preserved, and operated with the help of verbal structures. Linguocultural approach increases understanding of intercultural interactions during language contact. In this process, language interaction is complementary to cultural interaction which involves re-evaluation of national cultural values, stereotypes, beliefs, and attitudes. It is claimed that in addition to its cognitive function, language shapes ethnic experience of parties in contact. As ethnic languages reflect people’s lifestyles and ways of seeing the world, language contacts stimulate ‘collision’ of ethnic culture systems, norms of behavior, and cause a shift in the conceptual and linguistic worldviews of the ethnic groups in contact. Asserting ecological approach to language contacts is necessary for the interpretation of interactions between languages and their environment, verbal forms and their functioning in multicultural contexts.