Asymmetry and Directionality in Catalan-Spanish Contact

Intervocalic Fricatives in Barcelona and Valencia

Bibliographic Data

ID5900248
AuthorsJustin Davidson (0000-0002-9426-2620, University of California, Berkeley, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume5
Issue4
Pages60
Publication date2020-11-13
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguages (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages5040060
OpenAlexW3102690820
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited47

Multilingual communities often exhibit asymmetry in directionality by which the majority language exerts greater influence on the minority language. In the case of Spanish in contact with Catalan, the asymmetry of directionality, favoring stronger influence of Spanish as a majority language over Catalan, is complicated by the unique sociolinguistic statuses afforded to different varieties of Catalan. In order to empirically substantiate the social underpinnings of directionality in language contact settings, the present study examines the variable voicing and devoicing of intervocalic alveolar fricatives in Spanish, Barcelonan Catalan, and Valencian Catalan as processes that are historically endogenous and equally linguistically motivated in both languages. Intervocalic fricatives in both languages were elicited using a phrase-list reading task, alongside sociolinguistic interviews for attitudinal data, administered to 96 Catalan-Spanish bilinguals stratified by gender, age, and language dominance in Barcelona and Valencia, Spain. Patterns of sociolinguistic stratification consistent with community-level changes in progress favoring either Catalan-like voicing or Spanish-like devoicing varied by community, with a stronger influence of Catalan on Spanish in Barcelona and Spanish on Catalan in Valencia. These asymmetries, corroborated by attitudinal differences afforded to Catalan and Spanish in Barcelona and Valencia, ultimately reinforce the role of social factors in language contact outcomes

Catalan · Geography · Language contact · Linguistics · Valencia · Valencian · Voice · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology

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