Language Contact

3 credits · Graduate

This course is an introduction to the study of the linguistic and social phenomena that arise when speakers of different languages come in contact with one another, or when a community of speakers makes use of multiple languages. We will attend closely both to the grammatical dimensions of language contact processes and outcomes, and to the socio-historical and cultural conditions under which these processes take place. A major focus of the course will be to critically examine the notion that language contact gives rise to a set of clearly distinguishable language types (pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages), as well as the notion that each of these types arise under determinate socio-historical conditions.