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Language Contact in Borderlands
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Language Contact in Borderlands

A special issue of Languages (ISSN 2226-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2023) | Viewed by 4650

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Katherine O'Donnell Christoffersen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Writing and Language Studies, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX 78539, USA
Interests: sociolinguistics; bilingualism; language learning
Dr. Ryan M. Bessett

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Literature, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
Interests: sociolinguistics; language variation and change; Spanish in contact; bilingualism; Spanish as a heritage language; language acquisition; Spanish phonology
Dr. Ana Maria Carvalho

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
Interests: sociolinguistics; languages in contact; bilingualism; language variation and change

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue focuses on borderlands in which two or more languages are spoken within the same community. The goal of this issue is to further our understanding of bilingual/multilingual language in context and to highlight communities along political/geographic borders. This volume will provide a state of the field examination of research on the language spoken in border communities. We welcome sociolinguistic research, which discusses bilingual/multilingual speech in any borderland context from around the world. All subfields of sociolinguistics and sociolinguistic methodologies are welcome; this includes (but is not limited to) quantitative and qualitative research, language variation and change, bilingualism/multilingualism, language contact, language choice, linguistic landscapes, language attitudes, language ideologies, borrowing, codeswitching, and language policy and planning.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words, summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors ([email protected]) or to the Languages editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purpose of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Tentative completion schedule:

  • Abstract submission deadline: 1 June 2023
  • Notification of abstract acceptance: 1 July 2023
  • Full manuscript deadline: 15 October 2023

Dr. Katherine O'Donnell Christoffersen
Dr. Ryan M. Bessett
Dr. Ana Maria Carvalho
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • borders
  • sociolinguistics
  • language contact
  • bilingualism
  • multilingualism

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 4914 KiB  
Article
Language Perceptions of New Mexico: A Focus on the NM Borderland
by Kathryn P. Bove
Languages 2024, 9(5), 161; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9050161 - 28 Apr 2024
Viewed by 271
Abstract
New Mexico is located along the U.S.–Mexico border, and as such, Spanish, English, and language mixing form an integral part of the New Mexican identity. New Mexico is often divided into a northern and a southern region with the north known for Spanish [...] Read more.
New Mexico is located along the U.S.–Mexico border, and as such, Spanish, English, and language mixing form an integral part of the New Mexican identity. New Mexico is often divided into a northern and a southern region with the north known for Spanish archaisms due to historic isolation, and the south associated with ties to a Mexican identity due to the location of the U.S.–Mexico border. The current study uses perceptual dialectology to capture the way in which speakers in the south of New Mexico perceive this north/south divide and communicate their identity. Overall, there is evidence of the north/south divide, but speakers in southern New Mexico focus much more on language use such as Spanglish, English, and Spanish than on their northern counterparts. Participants reference language mixing over language “purity” and borders over an explicit rural/urban divide. Like previous accounts, we see reference to the “correctness” of both English and Spanish, examples of specific terminology used in different parts of the state, and descriptions of accents throughout the state. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Contact in Borderlands)
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20 pages, 1624 KiB  
Article
On the Functional Convergence of Pragmatic Markers in Arizona Spanish
by Brandon Joseph Martínez
Languages 2024, 9(4), 148; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9040148 - 17 Apr 2024
Viewed by 463
Abstract
Tags, compared to other types of pragmatic markers (PMs), are typically considered as separate yet related phenomena and are usually differentiated by their syntactic positions and discourse functions, among other factors. The current work explores this differentiation utilizing 36 sociolinguistic interviews with Spanish-English [...] Read more.
Tags, compared to other types of pragmatic markers (PMs), are typically considered as separate yet related phenomena and are usually differentiated by their syntactic positions and discourse functions, among other factors. The current work explores this differentiation utilizing 36 sociolinguistic interviews with Spanish-English bilinguals in southern Arizona, USA. Standard language variation and change (LVC) methodologies were used in the extraction, coding, and statistical analyses of this dataset (n = 591), with four PM variants identified for study through an exploratory methodology: the tags no and qué no and the discourse markers (DMs) you know and saber. The results of our analyses indicate that, while utterance position, self-reported gender, and length of residence were all significant in the multivariate analysis, discourse function was dropped from the statistical model. Therefore, we interpret this finding as an indication that functional differences between these two pragmatic resources have been levelled through grammaticalization, demonstrating that for Arizona Spanish, tags and DMs belong in the same functional category of PMs. Furthermore, an analysis of codeswitching behavior triggered by the incoming variant you know demonstrates that it is becoming incorporated into the Spanish pragmatic system, patterning similarly to its counterpart saber in terms of function and position, without attrition of the native variant. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Contact in Borderlands)
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21 pages, 2699 KiB  
Article
Spanish Loyalty and English Prestige in the Linguistic Landscape of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
by Natalia Mazzaro, Natalia Minjarez Oppenheimer and Raquel González de Anda
Languages 2024, 9(2), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9020041 - 25 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1378
Abstract
Linguistic landscape (LL) studies in bilingual regions can reveal power dynamics between two languages, providing important information regarding their status and vitality. To analyze the relationship between Spanish and English in Ciudad Juárez, a city on the south side of the U.S.-Mexico border, [...] Read more.
Linguistic landscape (LL) studies in bilingual regions can reveal power dynamics between two languages, providing important information regarding their status and vitality. To analyze the relationship between Spanish and English in Ciudad Juárez, a city on the south side of the U.S.-Mexico border, we collected 1649 pictures of public signs in several sections of the city, whose “wellness levels” differ from each other. Pictures were coded for several factors, including language choice, business type, sign type, and the main and informative section, amongst others. Results show that while Spanish is the most frequently used language, English has a strong presence in the LL of Ciudad Juárez. The main factor affecting language choice is “business type”. Certain businesses within the “beauty” category tend to favor the use of English, while businesses within the “home” category favor the use of Spanish. An analysis of socio-economic status (SES) and language choice revealed a direct relationship between them: English is favored in high-income neighborhoods, while Spanish is favored used in low-income areas. The analysis of the main and informative sections on signs further confirmed the prestige assigned to English, which appears mostly in the main and most prominent sections of a sign. Our research shows that although Spanish vitality in Ciudad Juárez is strong, English is used in advertising because it is prestigious and increases the value of products and services, making them more appealing to shoppers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Contact in Borderlands)
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