Periodic Reporting for period 1 - T-LICS (Transfer of Linguistic Intonation in Contact Situations)
Reporting period: 2019-10-01 to 2021-09-30
Languages often come into contact, as witnessed by the wide spread of bilingualism across the world. Whenever language contact takes place, there emerges the possibility of features from one language being transferred to the other one. This transfer is often illustrated by loanwords, but it can involve any aspect of a language, like syntactic or phonological patterns; a visible, though often ignored, aspect of language transfer involves changes in linguistic intonation. This melodic aspect of language is employed by speakers to convey sentence-level meanings, such as differences between an affirmative statement and a question.
The project, hence, devotes its empirical core to a notable case of intonation contact, where a previously-homogeneous sub-dialect of Basque is coming into increasing contact with two Romance languages: French and Spanish. I conduct fieldwork and analyse how the intonation system of younger (vs older) speakers is diverging at each side of the political border. These kinds of ongoing linguistic change are a direct reflection of changes in society, ways of life, and ways of interaction. Hence, an apparently minor aspect of our daily lives, the kind of tune we use to ask a yes/no question, is a perfect illustration of current social transformations.
The project, hence, devotes its empirical core to a notable case of intonation contact, where a previously-homogeneous sub-dialect of Basque is coming into increasing contact with two Romance languages: French and Spanish. I conduct fieldwork and analyse how the intonation system of younger (vs older) speakers is diverging at each side of the political border. These kinds of ongoing linguistic change are a direct reflection of changes in society, ways of life, and ways of interaction. Hence, an apparently minor aspect of our daily lives, the kind of tune we use to ask a yes/no question, is a perfect illustration of current social transformations.
The central part of the project has focused on documenting the linguistic intonation of a variety of Basque in contact with two Romance languages (French and Spanish), as spoken by speakers from a variety of backgrounds. Beyond the purely linguistic/phonological contribution, significant attention has been given to methodology. Indeed, the main results of the action have been (1) an innovative methodology to elicit naturalistic conversations with both declarative and interrogative sentences, and (2) a robust pipeline which efficiently processes raw field-data and converts it into a searchable database usable for intonation-research purposes. These results have been disseminated in two conferences, a Summer school, and a written article.
This project raises awareness on the ubiquity and flexibility of language contact, particularly with regard to the often-neglected aspect of intonation. Physical mobility and media communication advances in the 20th century have profoundly changed social interactions, and that can be observed in linguistic dynamics as well. The T-LICS project showcases these kinds of changes within a particular language-contact situation within a European context.