Language Contact

Language contact research is often concerned with understanding which bounded language(s) are the source of particular linguistic forms, and identifying and explaining (in)consistencies across contexts of language contact. The field tends to focus on contexts in which variable use of linguistic forms is particularly salient, leading to interest in language change, shift, and minoritised languages. This chapter frames language contact broadly, as being the study of the exchange of semiotic resources across boundaries. Identification of the right boundaries becomes a core part of contact linguistics then, as resources are dynamically and differentially associated with particular social labels, including named languages. We argue that processes typically ascribed to contact (e.g. borrowing) are found across all contexts of language use. This approach (a) rejects colonialist and essentialist characterisations of languages and language users which obscure the variable and opportunistic use of semiotic resources that typifies all language use; (b) expands beyond traditional, unimodal analysis to include multimodal, semiotic resources used in interaction; (c) appeals to language users' subjectivities in accounting for the use of semiotic resources.