This seminar focuses on current research in contact linguistics in a global perspective, including but not limited to the impact of languages of wider communication (e.g. English, Russian) in contact with other languages. Topics to be covered include the following: language/dialect contact, convergence and language shift resulting in attrition and language endangerment and loss. Other contact-induced linguistic changes and processes to be considered include borrowing, code-switching, code-shifting, diglossia, loss of linguistic restrictions and grammatical permeability, and the impact of language contact in the emergence and/or historical development of languages.
Lenore Grenoble -- Spring 2021