The Language Contact and Cognition Lab investigates a wide range of cross-linguistic influences in language contact leading to different linguistic outcomes. We study a variety of contact situations, including language emergence involving Pidgins, Creoles & Mixed Languages, as well as Second Language Acquisition, Bilingualism and Multilingualism. One of our objectives is to further our understanding of the underlying principles, processes and mechanisms and social factors that regulate variation in contact outcomes. Using different methodologies (theoretical, experimental and corpus-based), our research group examines a variety of gradient phenomena in speakers’ linguistic behaviors in different contact settings.
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Cognition
Cognition is a key area our lab investigates. In the context of language contact, we study cognitive processes and mechanisms which include transfer, code-switching, code-blending, semantic reanalysis, syntactic restructuring, feature recombination and convergence, among others.
Convergence
Among the cognitive processes listed above, we particularly focus on convergence. We examine the role of similar features in the languages in contact and the variables that regulate their interactions in the contact situation. Our collective work shows that convergence is inextricably linked to divergence (rise of dissimilar features via restructuring, reanalysis) and innovation (novel properties in the newly emerging contact language).
We study three types of convergence:
- Isomorphic convergence: When similar/congruent/overlapping features in the languages in contact contribute to the new contact language.
- Areal convergence: When distinct languages in situations of intense and long-term contact develop similar features.
- Convergence/accommodation: When speakers adapt to each other’s communicative behaviors and develop similar patterns through interactive exchanges (Giles’ Communication Accommodation Theory).
In our research, we show that shared/converging syntax and shared/converging morphology in languages in contact, in addition to cross-linguistic structural priming has deep implications for our understanding of mental representations, specifically the emergence of new representations in contact settings.
Language Emergence
We study theories of language emergence pertaining to the genesis of Pidgins, Creoles and Mixed Languages and models of language contact. We use a variety of methodologies to study not only the linguistic properties that emerge in a broad range of contact situations but also the linguistic constraints and social factors that contribute to their emergence.