LINGUIST List 10.179

Fri Feb 5 1999

Qs: Chinese, Code-switching, Spanish/French

Editor for this issue: Jody Huellmantel <jodylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. daniel rafferty, Chinese written neologisms, whispered Chinese
2. Carsten Otto, Code-switching, -mixing and other language-contact phenomena
3. bingfu, Old Spanish/Old French

CHINESE WRITTEN NEOLOGISMS
Does anyone know of the research that was done on the interpretation
Chinese people give to characters which don't actually exist in the
language but are comprised of individual pictogram elements which
connote general concepts? Actually, I believe the research was done
on Japanese speakers as sort of a "Rohrschach kanji", though it could
apply to speakers of either language (as well perhaps as Korean).
English is noted for being especially suited to neologisms, e.g. the
way we *verb* nouns, and apply morphemes to such *verbing*, or suffix
"-able" to practically any verb in colloquial speech. Do speakers of
languages which use Chinese characters have such leeway with the
written language?

WHISPERED CHINESE
How well is Chinese understood if whispered without non-verbal cues
like gestures? Do changes in tension of the vowels substitute for the
pitch which is crucial to conveying meaning, or are words modified
with other words to eliminate other possible meanings, as the meaning
"to be capable of" can be eliminated as a possibility for English
"can" if it's qualified by prefixing "tin"?

Dear list-members,

Does anyone know of any works/publications on Codeswitching/Codemixing
or borrowing or other contact phenomena in short-term contact settings
such as studying/working abroad or similiar situations? E.g. foreign
students living for a year or two (three...) in a monolingual setting
(e.g. Germany) and interacting with

 a) other foreign students

 b) native speakers with little or no competence of (in?) the foreign
 student's language?

I face the question of whether or not there has been any investigation
into the correlation between (or dependence) upon CS/CM borrowing
rates and the listener's competence of the foreign speaker's native
language. I am very interested in spanish-german contact in this
setting, but would highly appreciate any reference.
 
I would appreciate any and all help and thank you in advance. 
I will post a summary if warranted.


Carsten Otto

 

I am in search of the book "A Comparative Study of Word Order in Old
Spanish and Old French Prose Works" by Crabb, Daniel M. This is an
old book and is now out of print. If anybody has this book and does
not need it much, I would like to buy it at three times the original
price.

Best
Bingfu Lu