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Title:
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Intonation in Contact: A study of Turkish-German bilingual intonation patterns
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Author:
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Robin Queen
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Homepage:
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http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rqueen
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Degree Awarded:
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University of Texas at Austin
, Department of Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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1996
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Phonology
Sociolinguistics
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Subject Language(s):
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German, Standard
Turkish
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Director(s):
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Anthony Woodbury
Keith Walters
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Abstract:
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This study involves an examination of aspects of the intonation patterns of a native bilingual community in Germany with respect to issues concerning language contact and language change. Thomason and Kaufman (1988) suggest that the locus of non-genetic language change must be sociolinguistic in nature; however, they do not elaborate on the sociolinguistic mechanisms which may influence language use in cases of language contact. This study shows that native bilinguals are an important component of non-genetic language change and, furthermore, that the reliance on 'interference' as a necessary part of such change may be too strongly emphasized in many studies of language contact.
The study centers on the examination of phrase-final rises collected from 31 children (15 Turkish-German bilinguals and 16 German monolinguals) across two conversational contexts (barrier conversations and narratives). The description of the intonational data relies on a generative approach (Liberman 1975, Pierrehumbert 1980). Furthermore, an ethnographic component is used to relate the intonational data to the larger sociolinguistic nature of the bilingual community.
The results show that bilinguals may use aspects of the intonational systems from both Turkish and German when speaking either Turkish or German. For example, the German phrase-final rise is characteristically implemented with a slight dip, while the Turkish phrase-final rise is characterized by a sharp rise with no dip. Yet bilingual speakers use both of these types of rise. Furthermore, the bilingual children use them in pragmatically distinct ways. Thus, the facts presented here indicate a dynamic interplay between the two intonational systems. Such an interplay may have important consequences for studies of bilingualism. Additionally, it elaborates on the process of language change as it relates to long-term language contact and particularly as it relates to language change as the result of what Thomason and Kaufman (1988) have termed 'interference through language shift'.
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