Southwest Areal Linguistics

From linguistic areas to areal linguistics explores language description and typology in terms of areal background, presenting case studies in areal linguistics. Some concern well-established linguistic areas such as the Balkan, other regions such as East Nusantara (Indonesia) and the Guapore-Mamore (Amazon) regions have never before been studied in an areal perspective, and yet other areas are involved in current debates. The insight has gained ground that languages owe many of their characteristics to the languages they are in contact with over time. Yet the nature of these areal influences remains a matter of debate. Furthermore, areas are often hard to define. Hence the title: a shift from linguistic areas as concrete and circumscribed objects to a new way of doing linguistics: areally. New findings include the observation that there may be many more language areas than previously recognized. The book is primarily directed at linguists working in descriptive, comparative, historical and typological linguistics. Since it covers linguistic areas from four continents, it will have a wide appeal.

Publisher Description

"The present collection of papers were presented at the SWALLOW IX, which was held on the campus of The University of Texas at El Paso April 23rd to 25th, 1980". -- P. iii.

Chicano English can rightly be said to be, in its different varieties, the most widespread ethnic dialect of U.S. English, spoken by large sections of the population in the American Southwest. It represents a type of speech referred to by E. Haugen as a bilingual dialect, having developed out of a stable Spanish-English setting. In their book, the authors provide a comprehensive examination of Chicano English, devoting particular emphasis to the social factors determining its characteristic features and uses. Special attention is given to the question of homogeneity as against ordered variation within Chicano English, to features of pronunciation and grammar, to its communicative functions, to the evaluative attitudes of its speakers and others and, finally, to its uses in literature and the media. In spite of its importance, Chicano English has been insufficiently documented; this monograph is intended to contribute towards redressing the balance.

Thirteen of the chapters that comprise the contents of this first volume of Native Languages of the A mericas were originally commissioned by the undersigned in his capacity as Editor of the fourteen volume series (1963-1976), Current Trends in Linguistics. All appeared, in 1973, under Part Three of the quadripartite Vol. 10, subtitled Linguistics in North America. Two additional chaplers are being held over for the volume to follow shortly, devoted to Central and South American lan guages and linguistics, where they more appropriately belong. A fourteenth chapter, on the" Historiography of native North A merican linguistics," was written similarly by invitation, for Vol. 13, subtitled Historiography of Linguistics, published in 1975. Both Volumes 10 and 13 were jointly financed by the United States National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities, with an enhancing contribution to the former by the Canada Council. The generosity of these funding agencies was, of course, previously acknowledged in my respective Editor's Introductions to the two books mentioned, but cannot be repeated too often: without their welcome and timely assistance, the global project could scarcely have been realized on so comprehensive a scale. The Current Trends in Linguistics series was a long-term venture of Mouton Publishers, of The Hague, under the imaginative in-house direction of Peter de Rid der. Various spin-offs were foreseen, and some of them happily realized.