Linguistic Change in a Language Contact Situation: A Cross-Generational Study

The focus of this dissertation is the language contact situation of New York bilingual Puerto Ricans. The subjects of the study are ten first and second generation Puerto Ricans. This dissertation addresses two hypotheses: first that 'a life cycle of language use' exists in the El Barrio community, and second, that emigrant languages undergo simplification in a non-native environment. A corpus of approximately thirty hours of informal speech is analyzed in order to examine these hypotheses. Specifically, the following areas are studied: the distribution of verb forms, mood selection, progressive/present tense distinction, borrowing and code-mixing. The results of the study generally confirm the first hypothesis. The second generation speakers were speaking a Spanish more or less comparable to that of the first generation, although the first generation spoke more Spanish. The data from the study do not strongly support the second hypothesis.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Spanish

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Torres, Lourdes Maria

• Language, Linguistics
• Speech Communication

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8815432

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/70981