The co-option of grammatical resources between languages: a focus on English and Czech

Abstract

In this thesis I analyse the ways that bilinguals utilise grammatical resources across two languages – English and Czech. I focus on language contact centring the bilingual individual as the “ultimate locus of contact” (Romaine 2005: 49; Li Wei 2013). Use of grammatical resources is considered through the lens of grammatical borrowing and replication (Heine & Kuteva 2005; Kuteva 2017), or matter (MAT) and pattern (PAT) borrowing (Matras & Sakel 2007), as well as shift and attrition. The research investigates whether grammatical borrowing and replication occur between English and Czech in the South Australian Czech community and for L1 English speakers in the Czech Republic. It provides an understanding as to why contact-induced borrowing occurs between these languages. I also address consciousness¹ of borrowing, other contact and non-contact related processes in bilingual speech, and compares the two parallel linguistic situations. This thesis consists of four papers. The first paper examines grammatical replication and shift in South Australian Czech. Qualitative analysis of grammatical features drawn from authentic speech, supported by both Thomason’s (2001) steps for identifying contact-induced structural change and the dynamic model of multilingualism (Herdina & Jessner 2002), reveal that non- Czech natural word order, overt subject usage, and tentative article formation are partially attributable to grammatical replication. Attrition and divergent attainment are also causes of grammatical features identified. In the second paper, I identify several reasons for South Australian Czech community members’ engagement in borrowing, including sociocultural pressures (such as community pressures, partner attitudes, etc.), cognitive pressures and prestige value. All of the factors are encompassed by need (van Coetsem 2000), which is the primary motive for borrowing in South Australian Czech. In the third paper, I study the opposite situation to that of South Australian Czech: the speech of L1 English L2 Czech speakers in the Czech Republic. I posit that non-use of articles, adjective placement, functional suffix borrowing, and diminutive suffix borrowing are partially attributable to language contact. The types of borrowing that occur here are different to those in South Australian Czech; there is not only syntactic borrowing but also morphological form borrowing present. Attrition processes and accommodation are also factors here. The fourth paper analyses motivators in language use amongst L1 English L2 Czech speakers in the Czech Republic. It is identified that social pressure, cognitive pressures, gap filling, and conscious creative decisions are drivers of grammatical borrowing, and social pressure and self-pressure are inhibiting forces. To show how bilingual speakers engage consciously with borrowing and innovations between their two languages, I present a new model that addresses conscious and subconscious borrowing whilst also considering effects such as prescriptivism, self-pressure, language maintenance effort (Herdina & Jessner 2002) and societal pressure. Language contact and links to language transfer have been of increasing interest to linguists for the past few decades. Ongoing research on the borrowing of grammatical resources in different communities can provide a more thorough insight into the phenomenon. Studies of language combinations with differing typologies in different sociolinguistic situations can provide a deeper understanding of the interrelationship between language contact and the co- option of grammatical resources. ¹ In this thesis, consciousness refers to deliberateness and awareness surrounding engagement in borrowing.