Code-switching and loan translation in German-American
A cognitive-constructional account
This squib applies and extends insights from (Diasystematic) Construction Grammar to the code-switching and
loan-translation of English verbs (and verbal constructions) in US-German dialects. After presenting recent findings about the nature and
interaction of language contact phenomena, I introduce the constructional principles guiding the analysis and the data sources. I then
present a wide array of data and formulate hypotheses regarding the processes and motivations underlying each type, appealing to a
constructional and usage-based view of the bilingual’s mental lexicon.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Problem
- 1.2Theoretical background
- 1.3Data and limitations
- 2.Code-switching
- 2.1Culture-specific verbs
- 2.2Common (non-culture-specific) verbs
- 2.3Verbs with ‘constructional baggage’
- 3.Loan translation
- 3.1Loan-translation in complex constructions
- 3.2Polysemy-based loan translation
- 3.3Loan-translation of ‘grammatical’ verbs
- 4.Conclusion
- Notes
-
References