Language contact

Yaron Matras
Table of contents

Language contact is the interplay of two or more linguistic systems. Research into language contact examines the potential consequences of this interplay in usage patterns as well as in the structure of language. Since contact involves factors that are external to the linguistic system (in the canonical understanding of ‘system’), language contact had initially been associated primarily with sociolinguistic research agendas. Since the late 1970’s however there has been growing interest in language contact also in psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, and linguistic typology. Societal and individual aspects of language contact – those having to do with choices that speakers make among linguistic repertoires – are often discussed under the headings ‘bilingualism’ or ‘multilingualism’.

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