1887
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Dependency Linguistics
  4. Chapter

The dependency distance hypothesis for bilingual code-switching

image of The dependency distance hypothesis for bilingual code-switching
  • Author(s): Eva Duran Eppler 1
  • View Affiliations Hide Affiliations
    Affiliations:
    1 University of Roehampton, London
  • Source: Dependency Linguistics , pp 183-206
  • Publication Date October 2014

This paper addresses the questions why and where, i.e. in which dependency relations, multilingual speakers are likely to code-switch. Code-switching (CS) is the linguistic behaviour of producing or comprehending language which is composed of lexical items and grammatical structures from two (or more) languages. This paper proposes that long dependency distances between syntactically related units facilitate code-switching (Distance Hypothesis DH). Dependency distance is defined as the number of words intervening between a head and a dependent. The DH is tested on two data sets from typologically different language pairs: a 93,235 word corpus of German/English monolingual and code-switched conversations analyzed in Word Grammar (WG), and a 19,766 word Treebank of Chinese/English mono- and bilingual speech. The data sets support the DH in general and on specific syntactic functions. In ongoing work the DH is being tested further on Welsh/English and Spanish/English corpora and experimentally.

  • Affiliations: 1: University of Roehampton, London

References

  1. Bentahila, A. & Davies, E.E
    1983 The syntax of Arabic-French code-switching. Lingua59: 301–330. doi: 10.1016/0024‑3841(83)90007‑4
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0024-3841(83)90007-4 [Google Scholar]
  2. Collins, M.J
    1996 A new statistical parser based on bigram lexical dependencies. InProceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting on Association for Computational Linguistics, 24–27 June 1996, 184–191. Santa Cruz CA: University of California.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Gumperz, J.J. & Hernandez-Chavez, E
    1971 Cognitive aspects of bilingual communication. InLanguage Use and Social Change, W.H. Whiteley (ed.), 111–125. Oxford: OUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Hawkins, J.A
    1986 A Comparative Typology of English and German. Unifying the Contrasts. London: Croom Helm.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Duran Eppler, E
    2010 Emigranto. The Syntax of German/English Code-switching. Vienna: Braumueller.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Duran Eppler, E. & Davies, J
    2012 Linguistic transfer. Bridges between bilinguals’ languages. InTransfer in English Studies, S. Coelsch-Foisner , M. Markus & H. Schendl (eds), 239–258. Vienna: Braumueller.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Eppler, E
    2003 German/English Data Base. talkbank.org/data/LIDES/Eppler.zip (15 March 2012).
     [Google Scholar]
  8. 2006 Word grammar and syntactic code-mixing research. InStudies in Word Grammar, New Perspectives on a Theory of Language Structure, K. Sugayama & R.A. Hudson (eds), 117–139. London: Continuum.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Gibson, E
    1998 Linguistic complexity: Locality of syntactic dependencies. Cognition68: 1–76. doi: 10.1016/S0010‑0277(98)00034‑1
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(98)00034-1 [Google Scholar]
  10. Heringer, H.J. , Strecker, B. & Wimmer, R
    1980 Syntax: Fragen-Lösungen-Alternativen. München: Wilhelm Fink.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Hiranuma, S
    1999 Syntactic difficulty in English and Japanese: A textual study. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics11: 309–322.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Hudson, R.A
    2007 Language Networks. The New Word Grammar. Oxford: OUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Liu, H
    2008 Dependency distance as a metric of language comprehension difficulty. Journal of Cognitive Science9(2): 161–174.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Liu, H. , Hudson, R. & Feng, Z
    2009 Using a Chinese treebank to measure dependency distance. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory5(2): 161–174. doi: 10.1515/CLLT.2009.007
     https://doi.org/10.1515/CLLT.2009.007 [Google Scholar]
  15. Mahootian, S. & Santorini, B
    1996 Code-switching and the complement/adjunct distinction. Linguistic Inquiry27: 464–479.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Muysken, P
    2000 Bilingual Speech. A Typology of Code–Mixing. Cambridge: CUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Pake, J
    1998 The Marker Hypothesis. A Constructivist Theory of Language Acquisition. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Pfaff, C
    1975 Constraints on language mixing: Intrasentential code-switching and borrowing in Spanish/English. Language55: 291–318. doi: 10.2307/412586
     https://doi.org/10.2307/412586 [Google Scholar]
  19. Poplack, S
    1980 Sometime I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en Español: toward a typology of code-switching. Linguistics18: 581–618. doi: 10.1515/ling.1980.18.7‑8.581
     https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1980.18.7-8.581 [Google Scholar]
  20. Sebba, M
    1998 A congruence approach to the syntax of codeswitching. International Journal of Bilingualism2(1): 1–19.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Temerpley, D
    2008 Dependency length minimization in natural and artificial languages. Journal of Quarterly Linguistics15: 256–282. doi: 10.1080/09296170802159512
     https://doi.org/10.1080/09296170802159512 [Google Scholar]
  22. Treffers-Daller, J
    1994 Mixing Two Languages: French-Dutch Contact in a Comparative Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110882230
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110882230 [Google Scholar]
  23. Wang, L
    2012 Syntactic and Cognitive Study on Chinese-English Code-switching. Ms, Zhejiang University/CSLC.

References

  1. Bentahila, A. & Davies, E.E
    1983 The syntax of Arabic-French code-switching. Lingua59: 301–330. doi: 10.1016/0024‑3841(83)90007‑4
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0024-3841(83)90007-4 [Google Scholar]
  2. Collins, M.J
    1996 A new statistical parser based on bigram lexical dependencies. InProceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting on Association for Computational Linguistics, 24–27 June 1996, 184–191. Santa Cruz CA: University of California.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Gumperz, J.J. & Hernandez-Chavez, E
    1971 Cognitive aspects of bilingual communication. InLanguage Use and Social Change, W.H. Whiteley (ed.), 111–125. Oxford: OUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Hawkins, J.A
    1986 A Comparative Typology of English and German. Unifying the Contrasts. London: Croom Helm.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Duran Eppler, E
    2010 Emigranto. The Syntax of German/English Code-switching. Vienna: Braumueller.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Duran Eppler, E. & Davies, J
    2012 Linguistic transfer. Bridges between bilinguals’ languages. InTransfer in English Studies, S. Coelsch-Foisner , M. Markus & H. Schendl (eds), 239–258. Vienna: Braumueller.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Eppler, E
    2003 German/English Data Base. talkbank.org/data/LIDES/Eppler.zip (15 March 2012).
     [Google Scholar]
  8. 2006 Word grammar and syntactic code-mixing research. InStudies in Word Grammar, New Perspectives on a Theory of Language Structure, K. Sugayama & R.A. Hudson (eds), 117–139. London: Continuum.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Gibson, E
    1998 Linguistic complexity: Locality of syntactic dependencies. Cognition68: 1–76. doi: 10.1016/S0010‑0277(98)00034‑1
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(98)00034-1 [Google Scholar]
  10. Heringer, H.J. , Strecker, B. & Wimmer, R
    1980 Syntax: Fragen-Lösungen-Alternativen. München: Wilhelm Fink.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Hiranuma, S
    1999 Syntactic difficulty in English and Japanese: A textual study. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics11: 309–322.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Hudson, R.A
    2007 Language Networks. The New Word Grammar. Oxford: OUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Liu, H
    2008 Dependency distance as a metric of language comprehension difficulty. Journal of Cognitive Science9(2): 161–174.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Liu, H. , Hudson, R. & Feng, Z
    2009 Using a Chinese treebank to measure dependency distance. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory5(2): 161–174. doi: 10.1515/CLLT.2009.007
     https://doi.org/10.1515/CLLT.2009.007 [Google Scholar]
  15. Mahootian, S. & Santorini, B
    1996 Code-switching and the complement/adjunct distinction. Linguistic Inquiry27: 464–479.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Muysken, P
    2000 Bilingual Speech. A Typology of Code–Mixing. Cambridge: CUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Pake, J
    1998 The Marker Hypothesis. A Constructivist Theory of Language Acquisition. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Pfaff, C
    1975 Constraints on language mixing: Intrasentential code-switching and borrowing in Spanish/English. Language55: 291–318. doi: 10.2307/412586
     https://doi.org/10.2307/412586 [Google Scholar]
  19. Poplack, S
    1980 Sometime I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en Español: toward a typology of code-switching. Linguistics18: 581–618. doi: 10.1515/ling.1980.18.7‑8.581
     https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1980.18.7-8.581 [Google Scholar]
  20. Sebba, M
    1998 A congruence approach to the syntax of codeswitching. International Journal of Bilingualism2(1): 1–19.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Temerpley, D
    2008 Dependency length minimization in natural and artificial languages. Journal of Quarterly Linguistics15: 256–282. doi: 10.1080/09296170802159512
     https://doi.org/10.1080/09296170802159512 [Google Scholar]
  22. Treffers-Daller, J
    1994 Mixing Two Languages: French-Dutch Contact in a Comparative Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110882230
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110882230 [Google Scholar]
  23. Wang, L
    2012 Syntactic and Cognitive Study on Chinese-English Code-switching. Ms, Zhejiang University/CSLC.

  • From This Site

    /content/books/9789027270160-la.215.09dur
    dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal
    10
    5
/content/books/9789027270160-la.215.09dur
dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
-contentType:Journal
10
5
Chapter
content/books/9789027270160
Book
false
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error