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Transference markers in New Zealand Italian
Constructing context and negotiating identity
- Source: Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, Volume 11, Issue 1, Jan 1988, p. 9 - 21
Abstract
The spoken Italian of migrant Italians in New Zealand contains verbal devices which accompany items transferred from English. These “transference markers” (paralinguistic and prosodic features, hesitation phenomena, hedges, synonymous glosses and explicative statements) convey the speaker’s awareness that the marked items are in fact transfers, and invite a response, verbal or otherwise, from the hearer. This exchange of signals is one way in which conversational interactants negotiate a consensus as to what is comprehensible and acceptable linguistic behaviour to both. Migrant bilinguals can thus be shown to be not only creative language users but also more able than is usually thought, to monitor and control the transference process in their speech.