Code Mixing Constraints: from Grammatical to Minimalist Framework : A Study in Kashmiri-English Mixed Code
Code Mixing Constraints: from Grammatical to Minimalist Framework : A Study in Kashmiri-English Mixed Code
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Sajad Hussain Wani
UNIVERSITY OF KASHMIR
The research in the last half of the twentieth century has advanced the field of language contact and the associated language contact phenomena to a greater extent. The field of language contact has emerged as an important area of research not only in the domain of historical and sociolinguistics but also in other fields like phonology, morphology and syntax.
Two or more languages will be said to be in contact if they are used alternatively by the same persons. The language using individuals are thus the locus of the contact. (Weinreich 1953: p.1)
For a linguist, the consequences of language contact are of prime importance.The influence of participating languages on each other‟s structure, as well as their interaction at socio-psychological levels are some of the aspects of language contact which are of primary importance to a linguist. It has been shown through different studies that the effects of language contact are not symmetric but asymmetric in the sense that the effects of language contact on involved languages are not equal but the two languages in contact are effected differently and to different extents.
Whenever languages are in contact, one is usually considered more prestigious than the other. The prestige language is often considered more beautiful, more expressive, more logical and better able to express thoughts and the other language is felt to be ungrammatical, concrete and coarse. (Grosjean 1982: p. 120-121) favour or disfavour towards the languages involved. (Haugen 1956: p.95-96)It is because of this unequal status of languages in contact for the users (bilinguals), that one language usually becomes dominant over the other. This dominance occurs at different levels including linguistic, psychological and social levels involved between the given languages.
Category: Thesis
