Exosmosis along the Romance-Germanic language border in Belgium: the diffusion of French borrowings in the Dutch dialects of Haspengouw
- Autores: Roeland Van Hout, Joep Kruijsen, Marinel Gerritsen
- Localización: Ens queda la paraula: estudis de lingüística aplicada en honor a M. Teresa Turell / Raquel Casesnoves-Ferrer (ed. lit.), Montse Forcadell (ed. lit.), Núria Gavaldà Ferré (ed. lit.), 2014, ISBN 978-84-9984-149-6, págs. 197-220
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
This paper deals with the diffusion of Belgian French elements in the Dutch dialects spoken north of the Romance-Germanic language border in Haspengouw, Belgium.
The result of this ongoing process of exosmosis through the language border is the spread of both (long-) established and non-established borrowings. We have investigated the distribution pattern of non-established borrowings for different linguistic properties of the nouns involved. We define these properties as linguistic variables. Our survey was carried out on the basis of a dialect questionnaire, which was filled in by 183 male informants,from two age groups (18-27, SO-6S),from thirteen different places located in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, north of the RomanceGermanic language border.
Four hypotheses were tested. The co-variation hypothesis claims that the distinct linguistic levels on which borrowing can be observed are part of the same general process of the linguistic embedding of non-established borrowings in the recipient language. In order to explain the social embedding of the borrowing process we tested three hypotheses. The distance hypothesis states that the impact of borrowing is inversely related to the distance to the language border: the larger the distance, the smaller the impact. The age hypothesis claims that older dialect speakers use more non-established borrowings than younger ones, as the language border only became a political border after 1962. The contact hypothesis relates the degree of borrowing to individual differences in French language contact. The three factors of distance, age and contact appear to be important predictors in explaining the socio-geographical pattern of variability in non-established borrowings.
