Bilingual Innovations as the Preliminary Steps in Long-Term Language Change

Dr. Eva M. Fernández - Queens College and Graduate Center, City University of New York

Bilingual Innovations as the Preliminary Steps in Long-Term Language Change

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The two languages of a bilingual coexist in a single unitary processing system, which draws from the grammars and lexicons of both languages during real-time language production and perception. Momentary lapses in performance—in the form of innovative constructions in one language modeled on constructions from the other language—can lead to long-term novel representations. This possibility offers a domain ripe for studying the very first steps in long-term language change, inviting questions such as what linguistic variables amplify or attenuate the likelihood of innovation and what kinds of speakers are more likely to engage in linguistic behavior that departs from the monolingual norm. I will present this argument supported by findings from a constellation of work (Fernández, Souza, & Carando, 2016; Higby, 2016; Souza & Oliveira, 2017) designed to explore the contribution of exposure to a second language to changes in grammatical preferences in the native (and sometimes also dominant) language. This work examines a set of constructions all involving cross-linguistic variation in argument realization, and draws from populations of Portuguese-English and Spanish-English bilinguals. I will describe the underlying rationale for the empirical work conducted, and how that leads to the design and implementation of the research, which builds upon psycholinguistic approaches for eliciting produced utterances by participants in a controlled experimental context.

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Fernández, E. M., Souza, R., & Carando, A. (2016). Bilingual innovations: Experimental evidence offers clues regarding the psycholinguistics of language change. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20, 2, 251-268. doi:10.1017/S1366728916000924

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Higby, E. (2016). Native Language Adaptation to Novel Verb Argument Structures by Spanish-English Bilinguals: An Electrophysiological Investigation. Doctoral dissertation. New York, NY: CUNY Graduate Center. CUNY Academic Works, https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1416

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Souza, R. & Oliveira, C. (2017). Are bilingualism effects on the L1 byproducts of implicit knowledge? Evidence from two experimental tasks. Revista de Estudos da Linguagem, 25, 3, 1685-1716. doi:10.17851/2237-2083.25.3.1685-1716