Language contact outcomes as the result of bilingual optimization strategies

TLDR

Bilingual strategies are shaped by social factors, processing constraints, and perceived language distance, yet links across domains such as Creole studies, code‑switching, and linguistic borrowing have received limited comparative attention. The study proposes a comprehensive framework that models language contact phenomena through speaker optimization strategies. Four optimization strategies—maximizing L1 coherence, maximizing L2 coherence, matching L1–L2 patterns, and relying on universal processing principles—are introduced to explain contact outcomes. Outcomes of language contact vary according to how these strategies interact within bilingual speakers and their communities.

Abstract

This paper sketches a comprehensive framework for modeling and interpreting language contact phenomena, with speakers’ bilingual strategies in specific scenarios of language contact as its point of departure. Bilingual strategies are conditioned by social factors, processing constraints of speakers’ bilingual competence, and perceived language distance. In a number of domains of language contact studies important progress has been made, including Creole studies, code-switching, language development, linguistic borrowing, and areal convergence. Less attention has been paid to the links between these fields, so that results in one domain can be compared with those in another. These links are approached here from the perspective of speaker optimization strategies. Four strategies are proposed: maximize structural coherence of the first language (L1); maximize structural coherence of the second language (L2); match between L1 and L2 patterns where possible; and rely on universal principles of language processing. These strategies can be invoked to explain outcomes of language contact. Different outcomes correspond to different interactions of these strategies in bilingual speakers and their communities.