Followed by a pub social- your first drink is on us!

English in Ontario French: Patterns of Lexical Borrowing

This talk examines the use of English lexical borrowings in Ontario French, focusing on the francophone community of Casselman, Ontario. The study aims to identify the linguistic and social factors that influence the use of English borrowings and to compare the results with previous research conducted in the Ottawa–Hull region, particularly the work of Poplack et al. (1988).

The analysis is based on a corpus of 62 semi-directed sociolinguistic interviews recorded between 2009 and 2011 with francophone speakers from Casselman. All participants were bilingual to varying degrees, and the interviews were conducted in informal conversational settings. Borrowings were classified following Poplack et al. (1988) framework into several categories, including nonce borrowings, idiosyncratic borrowings, limited borrowings, recurrent borrowings, and widespread borrowings.

Overall, English borrowings remain relatively rare in the corpus, representing about 1% of all word tokens. However, they show considerable lexical diversity, accounting for about 7.5% of the lexical types in the corpus. Most borrowings are nouns, while other grammatical categories such as verbs and adjectives occur less frequently.

The study also examines several social factors that may influence borrowing, including gender, age, education level, social class, and language dominance. The results show that younger speakers and those with lower levels of education tend to use more borrowings. In contrast to previous findings from the Ottawa–Hull corpus, social class does not appear to play a significant role in Casselman.

A comparison with earlier studies reveals both similarities and differences. The overall frequency of borrowings and their linguistic behavior strongly support Poplack (2018) model of lexical borrowing: borrowings are typically well integrated into French syntax and are dominated by nouns. However, the social distribution of borrowings differs between communities. While social class is an important factor in Ottawa–Hull, age and education appear to be more relevant in Casselman.

The results therefore suggest that while lexical borrowing follows robust linguistic constraints across communities, the social diffusion of borrowings varies depending on local sociolinguistic dynamics. In other words, borrowing may obey universal linguistic principles, but its social life remains locally shaped.

MB S1.255

LING 473: 11:45 to 1:00 in Learning Square rm 110

SPAN 302: 1:15 to 2:30 in FB S143

Come to one or both!

with Prof. Tom Leu of UQAM, presenting research done in partnership with Wenli Tang of Université de Genève

Followed by a pub social at Ye Olde Orchard: your first drink is on us!

Free hot drinks and snacks provided!

Bring your own skates (also available to rent for $14.95)

Three practicing speech pathologists will be present to discuss the life of an SLP: workplace environment, hours, life during your Masters, compensation, or any other aspects you may be curious about. This is the perfect opportunity for you to discover a popular career path after your Bachelors in Linguistics. 

To listen in on Zoom: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/j/89739959660?pwd=ECFz24KDhwuH3ZK7ziWRqT4oCiCkrH.1

Followed by a pub social: your first drink is on us!

It's time to get spooky! You've been summoned to a have a hauntingly good time on Wednesday October 29th, in the student lounge on the 10th floor of the FB building. Starting at 4pm, we will be present to distribute candy to trick or treaters (costumes encouraged! ). Later, for those who dare, fight to survive in a village full of werewolves as we play Werewolves of Miller's Hollow. Games will start around 5:30pm and refreshments will be provided.

General assemblies are essential to keep us up and running! Learn about our plans for this academic year, meet the team, and enjoy some free pizza at our first event of the year,

Academic talk by Justin Royer, PhD

Followed by a free drink at Ye Olde Orchard

Abstract:

Documenting dialectal variation in Chuj: A "one tale, two versions" approach

Over thirty Mayan languages are spoken in Mesoamerica and many of these exhibit considerable internal diversity. In fact, dialectal differences can be so pronounced that mutual intelligibility is affected among speakers of the same language. This talk describes and reflects on the benefits of using a community-based approach for understanding dialectal variation, with a focus on Chuj. While Chuj is generally recognized as having two main dialects, the extent of their differences is far from completely understood, and the prestige dialect has received a disproportionate amount of attention. We focus on one useful method that addresses these issues: documenting versions of the same folktale in different dialects. We show how our method can actively engage Chuj community members from all dialectal communities in order to (a) enrich the understanding of cultural and linguistic diversity in the Mayan context, (b) expand resources available for dialects that have received less attention, and (c) shed light on which grammatical patterns exhibit substantial variation. Furthermore, we argue that this approach is desirable in the long-term, since it incorporates capacity building within the community.

Haitian creole syntax-phonology interface: Rethinking the Ki/Ke alternation

Followed by a pub social, your first drink is on us!

Joint event with the CCSA.

Disentangling movement and agreement: A clitic doubling case study

by Lefteris Paparounas, PhD

Free pizza, drinks and snacks provided!

Join us in person in FB 1030.06 or on Zoom: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/j/89889828969

How you can prepare for this workshop:

Download LaTeX software

Watch the following informational video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPnfHRE_W_g&ab_channel=Dr.ManuelKuehner

Snacks and hot chocolate are on us!

Skate rentals available for 15$.