A NEUROCOGNITIVE ANALYSIS OF IDIOSYNCRATIC SEMANTIC BORROWINGS IN THE DISCOURSE OF BILINGUAL ROMANIAN IMMIGRANTS IN SPAIN

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2020.4.03

Keywords:

relational network theory, semantic borrowing, Romanian, Spanish, Rumañol, neurocognitive linguistics.

Abstract

A neurocognitive Analysis of Idiosyncratic Semantic Borrowings in the Discourse of Bilingual Romanian Immigrants in Spain. In this paper we look at the semantic borrowings that spontaneously emerge in the oral discourse of bilingual Romanian immigrants who live in Spain, and we analyze them from a neurocognitive perspective. Also known as Relational Network Theory, this approach conceives language as an interconnected relational network composed of nodes and lines. Linguistic processing is a result of spreading activation through the network. We use this approach to explore the mechanisms underlying the oral production of semantic borrowings selected from corpora of Romanian spoken in Spain, and we model them, using the NeuroLab tool, in relational network terms. The network modeling shows that these hybrid forms emerge naturally from the properties of the system and can be explained in terms of shared parts of either phonological or semantic subnetworks involved in the production of analogous forms. It also delivers additional explanation to the proliferation of mixed meaning and sound induced semantic borrowings in the form of a higher pressure for rewiring coming from two different parts of the system.

REZUMAT. O analiză neurocognitivă a calcului semantic spontan în vorbirea imigranților români bilingvi din Spania. În această lucrare, ne ocupăm de cazurile de calc semantic care apar în mod spontan în vorbirea imigranților români din Spania și le analizăm dintr-o perspectivă neurocognitivă. Cunoscută și sub numele de Teoria Rețelelor Relaționale, abordarea neurocognitivă concepe limbajul ca pe o mare rețea relațională interconectată, compusă din linii și noduri. Procesarea lingvistică este rezultatul răspândirii activării prin rețea. Folosim această abordare pentru a explora mecanismele interne care stau la baza apariției unor cazuri de calc semantic, selectate din corpusuri de limbă română vorbită în Spania și le modelăm, cu ajutorul aplicației NeuroLab, sub forma rețelelor relaționale. Modelul de tip rețea arată că aceste forme hibride rezultă în mod natural din proprietățile sistemului și pot fi explicate prin faptul că rețelele distribuite implicate în producția formelor analoage au în comun anumite porțiuni ale rețelelor fonologice sau semantice. Modelul oferă de asemenea o explicație adițională proliferării formelor mixte bazate atât pe sens cât și pe forme fonologice similare, sub forma unei presiuni mai ridicate de a se forma noi legături în rețea sub influența a două regiuni diferite ale sistemului.

Cuvinte-cheie: Teoria Rețelelor Relaționale, calc semantic, română, spaniolă, rumañol, lingvistică neurocognitivă.

Author Biography

Paul BUZILĂ, University of Bucharest. Email: paul.buzila@lls.unibuc.ro

Paul BUZILĂ is a lecturer of Spanish and General Linguistics at the University of Bucharest, where he has been teaching since 2012. His research focuses on bilingualism and language contact phenomena, specially in the context of Romanian immigrant communities in Spain. Recently, he has started to look into the neurocognitive aspects of bilingual processing and has been applying the Relational Network Theory model to bilingualism. E-mail: paul.buzila@lls.unibuc.ro

References

a) books, studies and articles:

Buzilă, Paul, 2016, El rumano hablado en España, Bucureşti, Editura Universității din București.

Buzilă, Paul, 2020, “A relational network approach to bilingualism: How can Neurocognitive Linguistics contribute to understanding bilingual processing?” (Manuscript submitted for publication).

Clyne, Michael, 1977, “Intercultural Communication Breakdown and Communication Conflict: Towards a Linguistic Model and its Exemplification”, in C. Molony, H. Zobl, W. Stolting (eds.), Deutsch im Kontakt mit anderen Sprachen/German in Contact with Other Languages, Kronberg, Scriptor Verlag, p. 129-146.

García, Adolfo M., 2015, “A connectionist approach to functional-cognitive linguistics: Spanish pronominal clitics and verb endings in relational network terms”, in Signos, 48(88), p. 197–222.

García, Adolfo M., 2017, “From neurological structures to language processing”, in Adolfo M. García, William J. Sullivan, Sarah Tsiang (eds.), Relational Network Theory. History, Principles and Descriptive Applications, Sheffield, Equinox eBooks Publishing, p. 57-75.

Gil, José María, 2016, “A relational account of the Spanish noun phrase”, in Australian Journal of Linguistics, 36(1), p. 22–51.

Grzega, Joachim, 2003, “Borrowing as a word-finding process in cognitive historical onomasiology”, in Onomasiology Online, 4, p. 22-42.

Haugen, Einar, 1950, “The analysis of linguistic borrowing”, in Language, 26/2, p. 210-231.

Humbley, John, 1974, Vers une typologie de l’emprunt linguistique, in Cahiers de lexicologie, 25(2), p. 46-70.

Jieanu, Ioana, 2012, Interferențe lingvistice româno-spaniole, Iași, Editura Lumen.

Kiesler, Reinhard, 1993, La tipología de los préstamos lingüísticos: no sólo un problema de terminología, in Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 109, p. 503-525.

Lamb, Sydney. M., 1999, Pathways of the Brain. The Neurocognitive Basis of Language, Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Lamb, Sydney. M., 2016, “Linguistic structure: A plausible theory”, in Language Under Discussion, 4(1). http://www.ludjournal.org/index.php?journal=LUD&page=issue&op=view&path=6 (5/06/2020).

Lijewska, Agnieszka, 2020, “Cognate processing effects in bilingual lexical access”, in Roberto R. Heredia, Anna B. Cieślicka (eds.), Bilingual Lexical Ambiguity Resolution, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 71–95.

Munteanu Colán, Dan, 2011, “Can the Romanian spoken in Spain become a new linguistic means?”, in Analele Universității din București. Limbi și Literaturi Străine, 40(1), p. 19-36.

Muysken, Pieter, 2000, Bilingual speech: A typology of code-mixing, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Muysken, Pieter, 2013, “Two linguistic systems in contact: Grammar, phonology, and lexicon”, in Tej K. Bhatia, William C. Ritchie (eds.), The Handbook of bilingualism and multilingualism, Second edition, Malden, MA, Wiley-Blackwell. p. 193-215

Paradis, Michael, 2000, “An integrated neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism (1976–2000)”, in LACUS Forum, 27, p. 5–15.

Shatz, Carla J., 1992, “The developing brain”, Scientific American, 267(3), p. 60-67.

Sullivan, William J., 1998, “Underspecification and feature geometry: Theorems of a reticular theory of language”, in LACUS Forum, 24, p. 53-65.

Sullivan, William J., 2001, “The predictive power of networks: Describing word accent in Russian”, in Word, 52, p. 213–225.

Sullivan, William J., 2017, “An RNT approach to the Polish Genitive”, in Adolfo M. García, William J. Sullivan, Sarah Tsiang (eds.), Relational Network Theory. History, Principles and Descriptive Applications, Sheffield, Equinox eBooks Publishing, p. 103–115.

Sullivan, William J, Sarah Tsiang, 2017, “An RNT approach to speech errors in English and Polish”, in Adolfo M. García, William J. Sullivan, Sarah Tsiang (eds.), Relational Network Theory. History, Principles and Descriptive Applications, Sheffield, Equinox eBooks Publishing, p. 157–173.

Tisher, Gordon, 2010, Neurocognitive Linguistics Laboratory (NeuroLab), version 1.2.3. Copyright © 2010-2011 Gordon Tisher, https://bitbucket.org/kulibali/neurocogling/wiki/Home (2/03/2020).

Weinreich, Uriel, 1974[1953], Languages in Contact. Findings and Problems, The Hague-Paris, Mouton.

Uță Burcea, Ofelia. M., 2010., “El Rumano escrito de España. Un Análisis de Habla”, in Philologica Jassyensia, VI, 11(1), p. 237-254.

b) dictionaries

DEX = Marius Sala et alii (coord.), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, ediţia a II-a, revăzută şi adăugită, Bucureşti, Academia Română - Institutul de Lingvistică “Iorgu Iordan - Al. Rosetti” & Editura Univers Enciclopedic Gold, 2009.

DEXOnline = Dicţionarul explicativ al limbii române, https://dexonline.ro (8/06/2020).

DLE - Real Academia Española. Diccionario de la lengua española, 23.ª ed., Online version 23.3, https://dle.rae.es (8/06/2020).

Downloads

Published

2020-10-30

How to Cite

BUZILĂ, P. (2020). A NEUROCOGNITIVE ANALYSIS OF IDIOSYNCRATIC SEMANTIC BORROWINGS IN THE DISCOURSE OF BILINGUAL ROMANIAN IMMIGRANTS IN SPAIN. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia, 65(4), 55–74. https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2020.4.03

Issue

Section

Articles