The Contact Diffusion of Linguistic Practices

Bohnemeyer, Jürgen; Donelson, Katharine; Moore, Randi; Benedicto, Elena; Eggleston, Alyson; O’Meara, Carolyn; Báez, Gabriela Pérez; Garza, Alejandra Capistrán; Hernández-Green, Néstor; Gómez, María de Jesús; Castro, Samuel Herrera; Palancar, Enrique L.; Polian, Gilles; Méndez, Rodrigo Romero

doi:10.1163/22105832-00502002

Cited by 27 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(53 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These expressions (e.g., uphill, downriver or oceanward) are viewpoint-independent and thus rely on different geocentric conceptualisations, which also manifest when speakers of these languages are tested on non-linguistic tasks (Majid et al, 2004;Haun et al, 2011). These observations suggest that the choice of reference frame could be motivated by non-linguistic variables, such as local topography, population structure or L2-contact (Li and Gleitman, 2002;Bohnemeyer et al, 2015). For instance, it was found that even phylogenetically distant languages spoken on atolls (ring-shaped collections of islands), such as Dhivehi and Marshallese, converge in utilising reference frames relating to the topography of the atoll ("oceanward" vs. "lagoonward"), while, for instance, Marshallese speakers in Springdale, Arkansas (US) prefer an egocentric reference frame (Palmer et al, 2017).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Observations are often based on small samples and patterns are varied and probabilistic rather than deterministic (e.g., Majid et al, 2004). It is thus very hard to disentangle the influence of environmental factors as these often conflate a number of sociocultural factors pertaining to subsistence (e.g., Palmer et al, 2017 find the geocentric reference frame used more on fishing islands than non-fishing islands), education, or contact with other languages (Bohnemeyer et al, 2015). For instance, the finding that ambient humidity predicts whether a language exhibits tone as a phonological feature (Everett et al, 2015) was recently found to be confounded by other historical factors (Roberts, 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Language as shaped by the environment: linguistic construal in a collaborative spatial task

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

What causes cultural groups to favour specific conventions over others? Recently, it has been suggested that cross-linguistic variation can be motivated by factors of the wider non-linguistic environment. Large-scale cross-sectional studies have found statistical differences among languages that pattern with environmental variables such as topography or population size. However, these studies are correlational in nature, revealing little about the possible mechanisms driving these cultural evolutionary processes. The present study sets out to experimentally investigate how environmental factors come to shape the emergence of linguistic conventions. To this end, we adapt the classical Maze Game task to test the hypothesis that participants routinise different linguistic strategies to communicate positions in the maze contingent on particular environmental affordances (i.e. structure of the mazes). Our results confirm that subtle environmental motivations drive the emergence of different communicative conventions in an otherwise identical task, suggesting that linguistic adaptations are highly sensitive to factors of the shared task environment. We speculate that these kinds of mechanisms found at a local interactional level, through processes of cultural evolution contribute to the systematic global variation observed among different languages.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Language as shaped by the environment: linguistic construal in a collaborative spatial task

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To our knowledge, such comparison has never been conducted. Recent research has focused on how bilingualism affects spatial memory, with some studies showing that language affects preferred memorization strategies (Bohnemeyer et al 2015;Meakins, Jones, and Algy 2016; Lin and Hsiao 2017), while others finding no effect of language dominance or language of task (Marghetis, McComsey, and Cooperrider 2014). Marghetis, McComsey, and Cooperrider (2014) discuss their data by moving from the level of language to that of linguistic expressions.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to speak “geocentric” in an “egocentric” language: A multimodal study among Ngigua-Spanish bilinguals and Spanish monolinguals in a rural community of Mexico

Pascale

Adamou³

2019

Language Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It has recently been shown that individuals residing in rural, indigenous communities rely on geocentric conceptualizations of space, e.g., north/south/east/west, even after they have shifted to a language that is known to favour egocentric conceptualizations, e.g., right/left. In this paper we explore how this combination works in practice by conducting a study in a previously non-investigated indigenous community of Mexico, the Ngiguas. We used a verbal localization task for community-scale relations. We filmed the responses of early bilinguals in Ngigua (Otomanguean) and in Spanish as well as of a control group of Spanish monolinguals from the same rural community. Statistical analysis of speech and co-speech gestures reveals that bilinguals favour geocentric gestures and direct pointing in both languages, associating them with topological and deictic terms. Against our predictions, Spanish monolinguals also use high rates of geocentric gestures that they frequently combine with cardinal terms. In sum, the Ngigua data show that geocentric conceptualizations can be transmitted to monolingual generations via co-speech gestures, including in a language where egocentric conceptualizations prevail in other settings.

show abstract

“…Speakers of Isthmus Zapotec have been shown to rely preferentially on cardinal direction terms, even for describing small-scale space (Moore, 2018;P erez B aez, 2011; e.g., guxi u que la, nuuni neza gui a de xiga que, "the knife is to the north of the bowl"). Speakers of Mexican Spanish, like American speakers of English, have been shown to favor egocentric descriptions of small-scale space (Bohnemeyer et al, 2015; e.g., el cuchillo est a a la derecha de la j ıcara, "the knife is to the right of the bowl"). To assess different versions of the idea that language shapes FoR use, we did three things: first, recruited participants from this bilingual community who differed in their habitual use of and proficiency in Spanish (Zapotec Dominants and Balanced Bilinguals); second, manipulated the language in which the task was conducted (with bilinguals tested twice in separate sessions); and, third, assessed individual differences in the mastery of terms denoting egocentric and allocentric relations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Space in Hand and Mind: Gesture and Spatial Frames of Reference in Bilingual Mexico

Marghetis

McComsey

Cooperrider³

2020

Cognitive Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Speakers of many languages prefer allocentric frames of reference (FoRs) when talking about small‐scale space, using words like “east” or “downhill.” Ethnographic work has suggested that this preference is also reflected in how such speakers gesture. Here, we investigate this possibility with a field experiment in Juchitán, Mexico. In Juchitán, a preferentially allocentric language (Isthmus Zapotec) coexists with a preferentially egocentric one (Spanish). Using a novel task, we elicited spontaneous co‐speech gestures about small‐scale motion events (e.g., toppling blocks) in Zapotec‐dominant speakers and in balanced Zapotec‐Spanish bilinguals. Consistent with prior claims, speakers’ spontaneous gestures reliably reflected either an egocentric or allocentric FoR. The use of the egocentric FoR was predicted—not by speakers’ dominant language or the language they used in the task—but by mastery of words for “right” and “left,” as well as by properties of the event they were describing. Additionally, use of the egocentric FoR in gesture predicted its use in a separate nonlinguistic memory task, suggesting a cohesive cognitive style. Our results show that the use of spatial FoRs in gesture is pervasive, systematic, and shaped by several factors. Spatial gestures, like other forms of spatial conceptualization, are thus best understood within broader ecologies of communication and cognition.

show abstract

The Contact Diffusion of Linguistic Practices

Cited by 27 publications

References 39 publications

Language as shaped by the environment: linguistic construal in a collaborative spatial task

Language as shaped by the environment: linguistic construal in a collaborative spatial task

How to speak “geocentric” in an “egocentric” language: A multimodal study among Ngigua-Spanish bilinguals and Spanish monolinguals in a rural community of Mexico

Space in Hand and Mind: Gesture and Spatial Frames of Reference in Bilingual Mexico

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About