This collection is the first to examine the effects of bilingualism and multilingualism on the development of dialectal varieties of Spanish in Africa, America, Asia and Europe. Nineteen essays investigate a variety of complex situations of contact between Spanish and typologically different languages, including Basque, Bantu languages, English, and Quechua. The overall picture that evolves clearly indicates that although influence from the contact languages may lead to different dialects, the core grammar of Spanish remains intact. Silva-Corvalan's volume makes an important contribution both to sociolinguistics in general, and to Spanish linguistics in particular. The contributors address theoretical and empirical issues that advance our knowledge of what is a possible linguistic change, how languages change, and how changes spread in society in situations of intensive bilingualism and language contact, a situation that appears to be the norm rather than the exception in the world.

"Students of Spanish as a world language will find both new data and new interpretations of familiar bilingual environments."

About the Author
Carmen Silva-Corvalan is a professor of Spanish Linguistics at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Sociolinguistica: Teoria y analisis (Alhambra, 1989) and Language Contact and Change: Spanish in Los Angeles (Oxford University Press, 1994).

Reviews
Students of Spanish as a world language will find both new data and new interpretations of familiar bilingual environments. Language The first book dedicated to language contact and bilingualism in the Spanish-speaking world ... an excellent beginning. Those interested in knowing more about language contact phenomena in the Spanish-speaking world will not be disappointed by this collection. Studies in Second Language Acquisition



Book Information
ISBN 9780878406494
Author Carmen Silva-Corvalan
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Georgetown University Press
Publisher Georgetown University Press
Weight(grams) 540g