Cover not available
Part of
Lifespan Acquisition and Language Change: Historical sociolinguistic perspectives
Edited by Israel Sanz-Sánchez
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 14] 2024
► pp. 104–126

Chapter 5
Multilingual acquisition across the lifespan as a sociohistorical trigger for language change

ORCID logo | University of Amsterdam
Language contact implies more variation in language use, both in the individual and in the community. This increased variation can accelerate language change, but it can also halt it (Aalberse et al. 2019; Muysken 2013). Which parts of language do change, and which parts do not depends on cognitive and social factors: the change or non-change should be cognitively possible and socially acceptable. What is cognitively possible or cognitively likely partly depends on the age of the language user. What is socially desirable is also partly dependent on age. This chapter provides an overview of bilingual speaker optimization strategies inspired by Muysken (2013), relating preferences for a type of strategy to life stages. The chapter ends with a discussion on the challenges and opportunities of combining the lifespan acquisition perspective with the historical sociolinguistics of language contact.
Keywords: language contact, bilingual optimization strategies, acquisition across the lifespan, AoA (age of onset of acquisition), language change, language stability, cognitive factors, social factors
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Language contact outcomes as the result of bilingual optimization strategies
  • 2.Life stages and language development
  • 3.Rely on one language
    • 3.1What social circumstances increase the likelihood of reliance on one language?
    • 3.2Which linguistic domains are most likely to be part of the ‘rely on one language’ strategy?
    • 3.3What is the role of age in the selection of the rely on one language strategy?
  • 4.Rely on more languages
    • 4.1What social circumstances increase the likelihood of reliance on more languages?
    • 4.2Which linguistic domains are most likely to be part of the ‘rely on more languages’ strategy?
    • 4.3What is the role of age in the selection of the ‘rely on more languages’ strategy?
  • 5.Acquisition across the lifespan and the historical sociolinguistics of language contact: Challenges and opportunities
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 April 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.14.05aal
References (63)
References
Aalberse, Suzanne, Ad Backus & Pieter Muysken. 2019. Heritage languages: A language contact approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aalberse, Suzanne, Yiwen Zou & Sible Andringa. 2017. Extended use of demonstrative pronouns in two generations of Mandarin Chinese speakers in the Netherlands: Evidence of convergence? In Elma Blom, Jeannette Schaeffer & Leonie Cornips (eds.), Studies in bilingualism, 25–48. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Aboh, Enoch Oladé. 2015. The emergence of hybrid grammars: Language contact and change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2003. Mechanisms of change in areal diffusion: New morphology and language contact. Journal of Linguistics 39. 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Andringa, Sible & Ewa Dąbrowska. 2019. Individual differences in first and second language ultimate attainment and their causes. Language Learning 69(1). 5–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Austin, Alison, Kathryn Schuler, Sarah Furlong & Elissa Newport. 2022. Learning a language from inconsistent input: Regularization in child and adult learners. Language Learning and Development 18(3). 249–277. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Backus, Ad. 2004. Convergence as a mechanism of language change. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7(2). 179–181. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Backus, Ad, Seza Doğruöz & Bernd Heine. 2011. Salient stages in contact-induced grammatical change: Evidence from synchronic vs. diachronic contact situations. Language Sciences 33(5). 738–752. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baxter, Gareth & William Croft. 2016. Modeling language change across the lifespan: Individual trajectories in community change. Language Variation and Change 28: 129–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blom, Elma, Daniela Polišenská & Fred Weerman. 2008. Articles, adjectives and age of onset: The acquisition of Dutch grammatical gender. Second Language Research 24(3). 297–331. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bryden, John, Shaun Wright & Vincent Jansen. 2018. How humans transmit language: horizontal transmission matches word frequencies among peers on Twitter. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 15. 20170738. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clements, J. Clancy. 2009. The linguistic legacy of Spanish and Portuguese: Colonial expansion and language change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Culbertson, Jennifer, Marieke Schouwstra & Simon Kirby. 2020. From the world to word order: Deriving biases in noun phrase order from statistical properties of the world. Language 96(3). 696–717. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DeGraff, Michel. 2009. Language acquisition in creolization and, thus, language change: Some cartesian-uniformitarian boundary conditions. Language and Linguistics Compass 3/4. 888–971.Google Scholar
Dorleijn, Margreet & Jacomine Nortier. 2012. Bilingualism and youth language. In Carol Chapelle (ed.), The encyclopedia of applied linguistics, 1–7. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Genesee, Fred. 1989. Early bilingual development: One language or two? Journal of Child Language 16(1). 161–179. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grosjean, François. 1998. Transfer and language mode. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 1: 175–176. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hall-Lew, Lauren. 2014. Chinese social practice and San Franciscan authenticity. In Veronique Lacoste, Jakob Leimgruber & Thierno Breyer (eds.), Indexing authenticity: Sociolinguistic perspectives, 55–77. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, Angela & Merja Kytö. 2019. Varying social roles and networks on a family farm: Evidence from Swedish immigrant letters, 1880s to 1930s. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 5(2). 20180031. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hudson Kam, Carla. 2015. The impact of conditioning variables on the acquisition of variation in adult and child learners. Language 91(4). 906–937. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hudson Kam, Carla & Elissa Newport. 2005. Regularizing unpredictable variation: The roles of adult and child learners in language formation and change. Language Learning and Development 1(2). 151–195. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Indefrey, Peter, Hülya Şahin & Marianne Gullberg. 2017. The expression of spatial relationships in Turkish–Dutch bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 20(3). 473–493. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johanson, Lars. 2008. Remodeling grammar: Copying, conventionalization, grammaticalization. In Peter Siemund & Noemi Kintana (eds.), Language contact and contact languages, 61–79. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kerswill, Paul & Ann Williams. 2000. Creating a new town koine: Children and language change in Milton Keynes. Language in Society 29. 65–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Kitaek, William O’Grady & Bonnie Schwartz. 2018. Case in heritage Korean. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 8(2). 252–282. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kolinsky, Régine, Ana Luzia Navas, Fraulein Vidigal de Paula, Nathalia Ribeiro de Brito, Larissa de Medeiros Botecchia, Sophie Bouton & Willy Serniclaes. 2021. The impact of alphabetic literacy on the perception of speech sounds. Cognition 213. 104687. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuhl, Patricia, Barbara Conboy, Denise Padden, Tobey Nelson & Jessica Pruitt. 2005. Early speech perception and later language development: Implications for the “critical period”. Language Learning and Development 1(3–4): 237–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kühl, Karoline & Kurt Braunmüller. 2014. Linguistic stability and divergence. In Kurt Braunmüller, Steffen Höder & Karoline Kühl (eds.), Stability and divergence in language contact: Factors and mechanisms, 13–38. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. 2007. Transmission and diffusion. Language 83. 344–387. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, Brian. 2019. Language attrition and the competition model. In Monika Schmid & Barbara Köpke (eds.), The Oxford handbook of language attrition, 5–17. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Martineau, France. 2013. Written documents: What they tell us about linguistic usage. In Marijke van der Wal & Gijsbert Rutten (eds.), Touching the past: Studies in the historical sociolinguistics of ego-documents, 129–148. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matthews, Stephen & Virginia Yip. 2009. Contact-induced grammaticalization: Evidence from bilingual acquisition. Studies in Language 33(2). 366–395. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meisel, Jürgen (ed.). 1994. Bilingual first language acquisition French and German grammatical development. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mensah, Eyo. 2016. The dynamics of youth language in Africa: An introduction. Sociolinguistic Studies 10(1). 1–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, Silvina. 2008. Incomplete acquisition in bilingualism: Re-examining the age factor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moro, Francesca. 2015. Modal categories in contact: The case of heritage Ambon Malay in the Netherlands. Heritage Language Journal 12 (3). 271–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2016. Dynamics of Ambon Malay: Comparing Ambon and the Netherlands. Utrecht: LOT dissertation series.
Muysken, Pieter. 2008. Traces of contact: Language contact studies and historical linguistics. ERC-overview. Nijmegen, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
. 2013. Language contact outcomes as the result of bilingual optimization strategies. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 16(4). 709–730. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
O’Grady, William, Hye-Young Kwak, On-Soon Lee & Miseon Lee. 2011. An emergentist perspective on heritage language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 33(2). 223–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Osch, Brechje, Aafke Hulk, Petra Sleeman & Suzanne Aalberse. 2017. Knowledge of mood in internal and external interface contexts in Spanish heritage speakers in the Netherlands. In Kate Bellamy, Michael Child, Paz González, Antje Muntendam & María del Carmen Parafita Couto (eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to bilingualism in the Hispanic and Lusophone world 13. 67–92. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Petersson, Karl Magnus, Alexandra Reis, Simon Askelöf, Alexander Castro-Caldas & Martin Ingvar. 2000. Language processing modulated by literacy: A network analysis of verbal repetition in literate and illiterate subjects. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 12(3). 364–382. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pires, Acrisio & Jason Rothman (eds.) 2009a. Minimalist inquiries into child and adult language acquisition: Case studies across Portuguese. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009b. Disentangling sources of incomplete acquisition: An explanation for competence divergence across heritage grammars. International Journal of Bilingualism 13(2). 211–238. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Piske, Thorsten, Ian MacKay & James Flege. 2001. Factors affecting degree of foreign accent in an L2: A review. Journal of Phonetics 29(2). 191–215. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Polinsky, Maria. 2018. Bilingual children and adult heritage speakers: The range of comparison. International Journal of Bilingualism 22(5). 547–563. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Read, Charles, Zhang Yun-Fei, Nie Hong-Yin & Ding Bao-Qing. 1986. The ability to manipulate speech sounds depends on knowing alphabetic writing. Cognition 24. 31–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Edgar. 2007. Postcolonial English: Varieties around the world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schoenmakers-Klein, Gunnewiek. 1997. Dutch language loss in Brazil and the conceptual hypothesis. In Jetske Klatter-Folmer & Sjaak Kroon (eds.), Studies in maintenance and loss of Dutch as an immigrant language, 99–119. Tilburg: Tilburg University Press.Google Scholar
Schwegler, Armin, John McWhorter & Liane Ströbel (eds.). 2016. The Iberian challenge: Creole languages beyond the plantation setting. Madrid: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sharma, Devyani. 2017. A dynamic typology of syntactic change in Postcolonial Englishes. Presentation at the Societas Linguistica Europea. September 12, 2017.
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen. 1994. Language contact and change: Spanish in Los Angeles. Oxford: Clarendon Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stolberg, Doris. 2019. Canadian heritage German across three Generations: A diary-based study of language shift in action. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 5(2). 20190005. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thomason, Sarah. 2001. Language contact: An introduction. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 2011. Sociolinguistic typology: Social determinants of linguistic complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, Ianthi. 2014. Early, late or very late? Timing acquisition and bilingualism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 4(3). 283–313. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ullman, Michael. 2001. The declarative/procedural model of lexicon and grammar. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 30. 37–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van de Craats, Ineke & Roeland van Hout. 1997. De nieuwe kleren van de keizer: VAN als venster op de T2-verwerving van turkse leerders. Gramma 6(2–3). 151–167.Google Scholar
Weerman, Fred. 2002. Dynamiek in taal en de explosie van de neerlandistiek. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weerman, Fred, Mike Olson & Robert Cloutier. 2013. Synchronic variation and loss of case: Formal and informal language in a Dutch corpus of 17th-century Amsterdam texts. Diachronica 30(3). 353–381. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wei, Li. 2011. Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43(5). 1222–1235. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wexler, Ken. 1998. Very early parameter setting and the unique checking constraint: A new explanation of the optional infinitive stage. Lingua 106. 23–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar