Linguistic Change in a Bilingual Context: Influence of Spanish in Catalan Sound Changes in Progress

Abstract

This paper investigates the degree to which language contact may influence Catalan sound change in the absence of language shift by examining variables with potential contact-induced variants in the context of the highly bilingual Catalan-Spanish urban center of Barcelona that has undergone a recent reversal of language shift. The study identifies four variables, three which have been previously described in the literature as potential contact-induced linguistic changes, and one which is recognized as unaffiliated with language contact. These involve the potential merger of /ʎ/ and /j/, the affrication of /ʃ/, the devoicing of /ʒ/ and /z/, as well as the deletion of pre-consonantal /r/, in an attempt to determine whether these former changes, if they are present, are due to language internal or external factors, and whether their social distribution differs significantly from the latter change unaffiliated with language contact. Additionally, the study analyzes the factors of language attitude and use among bilingual speakers and whether these correlate with particular linguistic variants to determine whether linguistic changes observed are due to language contact. The sociolinguistic patterns of the merger, affrication, and devoicing suggest these are, at least partially, language contact-induced changes from below, while that of /r/ deletion affirms its status as a stable sociolinguistic variable. Language attitude is found to have no correlation with the variables studied, while language use is found to be highly predictive only of /z/ devoicing.