Prosodic change and the relevance of sociolinguistic factors in Spanish in contact

Abstract

This essay addresses how prosodic change operates in the context of languages in contact. To this end, it is based on a selection of relevant studies in the field of Spanish in contact, either with other Romance languages (Arias, 2012; Carvalho, 2006, 2016; Lipski, 2006) or with indigenous languages of Latin America (Barnes & Michnowicz, 2013; Henriksen & Fafulas, 2017; Hualde & Schwegler, 2008; Van Rijswijk & Muntendam, 2014), as well as with US English (Alvord, 2010). In recent years, the scientific community has consistently focused on the way in which prosody can account for the effects of language contact and also, potentially, those effects deriving from contact-induced language change. Although some studies prefer to tackle the issue either based on historical written sources (Arias, 2012) or within a rather general or inclusive theoretical framework (Lipski, 2006; Carvalho, 2016), multiple researchers have focused on the design and application of online instruments, especially sociolinguistic interviews and/or tasks whose goal is to obtain a favorable context to successfully analyze prosodic change involving languages in contact (Barnes & Michnowicz, 2013; Henriksen & Fafulas, 2017; Alvord, 2010). Finally, we highlight the importance of certain sociolinguistic factors (e.g., social prestige found for a particular variety) in defining and establishing prosodic change.