Contact and contrast in valley Spanish

Abstract

Linguistic features that are transferred through language contact are distributed over social contexts as a result of their role in a system of social meaning. In this dissertation, I investigate the distribution of Quechua contact features in Spanish over different social contexts in a community in central Bolivia. Through the process of enregisterment, contact features participate in a system of social meaning that contrasts "traditional" categories (encompassing the feminine, rural, highland, Quechua-speaking, etc.) with "modern" categories (associated with male, urban, lowland, Spanish-speaking, etc.). Local identity, however, is produced through a fusion of these categories, often associated with a particular style of speech centrally involving contact features. The question of how and why contact features are distributed leads inevitably to the question of what contact features mean for speakers. I suggest that the meaning of contact features is not fixed, but rather is accomplished through comparison to, and in contrast with, expected patterns of speech, both in terms of contexts of speech and in terms of individual speakers. In order to understand why contact features are used, it is necessary to develop a model of what is expected of certain speakers in certain situations. Yet it is equally important to recognize that the way speakers depart from expected templates is as meaningful as the way they conform to them. Both events and speakers are always textured by reference to diverse parts of a semiotic field of meaning. Contact features participate in a local, and locally dynamic, system of social meaning. It is speakers' reference to this system that governs the distribution of contact features over different contexts of speech. Through participation in this system, contact features become an integral part of the representations that speakers construct of themselves and for others. The role of enregistered contact features as indices that speakers use to position themselves with respect to a semiotic field influences their distribution, and ultimately, their persistence or disappearance.

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