The aim of this thesis is to investigate the patterns of language alternation in the Polish community in Lithuania, which can be described as an indigenous ethnic group that has been living on the territory of modern-day Lithuania since the fourteenth century (Potašenko 2007). Following two language ideologies, Russification during Soviet times and Lithuanisation post-independence, the Lithuanian Poles developed complex linguistic repertoires, consisting of the regional and standard variety of Polish, Russian and Lithuanian. One of the most significant consequences of the prolonged language contact has been the emergence of frequent and regular language alternation between the regional variety of Polish and Russian, which constitutes the focal point of the present study. As the existing research suggests, the linguistic phenomena arising as a result of language contact can be situated along a continuum, which starts with code-switching, then gradually moves towards code-mixing and finally evolves into a conventionalised fused lect (Auer 1999). 'Classic' code-switching is characterised by the locally meaningful juxtaposition of the two languages, code-mixing can be described as a type of interaction where the switched mode of speaking becomes the norm while a fused lect is an even further development of bilingual speech, which presupposes loss of variation and an increase of linguistic structure. The data for the present study come from a corpus of spontaneous conversations involving members of the Polish community. The recordings were collected in the city of Vilnius and feature 25 respondents in their twenties. The data analysis reveals that all three types of language alternation feature in the present corpus; however, code-mixing is clearly the preferred type. It immediately manifests itself in the frequent insertion of Russian single switches and larger constituents into the Polish base. As a result of its wide spread and frequency, language alternation has lost its immediate local meaning and the pattern of frequent Polish-Russian mixing has become the accepted mode of speaking within the Polish speech community.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:711755 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Séguis, Brigita |
| Contributors | Fellerer, Jan |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0439ac1c-5401-448b-b747-07126274b589 |
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