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Suburbanization and language change in Basque

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2007

BILL HADDICAN
BILL HADDICAN
Affiliation:
Department of Language and Linguistic Science<,> University of York<,> Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK<,> wh506@york.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article reports on a study of standardization and language change in the Basque town of Oiartzun. It presents apparent time evidence suggesting that, while certain local features are giving way to competing standard forms, other emblematic features of the local dialect are not undergoing change. It is argued that the absence of change in the case of emblematic local forms is related to community members' ambivalence toward recent economic and social changes in the town. In particular, in the spirit of Labov's Martha's Vineyard study, it is argued that younger Oiartzuners' retention of emblematic local forms is a way of staking a claim to a local identity undercut by recent housing development and suburbanization. In so doing, this article contributes to a growing body of work on the often unique behavior of emblematic local features in language change, particularly in speech communities undergoing rapid social and economic change.I am grateful to the people of Oiartzun for their support and hospitality during the fieldwork portion of this study. I am also grateful to John Singler, Renée Blake, Ricardo Etxepare, Gregory Guy, Richard Kayne, Bambi Schieffelin, Jaqueline Urla, Koldo Zuazo, an anonymous reviewer, and audiences at the University of York, the University of Ottawa, and NWAV 34 for comments pertaining to some of the data presented here. Special thanks also to Iñaki Arbelaitz, Maider Lekuona, Jabi Elizasu, Ana Arruti, and José Luis Erkizia. All errors are my own. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0317842 and by a Fulbright grant. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Keywords

Basquelanguage changestandardizationlanguage ideologiesdiffusion
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 36 , Issue 5 , November 2007 , pp. 677 - 706
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

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