Superdiverse
repertoires
Jan Blommaert & Ad Backus
Babylon, Tilburg University
From competence to knowledge
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What is it to know a language?
‘maximal’ knowledge: fluency in multi-genres and
varieties, ‘voice’
 ‘intermediate’ knowledge: specific genres, registers,
varieties
 ‘temporary’ learning (age groups or e.g. via traveling)
 ‘minimal’ knowledge: single-word, restricted registers
and functions (« sayonara », « hasta la vista »…)
 ‘recognizing’ language: attributive identity functions
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All of this belongs to a repertoire: a biographical
complex of functionally organised linguistic
resources: repertoire as indexical biography
And is the result of entirely different modes of
acquisition
From ‘encountering’ language (in informal learning
environment)
 To ‘learning’ language (in formal learning
environment)
 Increasing density of ‘ephemeral’ learning processes
(e.g. tourism, Facebook etc)
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Jan’s repertoire
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‘Maximum’: Dutch, English
‘Intermediate’: French, German, Latin, Spanish, Swahili
‘Minimal’: Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Greek, Finnish,
Russian, Portuguese, a number of African languages…
‘Recognising’: Turkish, Arabic, Korean, Northern Sami,
Gaelic, Berber, Polish, Albanian, Hungarian, Czech,
Serbo-Kroatian, Thai, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Yiddish,
Schwytsertüütsch, several African languages…
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Ephemeral learning modes
You take whatever is (cheaply) available
Assemble it into a functionally adequate variety
Always ‘incomplete’ and by degrees
Functions:
Linguistic, communicative
 Indexical
 Emblematic
 Aesthetic …
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The point...
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Definition of ‘language’
Definition of ‘competence’
Understanding specific forms of diversity – not
as deviation/transgression/’bad
language’/wrong
UG not a great basis for any of this
Usage-based linguistics is
My own perspective
Language Contact
Theories
Linguistic Theories
>>>>>>>
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Usage-based theory about language,
including language contact and change
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Usage-based approach
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Typical approach of Cognitive Linguistics
Linguistic competence is usage-based
 ‘you are what you say and hear’
 competence is not independent of usage
Linguistic competence is an inventory of specific and
schematic units
Basic aim: theory of mental representation
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No different from other linguistic theories
Language use results from cognitive processes
Therefore: mental representation is always part of the
explanation
Usage-based approach
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Basic hypothesis: mental representation built up on the basis
of usage
Ingredients: human cognitive skills and linguistic experience
 Cognitive skills: storage in memory, pattern recognition,
focusing joint attention, intention reading, cooperation
 Linguistic experience (interaction): exposure (‘input’) and use
(‘output’)
Competence is continuously updated; i.e. it is dynamic
 Repeated neuromotor routines ease processing: increasing
entrenchment
Competence varies between individuals, but not too much (we
understand each other)
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Usage-based approach
Two important characteristics:
1) no strict division between lexicon and syntax;
2) diachronic issues (as well as synchronic variation)
put back in the center of linguistic theory.
Historical linguistics and sociolinguistics not seen as separate
disciplines anymore
Weinreich, Uriel, William Labov & Marvin Herzog. 1968. Empirical
foundations for a theory of language change. In Winfried P. Lehmann &
Yakov Malkiel (eds.), Directions for Historical Linguistics: A Symposium,
95–195. Austin: University of Texas Press.
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Entrenchment
What determines degree of entrenchment?
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Usage frequency
(corpus frequencies)
Entrenchment
(online measures)
(e.g. Arnon, 2009; Bannard & Matthews, 2008; Bybee &
Scheibman, 1999; Caldwell-Harris & Morris, 2008; Ellis &
Simpson-Vlach, 2009; Tremblay, 2009)
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Usage-based approach
Applies:
To language (Langacker, Croft, Bybee, Fillmore,
Goldberg, Gries, ...)
To many other things: fashion, trends in TV series,
how to order a drink ... (e.g. Bakhtin, Stockwell)
Bybee, Joan (2010). Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Stockwell, Peter (2002). Cognitive poetics. An introduction.
London: Routledge.
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Beyond Linguistics
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Memory is not just for language
Usage-based approach to linguistic representation may
morph into usage-based approach to knowledge
representation
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Including ‘cultural knowledge’ (the ‘brought along’ of
anthropology)
Domains would include everything that requires
cognitive control
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Language = Cultural domain
Other domains where we establish routines (* =
requires communication):
Fixed
route to your office
Order a drink in a bar *
Establish a running route
Dance moves *
What to have for breakfast
Where to sit in class *
Crossing a street *
Whether or not to make stupid little jokes during a
presentation *
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Variation
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Idiolectal and group differences to be expected:
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Linguistic competence varies from person to person
This is a consequence of:
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Linguists: metathesis, codeswitching, X-bar, usage-based
model
Mechanics : ….
That knowledge is usage-based
Our differing lives
Requires synchronic and diachronic perspectives
combined
Synchrony and diachrony in general linguistics
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Descriptive linguistics: tends to be strictly synchronic
Sociolinguistics: tends to be synchronic
 If change is studied, it’s ‘change in progress’, read off
from synchronic variation
 Interactional analyses often based on agency: what is
someone doing at a particular moment in time (e.g. in a
particular communicative situation)?
Usage-based linguistics: both perspectives needed
Synchrony and diachrony: change
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Example from Dutch Turkish: the Dutch word gedoogpartner
Interference: synchronic phenomenon: first use of the word
in Turkish
Continuous selection of the ‘interference’ variant:
decreasing sense of cross-linguistic influence: increasing
entrenchment
‘Interference’ variant becomes part of the language: change
in progress: any Turkish equivalent is ousted
Endpoint: change (loanword)
Communicative factors
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Change results from selection in communication
Asymmetry influences communicative decisions
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Language choice
Choices within interaction, within utterances
Choices may be
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Intentionally creative (‘proposing’ an innovation)
Intentionally marked (propagating a change in progress)
Unintentionally propagating a change in progress, changing the
norm without knowing it
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Based on entrenchment
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Long-term: storage in memory
Short-term: priming; alignment in conversation
Propagation
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Language Change = change in what is unmarked (in what is the
norm)
Norm/Definition of ‘language’: a structured inventory of
linguistic (specific and schematic) units
Specific units equivalent to words
 Schematic units equivalent to rules
Basic hypothesis: everything is stored
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Memory traces that match current update get entrenched further
Disuse leads to decay: degree of entrenchment is lowered
Challenges:
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Does storage take place without conscious attention?
Every usage event is unique: when does it count as ‘the same’?
Describing a norm
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Serious empirical problem!
Language = inventory of linguistic units in the mind of the
speaker.
Technically, one could describe one’s complete inventory, no?
Wrong: language is a ‘moving target’. Any complete inventory, if
such were possible, would be obsolete the next second. Besides,
there is no reason to privilege that one individual.
Better to have a good theory that combines synchrony and
diachrony
Better to have a good theory that operates at a more cumulative
level: describe the common ground (conventions) that most
people (in a community) share.
Why study language contact phenomena?
The interesting thing about contact phenomena is that
they illustrate that languages change all the time, that they
are dynamic
My claims:
1.Understanding change means understanding how
competence or knowledge is formed (usage-based)
2.Understanding how knowledge is formed means
understanding normativity
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Norms and normativity
Language change =
Change in conventions = Change in norm
Interesting thing about linguistic norms: on either
side of the border of awareness (or conscious control)
(Blommaert, Jan & Ad Backus 2011). Repertoires revisited:
‘Knowing language’ in superdiversity, Working Papers in Urban
Language & Literacies Paper 67)
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Kinds of norms/yardsticks
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Individual internal norms (entrenchment)
Cumulative shared internal norms (common
ground)
(Clark, Herbert 1996. Using language. Cambridge University Press)
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External norms (‘norm’ in the everyday sense of
the word)
- often codified
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What do we have norms about?
Any behavior that’s under cognitive control
Linguistic examples:
Genre conventions (e.g. fairy tale, school/academic register,
service encounters, etc. >> cf. Clark, Bakhtin, Bourdieu)
(Briggs, Charles & Bauman, Richard (1992). Genre, intertextuality, and social
power. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2 (2): 131-172)
Syntactic
structures (jury still out?)
Whether or not it’s okay to use particular foreign word
Anything, really
Perhaps best source of evidence: expectancy violations, creativity,
discourse about correctness
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Why do we have norms?
Group cohesion, culture, being normal, to belong, ...
1.‘Soft’ mechanisms 1: Coercion, Peer pressure,
Accommodation, Admiring imitation, ‘just’ imitation
(Eckert, Penelope (2012). Three waves of variation study: The
emergence of meaning in the study of variation. Annual Review of
Anthropology, 41: 87-100)
2.‘Hard’
mechanisms: Enforcement of standards
(‘policing’)
But:
grey area between hard and soft
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What are linguistic norms like?
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Many linguistic norms are adhered to
automatically
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They are very entrenched
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Especially what’s very frequent
Deviations are more or less easily spot
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Depends on how set in stone the norm is
E.g. Ungrammatical word order, use of ain’t, expressions that
are too formal for the situation, ...
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Norms can easily be brought to attention
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Norms in contact situations
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So deviation from the norm is easy to spot
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Conscious awareness always just around the corner
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Interpreted in bilingual settings as: loss/attrition,
poor proficiency, influence from another
language (interference)
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Negative associations cause anxiety
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Judgment data
Asked Dutch Turks acceptability judgments of:
TR-Turkish piyano çalmak (‘hit’); and
NL-Turkish piyano oynamak (‘play’)
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Judgment data
Asked Dutch Turks acceptability judgments of:
TR-Turkish piyano çalmak (‘hit’); and
NL-Turkish piyano oynamak (‘play’)
And what did they say?:
It should be piyano oynamak, certainly not
piyano çalmak
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Judgment data on acceptability of NL-Turkish and TR-Turkish syntactic
constructions
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
TN
Conventional N=16
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Unconventional N=16
4
TDB
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DDB
8
Created sentences N =54
Rating scores median
Rating scores median
Corpus sentences N = 32
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
TN
Conventional N= 34
10
Unconventional N=20
2
2
TDB
10
2
5
DDB
9
3
Dutch-dominant bilinguals give:
•lower ratings to conventional Turkish sentences, and
•higher ratings to unconventional sentences.
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Linguistic external norms and purism
Deviations trigger purism.
And purism can be annoying, or harmful.
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Tariana: you get laughed at if you use a foreign word
(Aikhenvald)
Nahuatl: Hispanicized form looked at negatively; result:
people hesitate to use the language, and language dies
(Hill & Hill)
But who cares anymore about French influence on
English?
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2002. Language Contact in Amazonia. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Hill, Jane & Kenneth Hill. 1986. Speaking Mexicano. Dynamics of Syncretic
Language in Central Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
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Expressions of anxiety (1)
Since my Turkish is bad, I can’t express myself very
well in Turkish. Some words don’t come to mind. I
don’t feel comfortable when I’m talking and I get
stuck. I can explain everything in Dutch better than in
Turkish, that’s why I prefer to speak Dutch all the
time.
Backus, Ad, Derya Demirçay & Yeşim Sevinç (Forthc.) Converging
evidence on contact effects on second and third generation
Immigrant Turkish. To appear in Ad Backus, Carol W. Pfaff &
Annette Herkenrath (eds.),Turkish in Northwestern Europe versus
Turkish in Turkey. Copenhagen: Copenhagen University.
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Expressions of anxiety (2)
I feel comfortable while talking Dutch. I feel bad
when I have to speak only Turkish, I can’t
remember the words in Turkish.
(Backus, Demirçay & Sevinç forthc.)
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Expressions of anxiety (3)
Sometimes, I try to play with my cousin’s friends there
[i.e. in Turkey], and I attempt to say something but I
stop. I can’t talk most of the time, because the people
there know Turkish very well, but I don’t. And they
mostly don’t understand what I say. And it gets worse.
When I can’t explain it in Turkish, I call my mother or
father and tell them in Dutch. Then, they talk to the
people. That happens in Turkey often.
(Backus, Demirçay & Sevinç forthc.)
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What is language?
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No such thing as “a language”, as commonly understood.
Knowing Finnish is not the same as knowing all of Finnish
Language is not distinct and discreetly bounded: one’s Finnish may be full of
Swedish and English
Talking is a cognitive activity, and since it’s done in interaction it’s also a
socio-cultural activity
Relies on wide inventory of resources (conventions) and abilities
Everybody talks a bit differently
Enough similarity safeguards communication, but it’s on a cline: all
communication is ‘intercultural’ and all change is ‘contact-induced’
Abstracting away from differences and imposing artificial boundaries gives us
‘languages’: products of socialization (equally for registers)
But there are also built-in mechanisms that work towards similarity:
accommodation, alignment, need to be understood, cooperation (from Grice
to Tomasello). Result: speech communities.