The road to fusion: The evolution of bilingual speech across three generations of speakers in Gibraltar

Abstract

Aims and objectives:

This article analyses English–Spanish code-mixing in Gibraltar. I describe the distribution of clause-peripheral alternation patterns in order to demonstrate that there is a correlation between single age-groups and particular types of bilingual patterns. This is interpreted as a case of fusion.

Methodology:

By seeking a correlation between age groups and particular instances of bilingual speech, this study adopts an apparent-time perspective. Furthermore, it tries to combine the quantitative methodology adopted in sociolinguistic studies with the theoretical tools of the sociology of language that are involved in the description of linguistic repertoires. This provides an important key for the interpretation of fusion in this scenario.

Data and analysis:

The study was based on a corpus of nearly 20 h of interviews with bilingual speakers belonging to three age-groups. After identifying three qualitatively different bilingual patterns, which mainly differed in the presence or absence of pragmatic functions, I took into account their distribution across age groups.

Findings and conclusions:

The results showed that elderly speakers were associated with pragmatically motivated code-switching, while younger speakers were associated with cases of single-word peripheral switches that were not related to any discourse- or participant-related function. This may be interpreted as incipient fusion in the periphery of the clause, possibly determined by recent changes in the linguistic repertoire.

Originality:

This is the first study to have applied the fusion framework to the case of Gibraltar and is also one of the few that has analysed code-mixing in this scenario from a quantitative corpus-based perspective.

Significance:

The data presented here shed new light on the early stages of the fusion process, highlighting the correlation between the onset of this phenomenon and macro-sociolinguistic processes involving the community.

Keywords

Gibraltar English Spanish fusion clause periphery discourse markers

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