Phonetics vs. phonology in loanword adaptation: Revisiting the role of the bilingual
| Main author: | Chang, C. B. |
|---|---|
| Format: | Book Chapters |
| Online access: |
Click here to view record |
| id |
eprints-19108 |
|---|---|
| recordtype |
eprints |
| institution |
SOAS, University of London |
| collection |
SOAS Research Online |
| language |
English |
| language_search |
English |
| topic |
P Philology. Linguistics PE English PI Oriental languages and literatures PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania |
| description |
Following phonological and phonetic models of loanword adaptation, I present evidence from Burmese in favor of an intermediate model of loanword adaptation incorporating both language-independent phonetics and language-particular phonology. On the basis of a corpus of 200 loanword adaptations from English into Burmese, I first show that Burmese loanword adaptation involves a phonological scansion of phonemically relevant detail, as well as a phonetic scansion of phonemically irrelevant detail. These findings suggest that a model of loanword adaptation incorporating both phonetics and phonology is the most empirically sound. While loanword adaptations are indeed highly influenced by phonetic similarity, bilinguals play a leading role in adaptation, allowing the phonology of L2 to have a profound effect on adaptations in L1. The relative ranking of these phonetic and phonological considerations, then, appears to be a language-specific matter. |
| author_additional |
Berson, Sarah |
| author_additionalStr |
Berson, Sarah |
| format |
Book Chapters |
| author |
Chang, C. B. |
| author_facet |
Chang, C. B. |
| authorStr |
Chang, C. B. |
| author_letter |
Chang, C. B. |
| title |
Phonetics vs. phonology in loanword adaptation: Revisiting the role of the bilingual |
| publisher |
Berkeley Linguistics Society |
| publishDate |
2012 |
| url |
https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/19108/
|