The study of grammatical variation in language mixing has been at the core of research into bilingual language practices. Although various motivations have been proposed in the literature to account for possible mixing patterns, some of them are either controversial, or remain untested. Little is still known about whether and how frequency of use of linguistic elements can contribute to the patterning of bilingual talk. This book is the first to systematically explore the factor usage frequency in a corpus of bilingual speech. The two aims are (i) to describe and analyze the variation in mixing patterns in the speech of Russia German adolescents and young adults in Germany, and (ii) to propose and test usage-based explanations of variation in mixing patterns in three morphosyntactic contexts: the adjective-modified noun phrase, the prepositional phrase, and the plural marking of German noun insertions in bilingual sentences. In these contexts, German noun insertions combine with either Russian or German words and grammatical markers, thus yielding mixed bilingual and German monolingual constituents in otherwise Russian sentences, the latter also labelled as embedded-language islands. The results suggest that the frequency with which words are used together mediates the distribution of mixing patterns in each of the examined contexts. The differing impacts of co-occurrence frequency are attributed to the distributional and semantic specifics of the analyzed morphosyntactic configurations. Lexical frequency has been found to be another important determinant in this variation. Other factors include recency, or lexical priming, in discourse in the case of prepositional phrases, and phonological and structural similarities and differences in the inflectional systems of the contact languages in the case of plural marking.

Mixing Two Languages: French-Dutch Contact in a Comparative Perspective (Topics in Sociolinguistics, 9).

The Mbugu (or Ma'á) language (Tanzania) is one of the few genuine mixed languages, reputedly combining Bantu grammar with Cushitic vocabulary. In fact the people speak two languages: one mixed and one closely related to the Bantu language Pare. This book is the first comprehensive description of these languages. It shows that these two languages share one grammar while their lexicon is parallel. In the distant past the people shifted from a Cushitic to a Bantu language and in the process rebuilt a language of their own that expresses their separate ethnic identity in a Bantu environment. This linguistic history is explained in the context of the intricate history of the people. The discussion of the processes that were involved in the formation of Ma'a/Mbugu is extremely relevant for both creole studies and for contact linguistics in general.

This book provides an in depth analysis of the different ways in which bilingual speakers switch from one language to another in the course of conversation. This phenomenon, known as code-mixing or code-switching, takes many forms. Pieter Muysken adopts a comparative approach to distinguish between the different types of code-mixing, drawing on a wealth of data from bilingual settings throughout the world. His study identifies three fundamental and distinct patterns of mixing - 'insertion', 'alternation' and 'congruent lexicalization' - and sets out to discover whether the choice of a particular mixing strategy depends on the contrasting grammatical properties of the languages involved, the degree of bilingual competence of the speaker or various social factors. The book synthesizes a vast array of recent research in a rapidly growing field of study which has much to reveal about the structure and function of language.

'Bringing up a Bilingual Child' is aimed at (existing or soon-to-be) parents in families where more than one language is spoken, as well as anyone in the extended circle of family and friend of such multilingual families, as well as for anyone coming into contact with them. The aim of the book is to help multilingual families to create a supportive environment for children in which they naturally grow up to speak more than one language. The intention is to give you an easy-to-read-and-use guide to multilingual parenting, providing motivation, ideas, advice and answers to any questions parents may have.