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Linguistic borrowing in bilingual contexts.

Article Excerpt
Linguistic borrowing in bilingual contexts. By FREDRIC W. FIELD. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2002. Pp. 255. Hardback $92.00.

In Linguistic borrowing in bilingual contexts, Fredric W. Field presents in-depth discussions of the results of language contact, such as lexical borrowing, code-switching, language change, attrition, and convergence, providing the basis for an extremely well-informed study of linguistic borrowing. The data in which borrowing is analyzed are taken from Malinche Mexicano--the descendant of Classical Nahuatl, which was the dominant language of Mexico and Central America prior to the arrival of the Spanish-speaking colonizers. The first four chapters of the book provide convincing explanations for different types of borrowing, Chapter Five draws on the proposed explanations in a study of Mexicano, and Chapter Six thoughtfully discusses the issues raised by Field's proposals and subsequent analysis.

In the Introduction, the author makes clear that his study is primarily concerned with how form and meaning sets from a lexical donor language are integrated into a recipient language, which is his definition of borrowing. He discusses the social and linguistic factors in borrowing and discusses borrowing as bilingual performance. As Mexicano appears to be a mixed language, i.e., one that has arisen from more than one source language, its definition deserves special attention. F begins with the definition of Bakker and Mous (1994:5) which specifies the admixtures of morphology, lexicon, and syntax involved, then presents that of Weinreich (1968), citing Rosetti (1945/49), 'the interpenetration of two morphologies' (13). F's own exacting definition is a synthesis of...

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