Ad hoc contact phenomena or established features of a contact variety?

This contribution deals with the possibilities of distinguishing features of an established contact variety from singly occurring, transient elements using a corpus-based approach. It emphasizes the potential that lies in including different language registers (informal spoken language and formal written language) in the analysis of language contact, and hypothesizes that the register-specific establishment of contact phenomena is possible. This is shown through the 
example of Danish as it is used on the Faroe Islands, represented by the only two existing digitized and annotated corpora that reflect the bilingualism on the Faroe Islands.

Published online: 15 November 2012
https://doi.org/10.1075/hsm.14.14kuh