LANGUAGE USE, LANGUAGE CHANGE AND INNOVATION IN NORTHERN BELIZE CONTACT SPANISH By OSMER EDER BALAM A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2016 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the guidance and support from many people, who have been instrumental since the inception of this seminal project on contact Spanish outcomes in Northern Belize. First and foremost, I am thankful to Dr. Mary Montavon and Prof. Usha Lakshmanan, who were of great inspiration to me at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Thank you for always believing in me and motivating me to pursue a PhD. This achievement is in many ways also yours, as your educational ideologies have profoundly influenced me as a researcher and educator. I am indebted to my committee members, whose guidance and feedback were integral to this project. In particular, I am thankful to my adviser Dr. Gillian Lord, whose energy and investment in my education and research were vital for the completion of this dissertation. I am also grateful to Dr. Ana de Prada Pérez, whose assistance in the statistical analyses was invaluable to this project. I am thankful to my other committee members, Dr. Benjamin Hebblethwaite, Dr. Ratree Wayland, and Dr. Brent Henderson, for their valuable and insighful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to scholars who have directly or indirectly contributed to or inspired my work in Northern Belize. These researchers include: Usha Lakshmanan, Ad Backus, Jacqueline Toribio, Mark Sebba, Pieter Muysken, Penelope Gardner- Chloros, and Naomi Lapidus Shin. A special thanks to Christine Kray, who generously shared interview transcripts from interviews she conducted with third and fourth generation descendants from San José Yalbac in 2005. I am grateful to Dámaris Mayans, my friend and colleague, whose presence has been a blessing and inspiration to me. I am forever indebted to your friendship and your support in my research endeavors. My humble gratitude also goes out to Dr. Michael A. Claudio, whose 2 constant support and words of advice during the past five years were crucial to my scholarly accomplishments. ¡Mil gracias Claudio! Next, I would like to thank my parents for their faith in my dreams and for their prayers. I am especially thankful to my sister Ruby who, in the process of data collection, became my research assistant. I am grateful to Mr. Alejandro Pérez, from the Government of Belize, whose assistance in the data collection process was fundamental to this dissertation as well. Last but not least, I am indebted to the consultants of the present dissertation, the protagonists of this project, who gave me an opportunity to read and learn more not only about linguistic aspects of Northern Belizean Spanish and Northern Belize bi/multilingual code- switching, but about my people, my past and their struggles during the last century. Without their willingness to participate and their willingness to help me recruit other participants, this dissertation would not have been possible. ¡Muchas Gracias! Dios bo’otik! 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................2 LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................................8 LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................10 ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................12 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................14 1.1 Overview ...........................................................................................................................14 1.2 The Sociolinguistic Context: Northern Belize ..................................................................16 1.2.1 Northern Belize: Demographic and Linguistic Profile ...........................................16 1.2.2 History of Contact Spanish and Bi/Multilingualism in Northern Belize ...............22 1.3 Language Attitudes and Identity in Northern Belize ........................................................36 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND........................................................................................45 2.1 Defining Code-Switching .................................................................................................45 2.2 Opposing Views of Code-Switching ................................................................................47 2.2.1 The Dominant View of Code-Switching ................................................................47 2.2.2 Criticisms of CS as the Combination of Grammars or Lexicons ...........................52 2.2.3 Code-Switching and Convergence .........................................................................56 2.3 Approaches in the Grammatical Analysis of Code-Switching .........................................59 2.3.1 Bilingual Speech Typology ....................................................................................63 2.3.2 Myers-Scotton’s The Matrix Language Frame (MLF) Model ...............................69 2.3.3 Minimalist Approach to Code-Switching ...............................................................76 2.4 The Debate on Social versus Linguistic Factors...............................................................81 2.5 Situating the Northern Belize Context ..............................................................................89 2.5.1 Research Questions ................................................................................................94 2.5.2 Structure of the Dissertation ...................................................................................95 3 THE INTERVOCALIC RHOTIC CONTRAST IN NORTHERN BELIZEAN SPANISH ................................................................................................................................97 3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................97 3.2 Intervocalic Rhotic Contrast(s) and Neutralization in Spanish Varieties .........................99 3.3 Previous Work ................................................................................................................106 3.3.1 Rhotic Distribution in Spanish Bidialectal Contexts ............................................106 3.3.2 Studies on the Intervocalic Tap/Trill Contrast .....................................................109 3.4 Methodology ...................................................................................................................113 3.4.1 Participants ...........................................................................................................113 4 3.4.2 Tasks .....................................................................................................................115 3.4.3 Procedure ..............................................................................................................117 3.5 Results.............................................................................................................................119 3.5.1 Rhotics in Northern Belizean Spanish ..................................................................119 3.5.2 Neutralization of the NBS Intervocalic Rhotic Contrast ......................................125 3.5.2.1 Elicited oral production........................................................................... 125 3.5.2.2 Read-aloud .............................................................................................. 129 3.6 Discussion .......................................................................................................................138 3.6.1 A Closer Look at Task Type and Phonetic Outcomes .........................................138 3.6.2 Social-indexical Factors in Northern Belize .........................................................142 3.7 Concluding Remarks ......................................................................................................147 3.8 Limitations ......................................................................................................................147 4 BILINGUAL LIGHT VERB CONSTRUCTIONS ..............................................................149 4.1 Introduction .....................................................................................................................149 4.2 Bilingual Light Verb Constructions................................................................................150 4.3 Bilingual Light Verb Constructions in Spanish Contact Situations ...............................158 4.3.1 Verb Frequency and Stativity ...............................................................................158 4.3.2 Passivization .........................................................................................................163 4.4 Study 1 Methodology: Verb Frequency and Stativity ....................................................166 4.4.1 Consultants ...........................................................................................................167 4.4.2 Data .......................................................................................................................169