Speaking Greek in Diaspora: language contact and language change

Abstract

This paper discusses a sociollinguistic project on language contact as a mechanism of cultural interaction and inter-ethnic communication. The focal points are the Greek language and the contact-induced changes in Greek, as a minority language under pressure from the dominant language in different socio-cultural and geographic environments, concentrating mainly on Australia and Argentina. This study critically overviews and assesses the structure and use of Greek in Diaspora in the aforementioned sociolinguistic environments, monitoring and evaluating the mechanisms of change under differential conditions and sources of influence. The paper also provides the theoretical perspective and a comprehensive book review on issues of transference and contrastive linguistics with emphasis on languages and dialects in contact. The article also identifies the effects of language contact in the areas of phonology, lexicon, morphology, syntax and pragmatic phenomena from a pluricentric perspective describing the methodological approaches and the mechanisms of analysis.