The role of social meaning in contact‐induced variation among new speakers of Basque

Abstract

AbstractThis study examines the variable use and the social meaning of a contact‐induced phenomenon in Basque, Differential Object Marking, to explain the emergence of new variation in a minoritized language situation. The spontaneous speech of 77 Basque–Spanish bilinguals was analyzed and compared to the perception results obtained from a matched‐guise experiment. I situate this analysis using emergent participant self‐identification categories that lie along a continuum of Basque speaker authenticity. Production results show that DOM use increases according to a speaker's self‐ascribed authenticity, but the matched‐guise analyses indicate that some DOM uses may undermine the speaker's perceived authenticity. I discuss the ideological multiplicity of DOM within its semiotic landscape and consider practice‐based approaches to variation in explaining this paradox. The evidence lends support for social meaning‐based accounts of variation that also consider speakerhood as an agentive process, and it additionally challenges models that directly correlate language use to acts of identity.