ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the theoretical and practical considerations that enter into creating the lexical borrowing database. The chapter is divided into three parts. It begins with a historical view of the notion of lexical borrowing and argues that the conceptual baggage that attends diachronic views of borrowing should be eschewed in synchronic studies of bilingual mixed speech. In making this point, three of the most popular frameworks for examining lexical contact phenomena are examined. Of particular relevance in this review is how lexical contact phenomena are defined and operationalized in each, and the unsuitability of such operationalizations for the current investigation. Finally, the method used in the present study for distinguishing between borrowing and codeswitching, including the theoretical underpinnings and justification for choices, is laid out in detail, and in contrast to methods used by others. In particular, the current study espouses a borrowing and codeswitching distinction that is grounded in the community’s employment of particular syntactic configurations of English-origin phrases. Theoretically grounded protocols for data classification in particularly recalcitrant or ambiguous cases are provided.
