Dialect contact and language change in an Italian dialect abroad

Abstract

This paper focuses on dialectal variation due to the contact with other dialects in a migratory context. This is carried out through the comparison of a group of return migrants in the Irpine town of Montefalcione and a group of migrants born and raised in the English town of Bedford. Both the forms of rhoticity in the Latin double lateral alveolar sound -LL- and the retention of the labiovelar approximant [w] in the secondary consonant cluster [kw] in the case of the Italian demonstrative quello ‘that’ and in the adverb kwa ‘here’ were analysed in a sociolinguistic perspective.