Castilian transcodic markers in Internet Catalan: Analysis of generic, regional and linguistic factors

This dissertation is a study of Castilian transcodic markers in the Catalan written on the Internet. Thirty Castilian transcodic markers representing five categories were run through the interface of the Corpus d'Us del Catala a la Web (CucWeb) to collect information in order to conduct both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The major research questions to be answered deal with the absolute and relative frequencies of these transcodic markers in the CucWeb and the factors behind the production of these non-standard forms. In addition to the frequency of the Castilian transcodic markers in the CucWeb, the initial study provides qualitative analysis of the thirty transcodic markers that highlight patterns of usage. The second investigation consists of ten case studies that utilize multivariate analysis to determine the generic, regional, and linguistic factors behind the usage of these selected transcodic markers.;The results of the study indicate that the overall relative frequency of these thirty transcodic markers is low, although the range is wide. Some transcodic markers do occur at a higher frequency than the prescriptive terms; however, the terms that demonstrate higher relative frequencies consistently show low absolute frequencies. Certain transcodic makers, nouns that show semantic extension, occur at higher relative frequencies when collocated with certain adjectives, indicating a degree of grammaticalization or lexical priming. In the case studies, genre was determined to be a statistically significant factor in the production of four transcodic markers. Region was found to be a significant factor in five case studies, although both region and genre were found to be factors in the production of only two transcodic markers. Three case studies determined only linguistic factors to be statistically significant. These results indicate that there are generic, regional, and linguistic factors behind the occurrence of Castilian transcodic markers in Internet Catalan, although not all of these factors are significant in every case. Individual analysis of specific transcodic markers shows evidence that Catalan is resisting Castilian influence in some cases, but adapting Castilian forms in others.