Joseph H. Silverman

Bio: Joseph H. Silverman is an academic researcher from University of California, Santa Cruz. The author has contributed to research in topics: Ballad & Oral tradition. The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 51 publications receiving 145 citations.

Linguistic constraints on intrasentential code-switching: A study of Spanish/Hebrew bilingualism*

Abstract: In recent years, research has increasingly pointed toward the universality of three linguistic constraints on code-switching: (1) an equivalence of structure constraint, (2) a size-of-constituent constraint, and (3) a free morpheme constraint. The evidence derived from this study challenges the universality of the first two of these constraints, and argues instead that their claim to universality is largely a function of the coincidental relative similarity in the syntactic structure of Spanish and English, the two languages upon which most code-switching studies have been based. The present study breaks out of the Spanish-English mold and draws upon data from a language contact situation in which the two languages are syntactically very different from each other, namely, Spanish and Hebrew. The evidence presented also challenges the frequently made assertion that type of code-switching, namely, intra- versus intersentential code-switching, is correlated with degree of bilingualism of the speaker. Finally, the evidence suggests that intrasentential code-switching ability cannot, as some have argued, universally be considered a measure of bilingualism nor a mark of the balanced bilingual. (Code-switching, Spanish, Hebrew, bilingualism, syntactic constraints)

Hybridity in the Fourteenth-century Esther Poems of Israel Caslari

Abstract: The Scroll of Esther, one of the quintessential texts of post-exilic Jewish salvation, was particularly beloved in the European Middle Ages, when the narrative served as a model for redemption from persecution and as a reminder of the threat of expulsion which was part of everyday Jewish life. Among its many medieval adaptations is a pair of texts written by Israel ben Joseph Caslari, a fourteenth-century Jewish physician, living in Papal-ruled Avignon. Israel’s retellings of the Purim story are expanded and heavily embellished with material from talmudic and apocryphal sources, medieval medicine and philosophy, and references to popular culture. He composed his first version composed in Judéo-Provençal, the southern French vernacular written in Hebrew characters; the second in Hebrew, not a translation, but an adaptation of its predecessor. As individual works, each is a rich intertextual landscape which offers a view into its socio-religious setting and reflects the meeting and melding of cultural influences. If one considers them together, this encounter becomes even more pronounced: the two versions come into conversation, embodying the tensions of their milieu, and of their author, a Jewish intellectual in a Christian-dominated