Give an approximate year range.
This question and question OT1 (P2) guide the respondent into thinking about the time frame of contact between the Focus Group and Neighbour Group. Ideally, in order to test for linguistic adaptation, one would want to know about the contact situation before present; it is the past that is likely to have provided the right sociohistorical context for changes in language structures to occur.
In this question we are asking about the general duration of contact in the domain in question. Here we will leave aside the question of whether the contact was intense/significant/meaningul, and focus on whether contact was occuring in some form for some duration.
Since it is difficult to generalise across the time-depth of contact scenarios worldwide, in this questionnaire we refrain from establishing any a priori chronological cut-off points for the contact situations we study. Instead, we aim to study the relevance of time bottom-up, that is, by asking respondents to (a) make an assessment of the duration of contact between Focus Group and Neighbour Group in a given social domain (this question), and (b) identify the time frame of densest contact between Focus Group and Neighbour Group in said social domain (OT2/P3). We then request the respondent to answer the rest of the questionnaire from the perspective of this time frame. In doing so, we hope to gain an understanding of the contact situations at stake that is maximally entrenched in the specifics of their linguistic and social ecologies.
Testing for linguistic adaptation presumes an understanding of the contact situation before the present, since it is the sociohistorical context of the past which may have led to changes in language structures that are visible today. However, given the challenges in generalising across the time-depth of contact scenarios worldwide, this questionnaire refrains from establishing any a priori chronological cut-off points for the contact situations we study.
We attempt to study the relevance of time in a bottom-up fashion by asking respondents to perform two tasks.
1) To make an assessment of the duration of contact between Focus Group and Neighbour Group in a given social domain (this question); 2) To identify the time frame of densest contact between Focus Group and Neighbour Group in that social domain (P3) in the past.
Once the time frame is identified, the respondent should answer the remaining questions from this time frame's perspective, for the domain in question.
The assessment of the duration and density of contact may include the contemporary situation in the following instances:
(a) if it is the only time setting the respondent can answer for, (b) if the contemporary situation represents a continuation of contact in the past.