28.107, Confs: Greek, Lang Acq, Ling Theories, Socioling/UK

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-107. Thu Jan 05 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.107, Confs: Greek, Lang Acq, Ling Theories, Socioling/UK

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Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2017 15:35:00
From: Evangelia Daskalaki [daskalak at ualberta.ca]
Subject: Greek as a Minority and as a Majority Language in Heritage Contexts: Theoretical, Experimental, and Sociolinguistic Perspectives

 
Greek as a Minority and as a Majority Language in Heritage Contexts: Theoretical, Experimental, and Sociolinguistic Perspectives 

Date: 07-Sep-2017 - 09-Sep-2017 
Location: London, United Kingdom 
Contact: Evangelia Daskalaki 
Contact Email: daskalak at ualberta.ca 
Meeting URL: http://icgl13.westminster.ac.uk/workshops/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition; Linguistic Theories; Sociolinguistics 

Meeting Description: 

We are pleased to announce that a workshop themed ‘Greek as a minority and as
a majority language in heritage contexts: theoretical, experimental, and
sociolinguistic perspectives’ will be held as part of the 13th International
Conference on Greek Linguistics that will take place at the University of
Westminster in 7–9 September 2017 (http://icgl13.westminster.ac.uk/).
Researchers who wish to participate are hereby invited to submit an abstract.
Below we provide a description of the workshop.

Heritage speakers (HSs) are typically understood as early bilinguals, whose
first language, the heritage language they were exposed to from birth at home,
is different from the main language of their society (Valdes, 2000; Polinsky &
Kagan, 2007, among others). Like L2 speakers, they are typically unbalanced
bilinguals. Unlike L2 speakers, though, they are typically—though not
always—weaker in their first/heritage language, that is, in the language they
acquired from their parents, siblings and wider family during their early
years of language development. The recognition of HSs as a special group of
bilinguals has given rise to a number of theoretical and experimental studies
concerning the grammatical domains in which their competence and performance
diverge from that of monolingual native speakers or L2 speakers, as well as
the possible sources of the observed diverging performances (Benmamoun et al.
2013a, 2013b; Montrul, 2016; Rothman 2009; Scontras et al. 2015). More
recently, sociolinguistically-oriented studies have also begun to emerge
showing very intriguing disparities and seemingly conflicting results with
experimental studies even for specific linguistic phenomena (Nagy, 2015). 

Despite the fact that Greek is spoken as a heritage language by an estimated 5
million speakers outside Greece, studies on the acquisition and use of Greek
as a heritage language are still scarce. At the same time, despite the stark
increase in the number of immigrant populations in Greece, there has been
little work on heritage communities in the country, for which Greek is the
majority language. 

Conveners: 

Vicky Chondrogianni (University of Edinburgh)
Evangelia (Lila) Daskalaki (University of Alberta)
Petros Karatsareas (University of Westminster)
 

Call for Papers:

Our workshop aims at addressing these two gaps while at the same time
contributing to the study of HSs more widely. To this end, we invite abstracts
focusing on Greek as a minority and/or majority language in heritage contexts
that address, but are not limited to, the following questions:

- To what extent and in which linguistic areas do Greek heritage speakers’
competence and/or performance differ from or are similar to that of
monolinguals and/or L2 speakers? 
- Does Heritage Greek replicate the patterns observed in other heritage
languages (e.g. simplification of inflectional morphology, overuse of overt
pronominal Subjects and of SVO, loss of grammatical gender distinctions)? What
is the role of the language properties of the dominant language on heritage
language acquisition? 
- How do language-internal factors (such as the interface status of the target
structures) and language-external factors (such as input factors and the age
of onset to the dominant language) influence the outcome of heritage language
acquisition? 
- What is the role of social and individual factors (socio-economic status,
attitudes, motivation) in heritage language acquisition and maintenance? 
- What is the relationship between comprehension and production in heritage
speakers and how do the two different modalities contribute to the
characterisation of the heritage speakers’ linguistic system? 
- What are the benefits from combining experimental and sociolinguistic
methods in the study of heritage languages?

Abstract submission:

Those who wish to participate in ICGL13 with a presentation are invited to
submit two copies of their abstracts (one anonymous and one signed) by 15
January 2017 to the following electronic address:
http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/ICGL13. On the abstract submission page, log
in to the submission system and start the submission process. An e-mail
confirmation of receipt of abstract will be sent to you immediately. Your text
should be 300 words maximum (including references, if any). Do not use any
special fonts, such as bold print or caps. Do not add tables, photos, or
diagrams to your abstract. Do not indent your paragraphs, leave one space
between paragraphs instead.

Each participant is entitled to submit only one (single or joint) abstract,
whether for an oral presentation to the main conference or for a workshop, or
whether for a poster presentation, either as a single author or as a
co-author. In exceptional circumstances a single and a joint abstract by the
same author might be allowed- please contact the Organising Committee for
further details. Papers may be presented either in Greek or in English and
should be 20 minutes long followed by a 10-minute discussion.

Notification of acceptance will be sent by 15 April 2017.





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