32.336, Confs: Gen Ling, Ling Theories/Germany or Online

Wed Jan 27 17:45:11 UTC 2021

LINGUIST List: Vol-32-336. Wed Jan 27 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.336, Confs: Gen Ling, Ling Theories/Germany or Online

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Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2021 12:44:42
From: Mareike Keller [m.keller at uni-mannheim.de]
Subject: Dynamics of Language Contact: new perspectives on emerging grammars, variation and change

Dynamics of Language Contact: new perspectives on emerging grammars, variation and change 
Short Title: RUEG2021 

Date: 21-Feb-2021 - 23-Feb-2021 
Location: Berlin (Online), Germany 
Contact: Esther Jahns 
Contact Email: esther.jahns at hu-berlin.de 
Meeting URL: https://www.linguistik.hu-berlin.de/en/institut-en/professuren-en/rueg/conference2021 

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Linguistic Theories 

Meeting Description: 

In the past, language contact was often regarded as exceptional and
multilingualism was either seen as a potential problem, as reflected in
Jespersen's (1922) and similarly in Weisgerber's (1966) early assumptions that
multilingualism poses a cognitive problem, or it was neglected, as in the
structural linguistics' tradition which, beginning from Saussure (1916),
focusses on an idealized, stable, and implicitly monolingual language system,
also evident in Chomsky's (1965) notion of competence of an ideal
speaker-hearer. Accordingly, linguistic phenomena observed in language contact
situations, and linguistic practices and competences of multilingual or
bilingual speakers have mostly been the domain of specialised research, and
tend to be investigated from the point of view of deviations from monolingual
data.

While this might seem a natural way to look at it, lately there have been more
and more calls to overcome such a deficit-oriented view, feeding into a
discussion that acknowledges linguistic diversity as a normal condition of
human language, normalises multilingualism and regards bilinguals as regular
native speakers (e.g. Grosjean 2008, Bayram 2013, Rothman & Treffers-Daller
2014, Scontras et al. 2015, Guijarro-Fuentes & Schmitz 2015, Kupisch & Rothman
2016, Schroeder 2016, Bak 2017).

This moves research on language contact and multilingual speakers from the
fringes to the centre of linguistic research, and makes it fruitful for our
understanding of language structure and linguistic representations, language
use and language development.

A particularly interesting population for this is that of ''heritage
speakers'', that is, of speakers who grew up bi- or multilingually with at
least one minority language and a majority language (cf. among others Montrul
2016, Polinsky 2018, Lohndal et al. 2019 for details). This pattern supports
intense language contact in dynamic linguistic repertoires, with the heritage
language typically starting as a native language at home, while the larger
society's majority language usually becomes the speaker's dominant language
later.

The Research Unit ''Emerging grammars in language contact situations: A
comparative approach'' (RUEG;linguistik.hu-berlin.de/en/rueg) has picked up on
this with an integrated, large-scale investigation that has been driven by a
positive, multilingual perspective on heritage speakers' linguistic behaviour.
Under this perspective, we think of the dynamics, rather than vulnerability,
of different linguistic domains, of development, rather than incomplete
acquisition, and of innovation, rather than attrition and loss in heritage
speakers' languages.

This international conference marks the completion of RUEG's first
3-year-period. It aims to bring together researchers from different fields who
study the dynamics of language contact from a positive, multilingual
perspective.

International Mother Language Day
On the first day (February 21), the conference will connect with the
International Mother Language Day, focusing on educational implications for
multilingual settings, including an outreach event with heritage communities,
practitioners, and policy makers.
Invited speaker: Janet Fuller, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Program Information: 

Topic(s): Language contact, Multilingualism, Heritage Languages, Linguistic
theory, General linguistics

Our conference will have three thematic sessions dedicated to different
aspects of heritage speakers’ language production and comprehension
(“Attrition vs. Innovation”, “Transfer vs. Internal Dynamics”, and “Methods in
research on patterns outside standard language”), and a poster session. The
three thematic sessions will take place on Feb 22, 2021, and Feb 23, 2021, and
will include talks of invited speakers.

Invited speakers:
- Ad Backus (Tilburg University)
- Tanja Kupisch (Universität Konstanz)
- Maria M. Piñango (Yale University)
- Anatol Stefanowitsch (Freie Universität Berlin)

On the first day, Feb 21, 2021, the conference will connect with the
“International Mother Language Day”, focusing on educational implications for
multilingual settings. This opening session will include a live talk by
another invited speaker, Janet Fuller (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), followed
by a discussion.

The full program of the workshop is available on our website at
https://www.linguistik.hu-berlin.de/en/rueg/conference2021.

If you want to attend the conference as a guest (free of charge), please
register by e-mail until Feb 18, 2021. Contact for registration:
annika.labrenz at hu-berlin.de.

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