34.2786, Calls: Construction Grammar meets Sociolinguistics

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-34-2786. Fri Sep 22 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.2786, Calls: Construction Grammar meets Sociolinguistics

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Date: 22-Sep-2023
From: Lotte Sommerer [lotte.sommerer at anglistik.uni-freiburg.de]
Subject: Construction Grammar Meets Sociolinguistics


Full Title: Construction Grammar meets Sociolinguistics

Date: 21-Aug-2024 - 24-Aug-2024
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact Person: Lotte Sommerer
Meeting Email: lotte.sommerer at anglistik.uni-freiburg.de

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics

Call Deadline: 13-Nov-2023

Meeting Description:

This workshop tries to bring together usage-based Construction Grammar
(CxG) and sociolinguistic research and its methodology. In general,
CxG stresses that language is an emergent complex adaptive system
(Diessel 2019) with a socio-cognitive basis and “must be understood in
its interaction between social and cognitive exigencies” (Schmid
2020:10; Harder 2010). Moreover, it is argued that linguistic
knowledge is best conceptualized in the form of constructions, i.e.
symbolic form-meaning pairings which directly map form (phonetic and
syntactic code) onto function (conventionalized semantic and
discourse-pragmatic knowledge) (Fillmore 1999; Croft 2001; Goldberg
2006). In more recent definitions it is explicitly stated that the
meaning side of constructions also includes social information; e.g.
knowledge about genre and style conventions, dialectal/sociolectal
information (Hoffmann 2022; Ungerer & Hartmann 2023).

We argue that this sociolinguistic component has not yet been
integrated sufficiently into current CxG research. Although the
connection between Sociolinguistics and Cognitive Linguistics has
already been established in the form of ‘Cognitive Sociolinguistics’
(e.g. Geeraerts, Kristiansen & Peirsman 2010; Kristiansen et al 2022)
and although papers have been published on constructional issues (e.g.
Hollmann 2013, Kerz & Wiechmann 2015; Vieira & Wiedemer 2019; Morin,
Desagulier & Grieve 2020; Röthlisberger & Tagliamonte 2021; Soukup
2022; Szmrecsanyi & Engel 2022), we see room for a more thorough
investigation of how to integrate sociolinguistic aspects when a)
discussing constructional variation, spread and change b) sketching
network relations in the constructicon and c) postulating individual
constructional templates.

We situate sociolinguistic variation at various scales of social
organization. The traditional Labovian study of variation and change
is concerned with relationships among the linguistic systems of
different strata of a given speaker population, finding “orderly
heterogeneity” (Weinreich et al. 1968) along demographic lines such as
age, gender, and socio-economic status. More recent approaches have
placed greater emphasis on identity and social meaning in context
(Bucholtz & Hall 2008; Eckert 2012). A central theoretical concept in
this regard is indexicality and the organization of meaning potentials
in an “indexical field” (Eckert 2008). Finally, our understanding of
sociolinguistic variation also encompasses register, both as
conceptualized by Agha (2007) and Biber (1988).

This leads to the following research questions:

•       How, how much and what kind of sociolinguistic knowledge
should be integrated into constructional templates and network
sketches?
•       How does one cater for the fact that there are different
levels of conventionalization (regional, social, etc.)? How does this
map onto a network sketch of the constructicon of a particular
language?
•       How should CxG deal with sociophonetic knowledge/variation?
•       How are indexical presupposition and entailment to be
integrated into constructional representations?
•       How can the notion of an indexical field be incorporated into
constructional accounts, i.e. the idea that many linguistic forms come
with a range of meaning potentials, none of which is necessarily
actualized in any given instance of use?
•       How can register-sensitive language use be addressed
theoretically in variationist and constructional terms?
•       In what ways do the data (sociolinguistic interviews and
qualitative-ethnographic contextualization versus large corpora and
controlled experiments) and methods of statistical analysis
(mixed-effects regressions versus association measures) influence the
results to be gained in the two fields and is there potential for
mutual cross-fertilization at the methodological level? Where do
methodologies clash?

We welcome papers which explicitly relate their presented empirical
data and line of argumentation to the RQs above.

Call for Papers:

The workshop (approx. 12-13 papers) will start with an introduction by
the organizers and will be concluded with a final discussion. For our
workshop proposal, we are soliciting abstracts of 300 words (excluding
references). Abstracts should be emailed to
lotte.sommerer at anglistik.uni-freiburg.de and
axel.bohmann at anglistik.uni-freiburg.de by the 13th of November 2023.
Acceptance will be based on the quality and fit of the abstracts.
After the workshop proposal has been accepted by the SLE, all the
preliminary workshop participants must submit their extended abstracts
again to EasyChair before 15 January 2024. For further questions and a
more detailed workshop description including all references see the
SLE homepage (https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2024) or contact one
of us.

Kind regards, Lotte Sommerer & Axel Bohmann (both University of
Freiburg)

Selected References:

Agha, Asif. 2007. Language and social relations. Cambridge: CUP.
Biber, Douglas. 1988. Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge:
CUP.
Bucholtz, Mary & Kira Hall (2008). All of the above: New coalitions in
sociocultural linguistics. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(4), 410–431.
Diessel, Holger. (2019). The grammar network. How linguistic structure
is shaped by language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eckert, Penelope. (2008). Variation and the indexical field. Journal
of Sociolinguistics 12(4), 453–476.
Eckert, Penelope. (2012). Three waves of variation Study: The
Emergence of meaning in the study of sociolinguistic variation. Annual
Review of Anthropology 41(1), 87–100.
Geeraerts, Dirk, Gitte Kristiansen, & Yves Peirsman (2010). Advances
in Cognitive Sociolinguistics. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Harder, Peter (2010). Meaning in mind and society. A functional
contribution to the social turn in Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin and
New York: De Gruyter Mouton.
Ungerer, Tobias & Stefan Hartmann. (2023). Constructionist approaches:
past, present, future. Cambridge: CUP.
Schmid, Hans-Jörg. (2020). The dynamics of the linguistic system.
Usage, conventionalization, and entrenchment. Oxford: OUP.
Kerz, Elma & Daniel Wiechmann. 2015. Register-contingent entrenchment
of constructional patterns: Causal and concessive adverbial clauses in
academic and newspaper writing. Journal of English Linguistics 43(1),
61–85.
Kristiansen, Gitte, Karlien Franco, Stefano De Pascale, Laura Rosseel
& Weiwei Zhang. (2022). Cognitive Sociolinguistics revisited, Berlin,
Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
Morin, Cameron, Guillaume Desagulier & Jack Grieve. (2020). Dialect
syntax in Construction Grammar: theoretical benefits of a
constructionist approach to double modals in English. In Colleman,
Timothy, et al (eds.), The wealth and breadth of construction-based
research, Belgian Journal of Linguistics 34, Amsterdam: John
Benjamins, 248–58.
Hollmann Willem B. (2013). Constructions in Cognitive
Sociolinguistics. In Thomas Hoffmann & Graeme Trousdale (eds.), The
Oxford handbook of construction grammar. Oxford: OUP, 491-510.
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt & Alexandra Engel (2022). Register variation in
a cognitive (Socio)linguistics perspective. In Gitte Kristiansen, et
al (eds.), Cognitive Sociolinguistics revisited. Berlin, Boston: De
Gruyter Mouton, 398-409.
Soukup, Barbara. (2022). Speaker design goes Construction Grammar. In
Gitte Kristiansen, Karlien Franco, Stefano De Pascale, Laura Rosseel
and Weiwei Zhang (eds.), Cognitive Sociolinguistics revisited. Berlin,
Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 621-632.
Röthlisberger, Melanie & Sally Tagliamonte (2020). The social
embedding of a syntactic alternation: Variable particle placement in
Ontario English. Language Variation and Change, 32(3), 317–348.
Vieira, Marcia & Marcos Luiz Wiedemer (2019). Variationist
Sociolinguistics and Construction Grammar: the challenges and the
prospects of compatibilization. In Dimensões e experiências em
sociolinguística. São Paulo: Blucher, 121–128.



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