CFP: Language Contact: The State of the Art

[Seppo Kittil ä]

Dear Colleagues,

I was asked to forward the CFP below to Funknet. Apologies for  
multiple postings.

All the best wishes,
Seppo

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Meeting Description:

The Linguistic Association of Finland, Helsinki Area & Language  
Studies and the CROSSLING research network organize  together a  
symposium on Language Contact: The State of the Art in Helsinki,  
August 28-30, 2014.

The confirmed invited speakers of the symposium are:

Prof. Ad Backus (Tilburg University)
Dr. Petri Kallio (University of Helsinki)
Prof. Marianne Mithun (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Contact linguistics is a field of study which investigates various  
phenomena relating to the encounters between two or more languages or  
varieties and their speakers both in the past and the present. Its  
core is in historical linguistics, but it interfaces with several  
other fields of study, e.g. sociolinguistics, the study of bi- and  
multilingualism and the study of second language acquisition. In  
addition, its research topics intersect with psychology, sociology and  
anthropology, which are also interested in the processes and effects  
of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural encounters.

2nd Call for Papers:

Language Contact: The State of the Art
Helsinki, August 28-30, 2014

The goal of this symposium is to bring together linguists from  
different fields of study to discuss current developments and  
challenges in language contact research, whether in the past or the  
present. We encourage sociolinguistic papers relating to the processes  
and effects of language contact and papers advancing the  
psycholinguistic study of cross-linguistic influence in multilingual  
individuals. Papers investigating contact-induced language change and  
variation are equally welcome. The contact settings that are explored  
in the papers may range, e.g. from societal to individual  
multilingualism, from second language acquisition to first language  
attrition, from marriage to migration, and from military conflicts to  
institutional multilingualism. In sum, the symposium aims to offer a  
thematically broad forum for scholars interested in combining and  
learning about the viewpoints of various fields in the study of the  
multifaceted phenomenon of language contact.

Possible topics for talks may relate to (but are not restricted to)  
the following:

- The challenges of interdisciplinary research in historical linguistics
- Current developments in the study of contact-induced grammaticalization
  - Current issues in the study of lexical borrowing and code-switching
  - Collaboration between different fields of study, e.g. how  
historical linguistics can profit from the study of ongoing language  
contacts
  - Interfaces between the study of second language acquisition and  
societal language contact
  - Current developments in the study of the so far rather  
under-explored modes of language contact, e.g. translating,  
interpreting or the ways in which writing or written discourse behave  
in language contact situations
  - Language contact and first language attrition
  - Methodological issues in the investigation of historical multilingualism
- The mechanisms of interference/cross-linguistic influence
  - New developments in the study of contact languages, pidgins and creoles
  - Language contacts in urban super-diverse settings in the past and  
the present
  - Language policy and language ideology: ideological aspects of  
language contact

Please submit your abstract (max 500 words) by March 2, 2014 by:  
http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/contact-2014.

For further information please see: http://www.linguistics.fi/contact/.

For all correspondence concerning the symposium, please contact:  
contact-2014 at helsinki.fi.