27.3478, Calls: Historical Ling, Lang Acq, Psycholing, Socioling/USA

Fri Sep 2 18:46:42 UTC 2016

LINGUIST List: Vol-27-3478. Fri Sep 02 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.3478, Calls: Historical Ling, Lang Acq, Psycholing, Socioling/USA

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Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 14:46:19
From: Jonathan Kasstan [j.kasstan at qmul.ac.uk]
Subject: New Historical Perspectives on Non-Dominant Speakers as Agents of Contact-Induced Language Change

Full Title: New Historical Perspectives on Non-Dominant Speakers as Agents of Contact-Induced Language Change 

Date: 04-Aug-2016 - 04-Aug-2017
Location: San Antonio, Texas, USA 
Contact Person: Petros Karatsareas
Meeting Email: P.Karatsareas at westminster.ac.uk
Web Site: http://ichl23.utsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Workshop-New-Historical-Perspectives-on-Non-Dominant-Speakers.pdf 

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Language Acquisition; Psycholinguistics; Sociolinguistics 

Call Deadline: 01-Dec-2016 

Meeting Description:

Since the publication of Weinreich’s (1953) seminal work, the accepted view in
the study of language change has been that contact-induced innovations are
introduced into a given language by bi-/multilingual speakers, that is,
speakers who have competence in two or more linguistic systems. It is now
well-known that bi-/multilinguals may allow for one of their languages to
influence the lexicon and/or the grammar of their other language(s) or, put
differently, for one of their languages to borrow lexical and/or grammatical
material and patterns from their other languages (this has variably been
referred to as ‘interference’ or ‘transfer’, after Weinreich, 1953). Given the
right sociolinguistic circumstances, borrowings can subsequently spread not
only among other bi-/multilingual speakers but also among monolingual speakers
of the language undergoing the change (Moravcsik, 1978; Thomason & Kaufman,
1988; Fisiak, 1995; Aikhenvald & Dixon, 2001, 2006; Field, 2002; Johanson,
2002; Jones & Esch, 2002; Myers-Scotton, 2002; Clyne, 2003; Winford, 2003;
Heine & Kuteva, 2005; Matras & Sakel, 2007; Matras, 2009; Hickey, 2010).

In spite of its fundamental importance in the study of contact-induced
language change, the very notion of bi-/multilingual speaker remains
inadequately incorporated into most theories that have been developed to date.
With a few notable exceptions (van Coetsem, 1998, 2000; Winford, 2005; Matras,
2009), many frameworks seem to use the term in a surprisingly loose manner and
in its most basic sense (i.e. as someone who speaks two/many languages). This
approach, however, does not profit from recent psycholinguistic research which
highlights the multitude of different linguistic outcomes that
bi-/multilingual acquisition (including attrition) can have. This recent
research has also shown that different types of bi-/multilingual speakers can
result from the interplay of such factors as the order in which the two (or
more) languages are acquired, the age of acquisition in each language, and the
amount and type of input that speakers receive in each language, all of which
can vary in different sociolinguistic settings of bi-/multilingualism:
simultaneous child bilinguals, sequential child bilinguals, adult L2 learners,
child L2 learners, heritage speakers, L1 attriters (e.g. Li, 1994; Montrul,
2008, 2016; Meisel, 2011; Meisel et al., 2013).

The aim of this workshop is to address this shortcoming by incorporating
insights from the most recent advances in the study of bi-/multilingual
acquisition into diachronic accounts of historical cases of contact-induced
language change. Our focus is on changes that were brought about by (types of)
speakers who were not dominant in the language undergoing change. Consider,
for example, the innovations that Turkish-dominant speakers introduced into
the grammar of the Cappadocian Greek dialects (see Winford, 2005: 402–409 for
an analysis in terms of van Coetsem’s notions of imposition and
S(ource)L(anguage) agentivity), or the spread of the uvular /r/ from French
among many western European languages (for an overview, see Trudgill, 1974).

This Workshop during the 23rd International Conference on Historical
Linguistics will take place on August 4th from 9:00-16:45.

Keynote speaker:

Joe Salmons - Lester W.J. “Smoky” Seifert Professor of Germanic Linguistics at
the University of Wisconsin and Executive Editor of Diachronica

Workshop Conveners:

Petros Karatsareas, University of Westminster, P.Karatsareas at westminster.ac.uk
Jonathan Kasstan, Queen Mary University of London, j.kasstan at qmul.ac.uk

2nd Call for Papers: 

We particularly welcome contributions which examine cases of linguistic
innovations that were introduced by L2 learners, sequential bilinguals,
heritage speakers and L1 attriters. We also welcome contributions on the role
that newly identified types of speakers play in language change, including
most recently ‘new speakers’ – defined as adult learners who acquire the L2
(in particular minority or endangered languages) in a purely educational
context (O’Rourke & Ramallo, 2011, 2013; Costa, 2015; Hornsby, 2015; Kasstan,
2015). Contributions may deal with unknown or understudied cases of linguistic
innovation in specific languages or they may shed new light on diachronic
developments that have already received the attention of previous scholars in
the historical and contact linguistics literature.

Possible research questions include:

― What is the role that non-dominant bi-/multilingual speakers play in
language change? What types of innovations do they tend to introduce into the
language(s) in which they are not dominant? Are specific aspects of linguistic
structure particularly vulnerable to such innovations? Can specific types of
innovations found in the historical record be attributed to specific types of
bi-/multilingual speakers?

― How can we bridge the recent findings of the study of bi-/multilingual
acquisition with those that come from the diachronic study of historical cases
of contact-induced change? In what ways can these findings help us to revisit
well-known cases of change and how can they inform approaches to less
well-known ones?

― What types of evidence, both linguistic and sociohistorical, are needed in
order to achieve such a research endeavour? What are the methodological
challenges, and how can they be tackled?

― What are the social and historical circumstances that favour the diffusion
of innovations induced by non-dominant bi-/multilingual speakers among
dominant bi-/multilinguals and, ultimately, among monolingual speakers of the
language undergoing change?

Colleagues interested in making a contribution are invited to submit an
abstract following the guidelines of the ICHL23 Organising Committee, which
can be found at the following link: http://ichl23.utsa.edu/cfp/.

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