35.2704, Calls: [SLE Workshop] Diachronic Studies on Minoritised and Under-researched Romance Varieties

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-35-2704. Thu Oct 03 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.2704, Calls: [SLE Workshop] Diachronic Studies on Minoritised and Under-researched Romance Varieties

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Date: 30-Sep-2024
From: Marc Olivier [marc.olivier at ling-phil.ox.ac.uk]
Subject: [SLE Workshop] Diachronic Studies on Minoritised and Under-researched Romance Varieties


Full Title: [SLE Workshop] Diachronic Studies on Minoritised and
Under-researched Romance Varieties

Date: 26-Aug-2025 - 29-Aug-2025
Location: Bordeaux, France
Contact Person: Marc Olivier
Meeting Email: marc.olivier at ling-phil.ox.ac.uk
Web Site: https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2025/wp-content/uploads/si
tes/8/2024/09/Diachronic-Studies-on-Minoritised-and-Under-researched-R
omance-Varieties.pdf

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Historical Linguistics;
Sociolinguistics; Syntax; Typology
Language Family(ies): Romance

Call Deadline: 10-Nov-2024

Meeting Description:

This is a workshop proposal for the 58th edition of the Societas
Linguistica Europaea.

Convenors: Marc Olivier (University of Oxford) and Afra Pujol i
Campeny (University of Oxford)

Keywords: diachrony, language change, Romance languages, minoritised
languages, under-researched languages

Call for abstracts: We invite abstract submissions for a Workshop on
‘Diachronic Studies on Minoritised and Under-researched Romance
Varieties’ as part of the 58th Annual Meeting of the Societas
Linguistica Europaea (26-29 August 2025, University of Bordeaux
Montaigne). Each oral presentation will be assigned a 25-minute slot
(20 min. presentation, 5 min. discussion, 5 min. room change).

Submission: Provisional abstracts should be no longer than 300 words
and focus on language change in minoritised and/or under-researched
Romance varieties. The deadline submission is November 10th 2024.
Abstracts should be sent to the convenors
(marc.olivier at ling-phil.ox.ac.uk and
afra.pujolicampeny at ling-phil.ox.ac.uk).

Linguistic research on Romance languages is vast and has given rise to
the production of significant cross-linguistic studies (Harris 1982;
Fleischman 1983; Squartini 1998; Baurer 2006; Sheehan 2010, Ledgeway
2012; Vincent 2016; Schifano 2018, Wolfe 2018, to list just a few),
further enhancing our understanding of this family, with a particular
focus on non- minoritised and official languages like Portuguese,
Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian, and Romanian. In between these
major areas, within the cracks of ‘Romania’, lies a significant number
of minoritised varieties, and varieties that have received less
attention (e.g., Gallo, Occitan varieties, Corsican, Moianese,
Mirandès, Aromanian) which deserve to be included in the debate and
thoroughly researched.

We adopt a broad definition of ‘minoritised varieties’, including
varieties in a situation of diglossia which may or may not enjoy
official and institutional recognition, which may or may not have a
low number of speakers, and which may or may not have been or be
persecuted or banned, and/or endangered. Minoritised Romance varieties
are not necessarily under- researched (i.e., Catalan), yet a number of
them have not been the focus of much research to date, in contrast
with official state languages like Spanish or French.

Given the fact that all Romance varieties share Latin as a common
ancestor yet have become distinct entities, the question of trajectory
paths is an extremely relevant one, stretching from fragmentation and
Romanisation on the one hand to language-specific innovations on the
other (Ledgeway 2012). The area of Romania is akin to a controlled
experiment, where genetically related varieties undergo unique
developments. By including minoritised varieties in the study of
Romance linguistics, we gain better understanding of the factors
driving diachronic linguistic developments.

Call for Papers:

This workshop will create a forum of discussion for scholars working
on minoritised and/or under-researched Romance varieties and their
diachrony. Its overarching goal will be to inform diachronic accounts
of the Romance family with languages and varieties that are often
ignored in comparative studies, therefore revising the methodologies
and theories used to approach these varieties to integrate them in the
forefront of the Romance diachrony debate.

The past two decades have witnessed the publication of important
studies on minoritised and under-researched Romance varieties, notably
in Italo-Romance (Ledgeway 2000, Remberger 2010, Tortora 2014,
D'Alessandro 2017), in Gallo-Romance (Kasstan 2015, Esher et al 2021),
in Ibero-Romance (Gravely & Gupton 2022), and in Romanian varieties
(Dragomirescu & Nicolae 2018). These contributions are vital to the
general linguistic enterprise, as they are revealing of the last
traces of a linguistic continuum that once existed in the area and are
furthering our understanding of the evolution of this linguistic
continuum. Crucially, they build a bridge connecting major and
standard varieties in exposing rich linguistic variation, valuable to
all subfields of linguistics.

Recent advances in linguistic methodology, such as the use of large
corpora, computational modeling, and sociolinguistic fieldwork, have
improved our ability to study language change. These advances allow
for more data-driven approaches to understanding language evolution,
yet the question of whether the same methods can be applied in the
same way to both non- minoritised varieties on the one hand, and
minoritised and under-researched varieties on the other, or if further
improvements are needed.

Language contact plays a crucial role in shaping change in both
minoritised and non- minoritised varieties. In minoritised varieties,
contact with non-minoritised languages often accelerates processes of
borrowing, code-switching, or linguistic shift, as speakers may adopt
features of the dominant variety. The reverse, however, appears to be
a weaker phenomenon.

Additionally, there is an ongoing debate about the use of historical
labels for modern varieties (see notably Smith 2002 for French), and
periodisation should therefore be applied carefully, taking into
account both the linguistic evolution and the socio-historical context
of each variety. At the same time, linguistic labels and
classifications should reflect systems in both diachrony and synchrony
(e.g., is Gascon still part of Occitan? Or has it become a distinct
variety?)

The aim of the workshop is to explore diachronic change in minoritised
varieties from all possible perspectives, from methodological matters
to theoretical ones, and case studies. We invite abstracts engaging
with the following research questions and related issues:

1. What are the similarities and differences in the way language
changes between minoritised/under-researched varieties and
non-minoritised varieties?
2. To what extent does the lack of homogenisation/standardisation
influence change?
3. How do current methodological and theoretical advances allow us to
approach language
change in minoritised/under-researched varieties? What improvements
are needed?
4. To what extent does language contact between
minoritised/under-researched varieties
and non-minoritised varieties influence change?
5. How does research on minoritised/under-researched varieties
complete our
understanding of language change in Romance?
6. Periodisation: should we use historical labels for modern
varieties? How should
diachronic changes in linguistic structure be reflected in the
terminology and
classification of minoritised varieties? (i.e., Gascon/Occitan).
7. Should non-standard varieties (i.e., sociolects, etc.) of standard
Romance languages be
considered under-researched and/or minoritised? Where to draw the
line?



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