In this seminar/course, we will introduce methods of sociolinguistic research and illustrate them through different research designs through concrete examples. The focus will be on contact between dialects and languages.

Ph.d.-students attending the course will gain an understanding of main trends in sociolinguistic analysis regarding dialects and languages in contact.

Topics:

(1) Effects on languages: convergence, divergence, codemixing

(2) The emergence of new languages: new dialects, multiethnolects, mixed languages, creoles.

(3) Language attitudes towards new varieties

Masterclass:

Following the seminar, a Master Class will take place on October 13., where a maximum of 4 PhD students will have the opportunity of presenting their projects and receiving feedback from Paul Kerswill and Pia Quist. Participation in this master class is open to PhD students and their supervisors.

Aim:

Ph.d.-students attending the course will gain an understanding of main trends in sociolinguistic analysis regarding dialects and languages in contact.

Literature:

1. Kerswill, Paul (2022). United Kingdom. In Kerswill, Paul & Heike Wiese (eds.). Urban Contact Dialects and Language Change: Insights from the Global North and South. 282-299. London: Routledge.
2. Ilbury, Christian & Paul Kerswill (forthcoming 2023). How multiethnic is a multiethnolect? The recontextualisation of Multicultural London English. In Bente A. Svendsen and Rickard Jonsson (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Language and Youth Culture. London: Routledge. 
3. Monka, M., Quist, P., & Skovse, A. R. (2020). Place attachment and linguistic variation: A quantitative analysis of language and local attachment in a rural village and an urban social housing area. Language in Society, 49(2), 173-205.
4. Britain, D. (2016): Sedentarism and Nomadism in the Sociolinguistics of Dialect. In: Coupland, N. (ed.): Sociolinguistics. Theoretical Debates. Cambridge University Press. 217–241.
5. Bakker, Peter. 2008. Pidgins versus Creoles and Pidgincreoles. In: Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Studies, ed. by Silvia Kouwenberg & John Singler. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 130-157. DOI: 10.1002/9781444305982.ch6
6. Bakker, Peter. 2017.Typology of mixed languages. In: The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology, edited by A. Y. Aikhenvald and R. M.W. Dixon, 217-253. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/9781316135716.008

Target group:

Ph.d.-students at different stages in their project can benefit from the course.

Form:

There will be a seminar on the first day with lectures and group work and a master class on day 2 where ph.d.-students present their projects and get feedback from the instructors.

ECTS credits:

PhD students attending both the seminar and the master class will obtain 1 credit. PhD students attending both days and presenting own project will obtain 3 credits.

Lecturers:

Paul Kerswill – paul.kerswill@york.ac.uk

Pia Quist - pqj@hum.ku.dk

Peter Bakker – linpb@cc.au.dk

Carsten Levisen – calev@ruc.dk

Ana Paulla Braga Mattos – mattos@cas.au.dk

Kristoffer Friis Bøegh - kfb@cc.au.dk

Venue:

Campus Aarhus, TBA

Program

Day 1 – October 12 – Seminar and ph.d. course (open to everybody)

10.00 – 11.30 – Paul Kerswill (University of York) – talk and group work

Who do multiethnolects belong to anyway?

My talk focuses on the sociolinguistic construct of the multiethnolect, specifically the instantiation known as Multicultural London English, or MLE. I will guide you through the 6-year research programme of which I was a part in 2004-10 (Cheshire et al 2011). We started with the fairly obvious hypothesis that we would find the origins of change in British English in London, which is the capital city and by far the largest conurbation in the country. I will show you how we came up with our research questions, and why we went for a quantitative, variationist approach, using a carefully stratified sample of speakers. I will then explain how our initial hypothesis turned out not to be supported: there was certainly a new way of speaking, but there was little evidence that it was spreading beyond London. Meanwhile, innovations originating outside London were spreading rapidly. This led us to a further set of research questions dealing with this new way of speaking, which we dubbed ‘MLE’ because the speakers were of many language backgrounds and ethnicities. We constructed an expanded methodology particularly taking account of acquisition. Recently, however, we have been confronted with and challenged by a very different approach to MLE, one which places identity and ideology front and centre and explicitly denies the validity of the MLE concept. I will argue that this approach and the empirical, variationist approach which our projects adopted are epistemologically opposed and difficult to reconcile. Alongside broader questions of methodology, these ideas will form one of the bases for discussion during the session.

11.30 – 11.45 – Pause

11.45 – 13.00 – Pia Quist (University of Copenhagen) – talk and group work

Who speaks differently? Dialect research in a fast moving world

Mobility is a fundamental condition and a characterizing feature of present-day human experiences. Through life, people move across shorter and longer distances. Some travel, some commute, some migrate. In this light, one might ask whether it is still relevant to study dialects in 21st century societies characterized by globalization, language contact and linguistic diversity. The answer is yes, it has never been more relevant to study dialects – to understand their status and functions, their meanings and importance to people whether they live in large cities or traditional rural towns. Dialects are (still) central in processes of linguistic positioning, among other things as signs of belonging or dis-belonging. They are used by speakers to create identities and meaning in and with the places they live and experience across the lifespan. In my lecture, I argue for a changed perspective in dialect research, namely an approach that centers mobility as a fundamental condition to people, groups and communities. Taking mobility as the starting point challenges traditional methodology in dialectology demanding new methods and thorough methodological considerations. In the lecture, we examine implications for key concepts such as the ‘speech community’ and ‘the (authentic) speaker’, and discuss methods and (new) ways of studying dialect variation.

13.00 – 13.45 – Lunch break

13.45 – 14.30 – Peter Bakker (Aarhus University)

New languages emerging from contact: how to study them?

Several types of new languages have emerged out of language contact. Some types constitute relatively modest modifications of existing languages: ethnolects, multi-ethnolects, new dialects.

Other contact languages display more radical modifications. Pidgins are reduced languages that have emerged when groups met who did not have a language in common, for instance in trade. Creole languages have emerged when reduced languages, for instance pidgins, became full-fledged means of communication, with an elaborate grammatical system. These two types of new languages are born out of necessity. Pidgins are never mother tongues, creoles are almost always.

Another type constitutes the rather rare class of mixed languages. These are believed to have been created deliberately by bilinguals, not out of necessity but as an act of identity. Some combine the content words of one language with the grammatical system of another. Others combine the verbs of one language with the nouns of another. There are some other, minor types as well. These mixed languages have become mother tongues. Some of them are reminiscent of slang and secret languages that are not native languages.

In my presentation I will focus on methods of investigating these radically new languages (pidgins, creoles, mixed languages), whereby I will touch upon archival work, fieldwork, published materials, the use of databases, and computational techniques, and go in more detail with some.

Case studies of new varieties:

14.30 – 15.15 – Carsten Levisen (Roskilde University)

Research on Bislama

15.15 – 15.30 – Coffee break

15.30 – 16.15 – Ana Paulla Braga Mattos (Aarhus University)

Research on Kalunga

16.15 – 17.00 – Kristoffer Friis Bøegh (Aarhus University)

Research on Virgin Islands English Creole

Readings

For PhD students attending the course, there is a list of mandatory readings:

1. Kerswill, Paul (2022). United Kingdom. In Kerswill, Paul & Heike Wiese (eds.). Urban Contact Dialects and Language Change: Insights from the Global North and South. 282-299. London: Routledge.
2. Ilbury, Christian & Paul Kerswill (forthcoming 2023). How multiethnic is a multiethnolect? The recontextualisation of Multicultural London English. In Bente A. Svendsen and Rickard Jonsson (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Language and Youth Culture. London: Routledge. 
3. Monka, M., Quist, P., & Skovse, A. R. (2020). Place attachment and linguistic variation: A quantitative analysis of language and local attachment in a rural village and an urban social housing area. Language in Society, 49(2), 173-205.
4. Britain, D. (2016): Sedentarism and Nomadism in the Sociolinguistics of Dialect. In: Coupland, N. (ed.): Sociolinguistics. Theoretical Debates. Cambridge University Press. 217–241.
5. Bakker, Peter. 2008. Pidgins versus Creoles and Pidgincreoles. In: Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Studies, ed. by Silvia Kouwenberg & John Singler. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 130-157. DOI: 10.1002/9781444305982.ch6
6. Bakker, Peter. 2017.Typology of mixed languages. In: The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology, edited by A. Y. Aikhenvald and R. M.W. Dixon, 217-253. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/9781316135716.008

Day 2 – October 12 – Master class (PhD students and their supervisors)

09.00 – 09.45 – PhD student 1

10.00 – 10.45 – PhD student 2

11.00 – 11.45 – PhD student 3

12.00 – 12.45 – PhD student 4

12.45… –          Lunch

Course dates:

• 12 October 2023 10:00 - 17:00
• 13 October 2023 09:00 - 13:00