LINGUIST List 21.3889 Mon Oct 04 2010 Calls: Phonetics/Psycholinguistics/Sociolinguistics/Linguistics (Jrnl) Editor for this issue: Justin Petro <justinlinguistlist.org> LINGUIST is pleased to announce the launch of an exciting new feature: Easy Abstracts! Easy Abs is a free abstract submission and review facility designed to help conference organizers and reviewers accept and process abstracts online. Just go to: http://www.linguistlist.org/confcustom, and begin your conference customization process today! With Easy Abstracts, submission and review will be as easy as 1-2-3! Directory         1.    Anja Schüppert, Linguistics Message 1: Linguistics Date: 04-Oct-2010 From: Anja Schüppert <a.schueppertrug.nl> Subject: Linguistics E-mail this message to a friend Full Title: Linguistics Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics; Psycholinguistics; Sociolinguistics Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2010 Experimental Approaches to Mutual Intelligibility of Closely Related Languages Guest Editors: Charlotte Gooskens, Nanna Haug Hilton, Anja Schüppert Communication across language borders mostly takes place in lingua francas. In some regions, however, it is more likely that people will communicate with each other using their native languages. Speakers communicating this way are receptively bilingual, meaning that they can understand closely related languages without being able to speak them actively. Some well-documented language areas in Europe where receptive multilingualism has been documented include Scandinavia, the Iberian Peninsula, Finland/Estonia, Slovakia/Czech Republic and the Benelux. Outside Europe, among others, mutual intelligibility between Afrikaans and Dutch, Hindi and Urdu and Kalabari and Nembe (Nigeria) have been investigated and numerous other cases of receptive multilingualism are known. Linguistic as well as non-linguistic factors determine the success and the fluency of mutual intelligibility. Speakers of languages with a large phonetic distance, for example, frequently encounter more problems when communicating in their native languages than speakers whose native languages are phonetically closer. Furthermore, prosodic, syntactic, and lexical differences have an impact on the degree of receptive multilingualism of the listeners. Non-linguistic factors that may play a role are attitudes towards the neighbouring language or culture, or the amount of contact. The existence of negative attitudes or social stigmas attached to languages is often seen as a potential obstruction for successful intergroup communication while previous contact with a language enhances the chance of successful communication. For some language pairs, consistent asymmetries in mutual intelligibility have been reported. These asymmetries have often been explained by means of non-linguistic determinants. However, there is evidence that also linguistic factors may cause asymmetrical intelligibility. We invite papers for a special issue in Linguistics employing experimental methods to investigate receptive multilingualism from all language families. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following topics: - linguistic determinants of mutual intelligibility (such as prosodic, phonetic, morpho-syntactic and lexical features) - non-linguistic determinants of mutual intelligibility (such as language attitudes and language contact) - asymmetries in mutual intelligibility - new methods for measuring intelligibility Abstracts should be approximately 700 words and may be submitted by 15 November 2010 to a.schueppertrug.nl. Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 04-Oct-2010       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.