Full Title: Taal-en-Tongval Colloquium 2023

Date: 24-Nov-2023 - 24-Nov-2023
Location: Ghent University, Belgium
Contact Person: Hielke Vriesendorp
Meeting Email: [email protected]
Web Site: https://www.taalentongval2023.ugent.be/

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; Psycholinguistics; Sociolinguistics

Call Deadline: 30-Jun-2023

Meeting Description:

The annual Taal-en-Tongval symposium will take place in the Royal Academy for Dutch Language and Literature (KANTL) in Ghent on Friday November 24th, 2023. The conference theme is Laboratory sociolinguistics and explores answers to theoretical and methodological challenges in research on language variation and change.

Laboratory sociolinguistics builds upon existing variationist research and goes hand in hand with recent developments within and outside sociolinguistics (Van de Velde et al. 2021). From a theoretical perspective, the goal of laboratory sociolinguistics is to investigate the linguistic, social and cognitive mechanisms that drive processes of language variation and change (see e.g. Principles of Linguistic Change by Labov; the development of cognitive sociolinguistics in Flanders spearheaded by Geeraerts). These mechanisms are studied by focussing on how we produce, perceive, process and acquire variation and how these primarily individual cognitive processes are linked to processes of variation and change in the linguistic community and in the language system.

Methodologically, this approach principally focuses on experimental research in a controlled (laboratory) setting and on quantitative methods, thereby building upon insights from traditional sociolinguistic research (based on fieldwork and corpora). These methods allow us to identify the mechanisms behind production, perception and acquisition with adequate control of both language internal and external factors.

This colloquium aims to bring together researchers who wish to present their work on language variation and change in the Low Countries and to join in the debate on theoretical aspects of the study of language variation and change, including multilingualism and language acquisition, and the advantages and disadvantages of laboratory approaches in (socio)linguistics. We invite both contributions that report on experimental research, as well as those providing a more theoretical and methodological perspective. Presentations have a maximum duration of 20 minutes (excluding discussion).

Call for Papers:

Abstracts (300-500 words) can be submitted until June 30th, 2023, in the form of an email attachment to [email protected]. You are requested to state your name and affiliation in the email, as well as those of any co-authors. Abstracts can be written in Dutch or English. The selection will be announced by mid July.

We welcome Chris Montgomery (University of Sheffield), Thomas St. Pierre (Utrecht University) and Ellen Simon (Universiteit Gent) as keynote speakers this year.

Following the tradition, a special issue will appear in the Taal- en Tongval journal.

For more information, please see https://www.taalentongval2023.ugent.be/