Full Title: SLE workshop on Anglicism research in Europe: from vocabulary to use
Short Title: SLE WS Ang

Date: 21-Aug-2024 - 24-Aug-2024
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact Person: Gisle Andersen
Meeting Email: [email protected]

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics; Text/Corpus Linguistics

Call Deadline: 10-Nov-2023

Meeting Description:

This workshop brings together researchers studying the impact of English on European languages from the viewpoint of the actual language use, rather than on the impact on (domain-specific) terminology and vocabularies. The aim of the workshop is to consolidate this usage-oriented perspective on Anglicism research as it has developed over the past decade in various frameworks, including pragmatics, sociolinguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, NLP and business language communication.

Call for Papers:

Over the past five hundred years, the English language became the first truly global language, used as first and second, as foreign language and as lingua franca. Despite obvious differences in the degree of purist orientations in language planning, the choice for subtitling or dubbing practices in media, or the age of formal classroom instruction in English, researchers across Europe describe the same vast exposure to English through the same types of channels and domains: mass and social media, education, leisure, business, science, and technology. This position of the English language has also led to an influx of English and English-induced language elements imported into European languages and used in a wide array of contexts.
This impact of English on European languages has triggered notable scholarly attention. Research initially particularly focused on lexicographic and descriptive objectives, identifying the particular domains English (anglicisms) tend to appear in, defining the type of English influence on other languages, and describing the structural integration of English borrowings in different recipient languages. These research endeavors have resulted in an overall massive body of scholarly work on anglicisms.
In extensively documenting the what of linguistic borrowing, traditional research on the impact of borrowing on the linguistic system at the same time refrained from addressing the how, why and to what effect of borrowing from English. Since about a decade or so, researchers working in frameworks including pragmatics, sociolinguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, NLP and business language communication in this sense insist on a shift in perspective, drawing attention to (1) the motivational factors that make a given word or expression borrowable, attractive and usable, (2) language users’ attitudes towards and evaluations of the borrowed form, its effect on inclusiveness and degree of perception/comprehension, the dynamics of its diffusion, (3) creativity and agentivity when embedding English elements into their languages.

Several recent initiatives have been taken to draw attention to prioritize the perspective of language use and users, including workshops (e.g. SLE 2011, ESSE 12) and (ensuing) special issues (Andersen, et al. 2017, Peterson & Beers-Fägersten 2018) and collected volumes (Zenner & Kristiansen 2013).
In a bid for a comprehensive understanding of the way speakers of European languages produce, perceive, evaluate and interact with English elements in their own language, this workshop aims to look across these existing initiatives, and across the different frameworks that have instigated the shift in perspective. The specific objectives of this SLE workshop are then to:
• Compare insights from research on English influence, assess the degree of comparability of findings, related to the associated resources and methods applied in the different frameworks represented by the researchers united in the workshop;
• Cross methods by reviewing and comparing studies that apply a variety of approaches to anglicism research in order to reap the benefits of each approach and facilitate triangulation of methods in future anglicism research;
• Synthesize findings and account for the state-of-the-art in usage-based anglicism studies (e.g. with a view on a joint future publication);
• Set the research agenda for future usage-based studies by collectively highlighting areas where more research and/or alternative methods are needed;
• Consolidate the network of researchers pursuing usage-based approaches to anglicism research.

We welcome abstracts (max. 300 ws.) presenting research on the how, why and to what effect of borrowing from English in any language, particularly within frameworks prioritizing language use (pragmatics/discourse studies, sociolinx, Cognitive Linx, NLP). Abstracts should be sent to the co-convenors [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected].