LINGUIST List 21.3889
Mon Oct 04 2010
Calls: Phonetics/Psycholinguistics/Sociolinguistics/Linguistics (Jrnl)
Editor for this issue: Justin Petro
<justinlinguistlist.org>
1. Anja
Schüppert,
Linguistics
Message 1: Linguistics
Date: 04-Oct-2010
From: Anja Schüppert <a.schueppertrug.nl>
Subject: Linguistics
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Full Title: Linguistics
Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics; Psycholinguistics; Sociolinguistics
Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2010
Experimental Approaches to Mutual Intelligibility of Closely RelatedLanguagesGuest Editors: Charlotte Gooskens, Nanna Haug Hilton, Anja Schüppert
Communication across language borders mostly takes place in linguafrancas. In some regions, however, it is more likely that people willcommunicate with each other using their native languages. Speakerscommunicating this way are receptively bilingual, meaning that they canunderstand closely related languages without being able to speak themactively. Some well-documented language areas in Europe where receptivemultilingualism has been documented include Scandinavia, the IberianPeninsula, Finland/Estonia, Slovakia/Czech Republic and the Benelux.Outside Europe, among others, mutual intelligibility between Afrikaans andDutch, Hindi and Urdu and Kalabari and Nembe (Nigeria) have beeninvestigated and numerous other cases of receptive multilingualism areknown.Linguistic as well as non-linguistic factors determine the success and thefluency of mutual intelligibility. Speakers of languages with a large phoneticdistance, for example, frequently encounter more problems whencommunicating in their native languages than speakers whose nativelanguages are phonetically closer. Furthermore, prosodic, syntactic, andlexical differences have an impact on the degree of receptive multilingualismof the listeners. Non-linguistic factors that may play a role are attitudestowards the neighbouring language or culture, or the amount of contact. Theexistence of negative attitudes or social stigmas attached to languages isoften seen as a potential obstruction for successful intergroup communicationwhile previous contact with a language enhances the chance of successfulcommunication.For some language pairs, consistent asymmetries in mutual intelligibility havebeen reported. These asymmetries have often been explained by means ofnon-linguistic determinants. However, there is evidence that also linguisticfactors may cause asymmetrical intelligibility.
We invite papers for a special issue in Linguistics employing experimentalmethods 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 languageattitudes and language contact)- asymmetries in mutual intelligibility- new methods for measuring intelligibility
Abstracts should be approximately 700 words and may be submitted by 15November 2010 to a.schueppertrug.nl.
Page Updated: 04-Oct-2010
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