Full Title: Varieties in Contact: Phenomena – Methods – Theories // Varietätenkontakt: Phänomene - Methoden - Theorien

Date: 04-Jun-2025 - 06-Jun-2025
Location: Dortmund, Germany
Contact Person: Jones Anam
Meeting Email: [email protected]
Web Site: https://germanistik.kuwi.tu-dortmund.de/variationslinguistik/varietaetenkontakt/

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Historical Linguistics; Sociolinguistics

Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2024

Meeting Description:

Worldwide, the vast majority of language varieties are in contact with at least one other mutually intelligible variety in one way or another. Scenarios of variety contact are numerous and multifaceted, and range from the non-mobile dialect speaker who is confronted with the standard variety via media consumption to the migrant worker in a linguistically extremely diverse 'new town'. Variation – to name just a few aspects – can be observed on the intra-individual level (one person varies in their language use) and/or on the inter-individual level (two people who do not share a common variety interact with each other); migration may or may not be the cause of contact; and, finally, the varieties involved in a given setting also differ in terms of their status and their linguistic distance from each other. What the different scenarios have in common is that contact between the varieties involved typically entails specific dynamics. Examples include the temporary linguistic adjustment to another person involved in the conversation (accommodation) or language change processes promoted/triggered by the contact (which is discussed in the literature, for example, under the keywords convergence and divergence).

With the conference outlined here, we would like to focus on such dynamics of variety contact. The understanding of the term variety that we take as a basis is as broad as possible; contributions that critically discuss the usefulness of the term are explicitly welcome. The conference will focus on various phenomena from the entire spectrum of the thematic area. Processes that go beyond mixing and convergence by producing features that are not found in any of the original varieties involved are of particular interest here (e.g. interdialect formations). We also welcome contributions that specifically deal with methods for the investigation of variety contact. Extraterritorial varieties, for example, are particularly challenging. Here, historical language forms and migration movements are often of central importance for understanding the respective language use – at the same time, however, these aspects are usually difficult to ascertain (which is why they are sometimes neglected). The same applies to concepts that are relevant for different settings and defy simple operationalization; for example, the role of salience in the process of levelling could be considered in this context). Finally, the question also arises as to which theories can prove fruitful to grasp the phenomena of variety contact. In that regard, sociolinguistic and grammatical approaches will receive equal consideration. An important question is whether approaches that have been developed for language contact can be applied to variety contact phenomena without further ado or to what extent language and variety contact are even distinguishable at all.

The conference "Variety Contact: Phenomena – Methods – Theories" is the concluding workshop of the project "The Dynamics of German in the Multilingual Context of Southern Africa", which, among other things, treats the question of the extent to which varieties of German in Southern Africa are characterized by variety contact.

Invited Speakers:
Ulrike Freywald (Dortmund)
Daniel Schreier (Zürich)
Beat Siebenhaar (Leipzig)

Organisation: Jones Anam, Julia Dröpper, Horst Simon & Christian Zimmer
TU Dortmund & FU Berlin

Call for Papers:

We invite researchers from all pertinent disciplines to submit abstracts for 20 minute presentations (in German or English). Abstracts should be anonymous and no longer than 500 words (plus examples and references). Please e-mail your abstract to [email protected].

Deadline for the submission of abstracts: 15 November 2024

Notification of acceptance: 13 December 2024

Registration for the conference: 13 December 2024 – 04 May 2025

Conference fee: tba