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Taking spoken language seriously| title | Taking spoken language seriously |
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| start_date | 2024/04/24 |
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| schedule | 16h30-18h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | Salle de conférences, bât. D & sur Zoom |
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| summary | Most theoretical and typological work in linguistics proceeds on the (usually implicit) assumption that differences between spoken and written language can safely be ignored for the purposes at hand such as modelling word order alternations or typologizing ditransitive constructions. A major consequence of this assumption is the fact that typological or theoretical work making use of data from languages without a writing tradition – the large majority of the world’s languages – is often exclusively based on written transcripts of spoken language. The lecture series asks whether this practice and the assumptions underlying it are sound. To answer this question, two interrelated issues need further investigation.
1. What exactly happens in transcription; that is, what decisions do native speakers and researchers (have to) make when representing spoken language in writing? To what extent do these decisions provide evidence for grammatical structures?
2. Is it possible to provide a principled delimitation of the set of phenomena where typical features of spoken language are clearly relevant for grammatical analyses, and ones where spoken language features can safely be ignored?
Importantly, the current investigation does not presuppose that the differences between written and spoken language – and the concomitant differences in generating primary data – are relevant for all types of typological and theoretical enquiry. Rather, its goal is to determine when and where exactly the difference matters, and in which ways the process of producing primary data (transcription) itself may generate important data for such enquiries.
The four lectures in the series outline a research program for achieving this goal. |
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| responsibles | Hemforth |
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Workflow history| from state (1) | to state | comment | date |
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| submitted | published | | 2024/04/17 14:52 UTC |
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