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Adapting Variationist Sociolinguistics to lesser-studied languages| old_uid | 20255 |
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| title | Adapting Variationist Sociolinguistics to lesser-studied languages |
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| start_date | 2022/04/21 |
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| schedule | 14h-16h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | salle 255 |
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| details | Chaire Internationale 2022 : What can heritage languages tell sociolinguists.
We will explore recent findings from variationist sociolinguistics, a quantitatively-grounded empirical approach to understanding connections between synchronic variation and diachronic change in spoken language. We will examine outcomes from a comparative study of ten heritage languages (unofficial languages acquired at home in immigrant-based communities). These languages, all spoken in Toronto, Canada, differ typologically, culturally and demographically. Thus, comparison provides insight into how the linguistic ecology affects languages. Unlike many experimental studies of heritage languages that show them to be deficient or “attrited” in comparison to homeland (monolingual) varieties, this approach shows the phonetic and grammatical production of heritage-language speakers to be quite similar, in terms of both the rate of use of competing variants and the factors which condition the variation. |
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| summary | This seminar will describe how variationist methods can be adapted, by extending sociolinguistic training to heritage-language-speaking students, in order to collaboratively examine a wider range of languages. I will show how these methods have been adapted for the Heritage Language Variation and Change in Toronto Project (ngn.artsci.utoronto.ca/HLVC). Outcomes, some of which confirm and some of which contradict the “universals” of variationist sociolinguistics, will be discussed. |
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| responsibles | Isel |
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