Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 103
Thematic Session (Papers belonging to this Thematic Session)
Longitudinal studies in multilingual settings: practices, competences, ideologies and networks
Authors: Vila i Moreno, F. Xavier; Comajoan, Llorenç; Bretxa, Vanessa; Sorolla, Natxo
Submitted by: Vila i Moreno, F. Xavier (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain)
Synthesis: This thematic session will focus on how panel studies can contribute to the analysis of changing patterns of language use, evolving linguistic ideologies and repertoires especially in multilingual urban settings.
In sociolinguistics, longitudinal studies have a significant tradition in connection with language change within the variationist tradition (see Labov 1993, 2011a, 2001b). However, large, consistent studies about the evolution in linguistic repertoire of one and the same human group, such as the immigrants arriving to Québec studied by Renaud et al. (2001) or the same urban area studied by Zentella (1997), are scarce in number. In fact, when it comes to explain changes in language practices, ideologies or competences in multilingual societies, we are usually forced to content ourselves with trend studies, although linguistically heterogeneous settings issued from minorisation/migration processes constitute mobile, heterogeneous contexts, which are especially relevant for research in real time by means of panel studies (Labov 1994, Sankoff 2005). Only recently some research groups (e.g., in Catalonia, Wales, and Germany) have started to set up research projects based on a panel conception in order to study changes in multilingual urban settings.
In this thematic session we will focus on studies which have effectively followed speech communities / communities of practices for a number of years in any of their linguistic dimensions (language practices, language competences, language attitudes and idiologies) from either macro, meso, or micro perspectives. Our goal will be that of sharing experiences in order to improve both the theoretical and methodological aspects of research based on longitudinal studies. In this respect, questions for discussion will range from purely methodological (e.g., How can samples be defined so that drop-off rate is minimised? How can subjects and communities be attracted to cooperate with longitudinal studies?) to more theoretical (e.g., Wow can real-time changes be distinguished from changes connected to age? How can the impact of a particular social institution be measured in connection with changing patterns of language practices?). Particular attention will be paid to the analysis of social networks and the analysis of contexts in multilingual urban settings where contradictory dynamics of language shift and language recovery may be found simultaneously.
References quoted
Labov, William. 1994. Principles of Linguistic Change. Volume 1: Internal Factors. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Labov, William. 2001. Principles of Linguistic Change. Volume II: Social Factors. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Labov, William. 2001. Principles of Linguistic Change. Volume III: Cognitive and Cultural Factors. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Renaud, Jean, L. Gingras, S. Vachon, Chr. Blaser, J -F Godin, and B. Gagné. 2001. Ils sont maintenant d'ici! Les dix premières années au Québec des immigrants admis en 1989: Les Publications du Québec.
Sankoff, Gillian. 2005. "Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Studies in Sociolinguistics." in Sociolinguistics - Soziolinguistik. An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society. Ein Internationales Handuch zur Wissenschaft von Sprache und Gesellschaft. Vol I, vol. I edited by U. Ammon, N. Dittmar, and P. Trudgill. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 1003-1013.
Zentella, Ana Celia. 1997. Growing Up Bilingual. Puerto Rican Children in New York. Malden, Massachussets: Blackwell.