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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1048

Part of General Poster Session (Other abstracts in this session)

Language contacts at the crossroads of disciplines (CROSSLING)

Authors: Riionheimo, Helka
Submitted by: Riionheimo, Helka (University of Eastern Finland, Finland)

The aim of our poster presentation is to introduce CROSSLING, a new cross-disciplinary research network that combines different areas of research dealing with language contact. At present the main fields are contact linguistics, second language acquisition research, and translation studies. Researchers of these fields have so far been working rather independently with fairly little mutual dialogue. The main goal of CROSSLING is to promote genuine discussion between these closely-related disciplines and enhance accumulation of cross-disciplinary and cross-methodological know-how. The network strives for genuine interaction and cross-pollination between disciplines and different research traditions, between theories and methodologies, different kinds of data, and researchers of different languages. The main research objectives of CROSSLING may be grouped under the following themes: 1. Translation – a neglected mode of language contact Translation is a special contact situation in which the translator moves between two languages and cultures. Although crosslinguistic influence is a natural phenomenon in translation, the role of translations and translating has been neglected in the study of language contacts. On the other hand, crosslinguistic influence has not been thoroughly investigated in translation studies, either. The question of whether the observed effects of crosslinguistic influence are specific for translation or whether crosslinguistic influence in translation is similar to other modes of language contact has only been raised in some recently published studies. This central research question is approached in CROSSLING from different angles, such as crosslinguistic influence and the development of translator competence, interlingual reduction, or transfer influence of English on the idiomaticity of Finnish. 2. Multiple causation in language change - universals and crosslinguistic influence in interaction In language contact research, it is generally acknowledged that linguistic changes can be brought about by both language-internal development and contact-induced cross-linguistic influence and that quite often such changes have multiple causes. The strict dichotomy of internal and external motivation of language change has been challenged, and the interplay of both language-internal or universal developmental tendencies and cross-linguistic causes has been emphasized. The same topic is timely in second language acquisition research where the so-called learner universals are contrasted with influence from the learners’ native tongue. Multiple causation and the dilemma of universals vs. cross-linguistic influence is a recurrent theme in the studies of the CROSSLING members, and the project thus gives an opportunity to bring together observations and theories from the different fields of contact linguistics.