We are very pleased to invite you to a workshop featuring Prof. Jeff Siegel of FRIAS/GRK and the University of New England, Australia, Dr. Anna Babel, HPSL/GRK and Romanisches Seminar, University of Freiburg and Prof. Stefan Pfänder of FRIAS and Romanisches Seminar, University of Freiburg. The workshop will take place on Monday, September 20th and Tuesday, September 21st.

Frequency and congruence in language contact

What determines which features are transferred between languages? Which transferred features are maintained in the contact variety? In studies of language contact, it has been shown that there are factors that constrain transfer and factors that promote it. Two major factors promoting the transfer and ultimate selection of features are frequency and congruence. Speakers often try to express frequent features from the source language in the target language. On the other hand, typological congruence promotes grammatical transfer, or copying. As convincing as these two factors that may seem, they are not easy to operationalize: What does “frequency” mean when there are two languages involved? How do speakers determine what is “similar”?

The goal of this workshop is to examine data from various contact scenarios, including pidginization/creolization, that address the question(s) described above. Presenters should give a half-hour presentation and allow a half an hour for discussion of their data. Participants are encouraged to present open questions or unclear aspects of their data, in hopes of a productive discussion.

The workshop will take place in the Hermann Paul School of Language Sciences, Small Conference Room 1st floor, Starkenstr. 44, and it will be organized as follows:

Monday: Congruence and contact

10:00-11:00  Jeff Siegel

Coffee break

11:30-12:30 Stefan Pfänder

2:30-3:30 Doctoral/Postdoctoral presentation Coffee break

4:00-5:00 Doctoral/Postdoctoral presentation

Tuesday: Frequency and contact

10:00-11:00 Jeff Siegel Coffee break

11:30-12:30 Anna Babel

2:30-3:30 Doctoral/Postdoctoral presentation Coffee break

4:00-5:00 Doctoral/Postdoctoral presentation

Please contact Stefan Pfänder if you would like to take part in the workshop (Stefan.pfaender@frias.uni-freiburg.de)