International Conference on Pluricentric Languages:...

... Linguistic Variation and Sociocognitive Dimensions

Braga (Portugal), del 15 al 17 de septiembre de 2010

Fuente : Infoling

This conference aims to explore the sociocultural, conceptual and structural dimensions of variation and change within pluricentric languages, with specific emphasis on the relationship between national varieties. It brings together the Cognitive Linguistics paradigm, Sociolinguistics tradition and other usage-based, cognitively and socially oriented approaches to language variation and change.

Within this socio-cognitive and interdisciplinary context of research into linguistic pluricentricity and other expressions of language-internal variation, papers are invited on the following themes and topics.

1. Language-internal and cross-national variation, culture and cognition
- Formation of national varieties: When is a national variety codified and why? What conditions can promote a more or less symmetrical pluricentricity?
- Cooperation, competition and conflict between national varieties: What are the interconnections between national identity, power relationships and national varieties? Can pluricentric languages be both unifiers and dividers of people and to what extent? How symmetrical can pluricentricity be in an unequally distributed world?
- Collective pluricentric language planning and policy: bi- or multilateral language planning and policies, spelling reforms, educational programmes, the influence of television, etc.
- Pluricentricity and globalization: What are the effects of current processes of globalization on the relationships between national varieties? What is the impact of the global pressure of English on pluricentricity?
- National variation, culture and cognition: Do national linguistic differences reflect cultural differences? To what extent do the former correlate with conceptual differences? How does national variation affect linguistic meaning and linguistic categorization? How does language-internal and cross-national variation reveal the situated and social nature of cognition?

2. Structural patterns of national variation and corpus-based approaches
- Indicators of (sub)standardization and pluricentricity: Convergence and divergence between national varieties and internal stratification of national varieties.
- Correlations between variables: To what extent do lexical, grammatical and phonological variables correlate when it comes to the convergence/divergence and stratification of national varieties? Do social identities (national, regional, local) operate as independent variables? To what extent do socio-stylistic factors correlate with semantic, grammatical and discursive factors?
- National and local varieties, styles and registers as prototype-based and radial categories of meaning: How do national/local variation and semantic variation correlate? How do prototypicality, stereotypicality and semantic normativity combine and intertwine between and within national varieties?
- National varieties, linguistic system and linguistic change: What are the linguistic consequences of contact between national varieties? What is the impact of pluricentricity on language change?
- Corpus-based multivariate and quantitative models of language-internal variation: What methods, tools and techniques (analytical and descriptive) are needed to arrive at an adequate description of national variation? How can we measure diachronic convergence and divergence between national varieties and synchronic internal stratification of national varieties?

3. Cognitive cultural models of national language variation
- Perception and evaluation of national varieties: How do language users perceive national varieties and how do they evaluate them attitudinally? What cultural and cognitive models are at work in the categorization and evaluation of local and national linguistic differences? What is the role of ideology in cognitive representations of national variations?
- National variation and language attitudes: How are purist or pro-independence attitudes manifested and what are the consequences for the development of national varieties? How do language attitudes differ in the various centers of a pluricentric language, particularly of the dominating and non-dominating varieties?
- Objective and subjective linguistic distances: Is there a correlation between objective linguistic distances, perceived distances, and language attitudes? To what extent do language attitudes as they can be objectively measured correlate with actual language behavior as observed in corpora?
- Mutual intelligibility between national varieties: to what extent do objective linguistic distances and language attitudes influence intelligibility?
- National cultural models and national language variation: How do these interact? Does language variation follow from cultural models, merely reflect them or actually determine them?
- Cultural models of national variation and their consequences for language planning and language policy.

Plenary Speakers:

Peter Auer (University of Freiburg)
Enrique Bernardez (Complutense University of Madrid)
Ataliba Teixeira de Castilho (University of Sao Paulo)
Dirk Geeraerts (University of Leuven)
Gitte Kristiansen (Complutense University of Madrid)
Georges Ludi (University of Basel)
Edgar W. Schneider (University of Regensburg)

Hanna Batoréo (Universidade Aberta, Lisboa, Portugal)
Raphael Berthele (Université de Fribourg, Switzerland)
Dinah Callou (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
Ivo Castro (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Bert Cornillie (University of Leuven, Belgium)
Annette Endruschat (Universität Regensburg, Germany)
Isabel Hub Faria (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Dirk Geeraerts (University of Leuven, Belgium)
Miguel Gonçalves (Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal)
Perpétua Gonçalves (Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique)
Johannes Kabatek (Universität Tübingen, Germany)
Suzanne Kemmer (Rice University, USA)
Gitte Kristiansen (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)
Ángel López-García (Universidad de Valencia, Spain)
Dante Lucchesi (Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil)
Clarinda Azevedo Maia (Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal)
Maria Helena Mira Mateus (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Rosa Virgínia Mattos e Silva (Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil)
Heliana Mello (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil)
Maria Antónia Mota (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Maria Fernanda Bacelar do Nascimento (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Milton do Nascimento (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil)
Marilza Oliveira (Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil)
Cláudia Roncarati (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
Margarida Salomão (Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Brazil)
Diana Santos (Sintef Information & Communication Technology, Oslo, Norway)
Augusto Soares da Silva (Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal)
Dirk Speelman (University of Leuven, Belgium)
Hans-Georg Wolf (Universität Potsdam, Germany)

Augusto Soares da Silva (Chair), Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Amadeu Torres, Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Joana Jacinto, Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Miguel Gonçalves, Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Pedro Pulquério, Universidade Católica Portuguesa