Centre for Research on Language Contact (CRLC)

Centre de recherche sur le contact linguistique (CRCL)

Workshop, February 7, 2014Atelier, 7 février 2014

Data prepared by the Glendon Research ServicesDonnées préparées par les Services à la recherche de Glendon

Organizers/Organisateurs: Maria Constanza Guzmán, Eric wheeler & Dominique Scheffel-Dunand

Assume Contact(Re)think the Centre

The mission of the CRLC is to host reflective deliberation on the nature of Contact, Language and Culture.

The aim of the workshop today, as we have submitted an application for a new ORU charter (2014-2019), is to think carefully and deeply about the sort of Centre we are developing in, with, and through our diverse perceptions and practices as researcher, young scholars, and students.

Assume Contact(Re)think the Centre

Based on an understanding of the nature of Contact, Language & Culture the workshop has been conceptualized to host conversations to (re)think such topics as:

• The person, in the face of our understanding of the Associates involved in the Centre, their profiles, the communities we want to reach out to;

Assume Contact(Re)think the Centre

• Scholarship, the threads of conversations and networks we need to develop to have an impact on the world (academic and non academic) when publishing is free, editing a dying art, and social media too vast for singular comprehension;

Assume Contact(Re)think the Centre

• Epistemologies, appropriate to investigate the nature of Contact, Language, and Culture

• Meaning, when information threaten to mechanize intelligence and communication;

• Ontologies, adequate to investigate Contact, language and Culture; and

• The Centre within the University, when physical proximity is no longer required for access to and communication with instructors and scholars on any conceivable realm, and when the Institution is looking for pointers to make sense of its existence.

Assume Contact(Re)think the Centre

• Our current understanding of many of these issues developed slowly, over many centuries, during which the substrate of scientific, artistic and intellectual expression remained relatively stable.

• An essential goal today in catalysing productive debate on all these topics will therefore be both: (i) to understand the nature of Contact, Language, and Culture itself (particularly its semantico normative dimensions), and (ii) to develop new frameworks that do fundamental justice to the research and discussions informed at the Centre and by the Centre.

Le contact linguistique à Glendon

• Source : Étude institutionnelle menée par les Services à la recherche de Glendon (Octobre 2014 à Janvier 2014)

Le contact linguistique à Glendon

Profil linguistique de nos étudiants:

• Langue maternelle: Français (13%), Anglais (52%), Autre (34%)• Langue la plus parlée à la maison: Français (9%), Anglais (65%),

Autre (25%)• 16% se considèrent « Franco-Ontariens »• 50% se considèrent « bilingues » (français et anglais)• Plus de 104 langues maternelles !• Autres langues maternelles les plus fréquentes: Espagnol,

(4.5%), Arabe (2%), Russe (2.7%), Cantonais (1.5%), Serbe (1.5%), Persan (1.1%), Portugais (1.1%), Roumain (1%), Ourdou (1%).

Le contact linguistique à Glendon

Usage courant ou systématique de la langue seconde sur le campus...

• Avec les amis sur le campus: 19%• Cafétéria ou corridors: 18%• Dans le cadre d’un « work-study » sur le campus: 17%• Dans les clubs étudiants: 12%• En résidence: 9%

The CRLC: Who are We?

• Source: short questionnaire emailed to all CRLC members, February 4-6, 2014, 12 responses.

The CRLC: Our Mother Tongues

The CRLC: Languages Understood

The CRLC: Languages Spoken

The CRLC: Our Disciplines

Our Vision of Language Contact

Our Research Interests

Our Research Interests

Our Institutional Connections

Our Influences

A Framework for Language Contact

A proposal for helping researchers:

Position their work Consider dimensions of language contact

A prolog to a theory of language contact

Language Contact “Language”: the pattern of communicative

behaviour among a group of people in communication with one another

“Language Contact” is the contact of such communities (and individuals from a community) and the impact it has on their language.

“Chris moves to England and gains an accent” “The Normans conquer England, and English

becomes less Germanic”

Our Vision of Language Contact

Dimensions of Language Contact

Community Quantity Size Sociology Power

Language Aspect Similarity Homogeneity Multilingualism

Contact Duration Intensity History Geography

Study Type Description Explanation

Explanations of Language Contact

Military Imposition of a language Commerce Attractiveness or usefulness of the language Intercommunication Prestige language Greater numbers of speakers ... ...

Ideal

• “Given a language contact situation that includes factors X, Y, and Z,

we anticipate an outcome that includes U, V and W, because of A, B, and C”

• We will be able to say such things because of the studies

that collectively have explored and convincingly demonstrated

such connections.

Questions for brainstorming

• 1. How do this data and framework inspire you to imagine new possibilities for thinking about contact, languages, culture?

2. Building on what we have as a Centre, what does this data tells us about where we can and should take the Centre as a space and forum, and its vision?

3. What ideas do this data and framework generate for activities, student involvement, outreach, and other initiatives for the Centre over the next 5 years?

4. How do we mobilize knowledge?