Course: Language contacts and areal linguistics

Scope: 3 ECTS credits
Time: 7–8 April, 2017
Venue: Unioninkatu 40, University of Helsinki
Organizer: Helsinki Doctoral Programme for Language Studies (HELSLANG) / Helsinki–Stockholm co-operation
Target group: Doctoral students in linguistics either with a related research topic or wishing to deepen their knowledge of language contact phenomena in general, master students working on a thesis with a related topic
Teacher: Max Wahlström, University of Helsinki

Short overview: The course seeks to offer an up-to-date picture of research into language contact phenomena and areal linguistics. The focus will be on contact-induced language change, especially on the level of syntax, and on both bottom-up and top-down approaches to areality. Contact-induced language change is addressed by case examples, illustrating different types of contact phenomena. The sociolinguistic component in language contacts will be discussed both in the context of the individual examples as well as in connection to linguistic areas. Recent advances in quantitative, typologically oriented approaches to language contacts will be given special attention.

Aiming at an overview of the field, certain specific approaches to language contacts with their dedicated methodologies will be mostly left out. These include L2 learning, code switching, and lexical borrowing. Doctoral students with research topics from these fields are yet warmly encouraged to participate. The goal of the course is help the students to get a basic understanding of the field, help them identify the areas of their own research in which language contacts may play a role, and to provide them with the basic tools and literature needed for finding further resources for their research.

Requirements before and during the course: In addition to participation on the course, before the course, students are required to read four research articles out of a total of eight. The student will choose one theme and read the two articles related to that theme and two additional articles of their choosing. Each student will prepare a short introduction to one of the articles related to their chosen topic, in writing (one to two sheets) or as a presentation (10–15 min., max. one presentation per article, working in pairs is possible), according to guidelines provided later. Both presentations and written introductions are submitted a week ahead.