Plenary speakers

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Justyna A. Robinson is a Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom. Her research focuses on semantic variation and change, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, and how these interact. She is interested in developing methods for tracing and analysing semantic variation and change, especially those that involve corpus, experimental, and sociolinguistic approaches. Her recent research include linguistic lifespan change in English. She is also a co-investigator in collaborative AHRC project "Linguistic DNA: Modelling concepts and semantic change in English, 1500-1800".

Her publications include several edited collections such as Current Methods in Historical Semantics (de Gruyter Mouton 2012), Variation in Language and Language Use: Sociolinguistic, Socio-cultural and Cognitive Perspectives (Peter Lang 2012), Polysemy and Synonymy. Corpus Methods and Applications in Cognitive Semantics (John Benjamins, 2014) and a special issue of Review of Cognitive Linguistics entitled Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Variation in cognition and language use (John Benjamins, 2012), Cognitive Approaches to Bilingualism (de Gruyter Mouton 2016). She is also an Associate Editor of English Today (CUP).

ABSTRACT

THE ROLE OF COLLECTIVE AND INDIVIDUAL COGNITION IN LANGUAGE CHANGE

Most of synchronic and almost all diachronic studies model lexical semantic usage at the level of the community only. While this may be inevitable in corpus-driven research, there are discrepancies regarding the way aggregate models represent semantic usage and change in comparison to individual-led models based on usage ‘on the ground’ (Robinson 2012, also cf. Petre et al. forth.). Therefore, this presentation explores the way in which usage at the aggregate-community and individual levels come together to shape the trajectory of lexical semantic change.

Useful insights to this question have been proposed in recent sociolinguistic research (Buchstaller 2015, Sankoff 2013, Wagner 2012) which here will complement the cognitive linguistic assumptions on language change (e.g. Dabrowska and Street 2006, Petre et al forth.). Sociolinguistic findings demonstrate that individuals may: (1) display patterns of stability; (2) change in later life in the direction of a community-wide change; or (3) display retrograde change in later life, with older speakers reverting to earlier community patterns as they age. Patterns of individual variation-change may lead to accelerating (2) or slowing down (3) of community-wide change (Wagner and Sankoff 2014). Studies also indicate that speakers’ awareness of change increases in time but it is uncertain to what extent this may affect the pace of on-going change. There is little information on the relationship between individual speakers and their participation in change that is at different stage of development (early, middle, late). Finally, it is unclear how change at different levels of language adds to the dynamic relationship between individual and the community.

The aim of this talk is to look at the interaction of individual and communal language use from the perspective of lexical semantics and comment on how this interaction can be modelled from a socio-cognitive angle. I explore semantic variation of evaluative adjectives in the speech of ten Sheffielders (age 35–70) between 2005 and 2015. This information is enriched with surveys of perceptions of language change collected from the same participants across the ten-year period. By squaring longitudinal usage and perceptions I comment on the role of personality and individual stance vs frequency in participating in on-going change (cf. Junes and William 1996). I conclude by providing insights into the how the architecture of semantic category in minds of individual speakers is restructured over time. Also, I propose a cognitive-sociolinguistic model of longitudinal language usage and change and suggest the most fruitful lines of future enquiry.

Selected References

Buchstaller, I. (2015) “Exploring linguistic malleability across the life span: Age-specific patterns in quotative use.” Language in Society 44(4): 457–496.

Dabrowska, Ewa and Street, James (2006) Individual differences in language attainment: Comprehension of passive sentences by native and non-native English speakers. Language Sciences, 28 (6). pp. 604–615.

Robinson, Justyna (2012) A sociolinguistic perspective on semantic change. In: Allan, Kathryn and Robinson, Justyna A (eds.) Current Methods in Historical Semantics. Topics in English Linguistics (73). de Gruyter Mouton, Berlin/Boston, pp. 199–230.

Sankoff, G. (2013) Longitudinal studies. In Ceil Lucas, Richard Cameron, and Robert Bayley (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 261–279.

Wagner, S. E. (2012) Age-grading in Sociolinguistic Theory. Language and Linguistics Compass, 6: 371–382.

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Edurne Goñi Alsúa is a doctor in English Philology and has a degree in Spanish Philology.

She is currently working at the Public University of Navarre in the Department of Human Sciences and Didactics and in UNIR as a teacher in the degrees of Primary and Infants Education and in the Master of Secondary Education. Her current investigations delve deep into the use of Translation in the class of the Second Language Acquisition.

Nevertheless, although she is working in the field of Teaching, her field of expertise is Translation and Dialects, together with the effect of censorship in the rendered texts.

ABSTRACT

DIALECTS AND IDENTITY. HOW DIALECTS DEFINE THEIR SPEAKERS: THE CASE OF COCKNEY

Dialects, sociolects and geolects are linguistic entities which surround us and which influence us more than we could imagine. More than a definition, which we all linguists must know, they are of outmost importance as they are one of the first aspects which we notice when we listen to the speech of other people. Although this is usually an unconscious fact, in some cases, dialects become an aspect which features our interlocutors. Nevertheless, this is not a minor conception, due to the fact that we develop attitudes, both positive and negative, towards dialects and sociolects, which reflect our views about those who speak them. We can assume, then, that linguistic variations are socially motivated and sociolinguistically significant. Although linguists argue that there are not better or worse dialects and that the standard is, in fact, another dialect, it does not matter which our mother tongue is, speakers of all languages hold evaluative notions about them. Thus, we can conclude that linguistic variations define their speakers, this is to say, dialects define us and help us to create our identity.

As a consequence of the assumptions which dialects convey, a great number of their speakers, especially the speakers of those considered more negatively, feel the need to leave aside the dialectal features and turn to the standard language, as they aspire to be well-considered and, in some cases, to be included in society. Nonetheless, this change of dialects is neither easy nor harmless, as these speakers tend to experience a feeling of loss, of no longer belonging to their group since, as we have explained before, dialects characterize population, both socially and geographically.

Being dialects so important, what must translators do when they are commissioned a work in which dialects are basic to understand the message which the author would like to transmit? One relevant example is Cockney, the dialect spoken in a specific area of London and the play Pygmalion, by G.B. Shaw. For centuries, since its development in the Late Middle Ages until the 20th century, around the decade of the 1970’s, speakers of this dialect have been outcast and have belonged to the deprived working class segment of the city. Thus, we will define it as a geolect, a specific type of linguistic variation. Thereupon, we will briefly explain its origins and evolution, its main characteristics and its recordings in written texts, both official documentation and literature, we will explain the sociolinguistic concepts, which Cockney transmits, and present the solutions which six different translators, who have rendered the play Pygmalion into Spanish, have offered to the dialect.

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Dr. Rubén Chacón-Beltrán is an associate professor at the UNED (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia) in Madrid, Spain, where he teaches undergraduate courses in English as a foreign language and sociolinguistics, and graduate seminars in bilingualism and language policy. He holds a PhD in Applied English Linguistics and has taught at various Spanish universities. He is editor of the Spanish journal, ELIA (Studies in Applied English Linguistics) and head of the research group TISAAL and UNED’s MA in English Applied Linguistics. His areas of interest are vocabulary teaching and learning, materials design, bilingual education and learner autonomy. He has coedited some books such as Age in L2 acquisition and teaching (2006), Peter Lang; Insights into vocabulary teaching and learning (2010), Multilingual Matters; and The impact of affective variables in L2 teaching and learning (2010), University of Seville and Bilingual and Multilingual Education in the 21st Century: Building on Experience (2013), Multilingual Matters. He is also coauthor of some teaching materials such as Gramática Inglesa para Hispanohablantes (2010; 2017), Cambridge University Press/UNED and English Skills for Independent Learners B2, Cambridge University Press/UNED.

ABSTRACT

NEW HORIZONS: TECHNOLOGICAL RESOURCES FOR SECOND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Language teaching and learning are changing rapidly as the digital society becomes part of our lives. The ways in which we relate to learning environments and the resources we have at hand are transforming how and what we learn. The technological advances of our increasingly digitally-based society require changes in the way that language learning is understood and undertaken.

Based on deep linguistic analysis, and the incorporation of Information and Communication Technologies, a range of English language learning resources has been developed at the UNED making use of disciplines such as Corpus Linguistics, Error Analysis, Natural Language Processing, Speech Recognition and Production, Distance Learning Research and Autonomy in Language Learning.

This presentation demonstrates some of these innovative English language learning materials that have been developed to help language learners at different levels, in different contexts with their productive skills, such as writing and speaking – skills which have traditionally been considered especially difficult to teach in distance-learning contexts.

Some indications on how to continue the development of such resources are given and some implications are drawn for the design of new teaching materials, in English and other languages, as well as some ideas for research in this area.

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