Methodological approaches to synchronic and diachronic heritage language data

This workshop will be concerned with different methodological approaches that will allow for the study of empirical heritage language data, both in the past and in the present. A particular focus will be on heritage languages in the North American context, i.e. where English or French are the dominant languages. In order to get a broad overview of approaches, leading scholars who work in different linguistic fields and therefore take a different perspective on heritage language data will be invited to present, apply, and critically discuss their respective approaches. The focus will be on

(a) the linguistic questionnaire and linguistic analyses: Prof. Naomi Nagy (University of Toronto, Canada),

(b) sociophonetic analyses of speech data: Dr. Adrian Leemann (Lancaster University, England), and

(c) written historical data, e.g. letters, diaries: Prof. Stephan Elspass (University of Salzburg, Austria) and Dr. Markus Schiegg (University of Erlangen, Germany).

This workshop is primarily aimed at postgraduate students working in the field of sociolinguistics, language variation and change (past and present) of any language. The workshop will be of interest to more junior (MA level) and senior scholars alike.

All participants will have the opportunity to present their research projects (fully-fledged paper or work-in-progress) and to discuss their work in a friendly and informal environment.