Language Contact

Course convenor: Norma Schifano (ns513@cam.ac.uk)

Aims and objectives: 

This seminar sets out to critically examine a selection of both traditional and emergent research questions in contact linguistics through the exploration of a series of case studies in morphosyntax. Through a combination of introductions by the lecturer and student-lead presentations, participants will be encouraged to reflect both on the empirical adequacy of the data under discussion (objective 1) and the explanatory power of the theories reviewed (objective 2), ultimately leading to the formulation of new research questions they can pursue independently (objective 3). Methodological considerations, both in relation to data collection and ethical research, will also be addressed and students will be invited to reflect on how they can incorporate these into their own research design and implementation (objective 4). While most of the empirical evidence discussed will be based on Romance, the seminar will explore general issues in contact linguistics with farreaching implications for our understanding of language variation and change that go beyond this specific linguistic family. Within this context, a working knowledge of one or more Romance languages is desirable but not essential.