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November 6-11, 2006, University of Tromsø
Lecturers
John McWhorter (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research)
Jurij Kusmenko (Berlin)
Jan-Ola Östman (Helsinki)
For more information, please open this file: http://uit.no/humfak/phd/6
Schedule
J. Kusmenko: Monday, 12.15-14.00, Tuesday 10.15-12.00
Historical linguistics and sociolinguistic reconstruction. A nontraditional look at the history of the Scandinavian languages (Was a Saami influence on the Scandinavian languages in the Viking Age and in the Middle Ages possible?) Sociolinguistics encompass not only the study of multilingualism, social dialects and other similar matters but also the study of attitude between people which is especially important in the situation of language contact. In historical linguistics this matter plays a special role, because the relation between people which is reflected in a higher or lower prestige of a social or ethnic group or of a nation (and respectively of a language) can determine the direction, the type and the form of language change or the lack of a change. The low social prestige of the Sámi has traditionally been considered as a cause of an unidirectional language influence (Scandinavian > Sámi) and of the lack of the Sámi influence on the Scandinavian languages. In this lecture I would like to show how a revision of the history of traditional Scandinavian attitude to their northern neighbours can open a new perspective in historical Scandinavian linguistics. The lecture consists of two parts. In the first part it will be shown, which structural parallels between the Scandinavian and the Sámi languages can be considered as candidates of the Sámi interference in the Scandinavian languages and what kind of criteria have to be used to find the interference candidates. That is, the linguistic possibility of a Sámi influence on the Scandinavian will be demonstrated. In the second part the linguistic situation in the Viking Age and in the Middle Ages in Scandinavia with special reference to the relations between the Sámi and the Scandinavians will be reconstructed on the basis of archaeology, Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian literature, Sámi and Scandinavian mythology, onomastics and toponymics. The analysis of these data indicates an absolute social acceptance of the Sámi in the old Scandinavian society and a kind of a “cultural symbiosis”, which testifies a possibility of a spread of the Sámi interference features treated in the first part. Thus the unprejudiced analysis of a sociolinguistic situation in Scandinavia in the Viking Age and in the Middle Ages opens an absolutely new perspective in the study of the history of the Scandinavian languages.
J-O Östman: Wed., Thurs. 10.15-12.00
"Minorities, ethics, globalization and the implicit" In these lectures I want to do two things: (1) I want to take up for discussion issues of ethics and responsibility i minority discourse; who can represent minorities, what does it mean to do research as an Other, etc. And (2), I want to discuss the issue of globalization more generally, and in particular, in relation to issues of hegemony, ambivalence, (dialect) levelling and regionalization, and suggest a research program for the future, where these issues are tools and not unspecified threats. I want to tackle these issues with respects to the implicit (i.e. pragmatic functions) in language and with reference to dialects and signed languages in particular.
J. McWhorter: Monday, 15.15-17.00, Tues., Wed., Thurs. 13.15-15.00
1. The Least Complex Grammars Are Creole Grammars
2. The Effect of Non-Native Acquisition on Standard Language Grammars
3. Re-evaluating the Celtic Hypothesis of English Diachrony
4. Is There Really a Strong Inflection Parameter?
Workshop
Details forthcoming
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