Keynote speakers PLIN Day 2023

Choice-making in translation 

Prof. Stella Neumann, RWTH Aachen University

Traditionally, translations have been regarded as flawed, tending to misrepresent both the source and the target language. This view is not compatible with empirical insight into actual language use - regardless of whether translational or not -, which inevitably displays variation as a function of social, cognitive and a range of other factors. A general conceptualisation of language that foregrounds such probabilistic, adaptive aspects might therefore be better suited to theorise translation. This paradigmatically oriented view suggests that any instance of using language involves choosing from the options of the language system. Options are thus simply more or less likely to be chosen. In this talk, I will argue that translators make (linguistic) choices as other language users do when producing a text, i.e., their decisions are constrained by the same set of factors. One difference is that, when confronted with a particular choice in the source text deviating from target language-based expectations, translators may opt for a less probable choice, reflecting the particular way the above factors play out in translation. Starting out from a quantitative corpus-based overview of linguistic differences between originals and translations in the language pair English and German, I will focus on one particular area of contrast, namely infinitival clause constructions. Both languages have options for non-finite clauses, but these are subject to different constraints. Rather than favouring the most probable target language construction, translators use more varied constructions. This suggests that contrasts may lead to more variation, revealing the translators’ small but significant tendency to choose differently compared to language users writing without a source text in another language. Understanding the choices made in translation sheds light on the actual range of options available in the target language, and beyond this contributes to our understanding of choicemaking in language in general.

Constructions as resources: W(h)-clefts in English and German 

Prof. Volker Gast,  Friedrich Universität Jena 

Constructions are often regarded as signs (form-meaning pairings) which do not, in principle, differ from lexical items as far as their semiotic status is concerned. The exact function of a construction is obviously hard to determine in many cases, especially for clause- or sentencelevel constructions. For contrastive studies, the question arises to what extent comparable constructions from different languages are equivalent. I will address this question with respect to W(h)-clefts in English (“What I want to say is …”) and German (“Was ich sagen will, ist …”). Data from, and results of, earlier studies based on a translation corpus (Gast & Wiechmann 2012, Gast & Levshina 2014) will be complemented with new data from an interpreting corpus. I will argue that W(h)-clefts do not have a specific function or meaning. They are semiotic resources with specific properties (constraints and benefits) that speakers can use to solve specific encoding problems. The differences in the distributions of W(h)-clefts in English and W-clefts in German are derived from the fact that the constructions are embedded in different linguistic systems. References: Gast, V. & N. Levshina (2014). Motivating w(h)-clefts in English and German: A hypothesisdriven parallel corpus study. In de Cesare, A.M. (ed.), Frequency, Forms and Functions of Cleft Constructions in Romance and Germanic. Contrastive, Corpus-Based Studies, 377-414. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Gast, V. & D. Wiechmann (2012). W(h)-clefts im Deutschen und Englischen. Eine quantitative Untersuchung auf Grundlage des Europarat-Korpus. In Gunkel, L. & G. Zifonun (eds.), Jahrbuch des IDS 2011, 333-362. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

The emergence of (individual) multilingualism within the framework of Diasystematic Construction Grammar 

Prof. Julia Prentice , of Gothenburg 

Construction grammar has during recent years proven to be a useful tool for studying language acquisition, language contact, multilingualism and the relationships between them. One way to approach these relationships, that has been suggested by Höder, Prentice & Tingsell (2021), is a constructionist approach to phenomena at the intersection between the research areas of language contact and additional language acquisition, in other words language contact in society and language contact in individuals. From the perspective of Diasystematic Construction Grammar (DCxG; Höder 2012, 2014ab, 2018), originally developed as a construction grammar approach to language contact research, it seems natural to model additional language (AL) acquisition in terms of emerging individual multilingualism in a bior multilingual setting. Crucial for this developmental process are (a) an increasing exposure of a speaker to a target-like variety of the AL, (b) the cognitive processing of the AL input, ultimately leading to the gradual accumulation of AL knowledge, and (c) the acquisition of knowledge about the social conventions of language use in a (bi-/multilingual) community. In constructional terms, the learner’s AL knowledge forms part of their dynamic constructicon, which includes constructions from all their languages. In line with DCxG, AL structures can be represented by both idioconstructions (exclusively L2) and diaconstructions (shared by several languages). In my talk, I will discuss an a DCxG-based model of AL acquisition (Höder et al. 2021), in relation to some current theoretical and methodological issues arising from an increasingly dynamic view on multilingualism. I will also present some current research applying the model (e.g. Olofsson & Prentice 2020, fortc.) and discuss the possibilities ADCxG holds for future studies with the aim to investigate the emergence of multilingual constructicons from a usage-based, socio-cognitive perspective. References: Höder, Steffen. 2018. Grammar is community-specific: Background and basic concepts of Diasystematic Construction Grammar. In Hans C. Boas & Steffen Höder (eds.), Constructions in contact. Constructional perspectives on contact phenomena in Germanic languages (Constructional Approaches to Language 24), 37–70. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Höder, S., Prentice, J. & Tingsell, S. (2021). Additional language acquisition as emerging multilingualism. A Construction Grammar approach. In S. Höder & H. Boas (Eds.), Constructions in Contact 2. Language change, multilingual practices, and additional language acquisition (pp. 310–337). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.30.10hod Olofsson, J. & Prentice, J. (2020). För tre enorma öl sedan. Befästning av semi-schematiska konstruktioner i L2-svenska. Språk & Stil, 30, 91–116. https://doi.org/10.33063/diva427676 Olofsson, J. & Prentice, J. (forthc.). The entrenchment of semi-schematic time constructions in foreign language learners of Swedish. To appear in E. Coussé, S. Höder, B. Lyngfelt & J. Prentice. (Eds.), Constructionist approaches to Scandinavian languages [working title].

Constructions in SLA: limitations and potential of corpus-linguistics approaches 

Prof. Stefanie Wulff, University of Florida & UiT The Arctic University of Norway 

Corpus linguistics has gained ground across areas of linguistics research, and is likewise gaining traction in second language acquisition (SLA) research. In this talk, I aim to give an overview of how corpus data and corpus methods are used in contemporary SLA studies, and critically assess both the untapped potential as well as limitations of corpus-linguistic contributions to SLA research. Specifically, I will focus on a number of established facts about the nature of language learning that are unambiguously embraced across theoretical perspectives, what these facts imply for research in SLA, and what corpus-linguistic research in particular is contributing, could be contributing, and cannot (yet) contribute to SLA research. A first universally accepted fact is that language is a complex system, and thus language learning is a complex process. A second fact embraced by all major theoretical frameworks is that language learning relies on language input. Thirdly, there is agreement that individual differences in learners’ cognitive apparatus give rise to variation in learners’ performance, from the initial state all the way to ultimate attainment. To illustrate my take on what these facts imply for where and how corpus linguistics can contribute to SLA research, I will critically discuss some of my own research on morpho-syntactic development, particle placement, and adverbial clause ordering in sequential bilinguals and heritage speakers. I will close with a wish list for future corpus-linguistic research in SLA and some considerations for corpus compilation projects.