[Histling-l] Language corpora and dialectal variation in a historical perspective. WS @ ICHL27, Santiago de Chile, August 2025

[Andrés Enrique Arias]

Language corpora and dialectal variation in a historical perspective
Workshop at ICHL27, Santiago de Chile, 18-22 August 2025
Organizers: Andres Enrique-Arias (University of the Balearic Islands), Marina Gomila Albal (Spanish National Research Council)

Language change and dialectal variation are two fields of inquiry that have been strongly related to each other since the beginnings of linguistics as a scientific endeavor. Early efforts in historical linguistics tried to make sense of dialectal variation using different models of the diffusion of diachronic changes, such as the wave theory (Chambers & Trudgill 1980, Wolfram & Schilling-Estes 2003), or the principle of lateral areas (Bartoli 1925, Andersen 1988). Likewise, linguists soon became aware that the centuries-old coexistence of languages ​​in the same geographical space results in their sharing structural properties, making it necessary to distinguish between language similarities arising from a genetic relationship from those arising from language contact (Muysken 2008; Noonan 2010). Further developments in the study of language ​​and dialect contact and bilingualism have enriched the theoretical frameworks related to the study of linguistic changes across space (Kortmann 2003, Auer & Schmidt 2010).

Against this backdrop, the availability of new corpora and databases that allow accessing historical data of individual languages sorted by geographical origin, along with the application of technological developments, such as GIS software, are facilitating renewed historical investigations that consider the spatial factor (Alcorn, Kopaczyk, Los & Molineaux 2019).

The objective of this workshop is to explore the possibilities provided by historical corpora and analytical tools to the study of the interplay between geographical variation and language change. As such, we welcome the proposals of researchers working in historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, dialectology, corpus linguistics, language contact, language typology and computational linguistics.

Some suggested topics are:


  *   Different models of visualization of language variants on the physical space.
  *   Useful sources to create corpora for historical dialectology: historical documents, newspapers, toponyms, social networks.
  *   Corpus-based investigations that illustrate with specific case studies the diffusion of linguistic changes on the physical space.
  *   Methods to integrate spatial and social information onto historical corpora.
  *   Application of computational techniques, such as probabilistic methods, to discern dialect areas in historical data.
  *   Studies based on synchronic data (e.g. from online social networks) that can shed light onto historical processes.
  *   Investigations that examine the spatial distribution of variants to tease apart linguistic features that have spread due to language contact from those resulting from an internal development.

Abstracts of no more than 500 words (excluding references) should be sent to Andrés Enrique-Arias (andres.enrique at uib.es<mailto:andres.enrique at uib.es>) and Marina Gomila Albal (marina.gomila at cchs.csic.es) by 18 October 2024 in an editable format (i.e. Word, Open Office). Workshops are in principle restricted to six papers; all other papers, if accepted, will be considered for the ICHL general session.

References:

Alcorn, Rhona, Joanna Kopaczyk, Bettelou Los & Benjamin Molineaux, eds. 2019. Historical Dialectology in the Digital Age. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Andersen, Henning. 1988. Center and periphery: adoption, diffusion, and spread. In Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Historical Dialectology, Regional and Social, 39-83. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Auer, Peter & Jürgen E. Schmidt, eds. 2010. Language and Space. An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation, 649–667. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bartoli, Matteo G. 1925. Introduzione alla Neolinguistica (princìpi--scopi--metodi). Genéve: L.S. Olschki.
Chambers, J.K.& Peter Trudgill. 1980. Dialectology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kortmann, Bernd. 2003. Dialectology meets Typology: Dialect Grammar from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197327
Muysken, Pieter. 2008. From linguistic areas to areal linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Noonan, Michael. 2010. Genetic Classification and Language Contact. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), The Handbook of Language Contact, 48-65. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Wolfram, Walt & Natalie Schilling-Estes. 2003. Dialectology and Linguistic Diffusion. In Joseph Brian & Richard Janda (eds.), The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, 713–735. Oxford: Blackwell.

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