18th Rencontres Jeunes Chercheurs (RJC 2015)

from June 11th, 2015 to June 12th, 2015

Created in 1998, the Rencontres Jeunes Chercheurs (RJC) of the Doctoral School “Langage

et langues” (ED 268, Sorbonne Nouvelle University - Paris 3) offer junior researchers

preparing for a master's or a doctorate degree, as well as post-doctorates, the opportunity to

present their work in paper or poster sessions.

“Language contact: situations, representations, realizations”

Introduced by U. Weinreich (1953), the notion of ‘language contact’ has to do with

any situation where two languages are simultaneously present, thus affecting an individual’s

or a community’s linguistic behavior (Moreau, 1997). ‘Language contact’ is at the heart of

both linguistic variation and linguistic change, in their diachronic and synchronic aspects. The

phenomenon takes place in spaces the borders of which fluctuate depending on migrations,

economic and cultural dynamics, or political policies (colonization, external cultural

domination…). The 18th Rencontres Jeunes Chercheurs offer an opportunity to think about

connections and interferences between languages on the one hand, and between varieties

inside a given language on the other hand, both from a synchronic and from a diachronic

perspective.

In recent years, an increasing number of research studies on ‘language contact’ have

been led in a renewed methodological and epistemological frame of reference, based on

variability awareness and on rooting linguistic data in materiality (Nicolai, 2007). These

works are at opposite extremes from those conducted during the nineteenth century, since the

latter dismissed the mere idea of ‘language contact’, in order to focus on language filiation

instead (Tabouret-Keller, 1988). The conference addresses the issue of ‘language contact’

through three complementary notions: ‘situation’, ‘representation’ and ‘realization’.

Tackling ‘language contact’ implies observing and making an empirical description

not only of institutional, social, professional and family circumstances, but also of language

learning and language acquisition in plurilinguistic or diglossic contexts. In addition,

‘situation’ is deeply implanted in psycholinguistics as well: mastering several languages

impacts brain structure and cognitive processes. The term should therefore be understood in a

broader sense, as it can refer to both individual and collective levels of analysis. Regional

languages and language choices made by multilingual writers are examples thereof.

Moreover, ‘language contact’ also takes part in the tension between language

description and linguistic prescription. The conference will take into consideration the way

speakers, as well as linguists and grammarians, build and convey social and metalinguistic

representations of languages in contact, based on their own judgement. Studying ‘language

contact’ is an invitation to discuss identity construction processes and to examine further

notions such as ‘linguistic insecurity’ or ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson, 1983).

Realizations pertaining to language contact are many and diverse. They are indeed

compound language productions, some of which may be viewed from a collective standpoint,

like borrowings, or Creole and pidgin languages. Others are to be observed from an individual

angle, for instance interferences (phonic, syntactic, lexical) caused, in part, by transfers

between the various languages known to a multilingual speaker. To this framework belong

‘code switching’ and, in the field of acquisition and didactics, ‘interlanguage’.

The great variety of such realizations sheds new light on current language typologies.

Similarly, new problems arise in the area of natural language processing, where multilingual

corpora are giving birth to methodological issues that differ from those raised by monolingual

corpora. Likewise, translation studies appear as a kind of language contact realization; as a

matter of fact, translators have to deal with theoretical and practical difficulties regarding both

languages brought into contact through translation and languages already in contact in the

original texts (Ballard, 2006).

All of the mentioned theoretical approaches are likely to bring researchers in

linguistics to discuss a shared topic, and allow them to reflect on this discipline’s status within

the Humanities. Participants are encouraged to consider all means of language expression

(oral, written, sign language).

References:

ANDERSON Benedict (1983), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread

of Nationalism, Londres: Verso.

BALLARD Michel (2005-2006) (dir.), La traduction, contact de langues et de cultures, 2

vol., Arras: Artois Presses Université.

MOREAU Marie-Louise (1997), Sociolinguistique. Concepts de base, Bruxelles: Mardaga.

NICOLAI Robert (2007), « Le contact des langues : point aveugle du ‘linguistique’ », Journal

of Language Contact, Evolution of languages, contact and discourse, Thema n° 1: 1-10.

TABOURET-KELLER Andrée (1988), « Contacts de langues : deux modèles du XIXème

siècle et leurs rejetons aujourd'hui », Langage et société, n° 43: 9-22.

WEINREICH Uriel (1953), Languages in contact, findings and problems, New York:

Linguistic Circle of New York.

Scientific committee:

Martine ADDA DECKER, José Ignacio AGUILAR RIO, Angélique AMELOT, Nicolas

AUBRY, Nicolas AUDIBERT, Michelle AUZANNEAU, Eric BEAUMATIN, Irmtraud

BEHR, Violaine BIGOT, Philippe BOULA DE MAREUIL, Maria CANDEA, Jean-Louis

CHISS, Francine CICUREL, Matteo DE CHIARA, Geneviève DE WECK, Jeanne-Marie

DEBAISIEUX, Didier DEMOLIN, Christine DEPREZ, Serge FLEURY, Jean-Marie

FOURNIER, Emmanuel FRAISSE, Florentina FREDET, Cedric GENDROT, Kim GERDES,

Anna GHIMENTON, Daniel GILE, Luca GRECO, Yana GRINSHPUN, Jean-Patrick

GUILLAUME, Pierre HALLE, Rouba HASSAN, Agnès HENRI, Frédéric ISEL, Raphaël

KABORE, Takeki KAMIYAMA, Dominique KLINGLER, René LACROIX, Marie-Christine

LALA, Florence LEFEUVRE, Cécile LEGUY, Catherine MULLER, Valélia MUNI TOKE,

Samia NAIM, Jean-Paul NARCY-COMBES, Gabriella PARUSSA, Claire PILLOTLOISEAU,

Konstantin POZDNIAKOV, Christian PUECH, Sandrine REBOUL-TOURE,

Francis RICHARD, Rachid RIDOUANE, Anne SALAZAR ORVIG, Didier SAMAIN, Pollet

SAMVELIAN, Dan SAVATOVSKY, Valérie SPAËTH, Sofia STRATILAKI, Isabelle

TELLIER, Jacqueline VAISSIERE, Andrea VALENTINI, Daniel VÉRONIQUE, Patricia

VON MÜNCHOW, Geneviève ZARATE.

Organizing committee:

Emre BAYRAKTAR, Marie-Amélie BOTALLA, Laura-Maï DOURDY, Nora FANGELGUSTAVSON,

Ophélie GANDON, Laura GUZMAN, Fanny IVENT, Muriel JORGE, Janina

KLEIN, Mathilde MECHLING, Coraline PRADEAU, Komi SIMNARA, Marco

STEFANELLI, Jane WOTTAWA, Yaru WU.

The conference is open to graduate students (master’s degree, doctorate), young

researchers...

Free admission

Participants will receive a certificate of attendance.

Important dates :

Submission deadline : January 28th, 2015

Notification of acceptance : mid-April 2015

Corrected article deadline : mid-May 2015

Conference dates : June 11th and 12th, 2015

Conference location:

Institut de linguistique et de phonétique générales et appliquées (ILPGA)

Address: 19, rue des Bernardins - 75005 PARIS

Public transportation : Metro : Maubert Mutualité (line 10) ; Bus: 24, 47, 63, 86, 87 ; RER :

Saint Michel (B and C lines)

Presentations:

Oral presentations and posters will be made in English or in French.

Oral presentations will be allocated 20 minutes, plus 10 minutes for discussion.

The size of the posters will be A0. Poster authors will be invited to give a short oral

presentation of their work.

Submission :

Paper submissions are to be sent by e-mail to the following address: rjc-ed268@univparis3.

fr, before January 28th, 2015.

The e-mail message should specify :

Personal data (last name, first name, e-mail and personal postal address);

University affiliation;

Educational level (master / doctorate / postdoc; specify the number of years for the doctorate);

Research supervisor(s);

Research field(s) of the submitted paper;

Title of the submitted paper.

Submissions are to be sent in the form of an article, in an attached .rtf file named

“rjc2015_NAME.rtf” (eg: “rjc2015_SMITH.rtf”). This file should contain only the following

information:

Title of the submitted paper;

Summary of about 100 words, in the paper’s language;

5 keywords in French, the same keywords in English;

For oral presentations: a 6 to 8-page article (25 000 characters maximum, spaces included) ;

for posters: a 5-page article (15 000 characters maximum, spaces included);

Bibliography.

The format of the article should be as follows:

- Times New Roman 12 pt font;

- 1,5 line spacing;

- 2,5 cm margins at all edges;

- justified left and right;

- headings: Times New Roman 12 pt, bold, using a hierarchical numbering (1. ; 1.1. ;

1.1.1) and no more than 3 heading levels.

In the case of phonetic transcriptions, please use the SILDoulos font, available here.

Only one submission will be examined for each participant.

The accepted submissions will be sent back to the authors in order to be corrected and laid out

in mid-April.

The corrected article will have to be transmitted to the organizing committee before the

conference.

The organizing committee reserves the right to refuse an article that would not meet the

conference’s scientific requirements after correction.

Publication :

The proceedings will be published on-line after the conference.