Programm 80. StuTS

Language change in children is discussed frequently in the literature on language change (e.g. Cournane (2019)). I believe that innovations in the speech of adults may provide new insights and perspectives on language change. I’d like to focus especially on how innovation by adult speakers may be accounted for by the neo-emergentist framework (see Biberauer (2019), et seq.).

The proposed project’s contributions to the field are twofold: For one, urban vernaculars remain an under explored phenomenon While my idea for this project departs from the by now well-studied german urban vernacular Kiezdeutsch I intend to investigate varieties that have not received so much attention as well (e.g. south african urban vernaculars). The second contribution I wish to make is to the understanding of phenomena in adults’ speech, such as the urban vernaculars I wish to concern myself with. Innovations of adult speakers pose a not yet well-understood facet of change that scientists are only beginning to interpret
based on the existing data of these varieties. As I intend to analyse the innovations and changes adult speakers make in these varieties a neo-emergentist view to analyse. This could also make a contribution for analyses of historic contact situations (see e.g. Walkden (2017) for a fundamental diachronic analysis of germanic urban vernaculars).