Kurt Braunmüller

Steffen Höder

Karoline Kühl

Convergence, i.e. the increase of inter-systemic similarities, is usually considered the default development in language contact situations. This volume focuses on the other logical possibilities of diachronic development, namely stability and divergence – two well-attested, but under-researched phenomena. The contributions investigate the sociolinguistic and structural factors and mechanisms that lead to or at least reinforce both types of non-convergence, despite of language contact. The contributions cover a wide range of language contact situations, including standard and non-standard varieties.

Factors and Mechanisms

Stability and Divergence in Language Contact

Mogens Brøndsted

9. Arbeitstagung der Skandinavisten des deutschen Sprachgebiets 1989 in Svendborg

Deutsch-nordische Begegnungen

Christoph Gabriel

The 25 contributions of this volume represent a selection from the more than 120 papers originally presented at the International Conference on Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual Societies (MIMS), held in Hamburg (October 2010) and organized by the Collaborative Research Center Multilingualism after twelve years of successful research. It presents a panorama of contemporary research in multilingualism covering three fields of investigation: (1) the simultaneous and successive acquisition of more than one language, including language attrition in multilingual settings, (2) historical aspects of multilingualism and variance, and (3) multilingual communication. The papers cover a vast variety of linguistic phenomena including morphology, syntax, segmental and prosodic phonology as well as discourse production and language use, taking both individual and societal aspects of multilingualism into account. The languages addressed include numerous Romance, Slavic and Germanic varieties as well as Welsh, Hungarian, Turkish, and several South African autochthonous languages.

Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual Societies

Lennart Elmevik

Hans-Peter Naumann

Oskar Bandle

Ernst Hakon Jahr

Gun Widmark

Allan Karker

Ulf Telemann

The handbook is not tied to a particular methodology but keeps in principle to a pronounced methodological pluralism, encompassing all aspects of actual methodology. Moreover it combines diachronic with synchronic-systematic aspects, longitudinal sections with cross-sections (periods such as Old Norse, transition from Old Norse to Early Modern Nordic, Early Modern Nordic 1550-1800 and so on). The description of Nordic language history is built upon a comprehensive collection of linguistic data; it consists of more than 200 articles written by a multitude of authors from Scandinavian and German and English speaking countries. The organization of the book combines a central part on the detailed chronological developments and some chapters of a more general character: chapters on theory and methodology in the beginning and on overlapping spatio-temporal topics in the end.

An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages

The Nordic Languages

Juliane House

This book deals with the consequences of converging and diverging processes and their development in language contact situations. It provides insights into the various forms of language contact and the conditions under which bilingual speakers master their every-day life in bilingual communities. Its nine contributions cover both theoretical and typological aspects, such as the classification of languages, the role of language contact, linguistic complexity and spontaneous speech innovations, and convergence and divergence processes in translation, (morpho)syntax and phonology/phonetics. Taken together, these studies provide challenges for linguistic theories that generalize from situations of monolingualism suggesting instead that a sound linguistic theory cannot be a theory for just one single, isolated language but must be a theory for at least two languages. It must also account for the fact that some structures involved in contact situations are not kept apart but develop in such a way that the distance decreases between the languages involved.

Convergence and Divergence in Language Contact Situations

Ulf Teleman

Kurt Braunmüller

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