New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges
The New Speakers Network
© COST Action IS1306, 2014
Proposals for STSMs from local investigators will be assessed for the contribution of the STSM to the Action’s objectives. STSMs can take place within a WG or across WGs.
For more information contact STSM Co-ordinator: Dr Michael Hornsby (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Network participants should insert the following acknowledgement in their publications:
"Research leading to this article/chapter/book has [also] benefitted from ongoing discussions on the “new speaker” theme as part of the EU COST Action IS1306 network entitled “New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges”.
My time will be divided between the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. I intend to spend five working days at each institution, strengthening my research networks and learning from experts in my field of study.
Proposed activities include a sociolinguistic seminar focusing on the themes of the COST Action, especially the theoretical and methodological questions and networking, learning to know the research done in the host institution and introducing the current projects of the applicant
.
Over the course of the mission, I will present both COST Action IS1306 and my PhD research on ‘new speakerness’ in the contemporary Irish workplace to the PhD seminar Alexandre has organised for postgraduate students at the University of Fribourg. I will also present the ‘New Speakers’ network and my own research to a Masters-level course taught by Alexandre on the theme of ‘Language and Society’.
The focus of this STSM is an investigation into the linguistic practices of a private conversation/discussion group of Yiddish speakers who regularly meet in the city of Edinburgh under the auspices of Dr. Heather Valencia (formerly of the University of Sterling).
During this stay I intend to work on a collaborative research paper with two other COST action members: Dr Leonie Cornips (Meertens Instituut) and Lotte Thissen (Maastricht University). The main theme of our collaboration is ‘belonging’ seen as one of the primary issues to be considered with regards to the concept of a ‘new speaker’.
The primary aim of the mission was to collect data that would allow me to investigate attitudes of Polish migrants to Wales towards the Welsh language, their motivation behind sending their children to Welsh language schools and the linguistic opportunities and challenges the migrants experience when acquiring Welsh (and English) in statutory and non-statutory settings.
To recruit Polish-English bilingual children within the Polish immigrant communities in London and test them with a set of tasks, measuring their linguistic and cognitive abilities.
To examine typical narrative and lexical development of Polish immigrant children in the UK acquiring English language (aged 4;6-6;5).