European Council for Social Research on Latin America International Conference

Description

The 10th International Conference of the European Council for Social Research on Latin America (CEISAL), 13–15 June 2022, Helsinki, Fin­land.

Latin America and the world are in processes of deep change. Globalization and the promise of open markets and liberal societies is under contestation. How do these processes affect Latin America? The region is undergoing changes in the context of fierce competition by economic and political superpowers. At the same time, environmental destruction, the rise of populism, as well as the restructuring of global networks and relations are re-shaping the region. Obviously, no single strategy or remedy can address the multi-faceted challenges Latin America faces today. The conference aims to bring together researchers working on all aspects of Latin American Studies, with the goal of exploring the challenges that are shaping Latin American societies in the 21st century. The conference focuses on local, national and regional responses to these changes and on re-examining the ways in which Latin America is portrayed and understood. With such diverse, fluid, non-linear and uncertain trajectories, how are Latin American futures formed and transformed?

Panel: Linguistic Variation in Postcolonial Latin America
Organizers: Pekka Posio & Eeva Sippola (University of Helsinki)

Participants:
• Eeva Sippola (University of Helsinki): Introduction
• Benedikt Szmrecsanyi (KU Leuven): Typological profiling: measuring the relatedness of languages and language varieties
• Carlos Soler Montes (University of Edinburgh): Imagined (linguistic) communities in the USA: the case of New Mexican Spanish
• Philipp Krämer (Freie Universität Berlin): Boundaries in variation: metalinguistic concepts in postcolonial contexts
• Michael Ramsammy (University of Edinburgh): Language variation and post-colonial dialectology: what articulatory imaging can tell us
• Pekka Posio, Sven Kachel and Gloria Uclés (University of Helsinki): Linguistic gender stereotypes and attitudes in Mexico and Spain
• Silvia Betti (University of Bologna): ‘Tienes que hablar ‘americano’. El rechazo público del español en los Estados Unidos durante la época de Trump
• Carmen Cazorla (Complutense University, Madrid): Spanish and English in the USA – Extended varieties and education

The panel brings together researchers working on postcolonial language studies and sociolinguistics. Our aim is to offer new insights into linguistic variation and change in postcolonial contexts in Latin America and beyond. In this panel, we will discuss and debate the effects of postcolonial power relations on language varieties and their relevance in Latin American contexts. Furthermore, we will explore what linguistics as a field can offer to social sciences and historical research in postcolonial contexts in general and in Latin America in particular.
Latin America’s linguistic uniformity in the official settings, due to the prestige and power situation of the colonial languages, and the linguistic diversity of its populations, both indigenous and migrant, make it a fascinating setting to explore the language variation in a postcolonial framework (Sippola & Perez 2021). In a sociohistorical perspective, different types of colonial expansion and administration, among other factors, are pertinent for exploring variation and change in postcolonial settings. In a contemporary perspective, sociopolitical models and education policies influence the language use and access to standard varieties as well as language vitality and endangerment. Are there any social features and factors that are particular to the Latin American cultural sphere in comparison to other global languages?
Furthermore, the effects of areality (e.g. Kortmann 2013) and language contact (Kortmann & Wolk 2012, Perez et al. 2017, Trudgill 2009) have been shown to be relevant for explaining differences between global languages, but so far, literature on postcolonial varieties has mostly concentrated on English. A comparative perspective is urgently needed to test if insights gained from English can be generalized to other languages.

The panel is generously supported by the UNA Europa Seed Funding for the project Linguistic variation in postcolonial contexts (LiVaPoCo).

Period	13 Jun 2022 → 15 Jun 2022
Event type	Conference
Conference number	10
Location	Helsinki, FinlandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International