Culture in Language:

Research in Variation,

Variation in Research

July 1-3, 2011

This small international conference looks at empirical studies in language variation emphasizing cultural dimensions of English around the world. It tries to combine socio-, corpus- and cognitive-linguistic perspectives and stresses the multiple methodological approaches to current research in language variation and application, especially in English language teaching and academic writing. We aim to demonstrate that sound empirical research in linguistics has a broad discourse community from BA students to world-famous professors and that linguistics combines intellectual challenges and social interaction.

Thus leading German specialists give broad introductions to the field including their own research experience in case studies. International guests add their own specific approaches to widen the perspective; German B.A. and M.A. students present their current work in progress. The topics discussed clearly show that with regard to English for Academic Purposes, theoretical and practical aspects form a coherent whole, allowing researchers at all levels to contribute to the discussion.

We wish to thank the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Foundation for their support of our guest researcher Dr. Daniel Nkemleke (Cameroon), including this conference, and the DAAD for their support of our PhD student Dunlop Ochieng (Tanzania).

Our sincere thank-you to all attendees - here's a group posing with the Nischel, Chemnitz's "biggest head":

Programme

Friday 1 July

13:00 13:15	Conference Opening Plenary Session 1 (Chair: Gabriela Miššíková, Nitra) Introduction: Culture in English World-Wide: Unifying the Contrasts between New Englishes and Academic Writing Josef Schmied (Chemnitz)
14:00	Academic Writing in Cameroon English: Culture and Variation Daniel Nkemleke (Yaoundé/Chemnitz)
14:45	Reviving the Status of English in Tanzania Dunlop Ochieng (Dar es Salaam/Chemnitz)
15:15	Coffee Break
15:30 16:45	BA Student Workshop 1 - Authenticity, Identity & Attitudes (Chair: John Kirk, Belfast) Scottish English in Hamish Macbeth Carolin Ahnert Hawai'ian Creole Annabell Haseloff Creating Identity: a Band as a Community of Practice Peter Schmidt BA Student Workshop 2 - Semantics, Computer-based Linguistics, Varia (Chair: John Partridge, Canterbury) Wordy Words - The Effects of Prototypicality on Semantic Fields Anne Jank And sometimes we run out of food = Und manchmal laufen wir aus der Nahrung? Representation of Phrasal-Prepositional Verb Collostructions in Online Translation Systems Charlott Schütze Artificial Intelligence - Chat Bots and the Notion of “Talking Computers” Jasmin Wiedemann The Power of Colours. Colour Perception and Categorisation: A German-English Comparison Melanie Tischendorf Political Correctness within Language - a Study Concerning Generic he and Changing Job Titles over Time Heike Böhm
19:00	Buffet Dinner

Saturday 2 July

9:30	Carillonkonzert vom Turm des Neuen Rathauses
10:30	Plenary Session 2 (Chair: Daniel Nkemleke, Yaoundé/Chemnitz) Areal Features of the Anglophone World Bernd Kortmann (Freiburg)
11:20	Culture in Student Writing Sebastian Kümmel
11:40	BA Student Workshop 3 - Second Language Acquisition (Chair: Daniel Nkemleke, Yaoundé/Chemnitz) He, She, It - das 's' muss mit! Third Person Singular -s at Different Levels of SLA Lisann Hartmann Linking Adverbials and their Positioning in SLA - a Comparison of German and Spanish Students of English Christina Haupt From Alternative Energy to SUVs: Anglicisms in German Doreen Ballon
13:00	Lunch Break - Syrian Buffet
14:00	Plenary Session 3 (Chair: Martin Mačura, Nitra) Language, Culture and Corpus Linguistics John Kirk (Belfast)
14:45	Innovation, Conservatism, Confusion? Trying to Untangle Accent Variation in Aberdonian Thorsten Brato (Gießen)
15:10	BA Student Workshop 4 - Language and Gender (Chair: Martin Mačura, Nitra) Speech Act Behavior: Responding to Compliments Jati Neumeier Let Me Put on Lip Gloss and Think About That One: Effects of Gender on TV Interview Conversations Stefanie Fritzsch
16:00	Coffee Break
16:15	MA Student Workshop (Chair: Thorsten Brato, Gießen) Wanna See Some Nail Designs that'll Knock your Socks off? Null Subjects in Facebook Status Updates Dana Beyer Coming Full Circle: Natives, Non-natives and themself Cornelia Neubert Pronominal Case in English - an Implicational Hierarchy? Sascha Schmidt Written Jamaican Creole? The Case of Personal Pronouns Philipp Dominguez Nuclear power is the way forward: Metaphors in the Wake of Fukushima Ulrike Abraham This is the best job I can get: Relativization Strategies in Superlative Contexts Stefanie Kunde
18:45	End of Conference
21:00	Open-Air-Konzert auf dem Theaterplatz

Sunday 3 July

Study tour to Freiberg and Sternkopf Communications (Flöha) with discussion on international language services